A creepy cabin & fresh fruits (D-13 & D-14)

Nothing spectacularly interesting happened these two days. So, here is a combined summary (darn! these corporate terminology is ingrained in us now):

- Entered San Giorgiono wilderness. If you don't know anything about it, no worries. I didn't know it existed till yesterday

- Banana cake and instant oatmeal for breakfast

- Saw clouds below mountaintops

- Came across an amazingly creepy cabin called Coon Creek Cabin This cabin is owned and managed by the CA Land Mgmt agency and they even rent it out for $115/night. The issue is there are no doors or windows and nothing inside the cabin at all. It is completely decrepit with broken floors and who knows what lives in there. You definitely don't need any reservation to stay there overnight...if you dare to! I had lunch outside the cabin.

- This was & is a private zoo that is next to PCT. It used to house bears, big cats and other animals used in movies & TV. Now there are only dogs left.

- This morning came across this amazingly full and fresh trail magic. There were even fresh fruit there and I took a banana that was consumed right away and an apple for later

- Lots of sign boards along the trail have been used as target practice and you can see the bullet holes. Why...I don't know.

- A Tootsie Roll Pop lasts about 2 miles. This was my first and last Tootsie Roll in my life

- Saw a deer next to tonight's campsite. It ran away as I was taking out my phone - so, not a good pic

Finally data:

D-13: 36.5k, 10:18 hrs, 1700 m elevation gain (once again stopped my watch in the middle for 45 mins and had to reconcile with "official" data

D-14:

Comments

In-town & Trail Activities (D-45 @ 903.3 and D-46 4.3 miles plus 906.7 - 924.5)

I am still surprised how busy in-town zero days can be. You think that you have a lot of time to take care of everything that you had planned to do while hiking earlier. Yesterday, in Mammoth Lakes, first I had a large breakfast (very important thru-hiker activity) & then visited 3 different stores to research and buy new shoes & glove liners. Old ones were completely gone. Post that, went to the big grocery store to buy the resupply food till the next stop & as usual, got overwhelmed by the number of the items available, picked up excess items, realized I can't carry all this, put back a lot of stuff and still ended up with extra food to carry. Next stop was the pharmacy to get blister-care bandages, then a decent sized pizza lunch and then back to the room to sort and repack. Speaking of blisters, I have got 2 till now and I had to prick one of them with a needle a few days back and then cover it up. First time, I had to sterilize the needle in a flame and the...

The High (& sometimes scary) Passes of Seirras - Part 1 (D-38 760 - 774.7; D-39 774.7 - 795.5)

The 7 main mountain passes (a pass being the low-point saddle between two mountains that one has to cross to go on the other side of the mountain) that I had to cross were as follows (south to north): 1. Forester Pass (13200 ft / 4023 m) 2. Glen Pass (11957 ft / 3645 m) 3. Pinchot Pass (12127 ft / 3696 m) 4. Mather Pass (12094 ft / 3686 m) 5. Muir Pass (11970 ft / 3648 m) 6. Selden Pass (10913 ft / 3326 m) 7. Silver Pass (10778 ft / 3285 m) All of these passes have some ascent and then a descent and essentially, the descent of one pass leads to the ascent of the next without too much of a flat area in between. Because this was a low snow year (some reports put it as only 43% of the average trail snow which means a bad summer drought for California 🙁), hikers like me are able to enter the Seirras and hike through these passes so early. Of course, this also means that there is still quite a bit of snow left on the passes and around them, which makes them more difficult and...

My gear and my tramily (D-97 @ 2148 - Zero day)

Some of you have asked about what gear I am using. Since today is a Zero day (the last Zero day was on D-57) and there is nothing much to report other than the fact that I shipped the last set of resupply boxes to different places in Washington state and ate substantial amounts of food today, I figured I might as well talk about my gear, and also a bit about the other most essential component on the hike - my "tramily" (trail-family). Tent : 1-person Rainbow Li from Tarptent (bought new). This has worked very well for me and as you know from my earlier posts, Tarptent has given very good customer service too. I haven't had the chance to use the tent in heavy rain or snow (luckily) though and can't comment on it. I use a Tyvek ground sheet (already owned), also from Tarptent. Backpack : Catalyst from ULA (already owned). I started with Zpack Arc Air Robic 60L (bought new) and used it for 700 miles, but it was not comfortable at...

A thru-hike attempt

Search This Blog