Hiking - 2016 PCT - Day 3.5 to 7

I left you off on the last post just outside of camp expecting another early night but as I arrived there was a decent group and my very first on trail magic !
Mike is doing a section hike and his wife Jen is meeting him at a few spots on the way. By the time I had setup my tent there was a bowl of hot chilli and an esky full of beer waiting! Jen also makes the most amazing corn bread. There was hot-dogs and even vegetarian options too.

Watched the wood peckers do their thing. Beautiful crimson red head. After an amazing shower it was time to hit the sack... I think the sun was just about to set.

Calm pack in the morning as I was planning a 'short ' 13mi (21km) day. Trail offered some beautiful views of the dry canyon below. Stopped off at a pack just after meeting a highway for lunch. Saw squirrels roaming but couldn't get a good pic. Nice view of the valley though.




Hiked on up the side of the mountain. Pretty steep drop off to the right. Made for amazing views. Caught up to a fellow Hiker and was able to get a pic to prove I'm not sitting in a pub using photos from the internet.



Came across a water trough... though I had heard it wasn't the best source and carried enough to pass it by. Glad I did. The grass wasn't even as green as the water was!



When I stopped for lunch 2 hikers blew by. They must have been doing 23+ a day as they were only on day 3. Shunta offered me some birthday pringles and then I Hiked the remaining 3.5mi to Sunrise trail head to camp.



Arrived about 2:30 to a very windy canyon and a decent water source. Was tank/underground fed so still needed filtering. A few other hikers I've met came down to get water. But with the wind decided to push onto another camp a few more miles down. After sitting for about 1.5 hours I had half a mind to join them but camp was done and my tent fairs pretty well in the wind.  

The wind got stronger and stronger. Some others had trouble with their tents breaking and mine was starting to bend. Not much do do but try to sleep. Despite the howling wind I fell asleep. Woke up at about 230am to more wind and at least 1 tent stake pulled out, and the rock placed on top of it rolled over. Couldn't get back to sleep so got up and start hiking straight away. Have a good head torch so it went really well. Passed by some who Hiked on. Their spot wasn't any better. Others another few miles on looked better situated. 

Stopped just after sunrise as other hikers at the next site started to stir. There is water here so a bigger crowd. Laid out in the sun, made a warm Billy of milo and put my feet up for about an hour. After hiking on see a beautiful rainbow and a cool little lizard.





Hours later (29km from where I started at 3am) I made it to the HWY. The last 2 miles was almost a dead straight b-line for it. Looking directly up a 1300ft climb... which I decided to leave for the next day.



As soon as I hit the highway a truck pulled up and asked if I was headed into town. I guess they're pretty use to hikers here. I thankfully accepted and was soon dropped in the centre of a small country town. Busy season as we found in Laguna. Hotel and lodge (like a hostel) both full. Luckily I was able to grab a room at the inn just 'outside' of town (3min walk away...) Had a choice of single room with double bed or the suite. Managed to arrange a group of other hikers I had met on trail and 6 of us split the suite for $37 each. Some might say cramped but it's more room than a single tent!



Met a bunch of other hikers for dinner and to discuss future plans. Current pace sees most of us in Warner Springs on the Sunday, with he PO closed and unable to retrieve packages... can send it on for free but then I would have no milo! Topic of feet care also came up. Currently I'm the only Hiker we know of that hasn't got any blisters yet. Fingers crossed the good luck keeps up. 

It felt great sleeping in a real bed and absolutely no wind but I was awake again just past 6 and keen to get going again. Ate an amazing bacon egg cheese croissant in town before trying to get a hitch back to the trail. It was under 5 min when a local land valuer pulled up. We got to talk property and Surveying on the 10 of so min drive to the trail. He had spent some time in Brisbane too, but that was nearly 25 years ago. 

Started the long climb up at about 820. Something like 1600 ft up today... the first 2 miles fell pretty easily. Still on a bacon/coffee high from breakfast maybe. Last night I had taken the time to properly wash my feet which meant removing tape. In the first hour hot spots on the heels were back so I took a short break to re-apply tape and look at the view. On the way up I passed Matt and said G'day, when I stopped for the tape he caught up and kept trekking on. Then I got just past him, just out of site, but got a rock in my shoe. By the time I dealt with that he was on me again.

It was another 3-4 miles before I stopped for lunch under the small shade I could find. There were some cool little bits of the trail winding up the mountain side. Just after I had sat down and got my lunch out, Matt once again continued past at a steady pace.



After setting off I was walking for a while and rolled up on Matt just as he was finishing lunch as well. Made it to the third gate water cache at 3pm and stopped for a refill. Once gain Matt was right on my tail shortly after I stopped. We were basically the Tortoise and the Hare in a race. I would spring past but he would casually keep strolling by. As a result, and because I found it pretty amusing, I offered him the trail name of Tortoise which he gladly took on. Despite the feet feeling a little sore decided to rest up for an hour and refill then push onto Barrel Springs.

Stopped just shy of Barrel Springs. It was getting late, a little too late, so I hoped up a small gully and found some nice flat ground. 21 miles was a hard day. Fell almost immediately asleep.

Needed to make the PO so headed off early and caught most people packing up at barrel springs. I was still feeling a little sore from the previous days hike. It was mostly up hill and a very long day. Can't believe in a few months that will be a 'normal' distance. 

Passed by Eagle Rock on the way down. Cool rock formation, apparently natural.



The 1.2 mi into town along a road wasn't exciting but I got supplies from the post office and a good meal at the Golf Course. Staying at the Resource Centre tonight. Lots of hikers all camped on the field out the back. Might just do a small day tomorrow. Next update in 4-5 days from Idyllwild.

Hiking - 2016 PCT - What's in a name?

One of the trail traditions is 'earning' a trail name. Some get theirs early, others much later. Usually you get assigned yours by fellow hikers after they notice behaviour traits... or you do something stupid.

Tin-Man earned his on the very first day. Hits joints felt squeaky,  his hair was oily and he had a silver chrome sun umbrella. Unlike the movie version though he had already found his heart. He was carrying a light weight chair and at camp I think he spent more time on the ground than in it. He was very happy to offer a sit to everyone else. 

For me it evolved over the course of the first few days. When we got to my very first campsite of the trail I took off my pack and lay in the grass. After a few min I reached out to my pack, that was just outside of arms reach, for some water. I mustn't have been that thirsty because I gave up. When asked what I was doing I said I wanted something from the pack but was feeling too lazy to bother at the moment.

After finally setting up camp about an hour later it came time for my airbed... so I got out my little mini air-pump. Far too lazy to actually blow it up myself.....

Next was that I carry salt and powdered parmesan cheese in little hotel shampoo containers. To save me from carrying full bottles. Efficient right? Lazy too apparently...

There were a few more things I took the efficient way of doing over the next few days and combined with my yellow pack, orange jacket and ginger beard I was thus dubbed Garfield. The fact that I enjoyed a Freeze Dried hiking meal of Lasagne on night two probably cemented the deal...

Hiking - 2016 PCT - Day 1 to 3

Still feeling a bit of jet lag mixed in with the approaching day meant I didn't have the best sleep. Dozed off around 2330 and it only felt like seconds before the 5am alarm woke me. Quickly packed and sat down to an amazing breakfast.





French toast and fresh fruit. Loaded into 5 vehicles all 15 hikers were keen to start the day. Shout out to Don who was my driver. 7ish am at the trail head for the token shots. I was the only one to climb but the pic is on my camera so you'll have to wait for proof.




Pretty hot as we climbed the first of many hills. Definitely felt all the extra water. As well as the lack of sleep. Stopped for a few snack breaks where there was shade and came to a rest just before 12 for lunch and to take an hour break from the sun. It's been a very exposed trail, I knew to expect it but I feel it more than I imagined.

Strolled into my planned camp site, Houser Creek at mi 15, at about 330 and pulled up stumps. Arrived around the same time as a few I started out with. And a few more rolled in later. A good sized group were heading out of the canyon as I was coming down into it. I chose to save that for the cool of the morning.



Some of the guys I was camping with had the great idea of waking up at 4am to get the first 5 miles, mostly uphill, out of the way before the sun hit us. I admit I wasn't very keen but when they were rumbling I too rolled out of bed just before they set off. Which was about 430am. Strolled into Lake Morena just after 8 and found the group that headed there the day before. They were just in the final stages of packing their camp and set out while I had a break. I would recommend the 2 day strategy.
There was very chilling wind all day which cut down water consumption but made brakes hard. Needed a jacket almost immediately upon stopping.

On the next stretch there was a side trail only 0.2 miles but 45m (~150ft) climb out to Kitchen Ck falls. Of the 18 hikers I talked too I was the only one to head down. Worth it.




The next 3.5 miles to camp seemed to take ages but I found a sizeable group there when I arrived at 4pm. 4 more went by, in search of water, and 2 more stayed making it 12 in total. Wind was howling through the canyon sending most people to the warmth of their tents by 6pm. Myself included.

There was rumbling at 4am again but I decided to ignore it this time. Unable to get back to sleep I eventually broke camp at 630 though... the next part of the trail seemed very narrow.  Thousands of hikers a year and probably 1000 before me this season alone and it's still overgrown.

Thomas and Tincknell would love it. Of 48mi travelled so far less than a mile has been on a management trail.

Stopped at mile 37 for my first water filter of the trip which worked well. Others were struggling with squeeze bags as I set up my gravity filter and sat back. 

Big climb to Mt Laguna with frost still sitting in the shade on the side of the trail. It WAS cold last night! Got into town and had some great pork belly soup and some beer that I won't have again... got a few things from the store. Plan was to spend the night but he lodge was full. Had the choice of a closed camp .5 mi back, or to push on for 7ish more. 7 miles more won. 

About 4 mi into that I began to think I had made the wrong choice... eventually I made it to the turn off which had a cool view deck before pushing on the 0.6 mi to camp and a shower.

Another early night tonight I think and maybe a shorter tomorrow. Next stop Warner Springs, 5 days from now.

Hiking - 2016 PCT - Day -2 to -1

Plane ride was about as enjoyable as you can get for a 13hr flight. Managed to get in 3 or 4 hours of chemically aided sleep waking up about 4am local time. Had an aisle seat and, after a move thanks to a faulty earphone jack, a spare beside me.

My bounce bucket got quite a few inquisitive looks through customs but as I had nothing untowards I passed through pretty easily. They did open it up to have a look though and seemed a lot less interested when they saw Vegemite on top. :p

Only person in the shuttle to the hostel, driver gets paid per person and didn't seem impressed. Too early to check in but I stowed my bags and headed off to explore LA... by getting a SIM card, doing some grocery shopping and hitting up a Post office... Everything looked so close on my Google maps print out... probably wasn't the best idea to walk around in thongs all day. First rub mark/potential blister of the trip! Luckily nothing that would affect my shoes.  


After getting the internet first and foremost I went to REI for some food and a gas canister and Vons (supermarket) for the rest of the food. Went to the end of Santa Monica pier, brilliant sandy beach but short waves. A few brave souls were in for a swim but given that seals were playing around the pier I decided against. Starting the hike with hypothermia didn't seem ideal.

Back to the hotel to have a lie down, was the only person in a 6 pax dorm at the start but more turned up later. 

Went out again to see the sun set over the ocean. Wind came up and with the sun going down the temp dropped pretty sharply. The bikinis quickly got replaced by jackets. Lots of homeless setting up camp for the night, weird seeing it as people with $3000 handbags walk by. The ocaisonal person dropped a few coins in a cup. 

Not the normal nocturnal activities you would expect at a hostel. Turns out I didn't read the fine print and it's a dry hostel... and there is 2 school groups staying here. I spent my last Aussie coin on a 200mil Wild Turkey at the duty free so after a long day I may have had a few anyway. 

Standard breakfast, cornflakes and toast, before checking out and heading off to see more sights. Hollywood sign looked a lot bigger in the movies but it does look pretty big in real life. Especially if you hike a bit closer.

Drove through Beverly Hill on the way there but didn't stop off to see any stars in the path, or stalk their houses. Hiked some of the paths around the Griffith Observatory, very dry ground and vegetation, a precursor to the first 700 or so miles? 

Next stop was the Amtrak station to take me to San Diego. I got there a bit early and just people watched to pass the time away. It wasn't too long before I caught my own train and made my way south.

I was picked up at the station by 'Buffalo' who took me to the house of Scout and Frodo who will put me up for he night. Every year they help hundreds of hikers start off on the right foot. Not only housing but a great dinner to go along with it as well as a cooked breakfast tomorrow!

I'll start hiking pretty early in the morning, tomorrow the real journey begins.

Hiking - 2016 PCT - T-3 days

After humming and harring over my gear and plan for the past 4-5 months it's  finally time to put it all together and start the journey. I'm currently sitting in the Brisbane airport and I have a little while to travel to the trail head... 

I packed all my gear on the weekend in anticipation. I must have repacked it about 5 times. My gear list can be found in my last post and currently remains unchanged... for now.  Everything has been used before but due to the nature of a thru-hike I have no doubts that something is going to give. I've also managed to say my goodbyes to friends, family and work mates with various meals over the last week.

In the lead up to the hike I've also slacked off on eating healthy... probably not a good thing... Just carbo loading right? :p I lament the extra weight of water on the first day but in truth I've probably put that much on myself. That's cool though... I'll walk it off...

My Sister had graciously offered me a lift to the airport, my first trail angel! Because I had to be at the airport early we had dinner and I crashed at their place last night. Gave me a good chance to see my niece before I headed off too. She's going to change a lot before I get back!

Traffic wasn't too bad and I'm no stranger to airports so it all went pretty smoothly. I put my pack into a laundry bag, to try protect it from baggage handlers and my bounce bucket into a box so it didn't roll on the plane.

After that was all sorted all that was left was to enjoy a beer and wait for my flight. As I sit here waiting I think it's finally starting to set in what I've got myself into. I've done some pretty big trips before. 4wding across Australia, flying in tiny planes for 38 hours to land on a thin strip of bitumen to go diving... but this is something else. This is something bigger. This is the PCT! See you all stateside. Cheers.

Diving - 2016 04 - Curtin Artificial Reef

While a lot of my time is going into preparation for my upcoming PCT hike I just couldn't pass the opportunity to get in a sneaky dive before heading away. Especially not something new! For those that aren't familiar with all things computer game related; Riot Games (makers of League of Legends) held a competition a while ago for Ocean week. Basically they said if people gathered enough points, they would sink a new artificial reef based on one of their characters. Well this seemed to have inspired action amongst the gamers, because they were given a week to reach the target... and made it there in under 3 days. You can read more about it here in the Riot Games news release.  Find more about the creators of the statue, Reef Design Labs, here.



How does that affect me? Well the site chosen for the sinking was none other than URGQ's Curtin Artificial reef. As part of the committee (Treasurer) I can say that everyone in the club was excited to participate. The club first sank a wreck for the reef in 1968 and made 32 (woops, 33 now!) additions over the years. It's a bit harder these days, lots more involved in the permit process. Riot Games got all the boxes ticked, correct forms filed and were given the go to sink the statue.

A handful of us were meant to be there for the sinking, but unfortunately engine trouble forced us to abandon and we turned back to port not 15 min after we left. :( While it was sad we couldn't be there to see it go down, the crew had a successful day. We had set out a spot (just west of the mid section of the Rock Driller) for placement, but due to the current and technical difficulties on the day it's final resting place was just east of the northern point instead, south of the Neville Bonner.



With the desire to see it in it's brand new state it was easy to fill the club boat for a day trip the very next Saturday. In-fact we had extras, and in the end had 3 boats (12 divers) come along. We had near perfect surface conditions and a mid-morning slack tide, almost as if it was destined. We had a quick trip out and when we waited for the slack tide some of the others jumped in for a drift dive on the Pines. I stayed surface watch, wanting to be ready for the Statue. Everyone surfaced saying it was a bit of a swim to reach the pines, 1.5 hours before slack tide it should have taken them to it within 2min, but apparently it was really light on and it was 15-20min of finning to get there, but once there they saw some pretty good life.

When they were all safely on the boat we headed off to the statue. Anchored off onto the Rock Driller so that Ash, Paul and I could jump straight in. We were pretty lucky (well, I think it was my skill as the skipper) on the anchor placement, the rope crossed directly over the top of the statue putting us exactly where we wanted to be. Pretty impressive site, would be great to see with good vis though.





Pretty cool to hang about, though as it's not that huge you probably couldn't spend a whole dive on it alone. Lucky all the ship wrecks are near by! When it was sunk there were 8 Eye-bolts used to lower it, 4 were recovered on the day but the other 4 were a little tight and couldn't be unscrewed in time. Along with Ash, Paul and Peter we got to work recovering the remaining. I got the first 2 out relatively easy before handing on the hammer to Paul... who broke it on the next :O! At this point we thought it was a good idea to swim off for a bit, over to the Melbourne past the the Brisbane Tram. A bit of life to see on the way, but the visibility made it hard to take pictures.





We came back to the Statue to find the other divers making their way down. Pete had found the 1/2 a hammer and got to work on the 3rd and 4th bolt, without much success. He took a break and I took the hammer to have another go. Using a knee against the statue I managed to move the bolt a quarter turn. Enlisting help from Ash we managed to move it the rest of the way. Inspired by our efforts Pete took back the hammer for the 4th and final bolt. Tapping away for what seemed the next 30 min it was finally free. Fighting to hold on the entire way.





One of the other cool things Riot Games have done is add the names of all the people that racked up enough points in the Ocean week Competition. Remember how they reached the week long target in less than 3 days? That was due to the efforts of 42,000+ players! All whos name (well, gamer tags) ended up carved for prosperity. To fit them all in some are on the inside of the Anchor reef ball, making them a little harder to see.



Any names people want me to find on my next dive?