PCT Day 40: Fall at Your Feet

Day 40 6-27-2015       Sleep  2000 - 200
Miles 1782 – 1827
           
            Ahh, so much better.  It was nice and cool and I felt fresh.  I was still walking on the volcanic rock but that soon turned to dirt.  I hit the highway and crossed.  On the other side I was met by a wall of mosquitoes.  Now I grew up on some swamp lands in the northeast, but I had never seen mosquitoes this thick.  Usually, mosquitoes don’t bother me that much.  They land and I either swat them or they bite, but I don’t pay that much attention.  This was brutal.  I had two, three, four biting me every second.  I could not keep up.  I grabbed my thermal mummy and put it over my head.  It is the perfect bug net…except it is a thermal mummy and thus keeps the heat in.  It was okay in the early morning hours.  But as the sun rose and the temperature shot up, I was dying.  But hot was better than being eaten alive, sort of, kind of.  Well let’s try it.  No mummy.  This isn’t so bad.  A minute goes by and the mosquitoes most have caught onto my scent.  Okay, this sucks.  Mummy back on.  Ah no mosquitoes.  This is nice.  Eff this is hot.  And so we wind on down the trail. 
            Now I need to get water here at Christi Spring.  There is not much water on the trail for a long ways.  My plan would have been to sit there drink a bunch (camel up) and probably still carry three liters.  It is a lot to carry, but I feel that I have become perpetually dehydrated and that is helping fuel my break down.  Well, mosquitoes love the water and I swear they are ten times thicker at the spring then any where else.  So I improvise.  I was able to turn my pack around and pull out my bladder underneath the protection of my cloak.  But the mosquitoes are so thick they are able to get to me once in awhile through the mummy when it is flush to my skin.  Some even sneak up the bottom.  AHHHH.  I stand on two rocks above the spring.  I bend down, fill my bladder and drop in my iodine and run.  Shit I only got two liters, I thought the bladder was full.  Well I am not going back.  Just get more at the next one…
            I was hiking in my cloak and the hot hours were passing by with ease.  But I was running out of water.  It is okay, there is a creek up here in a few miles.  I drank my last water with the thought that in a mile I would have a full bladder again.  I walk and walk, no creek.  I think I see what used to be a creek.  But the water report says it is always running.  I am sure it is coming up.  An hour goes by nothing.  Two hours go by.  I start to worry.  Well where is the next water?  I look.  My best guess is a long effin way.  Shit.  There are lakes all around me, but most are a mile or more off trail.  Eff that.  Three hours go by.  I was feeling a piss coming on.  I decided to pee in my extra bladder just in case.  It was dark yellow and only amounted to about 10 fl oz.  FUCK.  Swearing helps.  I sat down and cried.  Crying does not help, it dehydrates you more and sitting still does not get you closer to water.  I get back up.  I am pissed.  Pissed at myself for botching the last fill up.  Pissed at the weather for being so hot and dry.  Pissed that I am going to have to drink my own piss.  Finally, I see a sign for snowy lakes.  It said .6 or .7, I can’t remember, but farther than I wanted to walk off the trail.  But I was just happy to not have to drink my own piss.  Turns out there was an upper pond/lake just out of sight from the PCT.  I walked maybe a tenth to fifth of a mile.  It was delightful.  I pumped and drank and pumped.  I filled up and laid there for thirty minutes.  I remember looking over and seeing some smoke on the other side of the lake.  I didn’t care.  I finally got up and filled up a final time.  I rinsed my extra bladder and I was on my way. 
My Savoir

            The whole ordeal behind me, I thought ‘alright, Imma gonna crush this shit now.’ But in reality, I expended a lot of energy being stressed and dehydrated.  My body was in rough shape.  After an hour of hiking I felt exhausted.  I laid down for an hour and watched the sun setting from an exposed ridge.  It was breezy and nice.  I didn’t want to leave.  But the mosquitoes returned to join the army of ants in making me uncomfortable.  I was trudging on now, like a drunkard trying to rally his friends to the next bar.  Eventually, the cool of night sobered me up and I was moving well again.  Why can’t it just be like this all the time.  Well, that lasted…my left foot started absolutely killing me.  Shooting pain from the distal head of the 4th metatarsal.  I fall to the ground, rip off my shoe and try to find the culprit.  I can’t.  It just hurts like hell.  I take out the trusty duct tape and rearrange my foot in a position that doesn’t hurt as much, in fact almost not at all.  Ha.  See I can fix anything!  Shoe back on, I am moving well once more.  I have a very high belief that I can work through/around anything that comes at me.  But now between my 4th and 5th metatarsal is aching and deep.  It feels like it is deep in the bone. Maybe a stress fracture? I don’t know.  Why don’t you just go to sleep and see if it is better in the morning.  Good call.  Sleep.  

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