The trip down to California was fine but it was basically one day after I left school. I was not feeling settled at all. Laura and I had a great time in San Diego. I felt like I could sleep forever! We drove out to the trail and things started to get real!
Day 1: I got to feel the heat for the first time, starting my hike in the early afternoon. It was more intense than I had expected. I found myself needing breaks more often than planned. I camped on a dirt road about 8 miles south of Lake Morena. I had expected to make it all the way to the lake but had started a bit late in the afternoon.
Day 2: I woke up really early and was too excited to go back to sleep so I got up and started hiking hours before sunrise. I passed lake Morena as the sun rose. Was feeling great all morning. But I made the mistake, again, of hiking through the heat of the day. This time it was much worse because the landscape was different and I had trouble finding any real shade north of Kitchen Creek falls. I ended up hiding from the sun beneath a rocky alcove. It was a scary moment and I came to fully appreciate the danger of the heat when you can't really get out of it! In the later afternoon, I started hiking again and I arrived at Mount Laguna late that night. I slept on a campground picnic table because I didn't want to set up my tent.
Day 3: Disappointing... I walked into town that day and everything was closed but the general store. The guys in the store said I had made it just in time for a heat wave and that I would probably die. There was talk of 120 degree weather down in the valleys. I took their statements seriously, deciding to night hike down to scissors crossing. It would be a long haul but I didn't feel comfortable stopping anywhere else because of lack of water and shade.
I left at about 5 in the evening. Got water after about 20 miles of hiking before heading down to the desert. I had my first health concern that night. When I stopped for water I started shivering even though it wasn't cold. I found that concerning. It meant that my body was freaking out and having difficulty maintaining a normal temperature... that is bad in the desert... especially alone. After a rest, I started downhill and arrived at scissors crossing at about 8 in the morning. It was already about 90 degrees. I was concerned about body temp and decided to road-walk a few miles to a campground with a pool rather than sitting alone under a bridge.
At the campground, I was told that I could not sleep indoors but could try to sleep in the shade outside. It really didn't work. There were 30 mph gusts of 100+ degree wind. I would soak my clothes and go to sleep only to wake in about 30 minutes feeling like I had just come out of a clothes drier. I was having mild hallucinations because of lack of sleep. Finally, at about 3 pm, the manager of the campground said they had air/conditioned cabins I could sleep in. I was both thankful and upset. I needed to sleep and was thankful for the spot. Then again, I had just lost a day during which I could have gotten some much needed rest. Ugh!
Day 4: Slept super hard that night instead of night hiking out because I really needed the sleep. Sat around all day and waited for the next evening to arrive so that I could night-hike to Warner Springs. Had a lot (too much?) of time to think about my next step in the hike. Thought about getting off but decided to stick it out until I had a good day. It is usually a bad idea to make grumpy decisions, whether you are on a trail or not.
Night hiking up from scissors crossing was a better night hike than before. I saw a mountain biker on my way out of the valley (he apologized about being on the trail) which was one of the first people I saw on the trail. I arrived at my water source at about 3 in the morning and was feeling sleepy so I set up and rested... until the sun came back.
Day 5: This is when I decided to give up my dream of an FKT for the time being. I knew that I couldn't make my planned pace in this heat. That drove up costs and a "slow" through-hike was not my plan nor was it a possibility. I had started in mid-June and had not asked for time off in the early fall at school. It was also more dangerous due to the heat... and I couldn't see anything in the dark... but I couldn't very well hike during the day for the next week or two at least! The way I saw it: Make my plan happen or spend a lot of unplanned money on an incomplete trip. I chose to stop and save for a later date.
To this day, I go back and forth about my decision! I really wanted to continue. Part of me now feels that if I kept pushing then my body would have found its equilibrium and I would have made up the miles originally planned for. Another part of me thinks I made a good decision getting off before I did something really stupid (or my body broke down) and died alone in the desert. This is one instance in which hindsight is not exactly 20/20. I do know that the odds of my finishing in the time I had allowed myself were very low. Starting during a heat wave, with record snow melt in the mountains and large fire closures in Oregon was basically a lost cause... but I did get one great thing out of this adventure: the experience.
I really did test my limits in ways that I never have, hiking alone in very difficult conditions. I know absolutely that I could have made it, just not in the way I planned. I needed better food for the heat, more time to acclimate, and a more flexible schedule and budget.
But that was not the end of my summer. I arrived home with the goal of not letting the summer go to waste. I would climb a couple mountains and hike a large section of Washington before it was finished... but that is another post.
