Rawlins, WY (Sep 9)

Hi all. Poor planning (I shouldn't have stayed in Lander) means I have to wait here for the PO to open tomorrow morning. Oh well. On my way into town a disabled vet gave me $1 and then said I could stay at his place, so it's all good. I did blow a day, but let's hope it doesn't matter.

The desert was quick and easy. Lots of antelope and wild horses, and no 105 degree heat.

For those of you wondering how much planning it takes to do a high-speed long-distance hike like this (or for those cool people out there that would like to send me cookies or details of the college football season), here's the e-mail I just sent my folks about resupplies for the rest of my hike.


Hi. Here's my plan. The town name, the date I'll be there, and the
miles from previous town, plus what I'd like to happen. An asterisk
indicates I need you to send stuff.

*Rawlins 9/9

*Steamboat Springs, CO
Fri 9/14 (140) I just need the maps. I'll mail food from here to
Monarch and maybe Ghost Ranch too.

Grand Lake, CO 9/17 (80)
Silverthorne, CO 9/19 (82)

*Twin Lakes, CO 9/22 (76)
Please send the regular packet of maps, plus the last pair of Montrail
shoes, plus the Montbell down jacket that I just ordered from
backcountrygear.com (check my yahoo account for the order
confirmation if nothing shows up)

*Monarch Crest Store 9/25 (151)
Please send the maps that you would've sent to Lake City here instead.
Their address is: my name, c/o Monarch Crest Store, PO Box 40, Salida
CO 81201. Get it going EARLY since it's not actually at the store and
they have to drive it up there. Their phone is (719)539-4091; please
call and make sure this will work. (I'll try to do that too).

Lake City, CO--this town rocks and the guy I met there Jerry Gray is a
total stud, but I can't take the chance that the hitch will suck. Not
going.

*Pagosa Springs, CO 10/2 (216) My biggest haul so far, but I've GOT
to do the San Juans. Please send the maps that you would've sent to
Chama, NM. 10/2 is a Monday, but to make life easier (hopefully),
please send them to me, c/o Namie Bacile. I'll mail food from here to Pie Town, maybe.

Chama, NM. Too long a hitch after too few miles. Not going.

*Ghost Ranch, NM. 10/7 (150) Please send new shoes. I'll try and buy
a new pair somehow, but Montrail's pro-purchase site is down today.
The address is on the original itinerary.

Cuba, NM 10/9 (55) At least it's got a good Mexican place.

*Grants, NM 10/13 (110) Please send maps.

*Pie Town, NM 10/16 (85) Please send maps for the rest of New Mexico.
Be sure the Antelope Wells route and the Gila NF map are in there.
I'll sort things out and might forward some maps to Silver City, NM.

Silver City, NM 10/21 (170) I might forward maps here. If I'm on
schedule, this will be pretty tight, so I might just hold on to all
the maps from Pie Town.

YO-YO MEXICO! 10/25? (120)

I might need more shoes than indicated (either at Pie Town or Silver
City), let's hope not. Also, this is obviously an *ideal* schedule.
Pretty much any snow means this is way off.

Also:get a big box ready for when I call you begging for my snowshoes,
trekking poles, extra long-johns, cannister-top stove, and tiny
titanium cup (NOT the pot that the stove is in, somewhere there's a
titanium cup.) Also, please weigh the trash bag I returned (and still
have one of) and compare it to the trash bags in my room (there's a
bag of hefty or glad in there somewhere). If I'm right that it's
measurably lighter, send along one of mine, please.

love ya!!!

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:01 PM

    I will definitely send cookies to one of these places! Do they have to be homemade, though? You might prefer bakery-bought...

    Marcus or anyone else, any hints on how to mail stuff to Garret? Like, how to address it?

    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown1:43 AM

    Marcus, I want to mail something too. How is it done?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S...
Read more

Hardrock 34:42

Image
It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel...
Read more

Should I run UTMB?

That's it, the title is the post. No, of course that's not the post, but I am wondering. My schedule has filled in a bit for the year. I'm now signed up for: Orcas 100 (Feb), Paiute Meadows 50K (May), Scout Mountain 100 (June), TRT 100 (July), and hope to run the fun runs Lupine Loopfest (Feb), Desolate Peaks (August), and Euchre Bar Massacre (October). But the big news is that I got selected in the UTMB lottery. I have until the 29th of January to confirm my registration. For the non-runners: UTMB is a 106-mile loop around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy, starting and ending in Chamonix. By all accounts it is spectacularly beautiful and very difficult, with about 33,000 feet of climbing. For most of my running life I haven't really cared about European races or followed European runners, but I got swept up in the spectacle of it last year. It was the race's 20th year, an American man finally won (Jim), and also finished second (Zack), and Courtney...
Read more