15 February
About a month out from Campo now.
That feels strange to write.
For the last year the hike has lived mostly in spreadsheets, maps, gear piles, and long conversations at the kitchen table. Now it has started to become physical. The bag is packed. The miles are starting to show up in the legs. The team is taking its final shape.
And as it turns out – that shape is a little different than I expected.
My twin brother will not be able to join me for the walk.
It was always a long-shot. His husband lives for travel and their calendar is already booked wall-to-wall for the year. He tried to see if he could carve out a long stretch of time to disappear into the simple daily routine of the trail – water, walk, eat, rinse, sleep, repeat. And he liked the sound of Sharon’s meal planning as much as I did.
But calendars are stubborn things. It didn’t come together.
That is how these things go.
The trail reshapes the team before anyone ever takes a step.
But as one door closed, another one opened.
Dale Newman will be joining me in the High Sierra.
Dale is a 70-year-old retired Army infantry officer – ring knocker, airborne ranger, tabbed and all the rest of it. The kind of man who has spent a lifetime carrying heavy things in difficult places. He will celebrate his 71st birthday on the John Muir Trail if everything goes according to plan.
He’ll be coming in from sea level and, like the rest of us who have lived a few decades, he’s accumulated some wear and tear along the way. That means we’ll slow the pace through the High Sierra to something more civilized.
That suits me just fine.
The Sierra is not a place to rush through anyway. If slowing down means helping a friend reach a lifelong dream, that feels like exactly the right way to cross that country.
Dale and I have a connection that runs deeper than most hiking partners. Dale and his wife raised a son that Sharon placed for adoption between marriages to the same bastard. Families are complicated things. Life is messy that way. Over the years our lives have woven together in ways that are difficult to explain to outsiders.
We call each other Brother Husband.
We claim each other’s grandchildren as our own.
Sharon will pick Dale up at the Las Vegas airport and drive him up to Kennedy Meadows South to meet me when I reach the Sierra gateway. She’ll resupply me there and put both of us back on the trail together.
She’s also talking about hiking a couple of days north with us before turning back – maybe as far as the park boundary or wherever makes the most sense for a turnaround. I still need to help her plan those details.
Interestingly, swapping one brother for another actually simplifies things.
I had already been planning for two hikers through the Sierra. Now it’s just a different second hiker.
Meanwhile the physical preparation continues.
This week I packed my backpack for the first time with everything I expect to carry from Campo to Kennedy Meadows South.
The dry base weight came in at 12.5 pounds, which is right where I wanted it.
All of that fits comfortably into my Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60, which is a wonderfully light pack. But once the real trail weight gets added things change quickly.
Four liters of water adds about nine pounds.
Six or seven days of food adds another six pounds or more.
Suddenly the pack climbs to around twenty-seven pounds.
That’s about the upper edge of what that pack really wants to carry comfortably.
So now the pack and I are getting acquainted.
Every day I’m walking the dog with the full weight.
Our normal loop around the neighborhood is about a mile and a half, which turns out to be just about perfect for this stage of training. I’m deliberately keeping the miles short. The goal right now is consistency, not heroics.
At my age the real risk isn’t lack of fitness.
It’s injury.
I have Morton’s neuroma in both forefeet and a long history of plantar fasciitis. If either of those decides to flare up badly, the hike could be over before it begins.
So the rule right now is simple: do not overdo it.
Walk every day. Carry the weight. Let the feet toughen up slowly.
And watch the weather.
As of this week the snowpack across the West is running well below normal, which would make for a friendly early season if it holds.
But winter isn’t finished yet.
A storm is reported to be moving in, but a hiker posted photos of no snow up on San Jacinto this week. That can change in a hurry if the storm delivers what forecasters are hinting at.
For now all we can do is watch the maps and the sky.
The gear is packed.
The team is set.
The miles have started.
Thirty-one days to Campo.
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