[pct-l] Goforth in Concrete, WA

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

My husband picked me up in Wrightwood to attend the wedding of my niece. We
both flew back to washington, and I am enjoying Spring emerging in the
Skagit Valley 

The swelling in my left ankle is mostly gone, but the ankle is still sore
and stiff.  After I injured it on Williamson the night before meeting my
husband, I had some difficulty in walking Hiway 2 (closed), and the ankle 
was getting worse the more I used it.  I was very happy to get to Vincent
Gap, where I hitched a ride with two young fellows going to Wrightwood.  It
turned out one was a "Boardhead"(meant as a compliment), and treated me to
a fantastic show of his skill on an 
'all terrain board" which he rode 10 miles down the mountain at surprising
speed and with great flourish.

I waited for almost 6 hours for my husband at the POst Office, the last
three hours in a semi-panic. I finally walked to all the motels and eating
places, finding that he wasn't in any of them.  Walking back from the last
motel along the highway, a black car stopped and there he was.  Relief! 
When he had gotten to Sacramento, Southwest did not have a plane for his
flight, so there had been a long delay.

Midway through that night in the motel, I was awaken with pain in both
hips.  I got up and sat down on the floor and did some stretching, and it
was okay after that.   I realized that in fact I do a lot of unintentional
stretching every night when I make camp (leaning over unpacking and tugging
on my pack, sitting cross legged,  kneeling, arranging things, spreading
things out, leaning over to light the stove, stir the food, retrieve this
and that, add more fuel,etc  - all on the unforgiving ground).  My body was
telling me that even though I had given it a nice comfortable bed, it still
needed that stretching!

I should have mentioned that coming down into agua Dulce from Bouqet
Canyon, and Sierra Pelona that Bear Springs was barely running despite the
recent snow and rain.  The trough was full, but smelled of fungal and
actinomycete growth. Water was running well however in Bouquet Cy.(very
confusing and swampy crossing of the creek, and the first mosquitoes
-fortunately the lowland gorilla type of mosquitoe and easily swatted),
Spunky canyon, and many of ythe tributaries of Dowd cyn.

 During a five hour stretch from Bouquet Canyon to about a 1000 feet above
Agua Dulce, I picked 61 ticks from my clothing.  It was brushy and there
were periods where there were just a lot of them  - they seem to have a
heat-moisture requirement.  As I neared Agua Dulce and it seemed to get
warmer suddenly, there were none.  Earlier in the morning, after I started
to find them on my pants, I started wondering whether I could actually see
them on the brush.  Almost immediately, I found a 10 foot section of trail,
where I could easily see ticks on every grass stem that overhung the trail,
about half the stems had more than one tick.  I brushed all the stems with
my trekking pole  -all the ticks stayed in place.  I walked through the
patch - there were none on my clothing!  I decided that I should have tried
to take a picture of that patch, and walked for quite a while before
finding any more.  There seemed to be no problem as long as I picked them
off my clothing in a regular fashion when I got into their territory - I do
not know about the very small and semi-visible larval forms.  How can one
tell if they have been the target of the small larval forms?

At present, I plan to return to S. Cal about May 15 to do the two segments
that I have missed, and I hope to start back up at Walker pass going North
about the first of June.

I would like to thank everybody on the list for their contributions to my
journey; I think of you all as I am hiking, and very much feel your
presence with me all along the way.  I would especially like to thank Pat
Ziegler and Paul Miller for their tremendous patience and support at ANZA;
I hope that others on the list will have an opportunity to meet these
special people.  

There is a special place in my heart also for Robert Reiss, Tom Reynolds,
and Carlton McKinney(not on the list) who made the special effort to pick
me up and shepard me to other parts, and were forced to listen to my many
and rambling musing as well. The encounters with Read Miller and John Boyd
were tantilizingly short, but much appreciated.

I would like to thank everybody that attended the bash at Moreno
Campground.  It was a very special event and gave solidity to the list and
to the feeling that one is not alone in this dream, and that the dream like
the trail has a life of its own and will go on.

And Karen Elder transcribed my letters, without whom I would not have had a
connection to the list.  As she once signed one of her posts"somebody's
mom", I can say I feel like she is definitely my "list mom", and I have
been "adopted" by a very  caring and reliable individual (who can actually
decipher my crabbed writing).

And I would like to thank Brick Robbins for his support and for this
Mailing list, and for just being the person that he is.  We are not
marathon buddies,(where did that come from, I run like a cow,) but do
appreciate his energy and the way he expresses his viewpoint and life.

Thanks to you all,
Goforth
* From the Pacific Crest Trail Email List |  http://www.backcountry.net   *

==============================================================================