In a world of so many great photographers and writers, I am venturing into some unknown territories, leaving comfort zones, finally very willing to practice the art of seeing. By maintaining the practice of posting daily photos, I hope to continue learning about the possibilities that I trust are out there for the taking.
My trail partners, LaZorra and TrailDad, are now doing the John Muir Trail. Their initial starting trailhead was Red’s Meadow. However once they heard Ray and I were going to be in Mammoth and would like to backpack in with them their first day, they decided to change their starting place to 1 mile from our cabin where we’d join them for the first day and night.
On August 20th TrailDad and LaZorra arrived in Mammoth, spent the night with Ray and me, and all four of us headed out with our backpacks the next morning. At Coldwater Trailhead we (Yes, Ray too.) backpacked 4.7 miles up to Duk Pass (elevation 10,750′), then 1.7 miles down to meet the JMT. At the John Muir Trail junction, we hiked another 2.3 miles back up to Purple Lake where we camped for the night. If you add up this mileage, you get 9.1 miles. Ray backpacked 9.1 miles with a pack, in elevation!!! He did great, so great he now has a trailname – “Outtasight” – because he was so far out in front of us all for lots of the hike. (Today when Ray and I were hiking, he said, “You know my new trailname works whether I’m in the lead or trailing behind!”)
We all had fun. as we awakened often, Ray and I giggled most of the night in the tent. Aside from being tired (Ray retired to the tent at 5:19pm), and having sore feet, Ray was a trooper, performed well and seemed to be enjoying this one night backpack. I won’t mention how much I spent buying Ray a new sleeping bag and Osprey backpack, buying us a 2 man Sierra Design tent (I forgot my tent), and getting Ray a Prolite 3 thermarest, just so I could spend one night in the wilderness with my husband. Of course my mind says maybe he’ll go out with me again now that he has all this new equipment. We’ll see, but I’m not holding my breath.
Ray is his new Western Mountaineering 10 degree bag. I can’t seem to upload all the other photos with this Mammoth coffee shop internet connection I have. I’ll add the rest of the backpack photos when I get home next Sunday.
My trail partners, LaZorra and TrailDad, are now doing the John Muir Trail. Their initial starting trailhead was Red’s Meadow. However once they heard Ray and I were going to be in Mammoth and would like to backpack in with them their first day, they decided to change their starting place to 1 mile from our cabin.
On August 20th TrailDad and LaZorra arrived in Mammoth, spent the night with Ray and me, and all four of us headed out with our backpacks the next morning. At Coldwater Trailhead we (Yes, Ray too.) backpacked 4.7 miles up to Duk Pass (elevation 10,750′), then 1.7 miles down to meet the JMT. At the John Muir Trail junction, we hiked another 2.3 miles back up to Purple Lake where we camped for the night. If you add up this mileage, you get 9.1 miles. Ray backpacked 9.1 miles with a pack, in elevation!!! He did great, so great he now has a trailname – “Outtasight” – because he was so far out in front of us all for lots of the hike. (Today when Ray and I were hiking, he said, “You know my new trailname works because I could be so slow I’d be outta sight!”)
We all had fun. Ray and I giggled, as we awakened often, most of the night in the tent. Aside from being tired (Ray retired to the tent at 5:19pm), and having sore feet, Ray was a trooper and seemed to be enjoying this one night backpack. I won’t mention just how much I spent buying Ray a new sleeping bag and Osprey backpack, buying us a 2 man tent (I forgot my tent), and getting Ray a thermarest, just so I could spend one night in the wilderness with my husband. Of course my mind says maybe he’ll go out with me again now that he has all this new equipment. We’ll see, but I’m not holding my breath.
Ray is his new Western Mountaineering 10 degree bag. To see more of our backpacking photos
If you want to follow a PCT hiker this year, Suzanne is a great writer. Below is where she posts her trail journals. A direct link to her trailjournal account is www.trailjournals.com/suzannefinney. I’ve had some email correspondence with Suzanne and one phone call. She is a very special lady.
This linked journal page below, from her PCT 08 journal, is a special page for me. She lists “Internal Rules” for her herself while she hikes this year.
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=212973
Many of you have heard me talk about the PCT Class bandanas I make up every year. You’ve also heard me mention the ADZPCTKOP hiking weekend I attend before the current year PCT hikers hit the trail.
Well, click on this link below to see a photo of me in action on the ADZ website and learn more how the tradition of gifting the Class bandanas began.
http://siechert.org/adz/pct_bandana.htm
P.S. Baby is doing ok, I think. I’ll take another photo soon and post it for you to see how Baby has grown in size and how many feathers she has now.
I read more about baby hummingbirds. Ray and I thought Mama was neglecting Baby at night by not sleeping in the nest any longer. But what I learned is that a certain point in Baby’s development Baby begins to be able to generate her own body warmth and no long needs Mama to sit on top of her.
I also read that the baby’s self defense is that she knows not to peep and make noise for Mom. That’s why Baby is so unanimated! Duh.
Check out JJ’s April 8th journal entry!
Way to go JJ! Get to work cleaning up all those loose ends on your hike preparations.
Love,
Gottago
My friend JJ (Joyful Jim) is thru hiking the PCT this year. Initially he was going to start the PCT April 14th. But something happened to his knee. Time and the healing process will only tell when JJ will be able to begin his thru hike.
Maybe you will join me in sending good healing vibes to JJ and his knee so he can recover soon and fullfill his dream to hike the PCT this year.
Gottago and JJ, July 2004, sharing a great meal in Santa Monica while commiserating after having just gotten off two different trails that year.
Katie and I went out for a training hike on the PCT this morning at 8:50am. We headed south on the PCT from Hwy 74 (Palms to Pines). About 15 minutes into our hike, we ran into Paul Smith my first thru hiker sighting!!! He had his ULA pack off and was heading into the bushes.
I’d put some PCT Class of 2008 bandanas in my backpack hoping I’d start running into PCT hikers. To get Paul’s attention I said, “Are you a thru hiker? And will you be going to ADZ?” Because he answered no to going to ADZ I handed him his orange bandana.
Paul said it had taken him 9 or 10 days to get to where we found him just shy of Hwy 74. He mentioned he’d hiked 18 miles the day before. He talked about the nasty wind he’d encountered many days on the trail since he started. After his tent stakes blew out and his tent collapsed, he set up the tent again putting large rocks on the stakes. At 4am after the tent blew down again, he packed up and started hiking. Oh, he also mentioned how the elevation gain up to Mt Laguna had kicked his butt.
He talked about Pete Fish’s trail crew working south of Table Mountain, maybe by Sandy Jeep Road. Later, I did notice what great shape the trail was in from Hwy 74 to Table Mountain’s shoulder (a distance of 4.8 miles).
The flowers were out in full bloom. The were lots of blue and purple flowers I don’t normally see. I’m not great with flower names but I think the blue was Baby Blue Eyes and the purple – Penstemon. Still in bloom were many other wildflowers too. The air was cool at 4900 feet. A nice change from the desert floor. By 11:15, after a snack break at Table Mountain’s shoulder, Katie and I turned around and headed back to the PCT trailhead parking lot enjoying the perfect hiking temperature now in the low 70′s full sun and a little breeze.
In previous years, just south of the PCT gate at Hwy 74 (by a hundred yards or so), I’d noticed a water cache. This year, there was no water.
Also, the small sign directing hikers to the Paradise Cafe was not up. This small side trail to the cafe is located on the left 100 yards before reaching Hwy 74.
I checked out the PCT trailhead monument north of Hwy 74. There was an igloo marked for PCT hikers and filled with about 5 empty water bottles. No register. Paul Smith had said he’d noticed 5 other hikers were ahead of him who noticed had signed the register back by the last water source (sandy jeep road?).
Paul Smith – PCT Class of 2008
Began his hike March 29th. 
photo 1- 5::00pm last night. A pose before the 3 of us – Me, Sandi, and Cindy head off to dinner before our 6:30 meeting.
photo 2- On our way to dinner last night, I noticed the color changing quickly. I hoped we’d make it to the intersection where I knew I have a better view of the color change. I stuck my camera out the window for this deeper-than-red-ever sunset.
photo 3- Today, Cindy sitting on the floor with her P-Touch working on the files. My mood picked up as Cindy got closer and closer to completely relabeling all of my files. Cindy did a great job. She and I also set up some new files in anticipation……..of what?
photo 4- …..of the upcoming photography class I’ll be starting while I’m away in the Bahamas!!! I’m so excited. And now I’m ready to walk through the fear of what others might think and begin to learn more. All of us (Carol’s 25 students plus some auditing) were asked to introduce ourselves briefly and share our photography experience. From all the student’s introductions I’ve been reading online (in this Yahoo Group our teacher Carol Leigh set up for us all) almost every one has taken Carol’s classes more than once. I’ve checked out some of the other student’s photo websites. They are REALLY good. And they still keep taking Carol’s classes.
This entry is my friend JJ’s Blog December 11th entry that I copied and pasted here. I also copied and pasted my comment to his post. JJ’s blog entries often address what he is doing to prepare himself physically for his 2008 PCT thruhike.
I like his blog better than mine. So, I’m using his blog entry here today.
Too Much to Eat
December 11th, 2007 · 1 Comment
Celebrate with food. Who does not do that? I just thought that the preceding question is similar to a child’s saying, “Well, everybody else was doing it.” Hmm. Sixty-four years old and still thinking like a kid. Anyway, yesterday was fun. Mark came over from San Francisco and Maria from Berkeley, and we had a marvelous lunch at Huynh Vietnamese Restaurant. This was after an office party and Elaine’s famous lemon pound cake. And Ed, knowing I did not want to go out last night, brought Persian food his wife had made. People really do celebrate with food. It was a wonderful day for me. My brother and other friends called, including my sister-in-law, Jane.
Very little walking.
Okay, today is the first day of my sixty-fifth year. Seems exciting to me. I am so very glad to be on the planet. Now back to counting calories.
Tags: Joy · Weight Loss
1 response so far ?
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1 gottago // Dec 13, 2007 at 12:12 am
Ray and I will be in swim suits in Turks and Cacos Jan 12 for a week. A couple of weeks ago we made a deal and started dieting to lose weight to look better in front of friends who will also be there. Not for ourselves but for what the friends will think. God bless vanity. The more I diet, the more I want to eat.
Today we celebrated with food twice: First when I bought a huge tub of red vines in Staples. (Who has a slip in Staples?) Then Ray came home with Starbucks Coffee Java Chip because I was feeling sick and he’d had oral surgery yesterday and is limited in what he can eat. So we celebrated that we’d found two plausible excuses for indulging with ice cream – something we rarely eat, but love. Ray remembered from last year when my sister Leila brought home her all time favorite ice cream – Starbucks Coffee Java Chip. He has been in obsession since that time.
I had no choice but to eat the ice cream – you can’t decline a gift from your honey.
And besides, the extra fat makes my wrinkles fill out a little. Phew, sure glad I thought of that rationalization. I feel better now.
Wrong.
What chance do you think we have with our “diet” when our freezer looks like this?
Ray will probably kill me for this post. But that’s ok…He already bought me my birthday and Xmas presents today in Staples. And the red vines were not part of the present!
I took this photo of Meadow Ed last year while on a trip in the Grand Canyon.
Meadow Ed just emailed me what he had recently written while on a recent Grand Canyon trip.
“May these Canyon walls surround the inner me and protect me from the world of men. May this River of life also cut thru me as this River cuts thru the layer of time here. I need to expose the inner me to new feelings and expressions. I ask these Canyon walls to give me their strength and the River i ask for guidance.
I tasted today the memory of Cociel St Jack, Oyster Rockefeller and New England Clam Chowder, oh for a tomato to make it Manhattan Clam Chowder but none was to be found.
I walked again the white sandy beaches of Sanibel and Captiva Islands, golden sand between my toes but try as i might i saw no seagulls nor pelicans least of all i saw no terns.
I believe the god I seek lives deep within me, God then is I.
Words are not real real, words can say many things to many people but words have no wisdom in them, they are just a group of letters. Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad are just words as well. There is more wisdom in a grain of sand then in a the spoken word. A grain of sand has mineral content that can be absorbed into a plant, we who eat of this plant can be said to consume the knowledge or wisdom of the grain of sand-in consumption of this grain of sand we grow with the strength of the content of the mineral in the plant. This is real, this is how we grow, this is how we live our lives. A deaf person hears no words yet he too lives out his life and grows with wisdom that nourishes his body.”
By E.J. Faubert