Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Fate is Cruel Sometimes

Day 175-October 5th
Destination: Walker, CA
Miles: 0
Cumulative Miles: 2586

Like a bizarre twist of fate, we spent all of yesterday praying for a safe delivery through the storm to a town with a hot shower. We made it through the thick of it all and were dropped in the small town of Walker, CA. We planned to go to Bridgeport, but we were told hotels were far cheaper here and that the burger joint had great burgers, rivaled only by the BBQ joint.

As fate would have it, we got our hot shower, but all four restaurants in town were closed last night, and all day today. We had to subsist on untasty microwave meals and nasty gas station frozen foods. Apricots points out that we forgot to pray for good food. All our prayers were answered, but we forgot to pray for good eats.

We holed up in our hotel room with the heat cranked to dry out our gear. We couldn't dry it outside because it rained most of the day. In fact, when we woke, we saw that the snow line had dropped to around 7000 feet. The weather is supposed to continue for the next three or four days, which means that snow is piling up at the trail. The highway back to the trail is closed, and lightening continues to flash up at the trail.

We have regrettably made the decision to conclude our hike, four days from the end. As we cannot get a ride back to the trail, we would be required to road walk back to the trail. Then we would have to navigate 75 miles of trail in fresh snow and bad weather. Sadly, we cannot wait out the weather because of post trail commitments which loom near. It is a hard decision, but we both feel very accomplished and feel that we have completed a thru-hike of the PCT. Many other hikers we know who have completed the hike have missed miles here and there. Not everyone succeeds at hiking the full distance in one season, but most will agree that 2600 miles is good enough to call it complete.

Over the next few weeks we will be regathering our thoughts. We will not have daily posts, but there will definitely be a few more posts. It would be impossible to thank everyone who helped us on this hike, but we intend to try in a post. Also, we will be posting pictures from our final leg. We're sure there will be a few other posts regarding our post-trail emotions.

For now, thank you for reading. It would be nice to know how many readers we had, so if you could post a comment to this blog, or sign our trailjournals guestbook it would be appreciated.

Thank you. Talk to you again soon.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

4 comments:

  1. For sure you should feel very accomplished. You have done much and maybe this is the trail's way of letting you know that right now, you don't need to be up there. Bask in the bliss of accomplishment and enjoy all that you have garnered from your journey. ....much is yet to be...journey on with a song in your heart.....xo

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  2. Francis Plouffe AKA TaZOctober 7, 2010 at 8:55 PM

    I knew you could do it! Very good job on your hike. It was quite an interesting blog to read and both of you developped my interest to accomplish a small hike with some friends.

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  3. Wow. Incredible, guys. Hope you get a long rest and a hot shower. May your transition home be smooth and effortless. Lots of love,

    Shannon

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  4. Yes, prayer surely would have solved the tasty food problem. Wow. No matter from which perspective I look at that from, believer or non-believer, I find that really petty and naive.

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