Author: Ariana Peters

Good Morning,

I set my alarm for 5:30 and we were up and hiking by about 6:20.

Again within about 20 minutes we were climbing up a mountain! Why!!!???? I could see the road into Julian, it was about 2 miles north of us and instead we had to wind around a mountain. Oh well. hiking in the early morning was nice and we booked it pretty good. It was about 3 miles of hiking up and down on the mountain then about 2 miles i walking across the desert floor then along the road. I have never been so happy to get to a highway in my life!!!

By the time we got there i was so done, my feet were killing me! We got to scissors crossing which is believe is where the 805 and the 78 meet. We walked to the 78 and had about 3 cars pass up then the 4th car stopped and picked Danielle and I up. It was a local woman who lived in Julian. She gave us a ride the 12ish miles into Julian.

Julian is such an adorable town!!! We stopped in at Granny’s to have breakfast.

OHHHHH man was it so good, my first full meal in over 2 days.

On top of what you see, i also had orange juice, a Dr. Pepper, and Country potatoes. YUM YUM! They also gave us vegan peanut butter cookies, scone samples and some like fire roasted apple filling samples. They were wonderful!

When we were finishing up and resting a bit Danielle asked the owners if they knew of a place she could do laundry because she was continuing on that night. A lovely woman was just getting off work and offered to take us home with her so Danielle could do laundry and take a shower.

Nicole was her name. She opened her home to us and was so kind!!! We hung out at her house for 3-4 hours and she and i just talked and talked. Turns out we went to the same high school! Not at the same time but still. They were so wonderful! A true trail angel.

Mom drove all the way Julian to come pick me up. We hit traffic on the way back but overall it was nice. We stopped for McDonalds and Subway hahaha. It is so good to have food in my stomach again and not feel sick!

Getting to my Grandmas and taking a shower was also wonderful! The dirt was pretty caked on and i smelled pretty ripe!!

And that is after only 2.5 days!!!!

I slept on the couch and it felt amazing!!! LOL

Hi everybody,

No i am not talking about the hills though obviously it is up and down. I am talking about my mood.

Well lets start from the beginning. Mom dropped me off around 9:30am

Walking away from my mom into the wilderness by myself was terrifying.

Thankfully the uphills weren’t too bad today and the scenery was beautiful.

Lots of wide valley shots.

But it didn’t take long to feel very lonely. I really missed my mom being there. When i stopped for lunch i found a small campground with picnic tables and some awesome shade. I ate with 4 other hikers, all really nice people. I hung out for about 2 hours and rested. Filtered some more water to get me to the next water source. It was my first time ever filtering water! My steripen worked yay!

I left before they did because i hike slower lol. When i got to the top of the mountain after leaving the campground i thought i saw a crashed plane on top! When i got there i realized it was this super fancy hang glider! Later walking i saw the hang glider out in the air, very cool!

One of the people i ate lunch with caught up to me and passed me but they camped about a mile or two before me because they had already gone 15 miles.

I made it about 11 miles which i’m really happy about and i only hiked for about 5 actual hours. But i did push myself a bit. I drink more water than last time but i’m still not that hungry and the thought of food makes me nauseous.

I forced down lunch but it’s 5:30pm and i haven’t had dinner yet. I’m hoping relaxing in my tent for a bit will help my appetite come. I know i need to eat.

Overall today was a good hiking day, probably didn’t get above 75-80 and there was a nice breeze most of the day but i just don’t know if i want to do this alone.

Of course as soon as i was having a low point i ran into someone from lunch and he told me the trails are a great place to meet someone likeminded lol, hmmmm can he read my mind?

But I still really miss having someone with me for support and a laugh and everything.

I dont know if solo hiking is for me. Ill see mom in about 3 more days so hopefully ill know by then, Well time to shove some food down and try to sleep. Hopefully i can get an early start tomorrow and do 15 miles.

Night Night!

Hola,

So i woke up around 6:10ish. I slept in fits off and on all night.

Actually my tent was really nice and held up well. And it went up so easy and quickly!!!

I was up and hiking by about 7:10. The day started out pretty nice and easy, then it started to climb a bit. At first it was just pretty gradual ups and downs, very nice.

Interesting flower plant things out here lol

Beautiful views

But again i just wasn’t loving being alone.

It is amazing how quickly your emotions go up and down out here.

You have to stop and take rests in order to be able to complete the amount of miles and not wear your body out too much.

After my little semi-sad sit down i passed a little section of pretty yellow flowers. The smallest little thing can perk you up.

After this the trail meandered up and down the higher parts of the mountain at a pretty reasonable pace and slope. It was nice and i enjoyed the hiking.

But then we went down, down, down. It was crazy hard, it was pretty steep, killed my feet because it was also rocky and really killed my spirit because it got hotter as you went down and it just never seemed to end.

What popped into my head was a clip from Gilmore Girls when Jess moves to tiny Stars Hollow and he looks outside and a little song plays “this is hell, this is hell, isn’t it swell” or something to that effect so i started singing that to myself the whole way down lol. It is amazing the single line or two of a song that pops into your head and you just sing it over and over and over because you don’t have the energy or capacity to think of anymore of the song or a new song lol.

Or course when i got to the bottom of the insane down, i turned the corner and oh look there it goes up, just as steep in about a quarter of the time. It was horrible!!!!!! It was a badly done dirt road with giant pot holes and dry water streams that went like straight up. I had to stop 3-4 times just to catch my breath and dry heave.

The trail stayed pretty steady and hugged the mountains but there was no shade. The trail is the line along the mountain.

So the two hikers passed me by and we talked for a few minutes.

So i got myself to stay in the shade until about 1:45ish. Then got up and got going. Oh my goodness was it hot and dry. It was two more miles to the water tank and i fought for every step of them. It was rocky and dry and just unpleasant. About 3/4 of a mile from the water tank my hydration bladder was finally empty, i still had just over a liter of water in my water bottles but i finally drank my bladder dry. In the distance i could see the dirt road that the water tank was at so i hightailed the last 3/4th of a mile.

When i got to the water tank there were about a half dozen people there hanging out in the shade, because miraculously there was shade! I put my liter of water and 1/2 liter or powered into my hydration bladder then filtered two liters of water. I sat for about 2 hours in the glorious shade and drank one of the liters of wonderfully cold water (it was an underground tank) then filtered one more liter before i left.

While sitting in the shade i talked to a a guy attempting to go to Canada who had come from Alaska! I mean no one is really used to hiking in the desert heat but man was it a super shock for this guy lol.

After i had been at the tank about 10 minutes a girl named Danielle showed up. She had passed by my tent the night before and said hi. She is also solo hiking so we got to talking and decided to hitch into Julian together the next day.

We rested then headed out to do about 4 more miles so we would only have to do 5 miles in the morning.

We left the tank just after 5pm and rocketed out…..and i mean rocketed, she was like speedy gonzolas, there were times i felt like i was running after her.

We thought it would be relatively steady and not much climbing….but nope!!!! We had to climb up another mountain, and friends, i don’t mean hills i mean MOUNTAINS like going up 1000+feet. It sucked. We got up and over the mountain and around 7-7:30pm found a reasonable campsite. We set up quickly and i got to use the lamp my wonderful friend Sharon bought me.

That is the lamp hanging from the ceiling of my tent. It worked wonderfully!!!

In total i did 14 miles today.

I was passed out by about 8:30ish and again slept fitfully. Apparently that is normal for the trail.

Tomorrow Julian!!!!

Mom and i left my Grandma’s this morning at about 6:30am. We are heading to Mt. Laguna for me to start the trail again from there.

I’m very excited, i am taking my mom’s pack back in place of mine, since her pack is 2lbs lighter than mine. My tent is now 2lbs lighter than it was and i have dropped a lot of excess things from my pack.

Now with everything and food and water, my pack weighs 35lbs. Wooohoo!!! That is about half the weight that i started with.

Things are looking up for my hike. 😄  

I am still nervous though and self doubt has certainly crept in. Fingers crosssd things go better. 

Hi!

So yesterday mom and i went to REI, i was a little nervous because i’ve never returned anything there but have always heard its so amazing, well it is! I bought my tent in April 2014 and they took it back with no questions. I am so impressed with REI, they may have just saved my hike!
The new tent i got is still a small 2person tent, i wanted a little extra room inside so i could spread all my stuff out. Its freestanding so barring a tornado (knock on wood) it shouldn’t collapse on me.  Im really excited for this tent and bonus……its lighter than the one i returned! This tent is only 1lbs 15oz! Man technology is crazy.

It has a rainfly to go over it but i dont have it on in the picture. I love that it will stay standing even if i cant get it staked down out in nature.

Yesterday afternoon we went over to my aunt’s to use her WIFI and i replanned my entire resupply so normally i am not carrying more than 4-5 days of food. There are three or four times down the road where i get up to 7 days of food but it couldn’t be helped. I also cut down the amount of food im taking for each day, i cut a bunch of the snacks out.

So today i will repack all the food i have into several resupplys and set up directions and addresses and everything mom will need for my resupplys.

Other possible news is mom and i are talking about me taking her pack back out on the trail because it is 2lbs lighter than mine….but hers is brand new and 5 years of me using it would trash it im sure. So we are discussing it.
Ill keep you posted.
I should be back out on the trail tomorrow or Sunday!

Hi!!!!

So mom and i started the day in El Cajon, we took a trolly to the San Diego Amtrak station

Then we took the Amtrak train to Santa Ana

Enjoyed some lovely train food lol

My wonderful sister picked us up at the train station and brought us back to my grandma’s.

Here is the new plan, tomorrow mom and i will hit REI where i will get a new tent, one that doesnt use my trecking poles so it wont collapse on me in the middle of the night lol……hopefully.

I will rethink my entire resupply plan so that the max amount of food i will carry at one time will be 4-5 days MAX. And i will continue to eliminate more from my pack.

Ill take a few days to relax and mom will drive me back to Mt. Laguna on Sunday which will put me just about back on track.

Oddly i already miss the trail a bit. But ill be a much happier hiker when i am carrying less wait……now to Starbucks!!!!

Talk to you all soon and thank you all so much for the support!

Hola,

Well mom and i had pretty much decided at the end of day one that we were screwed and had to turn around. Mom had drank more than half of her water and i hadn’t drank enough. We would have had to hike 11 miles forward to Lake Moreno, we knew that 7 miles back would be safer.

We were so exhausted we didn’t eat lunch or dinner the first day and today when we turned around we didnt stop for lunch.

We did rest a lot on the way back which allowed us to look at the scenery more.

We pushed to make it back to Campo by about 1:15.
At 2:54 the last bus leaving Campo came so we could get on it. The bus took us to El Cajon. We are now staying at the Rest Inn or something akin to that.

Tomorrow we will take the trolly to the Amtrak station and head back toward Long Beach.

To say the last two days were hard is an understatement. Last night once we laid down in the tent, fully clothes because it was so cold, i cried for a good 10 minutes, also not smart since i had lost enough salt.

What do i do now, how do i proceed, has all my planning gone down the drain?
I could sit and wollow and give up or i could take a step back an reevaluate.

For the near future i could go back home and teach more a month-ish, save up a little money and do some section hiking this summer.
This of course will be after i make some huge cuts from my pack.

After that i have to decide if i want to continue with the Appalachian trail next year and just section hike the PCT when i can or if i want to move Europe up a year.

This has been humbling and a great learning experience. And i am so happy to be in a bed tonight after these two difficult days. Ill let you know what i decide.

Hi everyone!
So my aunt picked us up at 7am and drove us to the trail head in Campo, CA.  Thankfully it was overcast so it made for nice hiking weather.

We took some pictures, signed the register and took off.
Here are our first steps on the trail

One foot in front of the other and we started walking.

The southern California area does have some hot dry spots but also some beautiful spots

I will so say though the shortest distance between two points is a straight line…..this trail is sooo not straight or even close to it.

We crossed a railroad track then a mile later got close to it then another mile later could see it again. It was beautiful but sometimes frustrating.

The first few miles weren’t too bad then the trail started climbing….
We ran into a few other hikers on the trail and they all had tiny packs while mom and i were toiling away with crazy heavy packs.

We stopped frequently and by mile 8 we were dead on our feet. Mom was a trooper and pulled through but by 8.6 miles we were done.

We found a semi-clear area and set up our tent. It was freezing!

We went from a very difficult day to a horrible night. We were camped on a slant, the tent collapsed and so much condensation formed we woke up to soaked sleeping bags.

By the end of the day we both knew we were in big trouble.

Happy Easter everyone!!!!!
And happy birthday to me! Today i am 27 years old…..and i took a 2 hour nap today, whew my age is hitting me lol!!! No really i think its the stress and nerves. There is so much to do and so little time. Thankfully the universe seems to be letting me get what i need accomplishmed in the short time i have.

Mom and i went for a little test walk around the block last night.

I hope this video works out. Its my first one since i bought Videopress.
Videopress is an upgrade from wordpress (this blog site) so i can upload my videos directly from my phone to the blog instead of from my phone to my mom’s computer then to YouTube then to the blog lol.

Well after my errands are done the day will be spent with family then mom and i will check, double check, and recheck that we have everything and attempt to get some sleep tonight then the real adveture begins!!!! See you all tomorrow!!!!

Oh a quick message. In case you dont know, i wont have any kind of regular service to upload the blog so i will be writing them on my phone and uploading when i have service. So dont freak if you dont see a post for a few days or even a week.

Talk to you soon!!!!!

Hi guys!!!!

We leave in two days ahhhhh!!!!
Today mom and i are test packing our packs.

Finding every nook and cranny in our packs to fill.

Went to an Easter egg hunt with my sister, neice and nephew.

And yes Auntie Ariana helped herself to some of her niece’s candy hahaha.

I’ve been visiting with friends

Relaxed at the beach

And have been fed by all my friends from home cooked pancko crusted turkey and garlic bread to my first taste of chic-fil-a.

We also finally put my dad and grandpas ashes in their wall at the cemetery so that was an emotional day.

It has been a great week of visiting and lots of EATING!
Tomorrow we are spending Easter with the family then Monday it is time to leave ahhh! This will be an anxious 36ish hours!

Talk to you soon!!!!