Here we go!!!

Tomorrow (/tonight) we drive up to Arnold to stay with the folks. Saturday Liana, Robb and I drive into Yosemite to park their car in Tuolumne Meadows, leave my food stash somewhere safe(!!), and pick up the permit. And Sunday, we hike!

Here's the planned itinerary. The total mileage doesn't quite add up; I seem to be about 3 to 5 miles short, but that shouldn't be a problem (unless I'm off by 5 miles on one day). Lots of climbing in that last week...

Sunday, Aug. 10: Happy Isles to Illilouette Basin. I'll have to ask the rangers where exactly we're supposed to camp because I'm not sure (supposedly it's pretty obvious). I'll also have to figure out how to pronounce Illilouette. 6-7 miles. ~2,000 ft elevation gain.

Monday, Aug. 11: Camp somewhere between the Merced Lake trail junction and Sunrise High Sierra Camp. 9-10 miles. ~2,000 ft gain.

Tuesday, Aug. 12: Cathedral Lake. 8 miles. ~1,000 ft gain.

Wednesday, Aug. 13: I drop Liana and Robb at Tuolumne Meadows (3 miles). Camp around the Evelyn Lake trail junction. 11-12 miles total for me. ~0 ft.

Thursday, Aug. 14: Donohue Pass, 11,060 ft. Camp at Marie Lakes trail. 9 miles. ~2,200 ft gain.

Friday, Aug. 15: Island Pass, 10,205 ft. Camp at Trinity Lakes trail.  14 miles. ~500 ft gain, ~1,000 ft loss.

Saturday, Aug. 16: Resupply! I should hit the Red's Meadow store midday. I'll hopefully have lunch there and pick up my resupply. Then camp around the Deer Creek crossing (I've read that Deer Creek can sometimes run dry, so I may have to camp a mile or two before or after). 12 miles. ~1,300 ft loss, ~1,500 ft gain.

Sunday, Aug. 17: Virginia Lake! 11 miles. ~1,400 gain.

Monday, Aug. 18: Silver Pass, 10,750 ft. Camp at the Edison Lake trail. 13-14 miles. ~1,600 ft gain, ~3,000 ft loss.

Tuesday, Aug. 19: Bear Ridge! Camp at Three Island Lake trail. 11 miles. ~2,100 ft gain.

Wednesday, Aug. 20: Selden Pass, 10,890 ft. Camp near the trail that cuts off from the JMT to go to Muir Trail Ranch. But I probably won't get my resupply until the next morning. 10 miles. ~900 ft gain. ~3,000 ft loss.

Thursday, Aug. 21: Resupply! Also, this will be my first step on the section of the JMT I've never been on before (into King's Canyon). Yee! Camp in McClure Meadow. 10 miles. ~2,000 ft gain.

Friday, Aug. 22: Muir Pass, 11,980 ft. Camp at Starr Camp. I don't know much about this place. 14 miles. ~2,400 ft gain. ~1,500 ft loss.

Saturday, Aug. 23: Deer Meadow. 13 miles. ~1,400 ft loss.

Sunday, Aug. 24: Mather Pass, 12,100 ft. My spreadsheet tells me I'm camping near a crossing of the Main South Fork Kings (river). 12 miles. ~3,300 ft gain. ~1,200 ft loss.

Monday, Aug. 25: Pinochet Pass, 12,130 ft. Woods Creek. 12 miles.~2,100 ft gain. ~2,700 ft loss.

Tuesday: Aug. 26: Michael!! He joins me from Onion Valley after crossing Kearsarge Pass. I have Glen Pass, 11,940 ft. We'll probably camp at either Charlotte Lake or a little further south, depending on when we meet up. 14 miles. ~3,500 ft gain. ~1,200 ft loss.

Wednesday, Aug. 27: Forrester Pass, 13,100 ft. Camp at Lake South America trail. 14 miles. ~3,600 ft gain. ~2,000 ft loss.

Thursday, Aug. 28: Crabtree Meadow. 9 miles. ~0 ft.

Friday, Aug. 29: Whitney!! We should get to the top around midday. We'll decide then if we want to try to camp out on top, or make our way down to Trail Camp for the night. 12 miles if we do Trail Camp. ~3,800 ft gain.

Saturday, Aug. 30: DONE! 6 miles. Lots and lots of downhill.

Four days!

Tonight I dropped some food and gear off with Michael (who will be joining me about 15 days in), plus a bag of clothes to change into at the end of my hike. The end! Imagine that. Annie, Michael and I went out to dinner, and then we said goodbye, and it was a little sad, and a little terrifying, and also kind of awesome because goodbye means I'm almost there. It means a little over three weeks until hello!

Back at home I went through everything I'd packed and ruthlessly pruned my gear and my food and my clothes and all the other odds and ends. I think I took out a pound or so, but I put back a pound or so in other stuff I hadn't yet packed, so I'm still at about 38 pounds. But I'm pretty sure I've got the bag packed the way I want it now. I already kind of love this backpack -- aside from the water bottle pockets that don't really work, it's very versatile. And it's comfy when I put it on, although I'm not expecting to feel that way at 10,000 feet and counting. Anyway, I've still got to add water to the pack, plus lunch for the first day, which means I'll be coming in at more like 42-44 pounds, which isn't great but doable. I don't think there's much more I can cut, although I'll definitely be tearing pages out of my book as I go. (Probably not burning them Cheryl Strayed-style -- I plan on having very few, if any, fires.)

Tomorrow I'll post an itinerary, so folks at home can follow along if they like. I haven't decided if I'll link to Facebook yet.

Six days...

Tonight I made my last trip to REI (probably!). The cashier actually recognized me. Awesome. Even more awesome, Robb helped me come up with a system of clips and cords to attach my water bottles to my pack. Love it! We grabbed a few cords and practiced on one of the packs at the store. (The employee there was not helpful -- when I asked for his advice, he said, "Buy a bladder." Um, if I wanted to use a bladder obviously I wouldn't be trying to attach bottles to the pack. Bladders are fine for some people, but the sipping nozzle kind of grosses me out, and I also like to take my water bottles around with me, like into the tent.) Anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to go through my pack very carefully and try to take out bits and pieces I don't need just to keep the weight down. I can probably lose some of the food, at least. Maybe one or two items of clothing? A few items from my first aid/emergency kit? It might be tough to keep it under 40 pounds. But whatever, I hiked most of the Whitney trail a few years ago with what had to have been a 50-plus-pound pack, and we had to trudge through a lot of snow and I was sick, so 42 or so pounds should be manageable. I really don't have a great sense of my fitness level at the moment (crazy to be thinking that just a few days before I head out) but I'm counting on a couple of years of marathon-level running fitness to help keep me going.

I keep waiting for the regret or doubt to creep in, but there's none of it. It's weird, I expected to have moments -- maybe long, very serious moments -- of questioning my sanity and wanting badly to back out of this trip. Yes, I've been wanting to do this hike for so long, I think since we used to backpack when I was a kid and I thought how cool it'd be to do the whole damn trail in one go. I always thought I'd like to do it someday. But I also always thought it seemed too big, and "someday" probably meant "never." And it is big, and I'm scared. And I'm super excited more than anything else!

One week!

This time next week I'll be in a tent on my first night on the John Muir Trail! Well, not technically the JMT on that first night, since I have to do a little detour. But still!

Planning's going well. I did a couple of dry-runs on the packing this weekend. I need to come up with a way to strap my water bottles to the new pack -- the side pockets I'd usually use won't work when the pack is fully stuffed -- but I've got some ideas that should work. Otherwise, I've been able to get everything in there just fine, with some creative arrangements. I'm rolling my jacket and sleep clothes into the Thermarest to make more room in the central pack, and I can strap down clothes on the outside during the day when I want them to dry after a wash. The pack is coming in at about 38 pounds. With water that should put me at around 40, which is the goal.

A couple of weeks ago Liana did me the huge favor of making all of my trail mix and dividing it into snack bags. SO MUCH TRAIL MIX. That will be the bulk of my snacks. The food planning has been the most complicated, just because I had to divvy it up among several resupplies -- a bag for Tuolumne Meadows, mailed buckets for Red's Meadow and Muir Trail Ranch, a bag for Michael to bring to me at Charlotte Lake. But it's going to be so convenient to split the food up like that and alleviate a lot of the weight issues. The resupply buckets have both gone out (fingers crossed they actually make it to their destination!). Aside from one or two dinners in the first three days with Liana and Robb, and a "fresh" lunch for the first day, all of my meals are packed and ready to go.

I've done one more thorough check of the itinerary and marked all of my planned camping spots, using GPS coordinates and the go-to JMT manual. I still want to do one last check to confirm the mileage and get a sense of what each day will look like in terms of elevation gain.

The planning's honestly been fun, but I'm super excited to just be out there. I feel really ready to go. Nervous, yes, but just an unspecified kind of anxiousness. I feel really prepared and confident I've covered my bases. Which -- one week. I'd better be ready!

Shopping!

Three days, three insane shopping trips.

Monday: Berkeley Bowl. I spent an obscene amount of money, literally none of it on fresh produce, which I think may be illegal in Berkeley. I was actually a little embarrassed checking out, but then the bagger smiled and said it looked like I was going camping. "Backpacking," I said, and she laughed. I think I spent about half an hour just in the section with nuts and dried fruits and organic snacky things (so many to choose from!). They were out of the yummy coconut chews I discovered a few weeks ago, so I guess those won't be going in the resupply buckets.

Tuesday: Annie and I hit Target. I bought more snacks, some treats for the resupply (Pringles! Goldfish crackers! Snickers!), and a few travel-sized toiletries.

Wednesday: REI again. I finally got my underwear and a sportsbra and socks, plus a few things to round out my first aid kit and some other odds and ends. I also returned the two extra backpacks, which was satisfying. Then it was off to Home Depot for 5-gallon buckets to send my resupplies, and one more stop at a different Target to pick up the couple of things I couldn't find at the first one.

And now I think I'm DONE. Well, for this week, anyway. I should have everything I need for the resupplies (plus plenty of extra for the rest of the trip). Now I have to bag all of my meals, which will take a few hours this weekend. The good news is I realized I don't actually have to send the buckets until Monday, so I won't be rushing to put them together tomorrow and Friday.

Tonight's backpacking dinner: Beefy Noodles (I didn't name it -- that was the recipe I found online. I would never call something "beefy" because that's gross.) It's beef jerky, ramen noodles, onion soup mix, dried veggies, some garlic, ginger and cilantro, and then soy sauce on top. It was fine. Not my favorite, but you can't really go wrong with ramen noodles and soy sauce. I might skip the beef jerky and add chicken or tuna instead. But it was very easy and super filling, so I'll call it a win.

And here's the disaster that is my kitchen right now. (The Aero bar in the middle? Eaten.)

One more note that's possibly (probably!) TMI: yes, there is a pack of OB tampons in one of the bags. I mean, three weeks, I'm probably going to be bleeding at some point. Many months ago, Shizu wisely suggested I consider going on the pill so that I could arrange to not have a period during the trip, and I did think about it but finally decided I didn't want to deal with the pill for several months. Then a few weeks ago I seriously considered the Diva Cup, but from what I've read it takes a few cycles to really get the hang of it and I don't want to be fussing with something like that out in the wild. I'm kind of annoying with myself for not thinking about that earlier, though, because damn, it'd be so convenient. I've never been all that into the idea of a Diva Cup but it kind of seems like it was made for backpacking. Oh well!

And still so much to do

I had a very productive day today -- in large part because I realized last night that I need to send out my two resupply tubs this coming Saturday. Yikes!! So I needed to firm up my food plans for the five days in the Red's Meadow resupply and the six days in the Muir Trail Ranch resupply. It took a couple of hours, but I've got all but three dinners figured out. I'm going to screw around with a couple of ramen-based dinner recipes tomorrow, and if those work then I'll use them. Otherwise, I'll just fall back on a few freeze-dried meals from REI. And speaking of meals, I tried another one tonight that included orzo, dried tomatoes, parmesan and tuna and it was DELICIOUS. Like, really really yummy. I'll have to save it for nights when I've got a "fresh" supply so the cheese is an option, but I'm excited about it.

Tomorrow I have a monster shopping trip planned to buy all of my breakfasts/lunches/dinners/snacks for those 11 days. I'll worry about the rest of the days later (I still have a few weeks). I also need to buy two tubs to mail the resupplies, and figure out what other stuff needs to go in them -- batteries, toilet paper, sunscreen ad toothpaste, socks and underwear, etc. No sweat.

In addition to doing a bunch of meal planning today, I got out most of my equipment and piled it all in the living room. I'm pretty well set! Still to do:

-Thin out the first-aid kit. (Sounds like a bad idea, but my kit has waaaaaaaay more stuff than I need, and it's super heavy.)
-Decide what clothes I'm bringing.
-Figure out how much fuel I'll need and make sure I've bought it all (or know how much to buy at Muir Ranch).
-Buy spare batteries/memory cards for my camera.
-Buy a new bandanna. I lost mine at Tilden last week!
-Go over my itinerary again. And again and again and again.
-Buy a watch (from Target).
-Arrange for stuff to borrow from James and Shizu for the folks joining me.
-Buy extra socks/underwear/sportsbras. (I couldn't find what I was looking for online.)
-Finish meal planning for the rest of the trip.
-Practice packing my bag.
-Buy new stuff sacks to hold clothes, toiletries, etc.
-Buy cords/ties as needed.
-Finish the Spot subscription so the SOS feature actually works.
-Figure out what book(s) to bring.
-And what journal I'm going to use.
-Build tent/blow up air mattress/start stove -- ie, test all equipment that needs testing.
-Try to replace the battery in my Swiss army knife so the altimeter works.

OK, that's the list for now. I swore I wasn't going to do a to-do list yet, but it's been kind of driving me crazy having all of these plans swirling around my head.

Far more fun: I went for a nice 7-mile hike with Michael and Camper on Saturday. So pretty in Redwood Regional! We tackled a pretty steep, long climb so it felt like a good workout.

And now, pictures of Camper tuckered out last weekend. Too much hiking!

Take all of my money, please

Big moment yesterday: I think (hope!) I made the last of my big (expensive!) purchases.

I dropped by REI after work to get a new sleeping pad and a Spot, which is like a big SOS button in case anything goes horribly wrong. Of course I had to wander through the backpacks again, and yay, they finally had the backpack I've been looking for in the size that had been recommended. I tried it on and walked all around the store with it, and I'm glad I did because it's obvious now that the small is a much better fit for me than the medium. So now I've got to return the medium, but whatever -- it's not like I won't need to stop by REI a million more times between now and the hike (which is a month away from tomorrow!).

Last weekend I did a bunch of hiking with Camper. I found an awesome 8-mile loop around Tilden. And I think I figured out how to get from Redwood Regional to Lake Chabot, which should be about a 12- to 13-mile roundtrip hike. I'm thinking I'll try that one this weekend, or maybe finally tackle that 8-mile Briones hike, depending on how much time I have (and who wants to join me -- I wouldn't take Camper on a 12-mile hike, anyway).

In food news, tonight I tried another quinoa recipe that was much improved over the last ones. This time, I added the dried veggies (seasoned tomatoes and zucchini that I got at Berkeley Bowl) to the quinoa while it cooked, and the texture was much improved. Then I stirred in some olive oil, pine nuts, and a good pinch of salt. Very tasty! I did another batch with dried kale added after the quinoa was done (I figured kale wouldn't need as much cooking as the other veggies) and almonds instead of pine nuts. I only had a bite or two of that -- I'll eat the rest for lunch tomorrow -- but it tasted pretty good too.

Still SO MUCH TO DO to get ready for this hike. Yeesh. I'm not even going to make a list here because it'll just look overwhelming. Instead, my goal for the night: buy socks, underwear and sports bras online. Classy.

Quinoa. Everywhere.

I experimented with quinoa for dinner tonight -- tried two backpacking recipes with mixed results, I guess.

The more successful was quinoa with dried cherries and roasted pine nuts; the less successful was quinoa with wasabi edamame and dried mushrooms. For both of them I fully cooked the quinoa, then split it into two tupperwares, mixed in the other ingredients and let sit (covered) for another minute or two. I think the edamame one needed more cooking for the mushrooms and edamame, so I'd probably just boil them along with the quinoa; plus, it could use more salt. The cherry one could probably also use some more salt and fewer cherries (they're a little overwhelming on the sweet/tart). I might try adding a splash of olive oil to each of them too.

Anyway, they're both edible, very easy to make, and will probably taste 300 times better after a day of hiking.

And speaking of food -- the cake!

It's hard to know what to eat

I finally made a stab at meal-planning this weekend. Fortunately, I still have the plan I used for last year's 10-day trip, which will obviously be the foundation for this one. Unfortunately, I've never had to take charge of dinners before. Plus, I'm hoping to do all (or most, anyway) of my meals "from scratch" rather than using the prepared freeze-dried entrees. So that's going to take some more planning.

I've got breakfasts figured out. That's easy -- oatmeal with raisins most days, with Kind bars to substitute when I'm feeling lazy (or sick of oatmeal), plus coffee mixed with hot cocoa powder. Lunches need some fine-tuning, but I've got a lunch planned for every day of the trip. I'm sure I'll be moving stuff around once I put some more thought into the timing of resupplies. Here are my basic lunch plans:

1) Triscuits, salami, cheese (for as long as it lasts), dried fruit
2) Pita, peanut butter, cheese, dried fruit
3) Triscuits, tuna, cheese, dried fruit

I'll be throwing in a couple of bagels from resupplies and "fresh" fruit when I can. Yes, I'll be sick of cheese and dried fruit, but I can mix up the fruit, at least. And I know from previous experience that the above foods hold up pretty well on long trips. Even the cheese I should be able to use for three or four days.

For dinner, I hunted down 10 recipes that I think I can manage. I'll need to test them out -- hoping to have an awesome dinner party for my friends sometime soon. And whatever, if they all suck I can fall back on the prepared stuff.

So now I need to: confirm lunches; test and confirm dinners; SHOP for my resupplies; and get resupplies in the mail, hopefully in the next two weeks.

Today's hike was about 8 miles around Tilden. It was the first long(ish) hike I've done in Tilden, and my first totally solo (no Camper!), and it was fun. Tilden kind of sucks at trail-marking so I missed one key turn and hiked about a quarter mile in the wrong direction before turning around, but I always knew where I was (love having these PDF maps on the phone). I was even able to give directions to a group of boys who had no clue where they were -- and they had a map!

I hit the top of Vollmer Peak, which at about 1,900 feet is apparently the highest in the Berkeley-Oakland Hills. It was pretty boring, though. You take a steep, wide paved road (not open to cars, at least) to the top, where there's a large gravel lot and a giant antenna surrounded by a chain-link fence. There isn't even a bench to sit on. But you get a nice view of the bay on one side and Mt. Diablo on the other. Not worth a return, trip, I don't think, but I found some other trails that I liked. And it's all dog-friendly, so Camper's coming along someday!

Maybe I can sneak him in my pack

Last weekend I borrowed Camper and we went on a three-hour hike around Redwood Regional. I realized, early on in our outing, that this would be my longest-ever "solo" hike -- and it was fun! But man, I really really wish I could take Camper with me on the JMT. I was talking to him the whole time and we were chasing each other up and down the trails (OK, mostly down), even after six or seven miles.

Below is the map of my hike as recorded by my Garmin. The long stretches on the West Ridge and East Ridge trails got a little boring and dry, but the rest was gorgeous and I'd definitely do the whole hike again. I finally got smart and saved a PDF of the park trail map to my phone (in Evernotes) so I could reference it as I hiked and make sure I got the right amount of mileage without having to plan all of it out in advance. Camper was very patient during my long breaks to check to map. Perhaps because I found some stale treats in my backpack.

The hike specs: a little over 8 miles (maybe close to 8.5 miles, since I had hiked a bit before I remembered to turn on the Garmin), about 1,800 elevation gain. I need to be doing more climbing, but eh, that was fine.

Today was an important day.

Today was an important day. First: I bought two backpacks. Second: I piled a bunch of hiking crap in my living room and didn't bother putting it all away in various closets.

The two backpacks: both Ospreys, 65 liters, they can carry 40-ish pounds (REI guy in SF said I shouldn't push it past 40 pounds, REI guy in Concord said I can probably get it up to 50 pounds; I'm not bothered either way since I really, really want to keep the weight at 40-or-under). One is a size medium, and that's the one in my living room. The other's a small that supposedly is a better size for me but I had to order it online. When it gets here, I'll take them both to a third REI store, in Berkeley, and let someone who knows what s/he is doing pick the right size. Backpacking is so complicated!

Except, you know, not really. That's what I keep reminding myself. I've already got an awesome, well-used, perfectly fine backpack that I love, even if it's about eight years old and probably five pounds heavier than I'd like. (It, too, is in the living room pile.) So, I mean, I'm set. I've got some boots (although I plan to return/exchange them this weekend -- REI again!). I've got clothes and a bear canister and a tent and a hat. Thanks to Shizu, I've got a fabulous sleeping bag.

I've got a map and a spreadsheet and a PLAN. And, like, six weeks to go before I start hiking.

That pile in my living room is going to bug the crap out of me, but it's going to keep things interesting too. Can't keep procrastinating with all that gear taunting me.

I've been thinking lately about when I really committed to this trip. It could've been last December, when we were picking out vacation days for 2014 and I blocked out three weeks in August. It could've been mid-February, when I actually got my hiking permit reservation. But actually, it was my birthday, and that awesome, ridiculous cake. I wish I had a picture of it -- Annie? Shizu? Dad? did someone get a photo? Anyway, it was a sheetcake with candy rocks marking a trail and a couple of plastic trees maybe, and honestly, I don't remember it all that well except that it was hilarious and it was more about my hike than my 40th birthday, which I loved. And my very first thought when I saw it was, 'Holy shit, now I've actually got to do this damned hike.'

So there's been no going back since then, which is fine because I haven't second-guessed myself even once. I've procrastinated, sure, and I'm not nearly as well trained at this point as I'd liked/expected. But I've got enough to work with.

Seriously: can someone send me a photo of that cake??