Monday May 3 – A Hard Day’s Night
Night time means its time to stop walking and make camp. It means an end to the day’s pains both physical as well as mental. Its to be expected that in 5 months of walking there will be some hard days and this was one of them.
The feet had felt ok the first two days after our rest in Warner. But today the right heel was in pain, from either some kind of bruise or deep blister beneath the callus, or both. Although it hurt, it was a tolerable level in the morning. By afternoon, each step was like a poking/ burning sensation. Try as hard as I could to not compensate for it I knew that my toes and calf were getting sore and cramped from accomodating the heel. If the average stride is 3 feet, or less n uneven terrain, then there are about 2,000 strides per mile, 1,000 with each leg. So the 22.5 miles walked today means that there was that heel pain about 22,000 times……..
But that only the physical side of the story. Today we only made 19.5 miles towards our goal of walking the PCT, the rest were not “trail miles” and in a sense “don’t count.” Along today’s section of trail, there was no water. At about 10 miles, roughly midway, there is the Paradise Cafe, a mile away on a road crossing and a mile back for a total of 2 “extra” miles. Not an easy road to hitch a ride on either. The Carrot waited while I fetched water and burgers.
Then at the end of the day we had to walk a mile off the PCT to find water and a place to camp, at Cedar Springs.
And last night’s promise of cooler temps proved to be false as the sun blazed away again today.
OK enough complaining, despite the heel, the climb up the desert divide was very scenic and the vistas of the Palm Springs area are stunning. Although at times its senseless swicthbacks and mindless ups and downs makes me wonder if it was built by a prison work crew intent on extacting revenge on hiker who might be out free and enjoying something that they were building under duress.
Still I can’t think of a place I would rather be. And the night always helps the body and mind to recuperate.
Some people have gone into or out of Idllwyld via the highway and someother hikers we have seen arrived late or lingered at the cafe, so the deck is shuffled again and we are camped with people that we have met just today or whom we haven’t spent much time.
