colleen stinchcombe

Miles: 7.5

Snakes: 1

Rattlesnakes: 0
Tears: 0

Well, we finally took the short day we intended to take. 7.5 pretty easy miles, which puts us about 14 miles outside of Scissors Crossing aka our method to get to Julian. 

I slept super well last night, waking up around 6. I stayed in my tent and made myself tea outside my door while I slowly made my way through chores – tending to my feet, organizing my gear, etc. I also woke up and realized I was supposed to get my period and, lo and behold, it had arrived. I put in my luna cup and realized I had bled all over my air mattress. Lovely. I popped an ibuprofen to ward off any cramps and got on with the day. 

Our original trail group has split up – Farkle, Cathleen and Alpo had seemingly all gone past our intended stop, so Karma, Twerk (formerly known as Tommy, name so given because he leads us all in “twerk” circles where we all stretch to music at the end of the day), Amelia and I slowly got packed up. I left shortly behind the group around 845 and hiked much of the morning by myself. My ankle didn’t bother me all day and I was actually pretty energetic – I’m not sure how much of that is me and how much was the ibuprofen. I can tell my calves are still feeling it but I was able to move pretty steady today. It’s so nice to not have blisters screaming at me.

TMI, but I also had one of the best poops of the trail. Shaded, private, non-emergency. I wish every one could be like that. Later in the day we were talking about poop on the trail and Tommy said having to take a shit in the hot sun was the worst and he almost got renamed Hot Shit. (I just laughed writing that and the whole tent site got disturbed. “I’m gonna take a hot shit in your tent right now,” Twerk says. Oops.)

I got water 1/2 mile off trail at a horse trough that had a tank with clean water. Karma, Amelia and Twerk were there eating lunch. We got the last of the water, everybody else had to drink trough water unfortunately. Shortly thereafter Jeff (hereby known as Roadshow, because he does his own thing and is his own “road show”) stopped and chatted with us. We only had five miles to our intended camp so rhe rest of the group headed out and I got my stuff together to follow a few minutes later. As I was headed back to the trail, a trail angel, Tom, was setting up for the day. Tom drove all the way from Kennedy Meadows to hand out beer, sodas and burgers. It was early so I didn’t take one, but he said weekends are awesome for trail magic and that early every road crossing will have one, so we have that to look forward to.

Since I was talking to Tom, Roadshow ended up catching up with me. I set the pace and we ended up trucking it for 4 miles until we spotted Soulshine and Sprite sitting under Sprite’s tarp with Amelia. They invited us to the shade and we sat there chatting for a half an hour or so. Nirvana and Rachel showed up and joined the party and I told Nirvana about the blister trick. Right now, Karma, Amelia, Twerk and I are going to get a room in Julian if we can and if they’ll allow 6, Spirit and Soulshine will join us. 

After the break I hiked with Amelia for the final mile to camp where Twerk and Karma were waiting for us. Rachel and Nirvana caught up and decided to spend the night there too. We noticed a sign saying there was water .75 miles down a side road so Twerk and Karma went in search of water while Amelia and I ate lunch. We were in luck: water! Twerk said while they were walking he and Karma thought of two potential trail names for me, Miss Information (I’ve had a lot of information for the beginning of the trail but my knowledge starts to run dry after Warner Springs) or Goddammit (I assume I say this a lot?) I kind of like the double meaning of Miss Information but I don’t think I’ll keep either of them. It’s fun to get insight into how people see you though. 

Karma and Twerk started setting up camp and the four of us hiked down pack-free to fill up for the relatively dry hike down to Scissors Crossing. We had some pretty fun conversations. We realize all four of us had been homeschooled for part of our lives and three of us had also been to Montessori school. We talked about trail romances and spirituality and it was really cool. 

When we got back to camp we ate dinner and chatted and laughed and Twerk led us through some stretching to Thong Song and now I’m here writing this. We’re getting up real early to try to make miles before the sun gets too hot and get our butts to Julian for some real food and free pie. We’re not sure if we’re going to take a zero in Julian or just enjoy what the town has to offer in the afternoon tomorrow and the next morning and then get back to trail. We shall see!