[pct-l] Sun, Feet, Water, Idyllwild Bowl, Bibliography, Malted Milk Shakes

["David B. Stockton" <davstock@tiac.net>]

Thank you all for your notes.  I don't think I had even talked with anyone 
that has done or is planning to do the PCT since I left the trail.  I know 
I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

The logistics of actually getting out on the PCT (job, $, etc) seem to be 
nearly as formidable as the physical task itself.

Here are responses to the questions I got:

I left the border on April 16, 1994.  I started out at about ten miles a 
day and increased to as much as 22 miles per day.  I kept track of my 
mileage and averaged 2.0 mph no matter how well or badly I felt.  The air 
temperature on a typical day at noon was actually reasonable -- about 90F 
with a shaded thermometer; relative humidity of 30%.  It was the direct 
radiation of the sun on my head and the much hotter temperature of the 
ground that were the problems.

The pain was in the ball of my foot on the bottom (earth-side) of the big 
toe's long bone and its next-door neighbor.  If I had a Gray's I could give 
the technical term.  Although I had put 4-500 miles on my boots before I 
hit the trail, I believe slyinmd was partially correct to say that it was 
boot stiffness; buying and changing to larger boots of the same type 
(leather cramponable) accelerated the problem because they had no break-in 
period; this is the biggest problem I see with this type of boot.  One 
can't just simply buy another pair - one has to break-in a larger pair (or 
two) before the trail starts, or wear running shoes while breaking in the 
boots a bit at a time.  I wore some light shoes I had brought but they were 
unsuited for the heavy load and broke down quickly.  Running shoes, in 
contrast, are fully flexible when you buy them, so you can replace them 
relatively easily.

The other part of it is the rubber-band elasticity of one's calf and 
Achilles tendon.  The tighter they are, the harder they push the forefoot 
onto the ground at the end of one's step -- at little benefit to one's 
forward progress.  I think this is what Jardine (with his engineering 
background) was getting at when he stressed continual stretching (gently) 
of these structures.  My training walks this winter and spring have shown 
me that this is true.  I can have some pain halfway through my walk; I 
stretch right then, and the pain disappears or minimizes.  On the PCT again 
I plan to stretch regularly during the day. And push the fluids.

Moreover, the physical construction of the PCT bed (at least the 350 miles 
I saw) is like your local wheelchair-accessible park trail -- flat, wide, 
relatively hard, pebbly dirt-sand.  It is nothing like the typical 
Northeastern AT / Long Trail / Adirondacks -- a mixture of packed drum 
earth / large boulders / root-laced scrambles / mossy streams / slippery 
leaves on slate, etc.

My feet have come back down some in size, after 5 years.  My training shoes 
are size 12 with two pairs of propo liner socks and a little room and are 
fine, but the CT ground is at 20-40 degrees F these days....  They are 
Saucony Grid Shadows and have a sewn inner lining and a mesh toe, cost 
around $70-80, and have pretty good traction in the woods.  The Grid Shadow 
II is out now as well.  I haven't had cold toes, even walking with this 
combination at a moderate pace in 5 degree weather, so they should cover 
both temperature extremes of the PCT fine.

I took a cheap motel room in San Diego after arriving AMTRAK, then a local 
bus/trolley thing to another station for a bus to Campo -- no problem and 
cheap.  The train museum guys (very friendly) let me stay overnight because 
the bus was late in the day, and I left the next morning.  Scott Williamson 
and Brian Born saw me and gave me a ride the few blocks to the border. 
 Scott was very kind and had running shoes and a Ray Jardine backpack he 
had made himself which was 1/3 the size of mine and probably 1/4 the 
weight.   He was going to hike to Yosemite as a training hike for the CDT! 
 I don't know if he made it but the last I heard he was AVERAGING over 40 
miles per day.  If anyone would like I can scan in a photo that has both 
backpacks in it -- very illustrative.

Tents: If I had the time and ability, I now would try to make a tarp (~ 
8'x8') of ripstop aluminized nylon.  I'm not sure of a source of this 
fabric.  Then I would either modify a current aluminum pole, or use a 
walking stick, or use the Ray Jardine find-one-at-the-end-of-the-day 
technique, together with some titanium ground stakes and parachute cord. 
 The ridgeline would be just a taut line, not a pole.  I used this 
technique with a regular obnoxiously-blue 6'x8' tarp in the Adirondacks as 
a lean-to backup and it worked fine though a little small.  The flexibility 
of the metallized tarp would make it perfect for a sun shade during the 
desert day when there are no trees.  This technique would weigh around 2 
lbs.

Lacking that, I will use just the fly from my NF Tadpole, which eliminates 
a little over a pound from its weight, leaving about 2.5 lbs including 
poles.  Two guys from Washington were using just the fly from a Bullfrog, 
the Tadpole's big brother, with success.  But one went home at Idyllwild 
(his second attempt at the PCT) and the remaining one continued with the 
full fly.  Several hikers were using the "super bivy" that has a short pole 
or two to lift the fabric away from your body.  A real advantage to these 
styles is that they are thin; more than once I was fully exhausted before I 
found a politically correct camping spot and camped right on the trail 
itself (example: the maddening zig-zag down to Interstate 10 where you see 
the trail you hiked a mile ago at eye level ten feet away).

But with even fair judgement regarding water portage, one can easily 
overwhelm these equipment differences, since a liter of water is 2 lbs.  To 
make these differences meaningful, one has to pull back on the water 
packing as much as possible while maintaining safety.  John Merrill in 
"Walking My Way" says he hiked the desert part of the PCT without carrying 
water at all;  I don't know if I could go to that extreme.  There was 
plenty of water in '94 when starting in April.  The most extreme situation 
I was in required me to back track about 100 yards and melt snow.  I walked 
at least 2 miles down the road at Coon Creek Jumpoff without finding the 
guide book's water supply.  In May, though, I imagine that snow would be 
gone.  10 miles later, however, the campsite had plenty of piped water 
(Arrastre Trail Camp, I think).

The "bowl" before Idyllwild (Tahquitz Valley; B9) was snow-covered and 
there were hiker's tracks going every which way.  Since many of the hikers 
I had met did not really know where they were on the trail, I figured that 
following tracks was out.  I used compass, altimeter, and the guide book 
map to navigate a CW trail that would take me past Tahquitz peak the next 
day, essentially following the PCT.  Most of the way there were another 
hiker's tracks, but most of the hikers I talked to in Idyllwild cut 
straight across.  I may have used an extra topo map I had with me.  That 
night I made camp, estimated where I was, then saw a sign not ten feet away 
that confirmed my position!   So even for miserables there is hope.  I 
talked to the hiker later, we both had been able to bag Tahquitz Peak: 
snow, significant exposure.  The bowl, however, has an easy topography and 
low underbrush and simply bushwacking across to the Idyllwild exit point at 
Saddle Junction would be straightforward and low risk.  A good place to 
practice navigation for harder situations.  Anyway, from this and what I 
have read, basic map/compass skills are important for the PCT.  My 
intention was to navigate the whole way so that when I needed them, the 
skills were automatic and current. Although I was only out there for a few 
weeks I could see a big improvement.

Here is a bibligraphy of references I was able to dig up in '93-4 on the 
general area of the PCT.  The Roadside Geology Series books were the most 
interesting to me, partly because the general geology is much more relevant 
to the through-hiker than botany.

Sierra Nevada Natural History; Storer and Usinger; University of California 
Press
ISBN: 0-520-01227-5
Haven't read this one.

A Field Guide to the Cascades and Olympics; Whitney; The Mountaineers
ISBN: 0-89886-077-6
Mostly birds, animals, and plants so not ultimately relevant to 
through-hiking.

California Landscape -- Origin and Evolution; Hill;  University of 
California Press
ISBN: 0-520-04849-0
An excellent discussion of the physical forces shaping California; the 
features discussed here are easily seen by the through-hiker.

Roadside Geology of Washington; Alt and Hyndman; Mountain Press
ISBN: 0-87842-160-2

Roadside Geology of Oregon; Alt and Hyndman; Mountain Press
ISBN: 0-87842-063-0

Roadside Geology of Northern California; Alt and Hyndman; Mountain Press
ISBN: 0-87842-055-X

[[ There is another on Southern California but I can't seem to find it ]]

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian; Wallace Stegner; Penguin
ISBN: 0-14015-994-0
Haven't read this one yet but it is supposed to be excellent.


Here's an entry from my journal about a restaurant just a short walk up 
Lake Morena Road:

"... I remember the Malt Shop at Lake Morena.  I actually had to stall in 
order to eat there, but it was worth it, and still stands out as the 
culinary highlight of this trip.  The burger was excellent, a hint of 
charbroil with fresh crunchy lettuce  and tomato.  But the true glint of 
this gem was the chocolate malt: two heaping canning-jar mugs of thick, 
creamy, chocolatey malt coolness, full of energy and ice cream and 
luxurious pillow-soft coolness flowing down my throat and between my teeth 
and under my tongue and into my belly.  She packed the stainless steel 
shake can with ice cream, perhaps because it was fire-hot outside in the 
unrelieved sun, perhaps because she knew I was a hiker.  But the store was 
cool through air conditioning and only when I ran out of sandwich and 
malted and guide book perusing and conversation and absorbing the cool 
perfume of the four teenage girls sitting three stools away could I force 
myself out the door and onto the trail again ..."

Hoping to see you this summer --

-- Dave
davstock@tiac.net





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