The Kickoff Party! April 25th-28th

If you've noticed that I just skipped a few days, it's because my sister texted me that they were being cited by their neighborhood association for my car being parked in front of the their house.  One neighbor had actually called the police to report the car as abandoned, and she had waited for me to hike from Julian to Idyllwild but didn't want to push things by leaving it there until after I went back down to Lake Morena for the annual PCT kickoff party.  Feeling simultaneously disgusted with neighbors who had nothing better to do than worry about the appearance of their street and guilty for dumping the problem of my car on a couple with two full-time jobs, two mortgages and two small children, I agreed to hitchhike there and drive the car down to kickoff.  I was a little worried about hitchhiking to Yucaipa - getting down from the mountains would be fine, but once I got there I'd have to get west on Interstate 10 and I figured that any woman hitchhiking on that highway would be taken for a prostitute.  Luckily, the woman who had been working behind the counter at the liquor store the night before was driving to L.A. and stopped for me. 

"I'm sorry, but I have an appointment.  Normally I'd drive you to your house, but this is kind of urgent, so you'll have to just get off at your exit."

"I just walked to Idyllwild from the Mexican border," I said, laughing, "I think I can walk two miles from the freeway."  I told her how I was just grateful not to have to hitchhike on I-10, and she agreed that that would have been a little sketchy.  I walked across Yucaipa and spent two days at home eating, showering, eating, cooking, eating, blogging, eating, doing laundry, and eating, and on Thursday afternoon I headed south.

Delilah (my niece) and Manuel (my brother-in-law) take a break from landscaping to say goodbye

Warner Springs Monty had hooked me up with the Dirty Girl to work her booth at the kickoff party, but I didn't know what to expect.  When Gio and I had shopped for my gear I had staunchly refused to consider hiking boots, saying that I would just hike the trail in my regular running shoes.  He had said fine, he had hiked much of it in running shoes himself, but that hiking in running shoes required gaiters to keep the rocks out, and that I should buy Dirty Girl Gaiters.  I'd ordered a pair from the website and they'd been working well, but that was all I knew.  It turned out that I was about as lucky as I could have been.  I'm not sure how to describe the Dirty Girl, but she is basically my new religion.  

There were four of us signed up to work in the booth, an 18-year old girl who went by Snort because of her laugh, a guy we called Boy Toy, and an Australian girl who I can't call anything other than Sweet Tart after a series of related dirty jokes.  We were all current-year thru-hikers.  Snort had been moving like crazy and had put in almost 300 miles in about the same amount of time as I'd put in less than 200.  Boy Toy was also hiking fast but was spending a lot of time shooting and editing video of himself hiking for his blog and had also spent a week off of the trail after being bitten by a brown recluse spider, so he was behind me in Warner Springs.  I'm not sure about Sweet Tart, as she was also working at the registration desk with Monty and spent less time with us.    

Sweet Tart helping customers at the booth

Snort (far right) and Boy Toy (crouching in a baseball hat) help a customer fix their shoes with Velcro for the gaiters

Snort, Sweet Tart, and the Dirty Girl working the booth

The Dirty Girl talks to a customer.  (The guy in black walking by is a fun current year thru-hiker who goes by Cookie Monster.)

The dirty girl was worried that we would miss out on kickoff events because we were working, and she encouraged us to leave the booth whenever something was happening that interested us.  On Friday I went to a seminar on walking without damaging your body:

"Getting Over Overuse Injuries, a New Way to Walk
Tom “Bigfoot” Holz was nearly crippled with overuse injuries on his AT hike and finished only with the help of massive doses of Ibuprofen. For the PCT he learned a new way of walking and finished the trail pain free. He’s here to share how he did it."

According to this figure, approximately 37% of hikers make it to the end of the PCT, while about 15% drop out due to injury.

Another figure showed the body's systems ordered by the speed at which they adapt to hiking conditions - the mind adapts the most quickly, then the nervous system, then the muscles which take weeks to months, then tendons, ligaments and fascia which take months to years, and finally bones.  He said that as muscles get strong and hikers do more, that too much stress is put on the tendons, ligaments, and fascia.  This resonated - I felt like I had most of the necessary muscles from running, I really hadn't had much muscle soreness, but I'd had a lot of pain in my knees and had been sure that it was ligaments or tendons.

Bigfoot said that stress was a function of weight times speed divided by efficiency, and that speed was actually the most effective daily control.  He said that if you wanted to stay in a particular group you may need to get up earlier than the rest and hike longer, slower days to reach the same camp, and gave some examples from his own thru-hike.  I would remember this later when I gave up trying to keep up with someone that hiked too fast for me, realizing that as soon as I slowed down to a pace that was comfortable for me, that the pain decreased. 

Bigfoot had also developed a particular style of walking, which he described as a running-style gait.  He said that he'd been running for years and knew how to run without hurting himself, but didn't know how to walk.  This also resonated, as I realized that I've been able to run at all different ages, weights, and general levels of fitness, but that I've always had a thudding, heavy step when walking.  He mentioned a book called Born to Run which had helped him develop his hiking style, and also spoke of a barefoot running gait.  The audience nodded at each reference, but I didn't know them.  He said that it was important to keep your back straight and your stride short to keep your center of gravity above your feet. 

Bigfoot demonstrates his walking technique

He demonstrated the step in the seminar and was kind enough to stop by the Dirty Girl booth afterward to practice with me, but of course we got slammed with customers as soon as he got there and I can't say that I really got it.  However, he has at least three videos on YouTube demonstrating his technique,

Video #1 

Video #2 

Video #3 

and recommends getting a friend to record a short clip of you walking with a pack so that you can see how exactly you move.  I resolve to do this before I get back on the trail, because my knees are currently not loving me.      

I went back to the booth and worked for awhile, and then took my pack to the Wolverines of the PCT, who "explode your pack" for you.  Exploding your pack means dumping everything out of it, sorting through it, convincing you to ditch the items that are dead weight, and leaving you with a lighter pack.  My base weight (everything but fuel, food, and water) was only 16.5 pounds and they said that there probably wasn't much they could do for me, but I was welcome to dump it out anyways.

Hoosierdaddy, weighing my pack at 16.5 pounds

The Stumbling Norwegian, who went through the contents of my pack with me

A hiker who went by the Stumbling Norwegian sorted through my things with me, but the recommended adjustments were minor - he didn't like my razor for shaving my legs and thought I had too many rubber bands for my hair, but I lose the rubber bands constantly and don't like having hairy legs showing when I go into town and take off the compression socks.  I did have to agree with him on the little quick-dry towel, though - it was the least-used item in my pack, as I had found that most anywhere that offered a shower also offered a towel.  In all we removed so few things that they didn't bother to re-weigh the pack, and I mentally thanked Gio for the thousandth time.   

The Shakedown Shack

Gear discarded by hikers in their shakedowns - Norwegian's homemade liquor, the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life, is visible in a plastic bottle in the foreground.

Back at the booth I worked a little more, until we shut down for the evening. 

The line for dinner - the food distribution was really efficient, and hundreds of people were fed within about 15 minutes.

We grabbed dinner and then spent most of the evening sitting in the Dirty Girl's RV which she had rented and filled with snacks and margarita fixings.

Snort and Boy Toy in the Dirty Girl's RV

The Dirty Girl herself

The Dirty Girl was one of the more impressive people I've met in this life.  The daughter of Korean immigrants, raised in the deep south during the civil rights movement, she saw her brothers beaten up daily for their race.  Instead of whining, she became a lawyer.  She's currently a prosecutor of high-level sex-related crimes in Orange County - without smiling, she told me that her typical client is about five dead prostitutes.  She calls Dirty Girl Gaiters her "Oprah project," meaning that she donates 100% of the profits to things like the Pacific Crest Trail Association and sponsoring runs, athletes, and her sons' sports teams (did I mention that she's also a mother of two?)  She started out sewing them all herself, but when things escalated to the point that she was taking vacation time from work to sew gaiters, she hired a crew.  Stymied by California's laws governing small-scale production and not wanting to outsource to a sweatshop overseas, she set up shop in Arizona, where five women now sew the Dirty Girl Gaiters.  She says that they are paid fairly, and I suspect that they are paid generously because she paid us more than we deserved for our efforts over the weekend.  Now, she calls the Dirty Girl business her Oprah project because she already has a hobby, and that is running ultra-marathons.  Yeah, that's right - this woman runs 100-mile races for fun.  I'm thinking of starting the Church of the Dirty Girl...    

On Saturday I ran into Bob, the trail angel who had taken me to the border to start the trail.  He didn't recognize me at first, and I hoped it was because he'd hosted so many hikers that season and not because I looked like such a dump after weeks of living outside and gorging on everything I could get my hands on.

Posing with Bob, the trail angel who took me to the trail head to start my hike

In the booth I developed a strategy for getting people to buy the gaiters.  There was a wide range of sizes, from XS through XXL, and although there was a sizing chart, people were generally not 100% sure which size they needed.  I found that if you chose the two sizes that were the most likely candidates and got the person to the sit down and try one on each foot, that it ceased being a question of whether to buy and became a question of which size to buy. 

Sweet Tart, Boy Toy, and the Dirty Girl

Adorable dogs love Dirty Girl Gaiters too.

That day I went to another seminar,

"One Pan Wonders
Bored with mac and cheese? Based on her popular books, Dicentra leads you through a culinary wonderland of backpacking cookery that reaches beyond the tired usuals of trail sustenance."

I'd cooked some pretty miserable trail food thus far, and was just hoping for some ideas.  Dicentra began her presentation with a little game.  Her assistants were Hoosierdaddy, who had weighed my pack, and Warner Springs Monty, who had gotten me my job with the Dirty Girl and made sure that I was one of the three volunteers chosen. 

Left to right:  Dicentra, Volunteer #1, Hoosierdaddy, me (Volunteer #2), Warner Springs Monty (showing off my shirt), and Volunteer #3

Hoosierdaddy and Warner Springs Monty blindfold the volunteers for the taste test

The game consisted of trying to identify common foods available at the type of convenience stores that hikers are often forced to resupply at, and you can see me playing it below:

Dicentra had developed her website, One Pan Wonders, in 2005-2006.  She had written her first book in 2006-2007, and had published it in 2008.  She'd been leading this seminar since 2009, and had published a second book in 2012.  Rather than pushing her books or even recommending specific recipes, her talk was focused mainly on some healthy general advice for hikers.  Here are some notes that I made:

• It's often worth the weight to carry some fresh food, like avocado, onion (pearl onions are small enough for one-time use), snap peas, and even apples.  Dehydrated fruits like sun dried tomatoes and dried apricots can also be great.  
• You may be drinking too much water, and flushing all of the salt out of your body.  Mix Emergen-C or powdered Gatorade into some of your water bottles to replenish the salts in your body.  
• Not being hungry on trail may be due to dehydration.  When you stop to make camp have something liquid (tea, miso soup, etc.) immediately, and by the time you finish setting up camp you'll probably be ready to eat.  
• Mix and match instant foods - for example, you can make the boxes of instant potatoes au gratin with salmon and pesto instead of with the powdered sauce that comes in the box.
• Try to carry foods that are more than 100 calories per ounce.  One great example is coconut cream powder, which can be bought at at Asian markets and used in drinks or in sauces.  I bought a packet from her and 30g (1.06oz) has 180 calories, 120 of which are from fat. 
• Eat high-fat foods right before bed to sleep warmer.
• Eat protein powder right before bed and your body will use it to mend itself while you sleep.

 She also recommended two companies:

• Packit Gourmet is a good alternative to the overpriced Mountain House instant meals.
• Minimus.biz sells travel-sized everything, from food to condiments to toiletries.

I stopped by her booth later that afternoon and bought her second book, One-Pan Wonders II.  While I've done nothing more than thumb through it while laying in a hotel room, it's already given me some good ideas and I'm hoping to come up with some workable trail recipes of my own in the next stretch of the trail. 

Yogi (author of Yogi's Guide to the PCT) and the Dirty Girl

Dirty Girl Gaiters modeled on dismembered feet, which are sitting on top of the caption contest

One zealous fan had sent the Dirty Girl a picture of himself, back to the camera, holding his trekking poles and naked except for his gaiters and shoes.  She had made a nice color printout (see the picture above), and invited visitors to the booth to come up with a caption for the picture.  I really, really think mine was the best:

"I forgot our safe word."

Boy Toy and Snort

Jessie had hiked to I-10 while I was with my family, and had made it down to kickoff too.

Billy Goat (a famous PCT personality) and the Dirty Girl

Me, the Lion King (another well-known PCT personality), the Dirty Girl, and Sweet Tart

In the afternoon there was a group photo of the 2013 thru-hikers:

The class of 2013 - you can kind of see me at the far left edge of the photo, I'm just below a guy with a blue shirt and leaning over a girl with a skirt and a big sunhat.

This was followed by a group photo of the 2012 thru-hikers who had completed the trail and returned to the kickoff as a reunion.  The photo seemed to be most meaningful to them, as they had all actually experienced this huge event of walking from Mexico to Canada. 

The only vendor of gear that I really checked out was Hyperlite Mountain Gear.  Mike, the founder, sold ultralight backpacks, tents, and tarps, made with a fabric called "Cuben Fiber."  I'd had some minor problems with my tent and been astounded by the atrocious lack of product support provided by Mountain Hardware.  I'd also been cowboy camping for the past week, and had been wondering if it was worth it to pack the tent the rest of the way to Kennedy Meadows (in the Sierras something is needed against mosquitos, so a simple tarp may not suffice after that).  Mike gave me a sweet deal on his smallest tarp, and since the tarps are generally pitched on hiking poles and I didn't have any, he gave me a cheap pair that he was using to hold up one of his displays.  I sent my tent, rainflap, and tent poles back to my family's house, stowed the tarp along with the tent pegs in my backpack, and decided to try out this new system at least as far as Interstate 10, and as far as Kennedy Meadows if it seemed to work. 

Mike of Hyperlite Mountain Gear

I had posted the car for sale on Craigslist, and in an incredible stroke of luck I sold it to a woman in Idyllwild, the exact town that I needed to get back to to restart the trail.  On the way I drove BoyToy back to Warner Springs, and the road went through Julian, where I'd eaten my first restaurant meal off of the trail in an awesome barbecue joint called the Smokehouse.  We stopped for lunch, joked with Sherri, the friendly proprietor,

Sherri of the Smokehouse

and ate with a pair of hikers who had thru-hiked in 2012 and returned to the kickoff as a reunion.  I'm abysmal with names but they had some interesting things to say.  One was that they had hiked very slowly, and had finished the trail in mid-October on snowshoes.  This buoyed my confidence, as I hadn't been covering ground particularly quickly and had at least three more stops planned on the trail. 

Look at her arm - she has both the map (below) and the seal (above) of the PCT tattooed on it.

In Warner Springs I didn't just drop the Boy Toy off, but went in to say hi to the staff that were there, and was horrified.  I had spent two days there, and during that time the size of the hiker crowd had ranged from no one besides me to maybe ten at the absolute maximum.  Right now there were probably 50, and whether due to the younger average age or simply due to the size of the crowd, the atmosphere wasn't as friendly as it had been.  Later, back on the trail, someone would mention taking some time off, and I would advise against it, saying  "there is a horde behind us, and they are kids."