Zero day in Julian

Katie and I just got done having pie and coffee for breakfast in Julian, CA.

We have hiked for 4 days and are at mile 78, so we were ready for a day off to shower, do laundry, sleep in a bed and just get off of our feet for a bit before we start back at it tomorrow.

Here is a quick recap of the past 5 days...

Day 1: Details are in my prior post.

Day 2: Not so awesome day. Our feet got sore quickly and we are figuring out how to strategize hiking in the heat (and it is just going to get hotter) by taking long breaks under shade during the heat of the day. Hiked about 21 miles that day to a campground that we expected would be open and have water spigots on...we were wrong on both accounts. We were thirsty going to bed, but knew we would be at a water source the next morning. Still no blisters but my feet and neck are a bit sore getting used to the miles and backpack.

Day 3: We hiked a mile to Mt Laguna where we were able to camel up on water and also go to the general store! We each scarfed down breakfast burritos and some other goodies; it was a great treat to start the day. Our intentions were to only go 14 miles but we didn't see the campsite (they are few and far between in this area) so we ended up hiking 17 miles. We are often carrying 5 liters of water which makes for a heavy pack but it is such a dry year that water is hard to find any many seasonal creeks are not flowing so we rely on water caches or troughs.

Day 4: Finally got smart and were on the trail by 6:15am. Met up and hiked with 5 others for 10 miles and made it to our water stop by 10:30. Hiking in the cooler weather helped a ton! We took a 6 hour break here to wait out the heat. The only bummer was the lack of shade, so we rigged up our ground cover using trekking poles, paracord and stakes to make our own shade. Several failed attempts later due to the wind blowing it down, we found a set-up that worked. I can guarantee we will be using this sunshade again, so I will try to remember to take a pic of it to post. We made our way out to Hwy 78 (and coincidentally mile 78) at 7:30pm to hitch a ride 13 miles to Julian but were unsuccessful, so we just camped on the trail nearby.

Day 5 (now): As I mentioned, we are in Julian for a full day of rest. We were able to check in early to a B&B and do a load of laundry that will hopefully get most of the dirt and smell off our clothes to last for about a day :-)  I just took an awesome shower and my toes are no longer black (again, that will only last for the day).

One unfortunate piece of news to report is we have decided to drop the badminton rackets as it is just too windy to play. Looks like we probably won't make it to the 2016 Olympics afterall.

On a side note, my favorite piece of gear so far is this food cozy we made out of a sun vizor. We put our dehydrated meal in a bag, add boiling water and then put the bag into the cozy. It is hydrating our food 50% faster and allows us more food options that require a longer cook time or that require you boil the meal for a certain time. Check Katie's blog for a picture of it.

Here are some trail stats after 5 days:
# snakes: 3
# showers w/ soap: 1
# pushups: 15...not very many but I have had a busy schedule :-)
# trail magic: 1
# nights not in a tent: 1

I'm going to attempt to post pics but am not sure how they will turn out as I am using an app that is not user friendly, so there will be no captions and probably not in order.