It was a late night in camp. I don’t things quieted down until almost 8:15. That’s a good half hour past sunset. We’re getting in with a wild crowd. There was a study I saw in Outside Magazine just before we started this hike. Boiled down to its essence, it stated that human flatulence increases with altitude. I can confirm this through personal observation. By 8:30 it sounded like the “bean scene” from “Blazing Saddles.”
With almost 20 people camping around us last night, guess who was last out of camp. Wrong! It wasn’t us. There were at least 2 other people still in camp when we left. I’m sure the honors went to GloWorm. He is an overweight hiker who takes a daily picture of himself in his speedos and posts it to his Instagram. He is trying to document his weight loss along the trail. If he catches up with us again, Blue’s Clues and I are going to pose with him.
I have developed another comparison between the AT and the PCT. The trail marks (white blazes) on the AT is the needy girlfriend that keeps telling you how much she loves you and that she’s there for you (except for in the Smokies and the Whites when she’s a little hormonal). There are white blazes everywhere making sure you never lose sight of the trail. The PCT markings are more like a guy that tells you he loves you until further notice. The only time you hear anything again is if you see him talking to a girl at a bar and then he says he loves you again—that would be a road or trail crossing. There just aren’t confidence markers along the trail for miles at a time. You often find yourself wondering if you’re still on the trail.
Even though we only hiked 10 miles yesterday, we were completely beat down. Bunny and I both fell once bringing the tally to: Bunny 3, Easy 2. This is only one less for each of us than we fell on the entire 2200 miles of AT last year. We needed an easier today, and we got it. The weather was great to just a little warm in the afternoon. There wasn’t much snow on the trail. Just a few non-life threatening patches over a couple of miles. We stayed above 8000’ elevation all day bouncing as high as 8700’ a couple of times. It was a good day except for one minor problem—see paragraph 1 of this post. Flatulence at elevation.
We developed a new game today called “fart to the rear.” The rules are very simple. If the person leading farts loud enough that the person following hears it, the leader has to go to the rear to not fart in the face of the follower. The problem is that we are both experiencing a high flatulence rate. The game was so effective that it was actually slowing our hiking pace down while we waited to switch positions so often. Bunny experienced the shortest lead time when she couldn’t even hold out to switch positions.
I feel it is necessary to give a refresher on hiking with Bunny. If she is walking and slows down gradually to a stop, she is just catching her breath. If she is walking and stops abruptly, look out! She lured me in with a new technique today of staring up into the trees. I thought she saw a new kind of bird and got lured in. BAM, I got a full snout full of stink. She then laughs like Snidely Whiplash and moves along. The interesting thing about Bunny is that she’s not mean about her technique. Even if I’m way in front, she’ll abruptly stop, fart loudly, laugh out loud, and start walking again. This is a very obvious “tell.”
While we were walking along today trying to figure out the source of our gas, Bunny said it’s her body rebelling to all the processed food we’ve been eating. We both agreed that we could use some more fresh fruit and vegetables in our trail diets. Less than 10 minutes after saying this, we came to a road crossing and saw a van. The driver rolled down his window and yelled to us. I’ve prepared my whole life on how to react if a guy in a van pulls up to the playground and asks us if we want candy…I run and tell the authorities and don’t go near the van. This guy yelled and asked if we wanted some fruit. We dropped our packs and ran to the van like moths to an open flame.
Diamond Dave has been doing trail magic for years. He lives in the area and is planning to retire within the next year. He was actually listening to hiking vlogs when we got to the van. Between talking to hikers and vlogs, he is doing research in preparation for his thru-hike which he will be attempting after he retires. We sat and talked about shoes and socks for about 20 minutes. We were ready for a break and the fruit, but the pressure was building in both of us so we had to hit the trail and spare Diamond Dave the noxious fumes.
This section of trail today was completely dry. We each carried 2 liters of water with us, but I drank all of mine with 5 miles still to hike. Bunny yelled to me from behind that her flatulence was turning into something more substantial and that we needed to stop. I saw a nice sitting log ahead and said I’d wait for her there. By now, I was pretty thirsty and wanted some water. When I got to the log, it had a small water cache tied to it. The trail always provides.
We got into camp about 5:30. Wolf had a spot saved for us and Blue’s Clues had a fire going. There were already another 10 hikers set up with more trickling in. We are in a bubble of sorts. We are starting to get to know lots of hikers.
For the first week, Bunny and I were pretty much by ourselves occasionally running into Bucky. Then after Julian, we met Wolf, Ivy, and Cheesy Turtle. When we made it to Warner Springs and took a double zero because of weather, we met maybe 10 other hikers. But once we jumped to Acton, it was just the 4 of us until Blue’s Clues caught up with us in Tehachapi. Once we went back to Paradise Cafe, we have had to share the trail. At first, it was a bit of a culture shock, but it’s starting to grow on me, seeing people over and over. It doesn’t seem as organic as the AT with its shelters, but we pick out larger campsites that will accommodate the 5 of us and others follow. Plus, Blue’s Clues builds fires. If you build it, they will come.
EFG