{"id":499,"date":"2006-06-05T10:54:19","date_gmt":"2006-06-05T15:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=499"},"modified":"2007-12-03T13:05:33","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T21:05:33","slug":"hiker-heaven-on-the-pct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2006\/06\/05\/hiker-heaven-on-the-pct\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hiker Heaven’ on the PCT"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the LiveJournal blog of Redtail, at mile 454 on the Pacific Crest Trail: <\/a><\/p>\n

Hiker Heaven<\/a> … is an experience unto itself. THGTTPCT<\/a> tries to give some flavor of it in the page and a half it devotes to the Saufleys; phrases such as “(they) are quite possibly the most amazing people you will ever meet” and “You don’t understand … they LIVE for hiker season” litter the book. The Saufleys devote an entire two-bedroom guest house to hikers — bathroom, kitchen, living room with TV and two computers, and all. And an RV. And several huge canopy tents and half a dozen air mattresses. And Donna does all the laundry; and they keep several shelves stacked with loaner clothes so you can get everything washed at once while you lounge around in “Saufley Electric” T-shirts and shorts during your stay.<\/p>\n

Did I mention the fleet of basket-equipped bicycles provided to make the mile back into Agua Dulce a breeze? Oh, wait, the car — they have a loaner vehicle that they keep around (and specifically keep insured) solely for hiker use! And, and, and. It doesn’t end.Hiker Heaven … is an experience unto itself. THGTTPCT tries to give some flavor of it in the page and a half it devotes to the Saufleys; phrases such as “(they) are quite possibly the most amazing people you will ever meet” and “You don’t understand … they LIVE for hiker season” litter the book. The Saufleys devote an entire two-bedroom guest house to hikers — bathroom, kitchen, living room with TV and two computers, and all. And an RV. And several huge canopy tents and half a dozen air mattresses. And Donna does all the laundry; and they keep several shelves stacked with loaner clothes so you can get everything washed at once while you lounge around in “Saufley Electric” T-shirts and shorts during your stay.<\/p>\n

Did I mention the fleet of basket-equipped bicycles provided to make the mile back into Agua Dulce a breeze? Oh, wait, the car — they have a loaner vehicle that they keep around (and specifically keep insured) solely for hiker use! And, and, and. It doesn’t end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Redtail also reveals some pounds were burned off in the opening month:<\/p>\n

I got a second shock when I toweled myself dry and, on a lark, stepped onto the bathroom scale. I weighed in at about 175 pounds, which is a weight I haven’t been since college. I left for the trip (after bulking up a bit) creeping up on 200, and had been about 190 in Julian, so I was expecting I’d be slimming down, but not that much — especially with my gut still looking a bit round, an artifact of gorging myself during the five-day BayCon layover.<\/p>\n

Thru-hikers’ weight fluctuates greatly over the course of a trip. We’re used to just burning so damn many calories on the trail that we can’t eat enough to keep up, and then pigging out during town layovers to gain it back for the next leg. But I guess it hadn’t quite hit me that, with a month under my belt, I’d have whipped myself into such shape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing like the first month on the trail, except perhaps all the months after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the LiveJournal blog of Redtail, at mile 454 on the Pacific Crest Trail: Hiker Heaven … is an experience unto itself. THGTTPCT tries to give some flavor of it in the page and a half it devotes to the…<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[153,107],"tags":[150,512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}