Day 98: hike your age

July 26, Day 98: 1519.0-1560.3

Miles Hiked: 41.3

Gratitude of the Day:  I’m thankful for my feet, they’ve taken me to some incredible places and oh so many miles. 

I went to bed last night hoping to try to have a big mileage day, so I set my alarm for 3:30am.  The moon was basically full, it was beautiful but made it difficult to sleep. Also the mosquitoes were back, California is just doing everything it can to break a hiker.  When my alarm went off I’m pretty sure I only slept 3 to 4 hours solid. But I had a goal for the day so I got up and packed up. I left camp at 3:49am and set out to make the most of the day. One of my goals I had for myself prior to trail was hike my age, do a 40 mile hike in one day. Not until recently did I feel I could finally give it a shot, and with the terrain of the trail, so today I decided I’d attempt to accomplish my goal.  Once I left camp I hiked clear thru to 8am, just over 4 hours and I’d covered 1/4 of the day. I quickly filtered water and repacked my fanny pack with bars and snacks. By 11:30 when I stopped for lunch I had just over 20 miles hiked. It was here that I felt so tired and just wanted a nap. I started giving myself excuses to just take it easy and forget about the 40.  Instead I decided I just hike down the trail, so short lunch and back hiking at 12:15.  My goal was the water source in 10 miles, and before you know it it was 3:30 and I was there and had hiked 31 miles, only 1 mile off of my biggest day. I sat and relaxed at the water and drank my fill. By 5:15 the difficult part of the goal, the last 10 miles. So I loaded up on a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter, drank some crystal lite and slowly plodding down the trail. It seemed like time was standing still even as I was covering the miles step by step. The “worst” part was there wasn’t a campsite right at the 40 miles hiked mark, the best option was to hike another 1.4 miles to the next site. So I grabbed water before camp and slowly made my way to camp. By the time I got there at 8:43 I had hiked 17 hours for the day (not taking out breaks) and hiked 41.4 miles.  I ate dinner in the dark and set up camp, I rewarded myself with the warm beer I packed out too Mt Shasta. And now it’s to sleep at 10pm, tomorrow I can got back to 25 miles.