Tuesday, July 25, 2017

You just have to start....

OR, the one in which I ramble.

In 2013 I stumbled upon a blog by a guy who was walking the PCT as a through hiker.  He posted the most amazing pictures.  I have always loved walking and hiking.  I love taking pictures.  I thought Wow!  What a cool idea.
Time passes ... Then I saw the previews for the movie Wild.  A group of ladies I know had a book club and they picked Wild to read then we were going to see the movie.  I loved it.  So it started a spark.  I thought I would love to do something like this.  Not the whole thing.  I have no desire to hike in California where it's so hot you have to walk at night.  I don't want scary snakes and lots of other creepy crawlers. I also don't have a life I can just check out of for 5/6 months.  As lovely as that sounds, just not an option for us.  But wouldn't it be lovely to hike a section.  Just take a week or so and hike and take pictures.  Hmmm.  It did to me.
Last year a cousin and I made loose plans to do a small section.  She ended up not being able to go.  I was super sad and frustrated.  But life goes on.  We had our own issues and it was probably best in the long run to wait a year.
So my DaughterSisterFriend Anita is my hiking buddy. We have hiked so many miles together.  We started talking and training and planning and shopping. We decided we were going to do this! We are going to hike a section of the PCT.  We drug the boys on hikes they didn't want to go on.  We hiked hard hikes.  Every month we were hiking! Miles on our feet and packs to our shoulders. When we started planning our section we never took into account that we would have the biggest snows in years!  Sigh...  so we changed plans, again and several times again!  We were on plan Z.  But we were READY!  We decided to start on the Oregon side of the Bridge of the Gods and walk North to Trout Lake.  We wanted a 100 miles. I use the term WE loosely. I for some reason was fixated on 100.  For some reason that number was super important to me.  Anita and I both had lesson's to learn this week.  More on that later.  
My family was as supportive as they could be. They didn't understand the want to.  But they thought I could do it, mostly. :) Everyone was worried about people.  I wasn't at all.  I was worried about bears.  Cougars came into it too but mostly bears.  We took precautions. We had what we needed.  I think I was so preoccupied with allaying everyone else's fears I didn't really work on mine. Yet.
THE day came for us to leave.
A very short night and a super early morning.  Bugs and Anita sleeping on the way to the drop off site. 

Breakfast before we go. 

Cinch it up!

As ready as we are going to be.....
To be continued.......

1 comment:

  1. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

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