Day 7 : Nero and Kick Off

26th April 2013
Mile 106.5 to mile 109.5 : Eagle Rock to Warner Springs
Mileage : 3 miles + 1.5 bonus miles

A nero is a day where you don't hike very much, and today I only had to hike to Warner Springs in order to catch a ride to the Kick Off party, but that lift was due at 8am so it was has been driving y schedule these last few days. I broke camp at about 6am, finally got a good picture of Eagle Rock with the sun just creeping up over the horizon, and hiked up the trail until I hit Highway 79 and Warner Springs. Warner Springs does not consist of much, but crucially for PCT hikers there is a post office which receives resupply boxes. The trail does not actually pass through the town but instead skirts round it. I attempted to hitch for about 15 mins  with time running out til my 8am deadline I hiked the 1.5ish miles into town to the post office. Just as I was approaching the postoffice a car drove by me slowly and a voice called out 'Patrick?' My lift, Frank, had arrived right on time. I picked up my resupply box and my ankle support which had also arrived in time, got in the car and off we drove to Kick Off.

Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off
15 years ago a group of thru-hikers started meeting up over the last weekend of April to share what information they had back then about the trail conditions of the year. It has now snowballed into somewhat of a festival providing food and lodging for all that come, seminars and lectures about the trail conditions and dealing with specific issues such as bears or rattlesnakes, provide training for those new to equipment such as ice axes and crampons (not needed this year as it has been a very low snow year), and vendors of ultra-light equipment selling their wares. I made up my mind a while ago to attend the KO after the first week. I wanted to spend a week on the trail first though in order to gain a small amount of trail experience and have a reference point for everything I learned over the weekend. I arrived at Kick Off and became just another hiker amongst the 500 or so hikers going back as far as 1977. The first point of call was a shower. Before Kick Off my last shower was at a shine camp just after Mt Laguna, over 50 miles ago. I also pulled off my leukotape from my hips and feet in order to give them time to breathe before hitting the trail again in two days time. My hips, it is fair to say, have suffered. The problem was the belt/strap that came with my hiking trousers. It would ride up over the material of my trousers, dig into my hips and then would pinch the skin with the hip pad of my rucksack. Consequently I have lines of angry looking red skin that is slowly recovering (pics to come). My feet have also suffered to some degree, although oddly my two blisters don't seem to be anywhere that hurt, so I'm content to let them be and will not pop them. Finally clean after many applications of soap I was clean enough to relinquish the shower to the next filthy hiker. By the time I had found my allocated camp site I had met back up with Kat, Mr Green and Huckleberry Fin with whom I had been hiking up to Mt Laguna. I also met back up with Ben, Thyra and Angela from Portland who I also met the first day but hadn't seen since. I will slow up over the next few days and hopefully they will all catch me up. I've decided hiking alone is not really my thing so don't mind taking the time for them to catch up. I also figure that I will be able to put in the long days later on so lower mileage days won't matter so much right now. I spent the day sorting out my kit and admiring the whole host of lightweight kit available. I am trying not to spend money on kit improvements, but it is extremely difficult. My sleeping bag is a Softie 9, and although perfectly adequate, is over a kilo heavier than most of the latest sleeping bag designs. Shedding a kilo is tempting but for the moment I'm not prepared to spend that money when I already have good kit. I did, however, decide to buyt some Dirty Girl gaiters. Dirty Girl is a former PCT thru-hiker now running several cross country ultra-marathong a year who made her own lightweight gaiters and started selliung them. Gaiters are something I've never worn before but I am now I have to say I am definitely a convert, especially in the desert. I get all sorts of small stones and sharp bits of dry grass in my socks, so much so that I have to start every half an hour or so to take off my shoes and pick them out, so I invested in a pair of psycadelic gaiters which will keep the dirt for miles to come.

Apart from the gaiters I also managed to shed some stuff. I got rid of my second torch and knife, why I had two of those I do not know. I also replaced my very new plastic mug with the bottom of a water bottle but off. I only seem to use my cup/mug for scooping water for my filter so don't need anything so heavy. It might only be a few grams but it all adds up.

My kit sorted, for the moment anyway, I attended a seminar on stress and repetative strain injuries, which gave me also sorts of things to think about in the weeks a head. As my left ankle began to hurt a couple days ago, I started using my right foot much more and now the bottom of my calf/top of my achilles tendon are hurting. It would be ironic if my achilles heel turns out to be my achilles heel. The main thing I took away from the lecture was the fact the cardio-vascular systems and muscles adapt to the trail much more quickly than tissues like ligaments or tendons, and much more quickly than the skeleton. This means after a week or so after the initial aches and pains and blisters go away I will feel like I can push much harder than I should. With this in mind, and taking into consideration my various ankle pains I have decided to reduce my mileage to 12-13 for the next week. Again I figure I will have time to make up these miles later on. I think it'll be difficult forcing myself to take it easy when I know I can push harder. We'll see what happens.