This Makes No Sense At All

For hours, and sometimes days, we see no one as we walk. In France, at least we see someone at our lodging place at the end of the day. This is not a bad thing. It helps the transformation to the simple demands of the trail - food, shelter and persuading our body that this is normal, this is to be expected. As we settle into the daily routine, a new voice, the passing of a pilgrim, become major events. Later, as we think back on our experiences, we find the trip defined by the people we meet. Good friends for the moment, and then usually gone forever. For a few hours on the Arles trip we walked a while with Robert, the Solitary Walker . A few days later we kept meeting Celine, a French-Canadian pilgrim who helped us with our daily phone calls for lodging. Then they are gone or we are gone, each walking our own path. This is a strangely compelling existence. If you are thinking of walking in Europe, I would recommend the Le Puy route to Santiago as a good first experience, but on...

We're still plugging away at the East Bay Regional Parks Trail Challenge, trying to stay in shape for our next trip. A week or so ago, we did the Dell Valle suggested 10 mile trip, from the dam up nearly to the marina and back. A long, hot, up and down, and mileage mislabeled trip, as they frequently are (closer to 12 miles). Anyway, near the end of the return trip, I noticed this stick in the road that sort of looked like a snake, so knowing Susan is not too fond of snakes, I call out "hey, check out that stick in the road, doesn't it look like a snake?" She agrees, and as we continue walking towards it, the stick begins moving off the trail. We get up to it, and it is a fair sized rattlesnake, about three feet long. We didn't have our cameras, so just continued on back to our car. The thing that prompted this post was that yesterday I asked her if she had told anyone about seeing the snake - no, she had completely forgotten it, and it was no big deal. Well, ...

We finished the California part of the Pacific Crest Trail with this trip. Nice hike, though the altitude starting at the high end gave me a reaction somewhat like mild hyperthermia - headache the 1st day and sluggish and slow thinking the second. At a PopTart break, I was so beat, I grabbed a 2 minute nap in the trail: The section south from the northernmost crossing of the Kern River could use some trail maintenance. I really hate having to crawl under a tree with my pack on, but it is not quite as bad as pushing or pulling it thru. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a wolverine in the upper part of Cow Creek. Susan spotted it first, and asked if it was a bear cub. With that long bushy dark tail, it did not compute. We watched it run straight up the slope from the creek, about 60 feet away. Dark brown and golden brown with a fringe of sunlit hair on the sides. We weren't fast enough to get the cameras out, so another undocumented sighting. We tried the SticPic a ...

I've been busy getting our resupply box off to Crater Lake for our Oregon PCT segment in a few weeks. As long as I label it appropriately, I can include isobutane fuel. For the full story on mailing fuel, see Our pct page writeup . We've also learned a few more tricks on lightening our pack and reducing the volume. For weight, we have replaced dried fruit with tasty but pricey freeze dried freeze dried fruit. The original brand cut the serving size. We need at least 20 grams for a snack. An equivalent is Brothers 7 Variety freeze dried fruit . Pricey, but good.. You can get them at a discount at Amazon . We've gained space by repackaging the freeze dried dinners, the gorp and the jerky using Handi -Vac quart bags that we found in the supermarket. It is a hand sized vacuum sealer with special bags. About every seven bags or so, the seal fails due to some problem such as a sharp jerky point, or noodle point puncturing the bag, so check them a couple hours after...

My parents were in the National Park Service, so as part of their heritage they left us umpteen million photographs and a lot of home movies. The thing that struck me about the movies, some 60 years later, is how much I want so see images of people. I look at these unique movies of buffalo, bighorns, deer, moose, etc., but what I want to see is the faces of people I have known. In so many shots, the people are just an afterthought. The back of a head, a shoulder, distant views. Recently I've been scanning in old slides of Susan's old neighborhood from about 30 years ago. She has done a little better at capturing faces. The batter here is backpack45, but I what I appreciated was the shot of her in a Renaissance dress. Some of the others in that scanning are good examples of what I'd like to see: circa 1977 circa 1961

Did another of the East Bay Regional Park Trail Challenge hikes today. A nice route - starts at Little Farm, goes up to Nimitz Way, out for about three miles, down and back via Wildcat Canyon trail. Almost nobody out there due to the smoke warnings. We met one hiker early on, said he had seen a mountain lion a mile back. All we managed to see were cows. At our Pop Tart break, I decided to try the StickPic we had for testing. This is a little camera tripod like device that looks like a fat plastic ring, and fits on the end of the hiking stick. It worked fine and resulted in one of the few pictures we have of the two of us. However, Susan vetoed her image, so I had to abide by her wishes and just post the above.

Our backpacks were sitting there, ready to go for our now fire canceled 4 day backpack. Water bladders full, etc. With an open schedule, we turned to our East Bay Regional Parks Trail Challenge book for a hike to keep us in condition. Pleasanton Ridge, 7.5 miles, challenging was the description, so we went for it, me with my full backpack, and Susan with a fanny pack. It's a little tedious slogging up to the top of the ridge, but then the trail goes thru some ancient olive trees, and follows the ridgetop with shade when you want a break. The challenge route is a loop, and the back side goes by three cattle ponds. They look pretty stark - bare dirt surroundings with a small margin of green around the edge. I walked over to get a better look at the first one, and heard this bark-splash. I walked a little closer and more bark-splashes. About every 2 or 3 feet around the lake there was a frog head sticking out of the water about 2 inches from shore, with a few actually on shore. Eve...