April 2019 - Page 2 of 3 - Jason Soden's Adventures

0 miles. Cool and cloudy, highs in the 50s, lows in the low 40s. Intermittent drizzle.

This is what’s known as a zero day. This is a day for rest and self maintenance. Zero days in town are sort of busy days. I did laundry, showered, and got stocked up for the next week, and went over logistics including upcoming possible camp sites, water, and snow reports. I’m still in IIdyllwild due to the snow that Mt. San Jacinto is supposed to receive.

I/we have made the decision to attempt to hike through San Jacinto, and not take a detour around it. I have my spikes ready! There will be a group of us working together to attempt to break through San Jacinito. There have been a few helicopter rescues off of this mountain in the last week, but nearly all did not have spikes and slid off of the mountain! If we work together, be careful and go as a team, we can make it through!

My body feels good after hiking 150 miles! I have a few hot spot, pre blisters, but they are under control. I also have a bunyon on my right foot that causes my right foot to wear unevenly, like a tire that is out of alignment. I play a cat and mouse game with blisters on that foot, but if I stay on top of it, it’s not really a problem.

We have a strategy in place for San Jacinto. After talking to a few locals and a ranger, we have been advised to start early, before sunrise, to get over as much snow as possible before it starts to get slushy, then stop as soon as the snow starts to get soft in the sunlight. The spikes on my shoes will work much better in the frozen snow, not so much in slush. So, tomorrow, we’re going to hike up to the base, then get up very early on Monday and get as far as we can before the snow turns soft.

My strategy is going to be once I get over Jacinto, I’m going to try and bust out ahead of the pack that I’ve been hiking with and grown to like, try and get a day ahead of them. Everybody will probably rest a day in the next town/campsites after the descent off of Jacinto is complete. I will then take 2 or 3 days off trail to rest my knee, then more than likely begin a day behind everybody that I’ve become friends with. I can catch up to them rather quickly.

There have been a few around that have began falling out due to injury or illness. Rich from Seattle is off trail battlilng a knee issue. Kevin from Germany had mail issues and ended up waiting 4 days for his mail! 2 others that I often Ferris’s paths with are currently sick and in the doctor’s. I’m guessing contaminated water. “Outlier” has foot issues, and Zach from NYC is battling some sort of foot issue, but the day off has helped some. Tom (Ace) has invited Zach and I out for pizza this evening, so I’m going to wrap this up and go eat some Idyllwild pizza, courtesy of Tom!!

But first, I must talk about “The Straggler”. A few of us were in the middle of a break on trail when this older, slightly heavyset man comes hiking up to us. He was hiking south, walking with his feet pretty severely pointed inwards. After initial greetings, he said that he’s headed to Canada. We all looked at each other and Zach said “Ummm, bruh, Canada is that way”, pointing backwards of where he was walking. He then asked us if we would give him a job, saying he was a scientist, but the government screwed him out of patents for cures for 31 diseases that he discovered. He explained that he found cures for 31 different diseases from the pheromones our face produces, but the government wouldn’t allow him to continue with human testing, after much success in animal testing. He then started talking about his previous career….IN HOLLYWOOD!! He said that he wrote the movies E.T., 300, Dead Poets Society, The Avitars, the Terminator series, amongst many others that I now forget. He knows Stephen Spielberg as a close friend, referring to him as “Ole Stevie”. And, he wrote all of the poems in Dead Poets Society. He went on talking about how he wrote all of these movies, but they left him off of the credits for some reason.

By this time, our break was over and we were all too eager to begin walking. At camp, we heard other hikers tell the same stories about the Straggler.