Itinerary as of May 26

New Itinerary Update:

I have added recommended dates that packages should be sent in order for them to arrive in a timely manner. These dates are in bold font and follow each mailing address.  It is recommended that one allows ten days for shipping.  Most places will hold packages for up to a month, especially if you put the ETA on the package.  As always, address your package like this (unless otherwise noted):

Aria Benner
General Delivery
City, State Zip

On the bottom left corner, write:
Hold for Aria Benner
ETA: (date I am expected to arrive)

Here is my new schedule:

May 30 Agua Dulse, CA   Mail to: Aria Benner c/o The Saufleys/  11861 Darling  Road /Agua Dulce, CA 91390 May20
June 5 Mojave, CA 93501 May 26
June 12 Kennedy Meadows, CA Mail to: Aria Benner/ c/o Kennedy Meadows General Store/ 96740 Beach Meadow Road / Inyokem, CA 93527.  Costs me $2 to pick up a package. June 1
June 16 Bishop, CA 93514 June 5
June 21 Mono Hot Springs, CA  Mail to: Aria Benner/  c/o Mono Hot Springs Resort/ General Delivery,/Mono Hot Springs, CA 93642 June 11
June 23 Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546 June 13
June 29 Bridgeport, CA 93517 June 19
July 3 South Lake Tahoe, CA 96151 June 23
July 8 Sierra City, CA 96125 June 29
July 15 Chester, CA 96020 July 5
July 19 Burney, CA 96013 July 9
July 24 Mt. Shasta, CA 96067 July 14
July 29 Etna, CA 96027 July 19
Aug 4 Ashland, OR 97520 July 25
Aug 9 Crater Lake, OR  Mail to:  Aria Benner / c/o Crater Lake Camp Store/ Mazama Village/ Crater Lake, OR 97604 July 30
Aug 13 Shelter Cove, OR  UPS Only. Mail to: Aria Benner/ c/o Shelter Cove Resort/  27600 West Odell Lake Road/ Highway 58/ Crescent, OR 97733
Aug 14 Sisters, OR 97759 Aug 7
Aug 23 Timberline Lodge  Mail to: Aria Benner/ c/o Timberline Ski Area/ WY'East Store/ Timberline Lodge/ Timberline OR 97028.  The guide book says to make it painfully obvious that the package is for a pct hiker.  Costs me $5 to pick up a package here. Aug 13
Aug 22 Cascade Locks, OR  **Come pick me up and take me to Portland!**
Aug 29 Trout Lake, WA 98650 Aug 19
Sept 1 White Pass, WA  Mail to:  Aria Benner/ c/o White Pass Rural Branch PO/ at the Kracker Barrel Store/ 48851 US Highway 12/ Naches, WA 98937 Aug 22
Sept 6 Snoqualmie Pass, WA  98068 Aug 27
Sept 10 Skykomish, WA 98288 Sept 31
Sept 15 Stehekin, WA 98852 Sept6
Sept 20 Manning Park, Canada!!  Mail to:  Aria Benner/ c/o Manning Park Lodge/ 7500 Highway #3/ Manning Provincial Park, BC VOX IR0/ CANADA Sept 10 

Heat, Wind, and Trail Magic

Day 9 (May 11):  We (Pica, Stone, Texas Chill and I,) only hiked 15 miles today, because we got sucked into the vortex of Paradise Cafe on the way to Idyllwild.  The burger I had was amazing!  (Yes, a burger.  The vegetarianism has gone on hiatus while I'm on the trail.  Hopefully the reasons are obvious.)  I saw some really cool barrel cacti today.  It's been eleven days since my last cigarette.  Yay!

Day 10: Um, I have no record of this day.  I hiked.  Saw some trees.  There was actually snow on the trail!  What I thought was a small desert farm town down in  the valley beneath the ridge actually turned out to be Palm Springs.  I made this realization when night fell and the lights came on.  It was very beautiful, but it was the most city lights I've seen in a while.  I'm starting to get a rash on my hands from the sun, so I'll have to get some gloves in Idyllwild.

Day 11:  Hiking down to Idyllwild was difficult for me this morning because my left shoulder keeps having intense cramps.  My backpack (an original GoLite model) doesn't have a hip belt or a sternum strap.  On our way down Devil's Slide, Tex and I ran into Grasshopper (the guy I hiked with on the first day).  He is going to leave the Pacific Crest Trail to hike the Continental Divide Trail.  This is really exciting because when he completes, he will have his Triple Crown. I got a calzone at the pizza place in Idyllwild that was really good!  I got a new GoLite pack at the outfitter here.  They also had some gloves for me, but no sports bra.  The price was right.  The hotels here were all too expensive, so a bunch of us camped at the State Park which had showers for $1.  This is a cute town, but super expensive.

Day 12:  The b-fast at Jo Ann's in Idyllwild is overpriced and the waitress was rude.  The Mexican place is right on, though.  Huge portions and breakfast is supposedly buy one get one half off.  Got a bunch of stuff done in town.  Got a ride back to the trail by a trail angel named Dave who gave us Lifesavers.  We just called this guy and he came and picked us right up and dropped us at the trail head!  I'm tellin ya, nothing beats trail magic!  Tex and I hiked up to Taquitz Peak because there was a lookout tower we thought we might want to stay in, but it was locked up.  It was super windy but we decided to stay up there anyway.

Day 13:  Last night I got a horrible night's sleep.  I had to get up and fix the tarp in the middle of the night.  The wind was super strong.  Today there is another 20 mile waterless stretch (sigh) through a hot dessert.  My new pack feels great though.  I'm not having shoulder pains anymore.  I've moved on to foot pain.  The muscles in my feet are adapting to hiking everyday.  Taking ibuprofen every night helps to relax the muscles.  The decent from this ridge is like, 11 miles long, and it really only needs to be like 7 or less miles long.  What-a-ya-gonna-do?

Day 14:  It's in the triple digits today.  Tex said it was in the nineties, but when we got to the trail angel's house someone said it was 106* in the shade.  Ya, that sounded about right.   We saw three rattlesnakes today.  A little baby one, a medium one and a big one.  In that order!  They were all reluctant to get off the trail, even when I continuously prodded them with my trekking pole.  (Don't worry.  Thier striking distance is 18 inches.  My trekking poles are plenty long enough to do this safely.)  I'd like to eat one one of these days.  I hear they're delicious.
This was the hottest stretch yet, and I definitely questioned why I am doing this.  To get through hiking through the sand (which I strongly dislike) I pretended I was cross country skiing.  We got to Ziggy and the Bear's  (trail angels) at 4:30.  That was 18 miles before the evening!  The first thing you do at Ziggy and the Bear's is get a lovely hot mineral foot bath!  Then they serve a fresh delicious salad and later giant scoops of ice cream with cake.  Such a treat!  This hike can be really trying at times, and this kind of trail magic totally makes up for it.
You could grate cheese on my feet.

Day 15 (May 17):  It was another hot day, but the wind was refreshing and I felt better after staying at Ziggy's.  Lunch was at a beautiful park at a wildlife preserve on Whitewater Creek.  Yummy water!  I felt asleep face down in my maps for an hour.  We crossed the river and headed back into the mountains.  The wind was INSANE!  I would say about 70 mph.  

The Beginning Part 2

Day 3 (continued): After hooking the lady up with her dog, I went into the general store to dig through the hiker boxes.  (People leave stuff they don't want to carry with them in hiker boxes.  There are several in every trail town.  There is so much stuff in the hiker boxes sometimes that you could almost do a full resupply out of them.  You can also do an upgrade, such as taking the nice shiny whistle from the hiker box, and leaving the old rusty whistle you found on the trial.)  I found a dry sack for my sleeping bag!  Yay!  At night the moon was full and the closest it will be to the earth in a year.

Day 4:  Woke up at six this morning and hiked down a ridge.  It was super easy to get 15 miles done, although I did get lost along the way.  I was not paying attention to landmarks, was lost in my own world, and ended up being farther ahead than I thought I was.  After 15 miles, I stopped at a huge concrete tank of water that several other hikers where stopped at.  The day ended short because the next section of the trail is nine waterless miles.  I cowboy camped on the water tank that night.  You could feel the warmth stored from the day's blazing sun radiating from the concrete.  The stars where beautiful and bright.  I love the wilderness sky, free of light pollution.  In the city the stars all seem to be flat and to shine at the same intensity.  Out here you can appreciate the stars for being exploding balls of energy all different distances from earth and burning away at different intensities.  

Day 5:  I made it across the desert, and hitched a ride into the town of Julian with another hiker.  This is a small touristy town, not really too much my style.  Though there was a pie shop called "Mom's Pies" that gave us a free lunch: a sandwich, pie AND ice cream!  I had bumbleberry (blueberry, boysenberry, and blackberry) with cinnamon ice cream.  Yum.  After Julian, About six of us decided to stay at a "hotel" "close" to the trail called The Stagecoach.  We divided ourselves into smaller groups of three to make hitching out easier.  I was in the first group to head out.  The guy at The Stagecoach said we could get a two person "cabin" for twenty five bucks and put more people in it, so we decided to get two of those.  When we went to check out the "cabins"  we discovered they were tool sheds that had almost no ventilation.  What can you expect for eight dollars each?  But still, we decided to pay the extra three bucks each and get the larger four person "cabin" which was actually a trailer called the "Missouri."  I had a pretty fun time, although there was a bit of a boy's club kinda thing going on. 

Day 6:  I walked 23 miles today and got my first blister.  It's the size of a flattened penny.  I also got my trail name to day.  I got named Navi because I look like a fairy and Navi is sort for navigation.  There was a fifteen mile waterless stretch today, relieved by the Gate 3 water cache.  ( There are many Trail Angels who bring gallons and gallons of water to the trail for hikers to fill up on.  These people could never be appreciated or thanked enough for the work they do for PCT hikers.)  The cache appeared like a beautiful oasis.  I sat in the shade with another hiker and waited out the hot part of the day.  When I made it to Barrel Springs Campsite, I popped my blister, ate dinner and went to bed.  A lot of what I've been doing is hiking, eating, and sleeping.  And repeat. 

Day 7:  It was just a hop skip and a jump to Warner Springs this morning where they had a community center set up to cater to PCT hikers.  I had a veggie burger there, and got to go on the Internet.  A group of four of us, Pica, Stone, Texas Chill and I, made our way in search of the next water source.  The terrain was beautiful and park like.  The trail was shaded by deciduous trees and ran along a river until we gained elevation and went back into the mountains in the late afternoon.  We passed the water source at twilight and ended up having to backtrack a mile in the dark.  We were so tired that we just did a snack potluck for dinner; summer sausage, cashews, and chocolate.  I was hurting.

Day  8:  The water source that we were camped at last night is called Lost Valley Creek Road Spring or something like that.  Nastiest water so far.  (And I'm typing this almost two weeks later, and it's still true.)  Fortunately I had some instant chrysanthemum tea packets to flavor the water with me which I distributed to everyone.  We hiked 20 mi to Nance Creek.  My schedule these days is to wake around five, (six if I'm really tired,) walk until noon or one, rest for an hour or two, hike until six or seven, cook and eat dinner, then hike until dark, or until I get to a good place to camp.  I'd like to start eating dinner at five or six. 

The Begining Part 1

Yay! I get to update my blog! I only have half an hour, so I will get in as much as I can and add more later. (Right about now I am wishing I had taken typing lessons.)

Day 1: (May 3) I arrived in San Diego last night and a nice gentleman I met on the train helped me out by splitting a cab with me, drawing me a map and explaining the layout of the neighborhood. I caught a bus to the trail head at Campo with three other hikers. One of them has hiked the PCT and the AT before. His name is Grasshopper. He's a cool dude. Very positive and excited to be hiking! I hiked with him for the most part that first day. It was a relief to hike with someone who knew what they were doing because I was very nervous. I was very tired after hiking 15 miles in the desert heat, so while he went on at Hauser Creek, I stopped and set up camp. My tarp worked out pretty well. The Moon was so bright that it woke me up several times during the night.

Day 2: (May 4) Woke up at six with my sleeping bag and tarp soaked. Grasshopper was totally right about it getting wet at night by the creek. I got up, ate breakfast and packed up camp. I got to use my little alcohol stove for the first time. It works pretty well for a little thing made out of a tin can! And it's so light! I attached my down sleeping bag to the back of my pack and headed down the trail towards Lake Morena. I got there around ten or eleven and indulged in a free shower. My sleeping bag was still wet despite being in the sun for three or four hours, and after scratching my head over it for a sec, I realized that while I was "drying" it out in the sun, I was also dragging it through the dewy brush and re-wetting it. Ha. I walked up to the little store in Morena and spent ten bucks on cheese, a small pack of Oreos, and a Gatorade. (Ouch! Trailway robbery!) On my way out I met Stone and Pika, two hikers from Michigan/ Portland. While hiking with them, I realized that I had to be in Mt. Laguna to pick up my re-supply box by 11am the next day (Saturday) to hit the PO before it closed. They helped me book it down the trail. We ended up camping on a windy ridge with the lovely Moon shining as bright as she could. I think that was an 18 mile day.

Day 3: Ok, so you know how I'm good at finding things for other people like keys, lighters, markers, and ladders? Today I found a dog and a hat, and for myself I found an absolutely perfect dry sack for my sleeping bag! (It's really important to keep down dry. If it gets wet, it's no good for keeping you warm.) Pika, Stone and I found a dog when we stopped to have breakfast at a camp ground before Mt. Laguna. I had a bit of a "Tortoise and Hare" situation when I looked at the clock during my hour of leisure, and realized I had 45 minutes to reach the post office. Fortunately I made it with 15 minutes to spare! While there I found a hat that someone left and facilitated it's return. Afterwards I was talking to a man named Texas Chill and told him about the dog. He said that a woman had been around looking for her dog, putting flyers up and such. I found a flyer and called her, directing her to the campground that Pika and Stone where at with the dog.


To be continued...
Out of time!

Oh, some photos:

 Lake Morena

 Rattle snake!

Hey all, I have a trail name now. It's Navi. She's the fairy from the video game Zelda. My hiking friends say I look like a fairy. I don't have much time to do a long post now, but I will have a recap of the last week done sometime before next week when I get to Idlewild. I'm having a good time, torturing my feet and shoulders, walking 13 and a half mile stretches between water supplies through the desert. Don't worry I am actually having a great time. The desert is in full "bloom" and is as lush as a desert ever gets. I am meeting people on the trail, and we have a small pack going. I even met some people from Portland! Much much more later.

Kisses and hugs all around.

in case...

Hey, if anyone needs to get a hold off me, remember: there are four bars on Whitney.