An E-mail from The Pacific Hiking Trail

My cousin, Dawn, who is 20 days older than I, loves to hike - in a very serious way. I hike two miles and sleep like the dead from the unbelievable effort made... she hikes miles and miles in a day and lives outside for most if not all of the trip. Here is the first installment of her latest adventure:

"Hi Friends!

I just finished writing this ridiculously long email, and you can read as little or as much as you like. I know that many of you were very curious about what it was like to hike a long-distance trail and asked that I email you along the way with my highlights... so here's my best effort to keep things interesting for you.

I hope you'll all email me while I'm on the trail and keep me up to date with how you're doing. Although I love being out in the woods and the beauty, peace and quiet, I also miss being able to talk with all my friends and family!

Love, Dawn

Day 1 - I started on the trail last Monday afternoon (6/14) from Kennedy Meadows. KM is considered to be the end of the desert and the beginning of the High Sierra Mountain range, but you could have fooled me. It was almost 100 degrees at 5,500 feet, and not much vegetation was growing in the gray-beige sand except scrubby, scratchy manzanita brush and the random pine tree. Wildflowers were abundant, though, growing straight up out of the sand. I've never seen anything like it. Those little flowers are tenacious! I don't know how anything that delicate can survive in this blazing bone-dry heat.

I hiked five miles to Crag Creek, an oily little trickle of a watersource where I planned to camp. Thank heavens I was carrying my nifty new Steri-pen, which is reputed to render all harmful bacteria instantly impotent, and weighs a piddly 6 oz. That is, it would have been nifty if the stupid pen would actually turn on. So there I was, sitting by this disgusting little creek, feeling stupid as I wrestled with my new water purification gadget, realizing that I'd broken a cardinal rule of backpacking - always test new gear at home before you use it.

I was forced to boil water to purify, feeling rather smug about having brought extra denatured alcohol for my stove. The smugness began to leak away as I noticed exactly how much fuel I was having to burn in order to get the job done.

The moon was full on my first night of camping. I was all alone, despite the many thru-hikers who I'd seen lined up along the porch at the Kennedy Meadown General store kicking back against porch railings, drinking and eating, and simply enjoying not having to hike in the heat of the day.

After the long trek through the Mojave, I'd want to stay right there by the ice-cold beverage cooler for a little while, too. So I settled down for the night and made sure that everything that smelled even a little was secured in my bear canister 150 feet from my tent. The canister alone weighs over two pounds, but at night I'm glad I have it. The bear may play soccer with it, but they'll never get inside it.

Day 2 - The next morning I meticulouly covered all exposed skin with 75 SPF sunblock and hiked 7.5 miles to the Kern River, which looked more like what I'd imagined the High Sierras should look -- a gushing knee-deep river lined by emerald green meadow. A little piece of heaven after a day of being fried by the sun.

My uber-sunblock proved to be up to the altitude challenge, though I noticed by evening that I'd missed a small spot on the left side of my lower neck that now looked like raw meat. At least, that's how Tex and Karen, the two thruhikers who I camped near, described it to me when I asked them why my neck felt like somone had been slapping it. In the scheme of things, I figure it was a cheap lesson to learn.

If I'd been more lax about sun protection this morning, I'd be stuck in the tent feeling like a cripple for the next three days, waiting to be be able to go back out into the sun, and begging for any extra food from any passing hikers.

At this point in my life, I feel like I'm finally wise enough to realize that I don't know it all yet, and that ignorance and hubris are more dangerous than any wildlife I'll meet up here, and much more likely to kill me... so I started this trip determined to err on the side of caution when it comes to food, fuel, water and sun protection. Good thing too, because the radiation up here is brutal.

I talked for a few hours with the thruhikers about their 700 mile walk through the Southern California section, mostly listening as they regaled me with their tales of woe that mostly had to do with hiking against 40 mph winds through the wind-farm area, crossing long arid stretches in between water sources (up to 30 miles, at one point), rattlesnakes, scorpions and constantly feeling dehydrated. Suddenly I wasn't so sorry to be starting at Kennedy Meadows.

Day 3 - I started hiking at 7:30am, and must have taken a picture of every different flower I passed. Even as I was doing it, I realized that most people would find these pictures less than interesting, but dammit -- I was carrying this new 10 megapixel camera, and I was determined to get my money's worth.

I hiked 14.7 miles to Death Canyon Creek today, and the views were tremendous. I saw the Sierra range for the first time, and they were spectacular. Not nearly as snowy as I'd pictured as I scoured the guidebooks, but I wasn't disappointed.

I can mail my heavy crampons back home at Lone Pine. Every ounce I can take out of my pack will make this trip more comfortable. And I need to have a come to Jesus talk with myself in Lone Pine about just that, because my pack is extravagantly too heavy at the moment.

Most of the thruhikers are managing to carry a base pack of between 13 to 25 pounds, and mine is far more than that.

Day 4 - Hike 16 miles to Horshoe Meadow Campground, which is 2 miles down off the PCT, and where I can hitch into Lone Pine. Sixteen miles was too much for my fourth day.

What was that I said about hubris and ignorance? Hmmm....

It was too tempting to try and stay with the other thruhikers today. They said that they were feeling noticeably more listless and sluggish, and they didn't know why -- but we all agreed that it was probably the sudden change in altitude. It was our first day over 10,000 feet, and we all felt wiped out by 4pm. As we all sat around a side trail to the last watersource for 7 miles, we debated just camping there.

I kept imagining how hard it would be to hitch a ride at the campground, and I wanted to get there so I'd have more time to yogi my way into a free ride, so I ended up slogging on the last 5 miles to the campground.

The last mile across the sandy stretch of trail felt like a death march. I vaguely remembered feeling this way during the beginning of my Appalachian Trail hike, so I consoled myself with the knowledge that I'd probably feel much better in the morning.

Day 5 - And I was right. I could actually walk without wincing when I woke up in the morning. As I minced into camp the previous night, I met Alex - an extremely cool 42 year old backpacker from Russia/Israel whowas busy showering up out of his hippymobile. This guy owned the oldest VW van I've ever seen, complete with broken clutch issues and a missing muffler. I can only imagine how many stories that van must hold.

Early in the morning, we pooted our way down the 22 mile of winding, guardrail-less mountain road down the 6,000 feet drop to the desert floor. I was seriously grateful to have found a ride so easily, because I couldn't imagine having to hike it. It was only 7:30am, and already it was smokin' hot and searingly dry.

Lone Pine is small little town with one main drag. However, it has all the amenities a long distance hiker requires -- free internet access, post office to mail out/receive packages of food and gear, a laundromat to clean our poisonously smelly clothes, a plethora of cheap places to stay ($45/night at my motel), a full-service supermarket and a hardware store (to buy denatured alcohol for our cookstoves).

Weirdly, this particular town sports about 5 outfitter stores, all within the space of 3 blocks. I'm still trying to figure out how they all stay in business. This town is small. And did I mention that my hotel has a pool? Yeahhhhh, baby. It's 100 degrees down here in the valley. Life is good at the Dow Villa. During the afternoon, I noticed that my knees were swelling up from yesterday's ridiculous trek, so I'm going to allow myself an extra rest day before hiking back up to 11,000 feet with a heavy, fully resupplied pack.

Day 6 - I'm writing to you beautiful people, and running errands in town. I managed to take about 5 pounds of this and that out of my pack, which should make things more comfortable. I'm going to go have a swim in the glorious pool and think about all my British Swim School friends and how they're all likely laughing at my bitching about the furnace-like heat because they all live in South Florida. I'll do a lap of butterfly and remember them fondly today."