Another Long Walk

Friday, August 13, 2010

Bears, Gay Weddings, and Ever Growing Mountains

June 17: I woke up from a horrible nightmare. I dreamed that I was invited to a friend's wedding, and when I showed up, I found out it was a gay wedding, and I was supposed to be the one getting married! "No, no.... this is all a big misunderstanding.... a BIG misunderstanding....." Even my mom was there, thinking I was getting married to another guy, and what the hell was going on anyhow?

It's a distressing way to wake up in the morning.

When I sat up and looked around, Running Wolf was gone. I told Charmin that he was "missing," and she said a bear must have gotten him. And I said it must have been a very clever bear because it unzipped his sleeping bag then ate him whole.

When Running Wolf did return, I joked that we thought a bear got him.

"The only bears that worry me are the grizzlies up north," he said, confident and strong.

It was hard for me not to laugh. Really? Bears aren't a concern? He's the only thru-hiker I know who's been carrying bear canister from the Mexican border. All other thru-hikers have only carried canisters since it was required. One time he hiked past me and I heard bear bells! I'd never seen a serious backpacker--thru-hiker or not--ever carrying bear bells. On his belt, he carries bear mace. And he's the only hiker I've seen going to the effort of hanging his extra food. Not afraid of bears? Really? Seems like every action he's taken assumes that bears are actively out hunting the human population.

So I had a difficult time keeping a straight face when he said that the only bears that worry him are the grizzlies up north.

Early in the afternoon, Charmin and I crossed into Sequoia National Park--the highest of the High Sierras. Patches of snow continued to bother us, more so than in previous days, but the relative lack of snow continued to surprise us. We passed over our first 11,000-foot pass and I didn't feel the need to use my ice axe or microspikes.

At lunch, I had one more apple to tear in half--a breaburn--and I failed to ripped it in half. Too tough for me, but Tradja gave it a whirl and succeeded. I think I must have "loosened" the apple for him. It's the only logical explanation. *nodding*

That night, we camped with Sneezes and Hasty, and it was the beginning of the end of my hike with Charmin.....

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Homesickness and Digging Holes

June 16: Early in the morning, Charmin and I crossed over our first 10,000-foot pass. There were a couple of small patches of snow laying around, but given the high elevation, we were amazed that we weren't postholing and utterly miserable.

I hiked ahead of Charmin for awhile, but started feeling in a funk. I often feel that way after a visit from Amanda, missing her and the comforts of home. I sat down on a log and just felt a little depressed. When Charmin caught up, I asked her if she ever feels homesick--she's a heck of a lot farther away from friends, home, and family than I was! And she said that yes, she sometimes feels homesick. If she's felt that way around me, she's hid it well.

So we fell into hiking together, and Charmin asked me to tell her about Amanda. She already knew a little about Amanda, but it was usually associated with some story that happened to the two of us. I never really talked about Amanda by herself, so I told her a little about Amanda.

Then she asked me what I liked most about Amanda, followed by what I liked least about Amanda. I won't get into my answers, but it was an interesting question. Nobody ever asked what I didn't like about Amanda before, but it strangely did make me feel better talking about it. Charmin didn't get me completely out of my funk, but she cheered me up quite a bit.

At one point, Charmin turned around to talk to me, looked at me, and asked if I was crying. "No, damnit!" I stared at her, unblinking. Okay, maybe a little misty-eyed, but I wasn't crying. She said she was going to write that in her journal for the night, and I told her to at least have the courtesy to write it in her native language so nobody else could read such filthy lies. =)

The rest of the day was largely uneventful. Charmin and I shared two apples today. I tore the spartan apple in half very easily, and it was a pretty clean tear. I savored the feeling, finally feeling like I succeeded in ripping in apple in half. Charmin and I took turns trying to rip the jazz apple in half, neither of us quite managing to get it to split. We got it to make cracking sounds, but couldn't manage to get it to fall in half until I tried a "knee cheat" where I stabilized the bottom of the apple against my knee and used the full strength of both hands to finally knock that apple in half.

We stopped to camp for the night at the Dutch Meadow Trail, at about 9,950 feet above sea level--our highest campsite to date. I'd occasionally walk out to the meadow to search for bears but never found any. Running Wolf joined us for the night, and near sunset, we heard and saw a few other hikers in the distance that we called out to to join us, but they somehow missed the side trail (including the arrow we made out of sticks directly in the middle of the trail) and they accidentally passed by us.

Charmin's eyes were bigger than her stomach and she wound up with a heck of a lot of food that she didn't want to eat for dinner. I had already eaten my own dinner and was quite satisfied already, but to help, I took a bite of her dinner and it was, in a word, awful. I don't know what she did to it, but it was all I could do to not spit it out. "Sorry," I told her, "I can't." I looked at the pot of food. "I just.... can't."

I suggested that she bury the excess food. I'm not sure it would prevent animals from digging it up, but it seemed like a better option than just dumping it somewhere. "Dig a deep hole," I suggested. "You can even use my ice axe." I didn't really want her food attracting bears, after all.

Then I thought, hey, maybe the hole can do double duty. "After you dump the food, don't fill in the hole again," I told her. "I'll leave a nasty surprise for any bear that might think about digging it up!"

So she went off with my ice axe (the first time it had actually been used for anything, I might add, so at least now that extra weight wasn't a total waste), dug a big hole, dumped her dinner, then came back and told me where to find the hole into which I unloaded the previous night's dinner and finally filled up the hole again. =)

Running Wolf went off to hang a bear bag. A pinata for bears, if you ask me. We all had bear canisters, but we also had too much food to fit all of it into the canisters. Charmin and I just slept with our extra food, but Running Wolf, the responsible guy he is, properly hung his excess food (and soap, trash, and anything else with a scent) from a nearby tree.

Then the three of us all went peacefully to sleep. =)

Monday, August 9, 2010

Into the High Sierras!

I pose with my new ice axe. Nice, eh? =)

June 15: They say in a normal snow year, thru-hikers should leave from Kennedy Meadows around June 15th. This year the snow pack was high, however, and presumably, the ideal time to leave would be a bit later. Somehow, despite nearly a week of zero days, nero days, and plodding along slowly taking my time, I was leaving Kennedy Meadows on June 15th anyhow.

Amanda drove me up, where I met Charmin to hike through the dreaded Sierras with her. This seemed like a good place to have a hiking partner, and I trusted Charmin to watch my back. And I knew I could get along with her well for a possibly lengthy period of time. And she wanted a hiking partner for the Sierras as well.

I came bearing a gift of toilet paper--Charmin, of course--that Amanda found in the travel/trial section of the supermarket. I can't say I've ever given the gift of toilet paper before, and I likely never will again. =)

Amanda and I said our goodbyes, and Charmin and I headed into the mountains.

After a few miles, we found a few hikers near a campground, resting. One of them was Billy Goat, who said that there was no snow to speak of for the next 40 miles. I was dubious--I remembered his claim about the multitude of water crossings and that my count was significantly higher than the one Billy Goat reported. And we'd be getting up well past 10,000 feet in elevation long before 40 miles. I had serious issues with snow as low as 8,000 feet, and he wanted me to believe that 10,000-foot passes had no snow? I was skeptical.....

We continued on, Charmin calling out, "See you up the trail!" Then she stopped, looked around, and asked, "Where's the trail?" Okay, maybe we wouldn't be seeing them up the trail..... =)

At lunch, I offered to share an apple with Charmin--under the condition that she had to rip it in two with her bear hands if she wanted half of it. =) I handed over the golden delicious, and she ripped it apart like it was made out of paper. I was impressed with the speed and relative ease that she was able to dispatch the apple.

The trail climbed for the whole day, eventually peaking at a little over 9,000 feet, and absolutely no snow covering the trail. It was a delightful surprise, but the first 10,000-foot passes were still just around the corner....

We camped just past Cow Creek, along with Tradja, Jess, and Sneezes. After hearing my recital of The Cremation of Sam McGee, and my lament about not having any poems to memorize on this trail, Sneezes suggested The Devil and Billy Markham by Shel Silverstein, and originally published in Playboy. And of all the suggestions I've gotten, that one has appealed to me the most. I couldn't look up the poem then and there, but later..... I might just learn that one. It seems like a good campfire poem.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

The Calm Before the Storm

June 14: In a way, I felt a sense of impending doom. The High Sierras were just around the corner. The fears, the dread, the horror stories of what I would face would soon become a reality, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Amanda picked me up from Kennedy Meadows and whisked me away into a "real city," Ridgecrest, where I could walk around in supermarkets and select from a plethora of dining options. It would be my last taste of civilization for who knows how long.

I had finally caught up with all of my blog posts, and spend most of the day just working on Atlas Quest, catching up on old episodes of Lost, and relaxing indoors. Not just because I'd seen more than enough outdoors to last a lifetime, but as one bank sign blinked in bright lights, it was 103 degrees outside. That was late in the afternoon--perhaps earlier in the afternoon it was even warmer. No reason to spend a lot of time outdoors! I rooted for high temperatures. "Imagine all that melting snow ahead," I'd tell Amanda. "It's a comforting thought."

Amanda pulled out the bear canister from the box it arrived in to check out. It was a standard thru-hiker canister, the one most hikers carried. It was a BearVault, blue with a black lid, and clear enough that you could see into it through the hard blue walls. It's most notable feature was its weight, which seemed to weigh at least two or three pounds. (Pounds!) I groaned at the thought of all that extra weight on my pack. "And it's still empty!" I whined.

Amanda played around with the bear canister for five minutes or so, trying to open it, and finally threw up her hands in frustration. "It's Amanda proof!" she said. "I can't open it!" I laughed and took it from her, trying to figure out how it worked. It's okay if Amanda can't open it, but it was very important that I be able to open the canister! I'd never actually used one before. It took me a couple of minutes, but I popped the lid open, and immediately thought about putting any food in it that I didn't want Amanda to eat. =)

The ice axe wasn't much better in terms of weight. I bought one of the cheapest versions available from REI under the assumption that I may very well never use it again after this hike and didn't want to waste a lot of money for the "lightweight" version that would never get used again. It was a heavy ice axe, and between it and the bear canister, it probably added five or six pounds to my pack weight. Ugh.

I almost considered not bringing an ice axe at all. Many thru-hikers do without, and even those that do have told me that there were only a couple of small, sketchy areas that I'd likely use it, but that I'd be really glad I did when I came to them. Deciding that living a long life was more important than my temporary comfort, I sprang for the extra piece of equipment.

It looked like a wicked implement of torture, though. I'm not sure if it was to torture other people, however, or the person who carried the implement. It seemed like a harbinger of doom.

For lunch, we ate out at the Sizzler, where I proceeded to use up a lot of minutes on my pre-paid cell phone before they vanished into thin air forever. I stopped to buy food and miscellaneous supplies for my High Sierra adventures. Then tossed and turned all night long, worried about the next section of trail, hoping I wasn't walking to my doom.....

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Into Kennedy Meadows

June 13: I woke up bright and early. My feet still hurt more than normal from the 29.2-mile tromp the day before, but at least I only needed to do 21 miles today. Practically easy! But I did want to get to Kennedy Meadows as early in the afternoon as possible, which required an early morning start.

I ate breakfast, topped up my water, and started hiking. The two girls I woke up the evening before, New Jersey and Gramma Lissa, had still beat me out of camp, but they were hiking slow and I passed them quickly.

A couple of hours into the hike, I found a note. This one wasn't specifically for me, however. This one was a cry for help. Some folks with limited resources, wanting someone to call one of the person's parents. The note was dated the day before, but there wasn't exactly anything I could do. My cell phone didn't work out here in the middle of anywhere.

It was a strange message as well. If there was an emergency, I wouldn't be asking people to call my mom. I'd ask them to call 911! My mom can't do anything to help in a real emergency. I was a little puzzled by the "limited resources" comment. What kind of resources? Not water--the note was posted at a spring. There was plenty of water here! Food? Nobody is going to starve to death overnight due to lack of food. They might be hungry, but it would hardly count as an emergency in my book.

And anyhow, let's say my cell phone did work? What was I supposed to tell Sharon's parents?

"There's an emergency. I don't know what it is. I don't know where your child is. Have a good day!"

So I just took a photo of the note and kept hiking.

Later in the afternoon, I caught up with Tradja and Jess. Based on their register entries, I didn't expect to catch up with them, but I was pleased to find them. I still had an apple with me that needed ripping in half. =) We discussed apple-ripping techniques a bit, then I pulled out the fiji apple to try my luck with.

I grabbed, fondled, and strained. The apple cracked, and Jess was sure I had it, but it wouldn't crack. I stopped a little to rest my fingers. I could see a small crack in the top of the apple. So close, so close....

It seemed like I couldn't get a good backstop on the apple, slipping out of my fingers, and in a stroke of inspiration, I put the bottom end of the apple against my knee and put the full force of my hands towards ripping the top of the apple in half, and it split. I lost my grip on one half, which went flying into the dirt, but the apple cleaved in two as if I cut in with a knife. A clean, even cut. Though admittedly, it seemed a little like cheating to use my knee to get the job done.

We continued hiking, and I stopped at Manter Creek for lunch. Dorian and Josh, the French-speaking folks, had already stopped there for lunch, so I sat down by them and started to cook a dinner. It was lunch time, but I was especially hungry which I blamed on the lack of dinner from the night before, and decided to eat the dinner I still carried: Hamburger Helper.

Tradja and Jess caught up shortly after I stopped, and joined the growing lunch crowd.

I added a bit too much water to the Hamburger Helper, and Tradja looked at it commenting that it looked more like soup. I hoped it would thicken a bit, but it did look a lot like soup.

Jess said, "Just give it a fancy French name, and it'll sound great!" We laughed at that, then Dorian and Josh started making suggestions. I wish I could repeat them here, but I know absolutely no French except "Voila!" and can't remember any of the suggestions, but they did sound exotic and fancy.

Tradja suggested "sopa de mierda," and I wagged my finger at him.

"I know enough Spanish to know what that means," I told him, "and that doesn't sound good!"

Though I suppose to someone who doesn't know Spanish, they might think it sounds exotic and wonderful. "Yes, please, I'll take the sopa de mierda. Does that come with garlic bread?"

The hamburger helper thickened nicely by the time the fuel ran out, and while I was eating, the rest of the hikers continued on. I ate, cleaned up, then continued on myself.

The last part of the hike was largely flat, but my feet were hurting and I started limping a bit. I reached the road, my end point, at around 4:00 in the afternoon. Quite remarkable to finish 21 miles by 4:00 in the afternoon. I was sad not to see Amanda parked by the trailhead, however. My ride had not yet arrived.

I walked up the road 0.7 miles towards the general store. At least I could get a cold drink and pick up my maildrop while waiting for Amanda to show, and perhaps find some other hikers lurking around. Amanda was parked at the general store when I arrived.

"Why didn't you pick me up the trailhead?" I asked, wishing I hadn't had to walk 15 minutes off the trail.

"This isn't the trail?" she asked. "I thought this was the trail. Hikers are everywhere!"

*sigh* It's true, hikers were everywhere. There were probably a dozen of them hanging around outside of the general store. Certainly a hiker hot spot, but no, not the trail.

Amanda gave me a coldish drink, and had already picked up my maildrop for me, but I still went into the general store to sign the register. Then I jumped in the car, and Amanda drove me out to a real town with hotels, Internet access, and restaurants. We checked into the Vagabond in Ridgecrest, then went out for dinner to Pizza Hut. Good stuff!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A Big-Mile Day!

June 12: Amanda dropped me off at Walker Pass early in the morning. I needed an early start. On this part of the trail, there's not many roads crossing the trail--certainly not roads easy for a rental car to drive on--so slackpacking was out. No, I'd have to hike the next 50 miles with a full pack, and I planned to meet Amanda again at Kennedy Meadows the next afternoon. Two days, 50 miles, equals 25 miles per day.

The longest day I've hiked thus far is 23 miles, so it was a little ambitious for me to commit to two consecutive 25 mile days, but I thought it was doable. Especially since my pack was relatively light. I would only need to carry enough food for two days and one night, after all.

So she dropped me off at Walker Pass, a little before 8:00, where we saw Sneezes, Josh, and Dorian. Josh was from France, the first Frenchman I've seen on the trail. Quite the international trail. I don't think I mentioned it, but back in Agua Dulce, I met Brazilnut who hails from Brazil. Dorian also spoke French, but of the Canadian variety. Sneezes is from Southern California, which some people would call a country of its own. =)

They pulled ahead of me. I lingered back to find a letterbox with Amanda, then we parted ways and I hit the trail. At a minimum, I planned to do at least 25 miles. If I could do more, even better! Means fewer miles to worry about the next day.

I caught up with Sneezes relatively quickly, and we hiked together for the better part of an hour. At a shady place on the trail, I stopped for a quick snack break while Sneezes decided to continue on to a spring ahead where he wanted to stop for lunch. I wanted to hike a lot longer before I stopped for lunch! The trail was climbing a huge hump of a mountain, but I was making excellent time already, and estimated that I had knocked out about twelve miles before noon.

Two days of resting my feet probably hadn't hurt matters either!

At the sign for the Joshua Tree Spring, I found a small note taped to the sign that read "for GT." Me? Hmm... Interesting.... I pulled off the note, reading "Gwita Morka!" Charmin. Kind of funny, I thought. She didn't even have to sign the note, but just reading those two words, it was as good as a signature. I was even more amused that she used my "American accent" to write the phrase rather than proper Swiss-German.

"Catch me if you can." Taunting me. Since Agua Dulce, I've always been ahead of her on the trail, but with the two zero days I took off, this was the first time she was ahead of me on the trail. I'd heckled her about catching up to me, so I guess it was only fair for her to return the favor.

She timestamped the note about a day and a half earlier, so unless she was hiking very slow, I doubted that I would catch her. It was fun finding a note for me, though. I hadn't been expecting one.

I shoved the note in my pocket and kept hiking. It wasn't time to stop for lunch yet. No, I still needed to hike some miles. At least until I stopped for lunch at a small creek that was on the trail, about 17 miles from where I started at Walker Pass. I was pretty impressed with myself. That alone I still considered a full day's hike, and I knocked it out by lunchtime. I stopped a couple of times to eat snacks, but not for more than five-or-so minutes. It was essentially a non-stop hike.

Then I pulled out a a red delicious apple. It was time to crack my second apple. I grabbed, I grunted, I strained.... and finally the apple cracked. Like the gala the day before, however, it was an uneven, ragged split. Argh! Why can't I do this?

While eating one part of the apple, another hiker without a pack traveling southbound passed by. Or rather, I waved him down, and he stopped long enough to chat. His name was Jeremy, and him and his friends were planning to hike the next couple of months up the trail. He left a water bottle behind, however, and was backtracking to retrieve it. I gave him the other half of my apple, then he moved out.

I stayed for an hour--a short lunch by my standards--then put on my shoes and kept hiking. Must. Do. Miles.

The second half of the day, I hiked considerably slower. My feet were hurting a bit more, and my legs were feeling a bit more tired, but I kept going. I passed Dorian and Josh, and late in the afternoon, reached the 25-mile mark for the day. I had reached my goal!

There were still a couple of hours of daylight left, however, and no water available where I was now. I wanted to cook a dinner, and I wanted to get as many miles as I could in. If I could hold out for another four miles, I could camp next to a creek. Yes, four more miles.... it was doable....

I was limping by now. My feet screaming at me to stop, but I kept pushing on to Chimney Creek. The sun had already set, but it was not yet dark. Two tents were set up in a clearing, and I called out to them. "Hello, there!"

Silence. Were the tents abandoned?

"Is anyone out there?" I asked.

I heard a thump come from one of the tents, and a voice call out. "Huh? Who? Sorry about that. I just woke up."

I apologized for waking her up, but found out the two hikers were New Jersey and Gramma Lissa. I didn't want to disturb them any further, so I introduced myself then went off to set up my own camp. I set up on the other side of the trail. The weather forecast I checked said that there was a 20% chance of thunderstorms overnight, and I wanted to avoid camping near the particularly large, prominent tree they had decided to camp under.

I threw out my groundsheet, took the shoes off of my aching feet, then went to sleep. I was too exhausted to actually cook dinner. Here I walked, 29.2 miles according to my guidebook, specifically because I wanted to camp near water, then I didn't even use it. *shaking head* 'Twas a long day, but I was exhausted.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

A Double Feature!

Yes, I realize this blog is falling more and more out of date from "real time," but it's not really a conspiracy to hide my whereabouts on the trail. The real reason is much more mundane than that: It's just not easy getting online to keep these posts up-to-date. I might get online long enough to post only every few weeks, so I take a zero day, then spend the whole day just catching up with blog posts.

I don't really want to post a blizzard of a dozen or more posts in one day, then leave you with nothing for weeks at a time, so I schedule the posts to post automatically whether I'm online or not every couple of days. I want to develop a backlog of posts on top of that, in case a particularly long stretch of time goes by when I'm unable to post. So, for each day I'm on the trail, I have this blog post every other day.

As I type this now, it's June 14th. It's scheduled to post in about six weeks--August 1st. I'm preparing to head into the Sierra Nevadas, and I hope I don't die, because wouldn't it be awkward for everyone to be reading my posts from the grave? Ha--awkward for you, at least. =) Don't worry, however. I don't plan to get myself killed!

But that's the reason for the time delay on my posts--to even out the posts. Eventually, I'd like to have the posts going every day, but I'm finding it very difficult to type these up as fast as the days pass. I might keep it posting every other day until I've actually finished the trail, then when I'm working on a computer again every day, start it posting every day. By then, however, the posts might be as long as three months out of date. You might be reading this blog through the end of December!

Today, however, you get a rare "double feature"--two days in one post! Mostly because the two days had so little to report....

June 10: I took a zero day in Kernville, spending the whole day typing up blog posts and uploading photos. Exciting stuff! Not really. We ate out at an Italian restaurant in Kernville, then watched Young Frankenstein on a DVD that Amanda brought. Amanda was shocked (shocked!) when she had learned I never saw that movie--a discussion that arose after she heard about Abby Normal (which is where his trail name comes from). It was a funny movie, but even then, I was working on the photos for this blog during the movie. Never a moment's rest! (Okay, I did step away from the computer while eating at the Italian restaurant.) Amanda and Gwen spent the afternoon looking for letterboxes. Which was probably a lot more fun than I had. =)

June 11: I took another zero. Never a dull moment on the trail, eh? Well, off the trail is another matter. I continued to spend the whole day catching up on blog entries, padding them out through the end of July. When Amanda and Gwen left to go letterboxing, they came back late in the afternoon with five different varieties of apples. Why? So I could try ripping them apart with my bare hands. =)

Amanda had heard the apple story involving Charmin and Tradja, and I tried it myself with a granny smith apple and failed miserably. Maybe it was the type of apple? Admittedly, when I hike with apples, I usually choose a granny smith because they are so hard and seem less likely to bruise in my pack. So Amanda and Gwen went by Vons and picked one of each type of apple they had: red delicious, fuji, gala, golden delicious, and the granny smith.

When asked about the selection of apples, Amanda told the clerk that it was for a "taste test." A complete and total lie, but she said it would raise fewer eyebrows than the truth--a "rip apart with one's bare hands" test. The truth is the kind of thing that they might call you in as a "person of interest."

"Yes, officer," the clerk would say. "There were a couple of shady characters lurking around right when that car was robbed...."

So Amanda lied and told the clerk the apples were for a taste test.

Back at the house, I checked out the apples, and managed to break the gala apart with my bare hands. Very manly. Very cool.

I started with the fuji, and Amanda was encouraged when she heard a cracking sound coming from the apple, but I had to disappoint her and tell her that it was my knuckles cracking that she heard--not the apple that foiled my attempts to break it in two.

So then I tried the gala, in which I did succeed. But it was a jagged rip with two decidedly unequal halves. Nothing like the clean cuts Charmin and Tradja had managed to create. So the gala was technically a success, but not one that satisfied me.

The other apples, I set aside for another day. I didn't have to rip them all in half at once! (In fact, my fingers were quite tired after ripping the gala in half. They needed a rest before I tackled another one.)

And that covers my adventures for June 10th and 11th. Exciting times!

Starting today, and continuing all month, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!