Tejon Ranch relocation

The Tejon Ranch area was a sore spot for PCT lovers as the trail had to come down out of the mountains and onto the desert floor for a hot and waterless stretch. Due to an historic agreement between the PCTA, Tejon Ranch and the National and State forest agencies involved that is no longer the case. Here is all the news on this agreement:

http://pcta.org/general/news/tejon_ranch.asp

If you would like to donate to the PCTA and it's further efforts go here and click on "Donate":

http://pcta.org/

ADZPCTKO '08

Spent the weekend at the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off. This year they had Eric Ryback speaking. Eric hiked the PCT from Canada to Mexico in 1970. At this time the trail was set in Oregon and Washington but there were 2 routes proposed in California and maps and guidebooks were not fully available. Eric was probably the first to thru-hike the trail.

Here's the differences between then and now.

Now: people hiking the trail typically have about 26 places on the trail where they send themselves boxes of food.

Then: Eric sent himself 5 boxes of food.

This means he was carrying A LOT more weight in food on his back.

Now: people typically hike with a backpack between 15-30 pounds on there back.

Then: Eric hiked with a 75 pound load. He weighed 140 at the time.

Time to update

Well, I've lost about 13 pounds. So the weight thing is going good. I went to Joshua Tree National Park and will update shortly with photos of all the wildflowers. Also, I'm going to ADZPCTKO 2008 on April 25-27 for the kickoff party. I'm very excited to see this year's group and wish them well. Last year I didn't really talk to anyone, so this year I will endeavour to do so and report back to all my readers.

I've been walking . . .

The plan is now in place. I will lose 5 pounds a month this year on average to make my plan of losing 60 pounds before it all ends. This will reduce me from 270 to 210. I am using the Bacpacker magazine site's personal trainer to achieve this goal. The website provides you with a meal plan and exercise plan that are both customizable. You may notice a similar post to this if you look through my archives, as I used this plan breifly before.

That's the goal and don't consider this a new year resolution, this has everything to do with hiking 2,660 miles, not some new year's day junk.