Sierra's Here I Come.

YAY, just reached Kennedy Meadows. Mile 702 and the official endto the desert. Going to enter the high Sierras nearly a month before the suggested entry date. 200+ miles without seeing a road here I come.

Videos, We Got Em...

Some-Mores

Glissade

Road Walk

Tunnel

Dead Hikers

500 Miles

Mailed off the Sierra Package

A big box has been mailed off to Shay. It includes his big boots and an ice axe for the high Sierra snow along with his bear proof container and some warming clothes.

The Last of the Southern Calif. Mountains

More Movies From the Trail Going into the Mojave

Horny Toad

Windy Spot

McDonalds ?

Slide Up?

Under I-15

The Big Mojave Desert

Reached the Mojave Desert and taking a well deserved break. I'm going to send out a food box for the sierras from Agua Dulce. I will be carrying a 12 day supply of food starting at kennedy meadows which means about 18 pounds of food. The weather in Southern California is still bi-polar, seeing as it is raining in the dry desert today and tomorrow.

Photos from the Mountains before the Mojave Desert

More photos from the trail:

May 9th Videos...

The trail at 300 miles:

A Bridge (what a treat):

Looking for a crossing :

How to cross a stream (Don't try this at home):

More Video From Big Bear Lake Section

Big Bear Area

Burn Area

Pack Animals

New Video From the Trail

Video from the southern Calif. mountains.

Video of outdoor living.

More Photos From the Trail

These photos at on the trail getting to Big Bear. They cover the high mountains w/snow down to the desert and up to Big Bear.

Enjoy...

Made it to I-15!!!!!!

Spent the night at Cajo Pass in a wonderfull Best Western split between several other hikers. The next section looks like fun, there will be a small detour today that is like 4 miles or something, But in the next couple of days there is a 40-ish mile section of the trail that is closed due to a fire and there is no official detour for it yet. May be a long road walk in my future.

Sending Food Boxes To Shay

Shay provided a mailing list and all of the food boxes for us to mail him at intervals over the hike. The USPO provides the new Flat-Rate boxes which work great.

The next food box to go out will be for Kennedy Meadows and will include:

- His Boots. He's been wearing hiking shoes so far. The Boots are for the Sierra snow.

- The Bear Safe. Enuf said.

- An Ice axe and maybe crampons for the Sierra snow.

Photos of the Start of the PCT Gathering

Here are some of the photos of the gathering at the start of the PCT. Enjoy.

The Olympus uTough Camera Lives!

This is Pa again. I opened all of the ports and panels on Shay's very dead Olympus uTough camera and removed the battery and memory card. I let it dry out over the course on the next week until I could not see any moisture left in it. Both Shay and I email Olympus about the water got the same reply, "send it in and we'll let you know what it will cost".

After a week airing out, I charged it up and up she came. Tried out all of the functions and the memory card and it appears good. The screen is not the best, I think we lost about 1/2 of the screen resolution, but hey, it works.

We'll send it back out to the trail when we have a box that is not yet full to mail.

Still doing that walking thing

Made my way up to Big Bear today, and will be spending tomorrow here also.

On the travels through the last section of the PCT we have discovered that the trail is Bi-Polar when it comes to what type of climate it wants to be in. The section started in desert, then proceeded to climb up, and up, and up. Eventually we were 6000 feet above our starting and happy to be out of the blistering heat. The next day we managed only 17 miles, 2 of which I'm glad to report were on a trail. The other 15 miles was on 5-10 feet of snow field with no sign of the PCT. Ice axes would have been helpful in more then one position but when you don't have something, find a new use for your paddle. The next day was the never ending mountain, we traveled from 8000 feet down to 1000 feet over a period of about 15 miles. Snow cover fields to scorching desert in about 5 hours. 2 days later we did the reverse and climbed the never ending canyon, and over a period of about 15 miles climbed from 2500 to 8000, and back into the snow fields.

There will be some great pictures and videos uploaded soon, as I will send them out tomorrow.

This section was defiantly like the land of Oz, full of lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

First Video From the Trail

Shay appears to be making friends along the trail. Here snakey-snakey.....

Enjoy, more to come.

First Casualty of the Trail

Well the Olympus u-Tough appears to be not so tough after all. The camera served well but the hot springs killed it. Not that hot (after all we were sitting in it) but too hot for the Olympus u-Tough-8000.

The memory card contacts shorted out and the LCD is peeling inside from the water and you can see water in the Flash, etc.

Dead, dead, dead.

At least the Kodak Zi8 HD video camera is working well. This will need to suffice for a while. The video quality is super and it's a still camera too. It does not pretend to be tough so it will avoid water at all costs.

Sure wish the Olympus didn't die. It was my 2nd Olympus Tough camera as the first one is sitting on a stream bed somewhere in Australia.