[pct-l] Starting Slow

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

I stayed 9 miles from the border in a little nook off the trail. I  
was within a mile or so of a gate listed in the Data Book.

I started hiking my first day at 3:30 in the afternoon so I couldn't  
have gone the whole way to Lake Morena. I never saw or heard any  
illegal aliens go by in the night, but I slept well. I was with my  
boyfriend the first few nights.

When I got to Lake Morena the next day, I was pretty tired, but it  
was still early in the day. The following night I stayed at Cibbet  
Flat. I got there pretty early in the day. The day after that, I  
stayed at a campground past the little Laguna Mountain village.  
Again, I got there pretty early in the day.

It is hard to stop so early with nothing to do. But I didn't want to  
do too much. I had never hiked more than 16 miles in a day in my  
life. I did not think I could hike more than that, since every time I  
ever reached 16 miles I could barely walk. But somewhere around  
Fuller Ridge or so I did a 20 miler and never looked back.

Then this year, on my second summer when I completed the trail (I did  
1200 miles last summer and 1800 this summer -- yes there was some  
overlap), I decided that maybe 30 miles was more a psychological  
barrier than a physical one, so I played games with myself and  
discovered that not only could I hike 30 miles more than one day in a  
row, I could hike as many as 36. Perhaps 40 is my new psychological  
barrier. I started making my resupply schedules dependent on 25 mile  
days, and regularly was able to arrive early into town.

Of course, I turned out to be a surge hiker who loved to take zero  
days once I got to town, so some of my hard-earned miles were lost in  
the overall averages. But I didn't care. I liked the way I did it.

Diane

On Feb 4, 2010, at 6:18 PM, Will Hiltz wrote:

> Where'd you stay that first night, Diane?
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> Easy
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