Ooh, Ahh, New Shoes!

Day 143 - August 26

Mile: 2290.3 to 2304.8 (14.5) plus 1 mile road walk

up/down: 1350/2200 feet

You can't imagine how wonderful it is to put on new shoes after doing 150 miles in shoes that had no business being out on the trail. It was heavenly. Hummingbird has the exact same shoe she has been wearing except these actually have tread on the bottom. Which brings up an interesting observation - when you have hiked as many miles as we have your feet are conditioned to come off the ground no higher than is absolutely necessary. The new shoes with a couple millimeters of additional tread height will drag on trail obstacles until the brain compensates for the change. It takes a couple days to fully take effect.  Until then tripping on damn near everything happens. 

 

My new shoes are an update of what I've been wearing since the start - Altra Lone Peak. I have used up four pairs of the 2.5 model, the new ones are 3.0. The new model appears to have solved the problem with tearing of the mesh at the toe, we'll see how it works for the next 350 miles. 

 

With resupply day comes a heavy pack again so that sucks. This is a 100 mile section so we have five days of food. But it's our food again!

We did walk today, two miles from camp to the road, half mile each way on the road to the store at White Pass, and 12.5 miles in the afternoon. Just another day in the forest with no views to speak of. Lots of ponds in the section we are in now - some named as lakes, some not. Where we come from they'd all be called mosquito ponds...

 

Under the category of longest trail distance between sightings: we saw Wombat today, last seen at Idyllwild campground  (mile 175) where I taught him how to lance and drain a blister with a sterile needle and dental floss. He still has two feet so it must have worked...  Here he is helping out at the store checking in resupply boxes while he waits for his late package to arrive. 

 

Finally, we passed 2300 miles today - 350 to go!