Changing Gears

Putting my feet up was fun... for about 48 hours. After that, I was watching my foot with a similar intensity but a lot less patience than a cat watches a mouse, but my foot was on its own timeline. As I was watching my foot, I started plotting my next move. The folks on Bowen Island had to sit through about a week of me getting really excited about something, changing my mind, getting really excited about something else, and finally, choosing the next adventure, and getting super duper excited as I started turning my crazy idea into an actual plan. Maybe that's why they suggested I put in a few weeks of work at camp as photographer/cook/Merlin... :)

So what is the plan? Since my foot (which is much better than it was) is still noticeably happier on the bike than on the trail, and the weather window for completing the PCT in one shot is kind of over, I'm going to get back on the bike in a very Canadian way!!

Once I made that decision, a lot of frantic google mapsing began to scope out roads and distances. I am leaving my plan fairly flexible, but it includes biking north through western BC to Alaska and Whitehorse, then east possibly to the Northwest Territories, down through eastern BC and Alberta, down the ice fields parkway, back up to Edmonton, and east through Saskatchewan and Manitoba to Ontario, and possibly farther east. I am unbelievably excited about this plan for a lot of reasons:
- getting back on the bike and seeing just how permanent I can make my bike shorts tan
- exploring the North!!
- revisiting things from childhood road trips with my parents
- seeing friends and family scattered across the country and making new friends
- feeling strong and free on the bike
- celebrating Canada's sesquicentennial in the best way I know how

I'm excited to celebrate Canada as I go. To celebrate the bugs, the remote roads, the rocks trees and water, the amazing people, our far flung distances, our small towns, our Tim Horton's, our beautiful scenery, our First Nations founders, our challenging weather, and the rugged terrain that made us Canadian. For patriotic and sesquicentennial celebration reasons, I am going to start the ride on Canada Day, and I have a rough goal of biking 150 kms a day :)

I have realized it isn't going to be possible to nail down an exact plan and mileage as there are a lot more variables with this trip. The route is far less known - yes, in some parts of the north, there is only one road, but in a lot of BC, there are some sideroads that I plan to test the bikeability of. I am not likely to have months of California sunshine - storms and winds will put me days off my plan. Basically I'm packing for more and preparing less:
- more gear and food storage for more rain, more cold, and longer remote stretches.
- fatter tires to allow for more off-pavement and gravel riding
- bear spray for... seasoning my food
- disc brakes so I have functional brakes (haha)

I am also happy to announce my bike got her name!! Ali (who I'm staying with at the moment) looked at me one day cackling with my plans on the couch, and declared that I was officially a nutterbut squash. I agreed (she is letting me stay after all:p), and realized rather than a perfect name for me, it was the perfect name for my bike. It's orange like a butternut squash, it doesn't have the most accommodating seat, and it gets up to nutty things. After weeks on the bike trying to name it, it has finally named itself - must be time for the next adventure.

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The flexibility of dreams

8:49 AM

I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most flexible - my body or my mind. When I set a goal or decide something, I can be a little... stubborn (just ask my Mom). But there are things that even my stubbornness yields to, and apparently infected blisters are on that list. A fairly minor blister turned into a fairly major apparent problem when I arrived in Big Bear. I'll skip the details, but suffice to say it went from bad to worse and became a rather treatment resistant balloon-animal-like foot. Looking at an undetermined amount of time off-trail and needing resources not available in Big Bear, I realized I needed to be flexible, and I found a cheap flight back to Vancouver. So here I am, being patient, reading books, and crutching around the block to keep my right leg strong!

What next? At first, since I couldn't do the trail in the way I had set my mind to, I considered that option closed and was scheming how long it would take me to bike to the east coast. A few days into that thought process, the PCT is still nagging me as unfinished business. I could go back to where I left it, I could start southbound and see where I end up, I can be flexible. But for right now, I'm going to put my feet up, and see where that gets me. I'm going to go to my angels of support and love in the healing magic of Bowen Island (you know who you are and I'll see you soon ;)).

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The 10 percent

8:48 AM

While my first post covers approximately the first 150 miles of trail, this one brings the story to the first 10%, or mile 265.

I'm getting used to this. The getting up early, the walking, the water planning, the predicting and escaping the desert's sauna hours. Heck, I've even got myself a schedule. Up at 4:30 am, hiking by 4:45 am (helps when you don't set up tent), water breaks every hour in the shade, find a nap spot by 11:00 am. Nap! Depending on how cool it is, hit the trail between 3:00 and 5:00 pm again, hike till dark or past that, find somewhere flat, unroll my half sleeping mat, put my pack at the other end of it, snuggle into my sleeping bag and tell myself that they make the most comfortable bed in the world (I'm actually pretty sure they do). Every night as I fall asleep in the cool air, a smile finds it's way to my face. The day's heat, rattlesnakes, water carry, sore feet, uphill, downhill or whatever is somehow always erased in the evening. What's left is memories of the gorgeous flowers, the sunrise and sunset, the jackrabbit I saw, the terrain of the day and the strong glow of the moon. I smile that I've only just begun, and I have countless more nights to set down whenever I'm tired wherever I like the view, that I get to be outside, walking, self-reliant and discovering beautiful things for the next several months.

The hiking for the last bit has been quite a roller coaster ride. I've finally figured out that the SoCal landscape involves deserts at low elevations, a climb into and over a cooler mountain range, and then a descent into another desert. Now that I've figured that out, I can work with that. Example: 15 mile descent from the San Jacinto mountains from 4:00 am to 10:00 am to a highway overpass in the middle of the desert for shade. Nap there in 108 degree heat from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Climb outta there for the next 10 miles until a stream and cooler terrain. Sleep! The one thing I haven't quite worked out in my schedule is when to eat... I was anticipating cooking and my usual back country meals, but as you can see, the only real cooking time is lunch, and I'm generally not looking forward to a hot meal. Therefore, time to adapt from big meals to going stoveless with nibbles on the go - stove is going to be re-homed at my next resupply in Big Bear.

This whole schedule and figuring things out has let me start pushing the mileage, and I'm now feeling good with 25+mile days which have brought me to mile 265, aka 10% of the trail!

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Beautiful, Hot and Painful

6:13 PM

Those three words just about sum up my first 10 days on the trail. I know, I said posts every week, but my days are somehow entirely taken up with eating, hiking and sleeping; and I love it! I'm not even sure I could remember a day by day recap, so here's a summary of the highlights...

The Terrain: Just like the bike, I really didn't have expectations for the hike and what it would look like. I'm glad. It's a gorgeous mix of desert with some higher areas and I am blown away by the variety. The desert ranges from classic cactus to small trees, to plains, to scrubby trees. Walking through it I notice the changes, and they keep me quite entertained.

Walking: I am fairly sure I've forgotten how to walk - walk normally, that is. My gait has changed to compensate for blisters, a pack, and hiking poles, and it's rather amusing.

The Traffic: A few days in, I thought to myself, this is kind of the same as biking, keeping moving all day, but somehow more peaceful. Then it hit me (or rather, didn't - haha) there are no cars on the trail! It's an incredibly magic stillness.

The Sounds: Well at first it seemed like a stillness, and then I realized the silence is very loud. During my midday break, it's full of the dull roar of insects buzzing through the flowers, and heavier, detectable thrums of humming bird wings. During sunrise and sunset, it's full of birds. The scurry of lizards as you go down the trail. The thump of your pack. The loud reptilian rattle that, thankfully, I've only heard once.

The Flowers: They are everywhere! I'm not quite sure what I expected from the desert, but the prevalence of flowers was not on my list. So many blooms of so many colours. I've been lucky enough to spend some time with botanists and plant experts, so the proper names are now floating around in my brain, even if I still can only positively identify half of what I see.

The Feet: On the plus side - not nearly as many blisters as I expected! On the minus side, still a few inconveniently placed ones, a very sore heel, a lot of dirt between my toes, and a mind-numbing ache any day I try to go more than 25 miles.

The Heat: It's hot! Hot in a too hot kind of way during the day. The only part of myself exposed to the sun is my fingertips (yes, I am hiking with gloves), and I feel like a roasted potato. After being absolutely zapped by the heat for the first 100 miles, I've stopped hiking between the hours of 11 am and 4 pm'ish. During that time, I attempt to find shade (harder than it sounds), and try to get some sleep. I need extra sleep hours because ideal hiking times to cover miles are 4 am to 11 am, and 4 pm to 8 pm. Where there used to be one day, now there are two. Still working out the meal schedule with this one, but I'm getting there.

The Pack: Speaking of things I'm still working on... I packed light for this trip, I really did, but I am already much lighter. I'm slowly starting to figure out how to make every ounce count, not just for one purpose but for at least two. I've realized that being 'ultralight' doesn't just mean having light gear, but it's also about making strategic sacrifices, which have so far included my tent (I still have a tarp), half my sleeping mat, all my not constantly worn clothing, etc.

The Peak: Yesterday I took a small detour off the trail to go climb what John Muir says offers 'the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth' - San Jacinto peak. It was pretty gorgeous, and even better than the view, it had some snow on the ground and flowing streams!

Water: Not surprisingly, there's not a lot in the desert. Also not surprisingly, I need to drink a lot, and water is heavy. The route planning mainly consists of checking and double checking where the next water source will be, and hauling enough to get me there. I'm pretty sure I've never been more than 5 km from water in Canada, but here I've had a 40 mile stretch of trail with no natural sources (trail angels drop off caches of water to make the hike possible).

I'm sure I'll have more to say about these topics and others, and maybe soon I'll have the energy and schedule figured out to share them. :)

Cheers from the shade under the Highway 10 bridge.