some addresses...

Ok, just in case you were keen to send something here are some addresses. It's a bit tricky working out where I'm going to be versus how long international post takes from australia, but I'll put in some options. I should be in Yosemite valley in a bit over a month...

Hold for pct hiker kylie skidmore
General delivery
Hmmmm I thought it would be easier to look up Yosemite valley think it's zip code is 95389 and it's probably just Yosemite valley CA 95389 but when I get to a computer I'll google that

If Australia post is faster than 10 days and you were fast:
PCT hiker Kylie skidmore
c/o kennedy meadows general store
96740 beach meadow road
Inyokern CA 93257

If mail is posted general delivery to a post office I can call them - if I know it's there- and for some reason I overshoot it or miss that stop and forward it wherever for free...

Mammoth lakes is about 3 weeks at this stage - and it's a post office anyway ...
PCT hiker Kylie skidmore
General delivery
Mammoth Lakes CA 93546

I think sierra city is about 7 weeks away...

PCT hiker Kylie skidmore
General delivery
Sierra city CA 96125

Need to escape the vortex and get out of casa de luna...

kidnapping and forest fires (or caught in the vortex)

I'm about to spend my 4th night in the one spot. A strange series of events has had me stuck at the Anderson's for 2 zero days with an eight mile slack pack between them. Terrie Anderson mischievously conspired to have me stay longer and even though at times I've been itching to get on the track it's been totally worth it. Relationship building and many memorable experiences often happen at trail angels' houses or town stops

There was actually a forest fire north of here yesterday, which i thought might validate us spending so much time here, but they had it completely under control yesterday arvo. Tomorrow, after pancakes and a viewing of some of the last few days' frivolities, we'll be heading out into the desert once more, following the LA aqueduct through the Mojave. I'm about 250 miles shy of the sierra, which there has been a great deal of talk about due to the record amounts of snow this year.

I received a little package from the frosts at agua dulce which was incredibly fabulous (thanks for the amazing pictures Aaliyah), so on the morning I'm going to add some addresses I can receive mail at. Definitely better get to sleep now, it's 11:37, way past hiker midnight.

fireside ramblings

One of the things I intended to write about in the perils of the american bush was the purple poodle-dog bush. I know, sounding a lot like a joke, however it is in fact another insidious american plant lying in wait for ill educated hikers. initially there was a note left lying on the track, describing it as far worse than poison oak. I don't think I took it entirely seriously, actually I didn't even read the note properly... days later I spent 15 miles bashing through this plant growing all over the track. The following day someone suggested it was the poodle plant. This didn't seem likely until I saw the flowers. Apparently the sting, itch and blisters can last up to 2 weeks. Craziness. Fortunately it seems it's only vicious when in full bloom, and looking pretty like you might want to pick it. These americans have this bizare concept that the australian bush is really dangerous. But really, there are so many perils of diabolical evil over here, including cheese in a can (not necessarily found in the american bush).

I still get excited about squirrels. Squirrels and chipmunks. Chipmunks dart across the track when I'm up in the mountains, they're a little like the lizards of the high country, cautious and stealthy. Squirrels on the other hand are flamboyant exhibitionists. I suspect this is because they're so impressed with their tails - which is fair enough, they're pretty amazing - they seem to float behind like separate entities. But the squirrels, they'll race up and down the tree trunks and dart around excitedly as if they're saying 'wow, have you seen my tail? Have you ever seen anything that marvellous?'. And their hands look so demure and precise when they eat, like they haven't just been racing around like adolescent quolls.

Wow, as I'm lying here on a couch by the fire at casa de luna, a crazy amazing place I'll write about when I get to a computer, rambo, another hiker, has picked up a guitar, and is serenading us with the most fabulous sounding tunes. Makes me feel so tranquil and content - grinning-whimsical...

Yesterday I walked further than my previous longest continuous journey - I'm at 478.5 miles here - about 770 km.
.

oops... odds and ends..

i'm sitting in the kitchen, still in agua dulce, listening to alex play guitar and annie cooking tamales and corn bread. annie's corn bread was surprisingly good - she cooked it in the microwave as the stove was overly recalcitrant...
one of the things i forgot to mention was the astonishing amount of wildflowers. they're everywhere, carpets of them, rock gardens, botanical gardens of them... so many different varieties and colours... i keep thinking ma would struggle to make more than 2 miles a day because she'd be paralysed by photo opportunities. i gave up early because there were too many, and because i couldn't get the macro function on my camera to work (think i've since worked out that the intelligent function does it for me...)

Some places the internet drops out, so most of what I wrote here didn't make it to the blog... i also uploaded a whole heap of photos which didn't save... and now I'm using my phone so cannot upload photos...

the evils of the american bush.... and other stuff...

yesterday we walked through sections of poison oak... forget bears or mountain lions, this stuff is the perilous evil of the forest. it sounds diabolical, you don't feel the effects until a day or too later, and you start to blister anywhere the oil has touched. it's actually 'contagious' because the oil gets everywhere and if you itch anywhere else you touch gets infected, included other people...



just before we hit agua dulce (which is where i am now), there were all these cool geological formations... i really need to write about trail angels and trail magic in here, however at the moment 'best in show' is playing in the back ground, and i think annie and i are going to try to go get some tucker...

400 miles

possibly the best time of day to be hiking is at sunset, although it often gets freezing... we walked through a large section of burn, which at times looked very post apocalyptic...





this is the 400 mile mark... not particularly significant but it minor-ly momentous each time a 100 clicks over. somewhere pretty soon i'll walk past the point of the longest continuous journey i've done...

on posting comments

a few people have mentioned trouble with posting comments. i think the easiest way if you have troubles is to open a gmail account, and select google account when you're actually posting... but if that doesn't work for you i get emails.
i totally appreciate reading comments - thanks heaps.

pines in the mist

the pine forests smell amazing as you walk through. there are heaps of different kinds of pines. often while we're up in the mountains mists come rushing through rapidly - can look very dramatic.















there are all these things that i was thinking i wanted to post while hiking yesterday, but now there are people lurking behind me wanting to use the computer and i can't think of any of it. the last three days we've walked 30, 30, 25 to get here to the saufley's. that's 48km two days in a row, then a 40. which potentially sounds big, but it's mostly an amazingly good track...

mt baden powell

i've just figured out that the formatting i've been doing on these to make the photos line up with the text doesn't seem to work anyway.... this is drop dead and annie above me climbing baden powell. it's about 9399 feet - 2864m or something...













i think this is speed bump. you can't really get a feel for how steep it was. it was steep.






this is one of the views from the top. i should have taken a photo looking out the other way because it was back down to the desert. seems surreal, these snow covered mountains dropping straight down to the desert...

this is drop dead and speed bump at the top. after all that snow most the top was bare...

in wrightwood with no jacket

we hiked up over a ski resort, and caught a hitch into wrightwood. wrightwood is mile 369. i was really hoping my down jacket would be at the post office here, but no go...
this is annie in the underpass under the interstate...

there were hot springs along the way... i stayed in way too long and by the time i got out it was freezing out and i stilll had to put up my tent...

this is balls and sunshine. sunshine is 11 and intending to hike the whole way to canada...

these are called the mormon rocks...

the path switchbacks up mountains, often snaking in and out of gullies and canyons. there are almost constantly amazing views...

often there's drifts of pine cones sitting in the gullies or along the path...

last night we went out to karaoke and i sang the obligatory down under song - we all sang 500 miles together... 9 of us are staying at a chick called courtney's house - sleeping on the floor, and drop dead cooked us all pancakes for breakfast...

another irrelevant bit of info... alex can run a 2:40 marathon. that's pretty fast...

some more random shots...

will write about these in a bit, but presently heading out to a karaoke bar in wrightwood...

we were freezing at the pass trying to get a hitch - and we got in to this diner... first example of grits, a southern delicacy apparently - and home fries, so warming - my kneecaps stopped shaking violently...

can't actually remember which mountain this is, maybe san gorgino, but in the last section there's been a lot of snowy looking mountains, walked around one today in fact...

so i've actually seen 8 rattle snakes now, and this is not a particularly good shot, but this is a rattler i saw same day as the bear and rabbit with weird ears...
this is a crazy hare i saw in the desert after whitewater... great ears.

ok, so i know it's a bad shot, he was running pretty fast, but this is my first bear. the other night i was hiking alone, had accidentally overshot my friends, and they were several miles behind, following my footsteps, and overlaying my prints were possibly a mountain lion's...

thanks so much for the comments

hey i really appreciate the comments etc from 'home' - feel a good sense of connectedness. i often don't have enough connection, time, battery or skill with my phone to actually write anything, but i can often read comments even while i'm up in the mountains - so thank you heaps, i really appreciate it.
think it was -5° here last night... going to be a chilly few days ahead.

well...

this is drop dead. he's an incredibly suave, dapper, erudite individual who wears a tie every day while hiking...






and this is another amazing example of american cuisine... the old sausage in a pancake on a stick... wiz talked me into eating this in my quest for american experiences. it was about as evil as it sounds...







and this is where the dude was originally attempting to jump out of the helicopter...








ok, so i was going to add all these pictures - and tell you about how i saw my first bear (so so exciting), but staying up late always makes me a target for late night philosophising, and once again i have been derailed by a conversation about social structures, religion and our responsibility to humanity...

these are shots of where we slept after the rescue. great sleep that night - perfect temperature..

conversations

this does not capture in any way the conversations, thoughts or ethos of the trail, but i've been meaning to mention a little of the culture... (i've just scan read this - not sure if it makes sense - it's quite late for a hiker - especially one who rose at 5 after a frigid night in the wind and ice)

i've had really interesting conversations about freedom, and truth, and what beauty really looks like. i've had conversations about the nature of God and the universe, and the substance of organised religion, and the operation and responsibility of human society...

it's an interesting culture to be part of. it's incredibly diverse, and yet there are these common threads. it's more welcoming than most environments, and there's this belief in humanity - especially in the members of the trail community - and a desire to see others succeed...

at some level most of these people deny the essence of goodness, and yet they have a better handle on the basics of love and freedom than most of society. there's a real sense of building into others, and looking out for others. there's a deep appreciation of beauty and a genuine sense of wonder and delight in good things. often there seems to be a serious quest after freedom.

there's another side of course, the side that degrades humanity, and denies truth. but still, there's an element here - hard to define - but people who are really living - and not of course to the degree they could be, but living freer and more wildly than many people ever manage to. i think there's something to be captured in this, without letting the stuff that diminishes or degrades pollute that goal.

i was going to write more here, but people keep chatting to me...

mountain rescue

so, after the excitement of san jacinto, which, quite frankly, was pretty jolly exciting, and a chilly cowboy camp at fuller ridge trail head (cowboy camping is just tarping it - sleeping under the stars), we were cruising our way down towards the desert floor.
en route we met a hiker - quijote (yep, there's this tradition on long trails over here i've giving people trail names - my name seems to be sliding towards 'phantom jimbrick' - wasn't going to mention that but there you go...) hunched over with no pack on the side of the trail (not track - i keep getting corrected - apparently a track is only something you run around)... she'd been vomiting since 7am (it was around 10). she urged us to go on - said she'd be fine, but annie and i walked with her. it was a beautiful day, and at this stage i was just thinking it would be a good opportunity to take more photos of flowers.
every so often she would need to stop and vomit, and sit down and rest. we made it 2 1/2 miles and then she collapsed in the shade. (one of the guys in our little group had taken over carrying her pack down.) we attempted to get some fluid into her, but she was throwing up violently. i gave her my brand new (less than 2 days old) down jacket, and tarp and sleeping bag liner - all of which received a good coating of vomit. her vitals were deteriorating steadily, and we were 5 1/2 miles from the nearest road, so eventually we called search and rescue and the sheriffs office. and they sent a helicopter out (this all took 6 hours at least). (alex and wiz had returned by this stage - so there was four of us with quijote).
it was incredibly windy, and we were on the side of a steep mountain, so initially we were wondering how it would land. it hovered near the rock we were standing on (they asked us if we had bright colours to attract it - my photos do this no justice but i was wearing bright blue, alex bright green, wiz bright yellow and annie purple and pink, and we were holding fluoro gear and bandanas up)and a dude looked like he was going to jump out, then it swerved away and they told us over a loud hailer that they'd be back in 30 minutes.
when they returned the pilot hovered just above the rock, and a third fellow jumped out, supported by the dude who was originally looking to jump. the jumper came across, briefed quijote on how to climb into a hovering helicopter off a boulder, and then they did it. it all sounds rather prosaic when i write it here, but it was ridiculously exciting. we were all grinning our heads off. after ringing quijote's father in kentucky (he was a physician - he asked me what my job was, and said i should come to kentucky - he wasn't sure what we could do together maybe drink a beer) we had to walk the 5 1/2 miles down the mountain.
the ubiquitous sugar moma was at the bottom (she's everywhere)- i'd called her originally before we realised how serious it was going to be, and she took us and a dude called nolan to a strange town called cabazon (in yogi's guide all the overview says is: kinda creepy. we had tea at ruby's diner, and then sugar moma dropped us back to the trail - where we found a box of oranges, and walked in about 3/4 of a mile and slept next to the trail below san jacinto.

quijote's still got my jacket, and last night i cowboyed above big bear (still possibly higher elevation than anything in australia), with my broken zippered sleeping bag, and awoke to a coating of ice. and a ridiculously swollen face - every time it's really cold my face swells up weirdly...

[marcus, i don't know if you're reading this, but i thought of you all the way up san jacinto, and i wrote you a post card during the helicopter rescue, which i left in sugar moma's car - wanted you to know i was thinking of you on top of that tough climb)

ah yep... more random shots...

this is the way down fuller ridge - coming down off san jacinto...








looking down into the desert, there's mesa wind farm - 460 wind turbines - 30 megawatt output... it's hot and dusty, and a quick transition between the snow and the cactuses... cacti?








this is annie, another chick i've been hiking with, approaching a creek crossing. the creek was full of ice sculptures - looked fantastic...








and this is wiz 'using' one of the dunnies which were submerged in the snow - the other one was more traditional and deeper, but we were too lazy to go down to it...

some more random shots

this is on top of san jacinto. it was more spectacular than it looks - absolutely beautiful. we used microspikes to climb it which feel really hardcore until you remember old people in scotland use them to collect their mail at christmas time...
san jacinto's about 3300 metres...

what's really crazy about san jacinto is that it's freezing, and you're up in the snow, but you're looking straight down into the desert and these huge wind farms...


this is alex, one of the guys i've been hiking with a fair bit, being hard core with his ice axe... people told us we needed ice axes for san jacinto, but that was overkill... we slid down the other side - so much fun boot skiing, path was obliterated by the snow...

i don't think the text is quite lining up with the pictures... this is my funky snow style - waterproof pants tucked into spandexy style gaiters - and trail runners...

this is wiz demonstrating a self arrest with ice axe...

on american food

had my first experience of biscuits and gravy this morning, sadly didn't have a camera to document what the guys ate. contrary to my presuppositions, an american biscuit is like a large soft scone, and the gravy was like a weird white sauce. much weirder than this is american cheese. it is this vibrant orange colour and involves non cheese ingredients. i've eaten a variety of chilli dogs, and pop tarts (apple strudel & brown sugared flavoured)... in fact i have really struggled to buy decent cereal, gave up on muesli and went for granola. i've had home made granola before which was good, but the stuff out of the packet tastes like dessert topping.
(i've also eaten some amazingly good food - but it's not as weird - it's like americans decide something is good and then figure out a way to homogenise it, package it, and mass produce it) (and the weird processed stuff is much stranger than eating dog cooked in monkey poo quite frankly, and no where near as tasty)...
there are hikers waiting for this computer so i'd better hop off...

zeroing in idyllwild

i'm in a little town called idyllwild, sort of mountain cutesy-redneck kind of joint, and it's unbelievably cold. i'm still hiking with wiz and alex, and yesterday was long, freezing and beautiful. there's a lot of snow up top, and we came down off the mountain in the drizzling dark. today, just below the line of mist all the trees are frosted over.
i was intending to go over san jacinto tomorrow - it's over 10000 feet, but it's covered in 4 foot of snow (i am constantly converting between their ridiculous imperial measurements and metric), so haven't quite decided what to do there... beyond san jacinto (which eveyone bar me probably realises you pronounce san hacinto) there's a ridge - fuller ridge, which descends from over 10000 down to something like 1300 - back down to the desert, so i'll leave this icy land of snow and squirrels and chipmunks for the desolate heat and rattle snakes.
i'm at about mile 177 here, and all is well except achilles tendonitis in my left heel, and maybe a little tib tendonitis in my right ankle...

some random shots...

working out my maps in bendigo prior to leaving... i've posted them to various towns up the trail

before a place called scissors crossing, there was a great breeze here which was great at cooling off some of the sweat...

bad example of the kind of stuff we were walking through last night. i'd borrowed one of wiz' poles cos i've got tendonitis in my achilles, pretty handy for some of the snow crossings... wee bit cold in the holes in my shoes...

this is a bit of ridgeline which was looking remarkably lord of the ringsish... hard to take photos cos it was freezing with crazy misting winds, and we'd climbed 10000 feet, which is quite a bit when you're not so fit...

some legendary individuals have cached water in the long dry sections - very very handy... there's a note on this sign suggesting the bones belong to a 2010 thru-hiker - but dad, i think it's a coyote, and i've been looking everywhere for a coyote jawbone in case i'm ever in trouble - you'll be glad to know such things can be found, think the desert stretches are pretty failsafe as long as you've got you're coyote jawbone...