I have a weight problem - Days 28-31

Day 28

Hiker Heaven to Mile 474.2 ~ 19.8 Miles

Hopeful to get a full nights rest, I wanted to sleep in a bit while at Hiker Heaven. Well I forgot about that one mean rooster... 6:15am that thing started squawking. Ughh well I guess an early wake up was meant to be. So I spent most of the morning at Hiker Heaven visiting with other hikers, fine tuning my gear, and just plain relaxing. Oh and there was a scale there so I was anxious to see where my weight was after almost 4 weeks on the trail. Before I left I weighed in at 173lbs. I stepped on the scale and saw a number that absolutely shocked me and made me a bit worried. 155lbs... yes that’s 18lbs. 18lbs in 4 weeks. I thought to myself, crap this is not good. I have not weight 155 since probably early high school. I thought I was eating enough on the trail but obviously not. I know it’s inevitable that I will lose a lot of my upper body muscle and that may be starting to contribute to this rapid weight loss. I am going to try my hardest to pile in as many calories as I possibly can in the next few weeks to see if I can gain some weight back. Fingers crossed.

After spending the early morning at Hiker Heaven I got a ride into town and went to the grocery store to resupply. I went overboard with the amount of food I bought, but with my recent weight issue I told myself it was necessary. After the store I went over to a restaurant and had french toast, eggs, potatoes, sausage, veggies, an English muffin and 3 Dr. Peppers. After piling the calories into my stomach, at about noon I was ready to hit the trail.

I ended up ripping off almost 20 miles from noon to 7:00pm that’s almost a 3mph average. I think my hiker legs are starting to make their debut.

Day 29

Mile 474.2 to Casa De Luna ~ 4 Miles

Today was an easy, short day coming into another fixture on the trail, Casa De Luna. This is the home of the Andersons, which let hikers hangout in their front yard and camp in their backyard. Terrie greets every single hiker with a big hug and the cooks dinner (taco salads) and breakfast (pancakes) as well! I got in around 10:00am and got to spend the whole day here. I hung out, met more hikers, had pizza for lunch, sat around and had some beer during the day then had a mini dance party to earn our PCT 2018 banners from Terrie. What a fantastic and memorable night!

Day 30

Casa De Luna to Mile 498.2 ~ 20 Miles

Before I left Casa De Luna I partook in the all you can eat pancakes! It was such a great way to start the day and pack in some calories. I got back on the trail at about 9:00am. Today was extremely cold and overcast. There has not been many of these days on Trail so I made sure I tried to embrace it. It did make the hiking easier but also made my breaks very short.

I made it to a camp spot that was exactly 20 miles from Casa De Luna and had tons of room to camp, so I am camping with about 10 other hikers that I hung out with last night. It’s fun to get caught in a bubble of hikers and see them during the day and camp with them at night. I know this won’t last long because people’s pace naturally drift the bubble apart.

I am currently bundled up in my tent, I have just about every piece of clothing I have in my bag on and I’m ready for a cold night.

Day 31

Mile 498.2 to Hiker Town ~ 19.4 Miles

Today marked a full month being on the trail! It also was a day where I was going to hike two miles and hit mile mark 500. Which is a really big milestone for me! It really hit me a couple miles after I hit the 500 mile mark. The weather all morning was cold and windy, then it cleared and the sun peaked through the clouds. I was walking through a beautiful section with low lying grass with little white flower buds peeping though the lush green fields. A sudden wave of emotion came over me and a couldn’t help but let it out. It felt really good. I don’t know if it was the beauty of the moment, or the big milestone of hiking 500 miles or maybe a little of both, but I felt really great and absolutely purely happy.