ADZPCTKO '10
Last weekend I went down to San Diego (Lake Morena campground, specifically) for ADZPCTKO, AKA, the best weekend of the year.
Thursday was Trail Jeopardy, Friday Nano, Gazelle, and I ran to Boulder Oaks and back. That's not that long a run (11 or so) but it was at a pretty good tempo with some good hills. Then instead of one Class of '09 video (that's typically just a bunch of photos of '09 hikers with way too much Ken Burns effect) as has been the case for the last five years, the organizers showed several short films submitted by hikers. The most memorable was probably Jester's Wizards of the PCT. It was fairly Squatch-esque in that it showed a bunch of silly hikers' exploits while also describing the trail. We just saw the desert portion, the whole thing will be finished later this year. (Also later this year, Squatch is hoping to film some friends going after the current 29-day speed record for the high point in each of the lower 48 states.)
Saturday Ducky (the Wise) and I did some trail work, the entire entourage ganged up on Heinz for some brief political arguing, and then we saw the main presentation: June Mulford (age 82?), who thru-rode the trail in 1959 with her husband, showed us some of her slides. You can read about their ride here. Several of her pics are online there, but I wish I could find the closeup of her and her husband before starting; it was perfect adorable 1950's. For now, this one will have to do:
After riding the trail, they went around the country doing slideshows and appeared on TV on Art Linkletter's House Party. Anyway, she was adorable and her story made me cry.
Then we got a sneak preview of National Geographic's America's Wild Spaces: Pacific Crest Trail documentary. (It's from the same series as their AT doc) It won't be shown on TV until this fall, but the crew started filming at Kick-off last year, so they were nice and let us watch it at Kick-off this year.
Good golly it was horrible.
To be honest, while watching it, I realized that majority of the words that were spoken were either (a)inaccurate or (b)horribly, horribly cheesy, but I was overwhelmed by the "Hey I know that guy!" and "Holy crap look at that helicopter shot!" I still enjoyed the subject matter and aerial footage, but the unanimous consensus afterward was that it was not informative, it was horribly cheesy, and they used the word "extreme" a laughably high number of times.
Then Sunday I spent the afternoon with the Ruts in La Jolla.
All in all a good weekend. Old friends (Nitro's entourage had 100% attendance), new friends, acquaintances who I realized have very similar backgrounds (and names) as me and are now friends. Hikers are my people.
Here are some pics:
Here's a nice blog post by Chuckie V about Eric Ryback, who was there again this year and gave money to the PCTA so they could give every thru-hiker a very nice medal.
Thursday was Trail Jeopardy, Friday Nano, Gazelle, and I ran to Boulder Oaks and back. That's not that long a run (11 or so) but it was at a pretty good tempo with some good hills. Then instead of one Class of '09 video (that's typically just a bunch of photos of '09 hikers with way too much Ken Burns effect) as has been the case for the last five years, the organizers showed several short films submitted by hikers. The most memorable was probably Jester's Wizards of the PCT. It was fairly Squatch-esque in that it showed a bunch of silly hikers' exploits while also describing the trail. We just saw the desert portion, the whole thing will be finished later this year. (Also later this year, Squatch is hoping to film some friends going after the current 29-day speed record for the high point in each of the lower 48 states.)
Saturday Ducky (the Wise) and I did some trail work, the entire entourage ganged up on Heinz for some brief political arguing, and then we saw the main presentation: June Mulford (age 82?), who thru-rode the trail in 1959 with her husband, showed us some of her slides. You can read about their ride here. Several of her pics are online there, but I wish I could find the closeup of her and her husband before starting; it was perfect adorable 1950's. For now, this one will have to do:
After riding the trail, they went around the country doing slideshows and appeared on TV on Art Linkletter's House Party. Anyway, she was adorable and her story made me cry.Then we got a sneak preview of National Geographic's America's Wild Spaces: Pacific Crest Trail documentary. (It's from the same series as their AT doc) It won't be shown on TV until this fall, but the crew started filming at Kick-off last year, so they were nice and let us watch it at Kick-off this year.
Good golly it was horrible.
To be honest, while watching it, I realized that majority of the words that were spoken were either (a)inaccurate or (b)horribly, horribly cheesy, but I was overwhelmed by the "Hey I know that guy!" and "Holy crap look at that helicopter shot!" I still enjoyed the subject matter and aerial footage, but the unanimous consensus afterward was that it was not informative, it was horribly cheesy, and they used the word "extreme" a laughably high number of times.
Then Sunday I spent the afternoon with the Ruts in La Jolla.
All in all a good weekend. Old friends (Nitro's entourage had 100% attendance), new friends, acquaintances who I realized have very similar backgrounds (and names) as me and are now friends. Hikers are my people.
Here are some pics:
Marlowe and Gazelle rocking the Dirty Girls
The Entourage
Our shadows looking bad-ass on a beer run
Georgi, downed up for the evening
June Mulford, representing
Some dude, representing
Here's a nice blog post by Chuckie V about Eric Ryback, who was there again this year and gave money to the PCTA so they could give every thru-hiker a very nice medal.
extremely good post.
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