August 18th
Yet another cool morning with a hint of fall in the air. We were tired from yesterday so slept in until 7:15am. Just as we were stating out, Strut and TW came by, last seen at the pizza stop. They have caught back up. They have been getting up earlier it seems.
My left heel still hurts pretty bad. It’s a sharp pain, a blister like feel without any obvious blister. Every step, every time, there is a sharp shooting pain. With approximately 600 steps of the left leg to every mile this means that there are these shooting pains about 30 times each minute which means 1800 times each hour or about 16,000 times each day. But who’s counting?? Fortunately the mind releases endorphins or some similar type of chemical, maybe a stupidity drug, and blocks or dulls the sensation. After the first mile or so the heel doesn’t seem to hurt so bad. Ah, but the pain is still there. It’s like the crying baby in a public area, whose parent is immune to the screams, the sound is still annoying. Advil seems to help too – if not the pain, the numbing. Later on, as the left heel feels better, or at least more numb, the right heel reactivated an old blister.
We met the “Lees”, southbound section hikers who recognized us from our journal, website and its photos, and remembered the genesis of the nowhere man name. They had read the journals of several hikers and were hoping to meet some of the people whom they had been reading about. Now, I always thought groupies are supposed to throw their panties or something like that at us?? I guess considering the stench that even section hikers develop its just as well that they didn’t do that. They did confirm that there is basically no one only one day ahead of us and that there are many hikers two days ahead.
Speaking of “nowhere man” the three girls supposedly met a southbounder yesterday going by that name, although we did not. An imposter, a poser for sure, as there is only one Nowhere Man…
The morning was mainly a walk through viewless forests and rolling plains. The highlight was our first glimpse of the “South Sister,” an impressive sight even though filtered through trees.
We caught up to Tigger who had passed us at breakfast and walked into Elk Lake with her. Burgers, sodas and ice cream made the mile plus detour worthwhile.
Back on trail after a 1 3/4 hour break we returned to viewless trees for the next several miles with South Sister coming into view a couple of brief times until finally we arrived on the Wickieup Plain and she dominated the scene. Starting our hike past her ancient lava flows we crossed several small streams finally camping at one with a grand view of her, radiant in the evening light.
It was a beautiful night for stars, clear and not too cool. A couple of meteors, a little late but still hanging around from the recent Perseids meteor shower blazed past us. – Powerful omens……
