Day 136: Thank You Nathan and everything hurts

September 2, Day 136: 2356.4-2379.9

Miles Hiked: 23.5

Gratitude of the Day: I thankful for Nathan “Dunkaroo” Cockhill. Dunk has been so much fun the hike with, he’s always in the mixture of the laughter. He’s an amazing young man and I’m glad to have hiked the trail with him. 

Last night was another chilly night and I woke up with tons of condensation on the rain fly of my tent.  I made coffee again in bed and started the day around 7:45. Hunting season has started in Washington and there were some archery hunters near camp this morning. It was a quick warm up this morning climbing the hill. My first stop was to get some water around 10am and I took a break to have more coffee. 

 

It wasn’t until lunch time that I pulled everything back out of my bag and laid it all out in the sun to dry out. The whole group did the same and it looked like a thru hiker garage sale.  Tonight we’re all camped by the side of another logging road.  One of the things that I haven’t talked much about is aches and pains. Being over 2300 miles in most of us have nagging aches and pains. 

Here’s a list of my daily “ouchies”:

• Since the start of Oregon, I’ve been having spasms in my right sciatica that’ll lock my right leg and it feels like some is shoving a hot knife in my right buttocks. 
• My feet are a mess. I have huge calluses to both my heels that crack and then dry out and hurt. 
• I also have large calluses on the balls of my feet that make my toes go numb and after about 20 miles on the day every step feels like someone is shoving rebar into the bottom of my feet. 
• The last week I’ve had a knot in my left scapula, either from my pack or sleeping odd.
• The last two days depending on how fast I walk or the elevation I can feel the start of some slight shin splints to my right leg. 
• Daily my hands go numb from using my trekking poles.

Even with all this, the desire to keep walking and get to Canada far outweighs the aches and pains.