Day 83: Back on the trail again

Day 83
Miles: 18
From Donner Pass to Lacey Creek

I bid a sad farewell to Finn the bulldog, then Jule ferries us back to the trail. My feet hurt badly still, but for the first time in a very long time, I’m not hungry. We’re going to have to break ourselves back into trail life.

It’s nice, not too hot, sunshine on the trees. There’s more water here than is marked on halfmile’s PCT maps, and the landscape rolls back and forth between granite and volcanics. One particularly nice little spring is named Unconformity Spring. As geologists, we feel obligated to drink from it, and we fill up our water bottles.

We pass the Peter Grubb hut, which looks cool, but we don’t stop. I’m feeling susceptible to getting hung up, and not getting our miles in. We do stop to talk to some other hikers who look too broken-in to not be PCT hikers. Definitely PCT hikers. We hike with Pillsbury and Namaste for a while, and it’s nice to have some conversation through some unremarkable forest.

I was hoping for twenty miles, but there’s water at 18, and my feet are angry with me. Ibuprofen takes off the sharp edge, but not the deep, shooting pains. A deer spends a long time eating grass right next to our tarp, which is unsettling. They seem much bigger when you’re looking right up at them.

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that my new shoes and insoles will help with the foot pain eventually. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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Day 82: chores

Day 82
Miles: zero
Reno, NV

Jule follows behind as J and I crash through the grocery store, throwing item after item into the cart. “2 boxes of macaroons or 3?”
“How many bags of jerky, 6?”
“We’re definitely going to need more gummi bears, throw like 5 more of those in.”

“At what point are you guys going to buy, you know, REAL food?” Jule interrupts. We look down at our cart, filled with the beginning of 700 miles of resupply boxes.
“Maybe when we finish the PCT?” I reply. We haven’t changed what we eat that much from the start of our hike, aside from the addition of about 1000 extra calories a day in candy. Foods that have been removed from our food supply rotation include: quinoa (takes too long to cook), lentils (ditto), and oatmeal (disgusting). Every hiker box for the first thousand miles is full of quinoa, lentils, and oatmeal. There are no gummi bears in hiker boxes. Ever. Otherwise, we are still eating pasta/rice sides, mac’n’cheese, jerky, tortillas, tuna packets, chocolate bars, larabars, dried fruit and nuts, clif bars (less and less of those these days), crackers, chips, and cookies. We’re a little light on anything fresh.

We Price-is-Right each other at the cash register – J is closer, guessing $650, with the end total coming to $630. Ouch!

Back on trail tomorrow. My feet are still hurting like crazy, which is disappointing. I’m hoping a new pair of shoes will help. I’ll keep walking regardless, I guess.

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