Traveling with Good Friends, Old and New

The Sierra have proven to be quite challenging this year, more so than most years mostly because of the immense amount of snow we've been hiking through. This last section was the most difficult yet with several mountain passes (low points between mountain ridges) that were above 11,000 feet in elevation coupled with and countless ice-cold creek crossings at the lower elevations. We are ever vigilant about safety and have been traveling with two tough women. The four of us have been traveling through the Sierra together and have looked out for each other in navigating through the tough spots on the trail.
During this last section, Garrett got a break from the constant estrogen from one of our close friends here who has been helping us out logistically since before we started in Campo. Dave joined us for 4 and a half days of fun and kept up with us as if he had been hiking the entire trail with us. His comic relief and level head during stream crossings and ascents of mountain passes helped keep spirits high as we continued our journey northward through the snow.

Sled Riding without the Sled

After many hours of trudging up through the snow to get over snow-covered mountain passes, we are usually rewarded by fast descents (for at least a short part of the way back down in to the next valley). We call it glissading. In this video, Garrett and one of our traveling companions, Liz, have a glissade race.

It's True: The Sierras have LOTS of Snow

  

While the snowmelt has starting, there is still consistent snow pack above 10,000 feet as we travel north through Kings Canyon National Park. We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to see the Sierras like this. Mornings have come early in the Sierras because of the snow-we are getting up between 4 and 5 am to start hiking while the snow pack is still hard.  By 11 am, the snow is turning to slush and we want to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt because it is so warm! I always dreamed of playing in the snow in the summertime, so I guess my dream came true! 

While I'm not a morning person, we do stop hiking by mid-afternoon usually and just take in the world around us. Aside from the massive amount of marmots, we've watched deer graze in the one of the few snow-free meadows and watched a coyote hunting in another snow-covered meadow. We sat in awe as he pounced right through the softened snow to try to catch his dinner. All we could see was his tail wagging in the air as he searched for his dinner deep in the snow. It feels like we are getting a special glimpse into this world in transition. While the hiking is harder, we are being rewarded by the view of all the natural wonders around us.

Big Milestone!! Southern California is Officially Completed!!

That's right, we are in Kennedy Meadows, California at the moment and by getting here we have completed 702 miles of the PCT and officially are in the Southern Sierras.

It's amazing. The miles have just flown by and we're excited for the next part of the adventure. The Sierras!!!
With near record breaking snow pack this year, it is bound to be an adventure.

Please continue to send us your love and support. We'll need it!

Meow Meow & Funyan 

This One Goes to You, Paul!!

The trail traverses through about 40 miles of wind farms around Tehachapi, CA where some of the first wind turbines were built in the US. It was awesome hiking through such a massive concentration of renewable energy, aside from the fact is was SUPER windy. We hiked and camped right by the turbines as they purred through the night. The only down side was that it was somewhat challenging to find a windless place to camp!

Trail Folk & Trail Names

A ride to town by an awesome trail angel, Bucksnort.

One of the many questions we got when we first started the trail was: "Are you hiking with a group?" Our answer before the trip was: "No, but other people will be starting the trail around the time that we start so we won't be totally alone."

We've found a good balance of being alone, while not being lonely. For the most part we hike by ourselves in the morning and afternoon, then typically have lunch or camp with other hikers. We enjoy camping by ourselves but absolutely value and enjoy the company of others. For example, there have been some days when we were just completely dejected after a tough section of hiking, then our spirits rose as other hikers joined us for camp and shared in the same level of frustration at the day's endeavors. Through our shared experience, we all smile and laugh at our recent poor moods and are brought back to a good place, back to a wonder of the trail.

Hiking with other people brings out funny culture unique to the trail. One part of the culture is that most everyone has something called a trail name. You basically stop using your name and begin going by a name someone else on the trail dubbed for you. Examples of trail names of people we've been hiking with are: Skinny D, Drop Dead, Rattler, Mudflap, Grenade, Speedbump, Pine, Thumper, Stumbling Goat, and Cookie Monster. Each trail name typically is associated with some event or story. Garrett & I both have been given our trail names. Mine is Meow Meow and his is Funyan.

Meow Meow: I got my trail name from a time when I was frustrated after a day of hiking on a serious hard ORV road (which was part of a trail detour) and asked a fellow hiker how far we'd hiked on the 14 mile road detour. It was a really windy and cold day which added to the feeling we'd been walking through a wasteland of ORV tracks (sponsered by Yamaha, I might add), so when she said we had only hiked 5 miles into it, I said conjured up a reference to Henrietta Pussycat from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and said,"meow meow, sad, meow meow."

Funyan: Garrett got his trail name in two phases. It started during a 'group therapy' session we were having around a camp fire one night. Everyone was going around talking about their various ailments, mostly blisters and things of that nature. When it got to Garrett, he said, "Yeah, well my bunions hurt." Everyone stopped and kind of stared, with the question, "What the heck is a bunion?" in their eyes. In no time, Garrett took off his shoe and shared with the group his lovely protruding bunions. So he went by bunyan (an accidental misspelling of the term on my part) until someone misheard him say his name and thought he said Funyan. Thus the completion of the second phase in getting to be Funyan. (By the way who wants to be constantly reminded they have bunions anyway?)

Calorie Counting

So we've been counting a lot of calories lately and watching what foods we're eating in order to maintain the appropriate diet and weight while on the trail. So far we've been pretty successful; Garrett has maybe lost 10 pounds and I've lost between 5 and 10 pounds!


Here are some of the foods that give us the most bang for the buck, because we really don't want to lose any more than we already have. It is not your typical diet...because we really do want to have the most calories for the weight we are carrying!

Oatmeal cream pies: ~ 300 calories each
Double stuffed Oreos: 70 calories each
King size Snickers: 280 calories
1/4 lb cheese: ~250 calories
2 tablespoons peanut butter: ~200 calories

For the next 8 days, this is what we'll have to eat between the two of us: 16 oatmeal cream pies, malto-meal & oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts, 16 protein builder bars, peanut butter & nutella with flour tortillas, 2 pounds of trail mix, a box of oreos, 1 pound of protein powder, mozzarella cheese sticks, beef jerky, olive oil, parmesan cheese, vegetable soup mix, couscous (20 oz for two meals), instant rice with soup mix (2 meals), mac & cheese with tuna & chili sauce mix (1 meal), sun dried tomatoes with 1 lb stuffed pasta (1 meal), instant mashed potatoes with instant stuffing and gravy mix (1 meal), fiesta rice with bacon bits (1 meal), mocha, tea and other drink mixes...we hope it will be enough!!