Halfway Home!

I just passed the official halfway point. But since I've done the desert half and the Sierra half, and have transformed from a couch potato into a hiking machine, I would say it is most definitely the easy half. Twenty mile days used to be long and difficult. Now twenty miles are done by lunchtime. Last update I told you of the coincidental meeting of Caroline's uncles. Not nearly as coincidental, but still exciting is meeting up with fellow hikers that I haven't seen for a while, sometimes as long as 700 miles. But it is still fun nonetheless. Finally, I got to meet Chief, a retired fire chief from Santa Barbara. I had heard stories of him about how he helped to rescue Purple from the trail when she suffered from a hike-ending foot injury. And I had been treated to several trail angel treats by his wife from as long as 900 miles ago (apple sauce). He popped into the Red Moose Cafe in Sierra City to drop off a couple of loads of freshly baked goodies from his wife. The next day on my way out to hike, I used my magic thumb to get a lift. Who should it be from but Chief's wife. Finally, I got to thank her for the apple sauce so many miles back. She introduced herself as Maureen, and introduced me to their dog, Bodie. Bodie and I got to know one another in the back seat during the mile and a half ride to the trail. That night I camped early with Chief while waiting to see whether the nearby storm would hit. It didn't, but once we set up our tents, we were there to stay. The next day, who should I see but Bodie, coming at me at a dead sprint, leaping over a downed tree to pull up shy as if to say "Who the heck are you, and where is my Chief?" Not disappointed in the least, I gave Bodie a couple of quick pats, told Maureen that Chief was surely on his way, and continued my hike. A couple of days later (today), as I was trying to hitchhike to Chester, I was thinking about my lucky thumb. I have never had to wait more than five minutes for a ride before. Usually, I don't even need to stick out my thumb. In Wrightwood, I pulled up to a group of eight hikers at the trailhead. Since eight hikers never are hiking together, it was clear to me that at least some of them had been waiting for a long time. And since nine hikers cannot fit into a car no matter how hard they try, it was also clear to me that I would be there for a while. Not three minutes later, one big van, and one pickup truck pulled into the trailhead, and took all of us down to town. Another time, at Big Bear City, as I was stepping off of the trail, a driving was pulling into the parking lot. Before my foot even had time to hit the ground, I was offered a ride. These two are my best stories, but by no means my only ultra-successful ones. So back to today, after I had waited a half hour with lots of passing cars, but none who wanted to pick me up, I figured my luck had finally turned. Not so fast. A camper going the opposite direction pulls into the trailhead and shouts out "Need a ride?" It was none other than Maureen and Bodie. She drove me to the supermarket to resupply, while Chief made it and was waiting at the trailhead. We then grabbed some lunch to go, along with milkshakes, for us and Chief, and drove back to the trailhead. I am now sitting at a campground on their computer after eating an unbelievably good meal of chicken enchiladas, with freshly laundered clothes (and a humbling defeat in horseshoes -- happy Maureen?), and otherwise very satisfied with life. So satisfied that I'm not even lamented the loss of my cell phone. I would think that after Caroline and I had collectively "washed" three phones over the years, I would have learned that swimming with your phone is not a good idea. Okay, it wasn't actually swimming, it was foolishly trying to ford a river that didn't need to be forded. But the net result is the same. Another broken phone, and another jackpot for T-Mobile. I could also tell you about the time I followed a deer for a half-mile down the trail. Or about the best Fourth of July celebration I've ever had with complete strangers. Or about the horse I saw rolling on his back and scratching like a dog. But I've talked long enough. Hope all is well, -Roger Dodger

Hello from Sierra "City"

Someone asked me if I had a relaxing time in South Lake Tahoe. My answer was an unequivocal "no". Town stops are hectic as anything. Find lodging. Find food. Find a computer. Find a supermarket. Find a post office. Eat. Shop. Resupply. E-mail. Call. Blog. Sleep. Before you know it, the day is gone and half the things you wanted to do weren't done. Don't get me wrong. Town stops are great. My favorite part of town is getting to talk to Caroline. But it's not relaxing. The trail, on the other hand, is relaxing. You've got all the time in the world to relax. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt as I was relaxing on my hike out of South Lake Tahoe. (Now, that's a segue, Margaret!) I forgot that my long sleeves keep them from getting sunburned. Although the new sunburn was quite painful, luckily I was distracted from it by the swarms of mosquitoes that were attacking my arms. So I decided to make a game out of it. A successful mosquito bite and they scored a point. A dead mosquito and I scored a point. End of the day score: Mosquitoes -- a lot. Roger -- a lot more. Somehow I think I still came out the loser. I wore the short sleeve shirt because my long sleeve shirt didn't have "Roger Dodger" written on the back. That being said, I think I'm going to have to relegate the shirt to town stops for now. But it will make it's hiking reappearance to celebrate when I cross the Canadian border. The day coming into Sierra City was a peculiar one. I passed a couple of sixty-something day hikers on the way up a hill. Most of the time when I pass some hikers we engage in an awkward twelve second conversation. "Hi." "Hello, how are you?" "Fine, and yourself?" "Excellent. Have a nice hike." "You, too." And this conversation was no different. About a mile later I climbed up the hill off the trail a little ways to get out of the sun. The two guys I passed were a bit smarter than me. They climbed a little higher to the ridge top. They were rewarded with broader views, and although I didn't ask, surely less of the vicious black flies that were circling me (if you think mosquito bites are bad, you should try sitting in a swarm of these killers). Anyway, I got fed up being fly bait, and resumed my hike just after the guys above me. When I passed them a second time, I prepped for my next twelve second conversation. One of them was looking through binoculars, so I found my opening. "See any good birds, today?" Somehow twelve seconds turned into forty minutes which entailed exchanging contact information, and ended with a promise to keep in touch and visit next time Caroline and I were in the area, which will be when she joins me for the finale of my hike in Washington. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Somewhere in those forty minutes we discovered that the two guys were Caroline's uncles, who she hadn't seen in almost 25 years. And if that weren't coincidence enough, I also met Margaret and Jon's uncles on the same ridge. This got me to thinking, how many other long lost relatives have I passed on the trail without giving them a second thought. From now on, I think my new twelve second conversations will go something like this: "Hi." "Hello, how are you." "Excellent. By the way, is there any chance that we are related?" My next mail stop, if you are interested will be about July 23rd Roger Wolff c/o General Delivery Ashland, OR 97520 -Roger Dodger

Goodbye Central California

According to the guidebooks, I am just about done with central California (15 more miles). Along the way, I passed the 1000 mile mark. I also passed the 1007 mile mark (some wise guy decided that it was funny to make a 1007 marker -- I agreed). I also passed the 1041 mile mark. But it was oddly at mile 1025. So I fixed it. Back to binary, it was mile 1000000001 which is much more interesting. Not only is it a palindrome (reads the same right to left), but it is also an ambigram (reads the same upside down). Only afterwards did we realize that we probably disappointed boy scout troup number 1041 if they decide to come back the way they came. Want to know what's better than getting cookies in the mail? Getting a t-shirt that says "Roger Dodger" on the back and is signed by your college roommates. Thank you so much, Darren, Will, and Dan. About a week and a half ago, I met up again with Tower, a hiker that I've seen on and off for about 800 miles. He told me about his kid's trail magic (hamburgers and soda) that I missed (by ONE HOUR!) He told me about his upcoming kid's trail magic in 3 days. So I didn't let him out of my sight. When we got to where the trail magic was supposed to be, his son brought a couple of cookies and some soda. I didn't show my disappointment, but I was hoping for some more. And more did I ever get. His son asked if I wanted a ride down to the local restaurant (with a promise of a ride back up to the trail). After Tower and I ate our fill, his son asked if I wanted the sandwich he got for his dad, who didn't need it now that he ate lunch and was going home to a barbecue in a couple of hours. So I ate that, too. But when I was done, he asked if I wanted to come home with them, where he plied me with steak, hot dogs, salads, and blueberry muffins for dessert. After a night of not sleeping much (the bed was too comfortable), he fed me more: bacon, blueberry pancakes, strawberries, an egg scramble. He then gave me a book he wrote about his time as the world's 13th best freestyle skier before his brother took us back to the trail where we tried to make a dent burning off the calories we just ate. A couple of days later we got caught in a storm. We fought very high winds on a ridgetop. I then proceded to get lost. After I descended for an hour, I figured out that I wasn't on the PCT. I knew where I went wrong, but couldn't brave the weather and the hill. So I set up camp, and crawled into my sleeping bag for about 20 hours. When I couldn't take it anymore, I took all my soggy gear up the hill and was back on my way. I'm all dry now. I'm well fed. And I'm ready to get back on the trail tomorrow. If you'd like to get rid of any cookies (or t-shirts), at July 12th, I'll be at Roger Wolff c/o General Delivery Dunsmuir, CA 96025 -Roger Dodger

Mammoth Lakes

Just passed the 900 mile mark. For some reason, people seem to like numbers with lots of zeros at the end, and often arrange rocks, sticks, or pinecones to commemorate those milestones. To that effect, I got my geek on a ways back at mile 512 and made a 1,000,000,000 marker. And if I can remember, I will make the 10,000,000,000 marker at mile 1024. A couple of days ago I was composing this e-mail update in my head, and was going to tell you how absolutely lucky I have been on this trip so far. Pleasant weather in the desert, lots of trail angels, no feet problems, in fact no problems of any kind worth even mentioning. I'm not sure if I should have been thinking so loudly, because the very next day.....I lost my hat. Subsequently, I got sunburnt. I broke my hiking pole. When playing around with it, a scraped my leg up. Nothing major, but the first time I've drawn blood on the trip. When I got to camp, the mosquitoes were horrendous. After giving them way more blood that I lost to the hiking pole, I jumped into the tent and forewent dinner. I took out my journal, thought about the day, and all I could think was that I was walking through one of the most beautiful places on earth, how great of a time I had, and how lucky I was. Suck it, Karma. Perhaps I shouldn't have written so loudly. Two days later, I got caught in a storm for four hours. It rained. It snowed. And it hailed. The hail was big enough to hurt. The sky was all gray, I could hardly see a thing. Throughout those miles, all I could think was that Caroline was coming to Mammoth, and I was going to see her for the first time in six weeks. How lucky was I? Suck it again, Karma. It turns out that Caroline's plane malfunctioned, and had to make an emergency landing, accompanied by ambulances and fire trucks, just in case of an explosion. She missed her connecting flights, and had to stay in Pittsburgh for another day. But she is coming today. I hope. Be nice, Karma, I didn't mean any of that. I said I lost my hat. In fact, it was stolen. I went to sleep one night with it resting on a log, with my sunglasses on top of it. In the morning the glasses were a couple of feet away, but the hat was nowhere to be found. At first, I thought it might be a Sasquatch. That didn't make any sense, the hat would never fit him. Then, I figured it might be a bear. No, they don't actually exist. My leading contender is now a deer. They like the salt from my sweat, and I've seen lots of them in the woods recently. I liked that hat. My siblings-in-law gave it to me. It served me well for 850 miles. For the rest of the trip, I will just have to live with a hat that does not say "What should I have for dinner in town?" If it's any consolation, Margaret and Eric, the hat will be on the PCT for way longer than it would have otherwise. For those of you who haven't funded the most amazing cryptic crosswords project yet, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1747436254/cryptic-all-stars there is no better day to do it than today. Or tomorrow. Or any of the next 47 days. In fact, they are all pretty much equally good. For those of you that have helped to fund this, thank you so very much. Over a quarter of the way there. -Roger Dodger

Kennedy Meadows

Wow, 700 miles really flies by. I just spent the last 150 miles in the Sierra, but it has been way more desertlike than the desert. Go figure. North of Kennedy Meadows is where the "real" Sierra comes though. I've been there a couple of times before, but it's one place that you can never get sick of. I'll be spending the next 200+ miles without running into so much as a jeep road. I've talked a bit about how much trail angels have given to me. This section, I was able to give back. Before leaving HikerTown, I was somehow conned into helping lay down flooring for the owner. After I woke up, he asked if I wanted coffee. Then if I wanted toast. Then if I wanted to see the ranch next door that he bought and was renovating to rent in the off-season, and let hikers use during the summer. Then he said to the guy laying the floor, "and by the way, this guy offered to help." He stopped short of pushing me into the room before running away. My head was still spinning a bit as to how it all happened, but I had fun laying the floor, and felt good to help the trail angel, not to mention the hikers following me that are going to have some nice linoleum to walk on. I got to Tehachapi, and was in Starbucks when an older guy who saw I was a hiker came up and started talking to me. Turns out, he was a trail angel that left much needed water, and much appreciate apples eight miles before town. I asked him if I could buy him lunch. He told me how he has been out of work as a carpenter for 4 months due to kidney stones (unfortunately, I now know A LOT about his kidney stones), and that he hasn't been able to afford to go out and eat at his favorite Thai restaurant since then. He couldn't seem to believe his fortune that someone would treat him to lunch. And he even had some leftovers to give to his grandkid. Last e-mail I tried to tell you a bit about what the PCT looks like. This time I'll try to tell you what it sounds like. Imagine New York City during rush hour. It's entirely unlike that. You walk along and hear the clicking of your trekking poles, and crunching under your feet. You stop walking, and all that's left is that godforsaken whistling. You realize you've been whistling again and cut that out. Now there is nothing left but your breathing. And the occasional gust of wind. Or the hoot of an owl. Or the scampering of a lizard. And then you look around you and realize that the only sign of civilization apart from you is the trail in front of you, and the trail behind you. And you become humbled. And then you hear the grumbling. So you tell your stomach to keep quiet, and book it 3 more hours to Kennedy Meadows where someone sees the glazed look in your eyes saying "my whole life for the past 5 days has been mostly walking alone on the trail (I finally got to spend 24 hours without seeing another person), and now there are people, a store, a restaurant and showers, I'm not sure what I am supposed to do," and does the only thing they can -- offer you a beer. Life is good on the PCT. My next mail stop will be at June 24th. I can be reached at the following address: Roger Wolff c/o General Delivery South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150 While I'm not hiking, I have been busy pressing a green "Launch" button on a Kickstarter project of mine. Please check it out. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1747436254/cryptic-all-stars Make sure to watch the video, and then send Ahing (ahinghuang@gmail.com) an e-mail saying something along the lines of "Holy cow! That was the best cryptic crossword related video I've ever seen!" Please don't feel obligated, but I would love it if you pledged.

Goodbye SoCal

I am now in Tehachapi, and officially done with southern California. In a couple of hours, I will be headed out into the southernmost of the Sierras. I want to apologize for my lack of detail in providing information about when I will get to town to receive any packages. Mom and aunt Kathie both sent me cookies to Agua Dulce which arrived after I already left. Just so you know, they were not wasted. The trail angels and other hikers thoroughly enjoyed them. It was my own fault that I didn't. My next mail stop will be mammoth lakes, where I will be spending a couple of days with Caroline.I can't wait. If you'd like to send me anything, please make sure that it will arrive by June 14th at the latest. You can send it to Roger Wolff c/o general delivery Mammoth lakes, CA 93546 Now for what I've been up to. I cooked dinner for the first time in a week. Trail angels have been too nice. I get to partially repay their generosity by taking a guy I met in Starbucks out to lunch. He introduced himself as the guy who leaves water and apples for the hikers about 10 miles south of town. A couple of nights ago, eighteen of us set off after dark wearing glowsticks. Someone organized this as a tribute to Glow in the Dark, a hiker undergoing chemo for breast cancer hiking the trail in pieces when she can. My mother asked for a description of the scenery, as I am not attaching any pictures in these updates. I'll try. Imagine if you will, "Lawrence of Arabia", walking through the sun-drenched desert with nothing but sand for as far as the eye can see. Well, the southern California desert is nothing like that. mountains full of green, save for the hillsides of colorful flowers, filled with animals. It has been beautiful. Unfortunately, neither words nor photos could do it justice. If you would like to know what it looks like, you will just have to come out and experience it yourself. -Roger Dodger

Hello from Agua Dulce

After 450 miles, I made it to "Hiker Heaven." And heaven it is. After some slight miscalculation, I ended up hiking 65 miles over 2 days through the heat and trails overgrown with poodle-dog bush (related to poison oak, but worse) to make it to this makeshift hostel in the middle of nowhere. About 15 years ago, the owners picked up a hiker from the local pizza place and offered them a place to stay. Today, they have rented tents filled with cots, a rented 15 person van to shuttle people to REI, or anyplace else they need to go. They have a small team of volunteers to do everyone's laundry, and let hikers use their bicycles to ride to town (who wants to walk the off-trail mile?) Now that I'm showered and fed, I'm spending the day just relaxing while I wait to reuinte with my college roommate. Just happenstance I received an e-mail from another roommate asking if I would be going to our 15th college reunion. After I got a response from a second roommate with a signature from Southern California, I thought "Hey, I'm in Southern California!" Anyway, should be a lot of fun reminiscing tonight. And this is on the heels of reconnecting with my best friend from high school just a week before the trip. This sentence is an example of a terrible segue. I'm not sure why, but hikers assume trail names. My best guess is that a long-distance hike is so removed from "normal life", that to make the transformation complete, we adopt new names. Usually they come from an attribute of that person ("Hiking Pole" is a Polish hiker) or some quirky thing they did ("Sour Cream" ate sour cream on his granola because he thought it was (funny-tasting) yogurt). I have been happy to help name a couple of fellow hikers. A girl who told me she cries whenever someone is nice to her is now known as "Tears for Beers." And a Japanese hiker who carries a big DSLR camera is now "Shashingka" (Japanese for photographer). I've done a pretty good job of avoiding a trail name like "The Plague". I've been pretty good at avoiding the more innocuous ones as well ("Speedy Gonzolez", "Mr. Rogers", "The Clapper" (or "The Clap" for short), and "Pathfinder". Because of this, I have been christened "Roger Dodger," which I humbly accept. Until I don't any, at which point I may be named "Roger Dodger Dodger." I should be arriving at Kennedy Meadows by June 1, so if you'd like to send me some hiker love, please send it to the following address (and let me know to expect it). ROGER WOLFF c/o KENNEDY MEADOWS GENERAL STORE 96740 BEACH MEADOW RD INYOKERN CA 93527 Hope all is well -Roger Dodger