Day 12 – Feel (and see) the burn
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: My first 30 mile day! With 7,400′ of ascent and 3,000′ of descent. Ouch.
Today’s my birthday! That means basically nothing out on the trail, but it meant that I got to eat all of my good food today. Like a Snickers for breakfast! Oh man was it delicious.
The first half of my day can only be described as hell. It was awful. I knew that yesterday when I decided to give myself a giant climb as a birthday present, but that doesn’t make it any better. It was mile after mile after mile of steep climb with no end in sight. I very literally had to take it one step at a time because my legs were starting to give out. Very bad. The scenery was pretty cool as we followed a stream for miles and then walked through fire-damaged forestland, but even seeing such amazing things can do so much for morale. The flowers sprouting in between the burnt trees were pretty cool though.
The main issue with today was a lack of food. I knew that I was cutting it close on food for this stretch, but I did not factor in how much energy a sustained climb takes. As such, I was rationing my food all day and only eating a snack every two hours or so. This is the equivalent of throwing a thimble full of gasoline into a sputtering engine and expecting it to run. You get SOME result, but it’s definitely not as powerful as you want. Luckily, I fixed this problem with my birthday dinner. I had an untouched Mountain House freeze-dried chicken and rice meal with three servings inside, so I knew I could count on that for some calories. I made it into burritos with some tortillas and BAM! I was juiced up and ready to go!
At this point the climbs had gotten more gradual, so I was feeling good and hiking quickly. I wasn’t sure where I could make it, but I wanted to be in good position to get into Big Bear Lake for breakfast on Friday. Speaking of big bears… apparently there’s a zoo on trail for movie animals? Lions and tigers and bears? Oh my!
At this point I was still cruising, but I was running out of steam. I contemplated stopping at the next point of interest on the map, which just so happened to be a dumpster full of trail magic from the Big Bear Hostel! With some soda and a banana from the generous trail angels, I was ready to roll again!
I hiked for a while, saw my first scorpion, and called it a night at mile 30! It honestly feels like this was longer than one day, so I essentially got extra birthday to celebrate! 🎉 Yay me!
