Day 1: Zero Day

I arrived in San Diego late last night. San Diego is interesting. Like Miami, it is sprawled out and smeared along the coast. However, the public transportation is much more reliable. I'm also under the impression that San Diego is more culturally diverse; so far I've seen rather large Italian, Mexican, and Korean neighborhoods.

In the hiking community, 'zero days' are days when you wake up and end the day without hiking a bit of the trail. These are often spent in town running errands and perhaps relaxing a bit. My permit start date is for tomorrow, so technically my hike hasn't started yet. Still, I've been treating today as a zero day. I've spent the day taking care of last minute errands. The biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to mail a large ice axe ahead 700 miles on the trail to Kennedy Meadows where I'll possibly need it moving through the Sierra Nevada in June. I also gathered food for the next 12 days, half of which I mailed ahead to Warner Springs. Lots of nuts, quinoa, oatmeal, and cliff bars. Errands aside, I think the best reason to teat today as a zero day is that, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, it sets a good mental pace for the coming months. Though I'm pretty laid back over all, I have some "type-A" tendencies, and on an expedition like this, such tendencies can lead to burn out and physical injury (e.g. muscle strains, tendinitis, etc.). So today is a good day to focus and reflect.

'Trail angels' are folks who volunteer their time and resources to support thru hikers. Some provide water on exactly trail, some offer rides to and from towns along the trail, and some actually open up their homes to complete strangers. Tonight I am staying with two of these trail bodhisattvas, Scout and Frodo, who hiked the trail back in 2007. Tomorrow morning they will give me and other hikers a ride to the southern terminus if the PCT, which on the US-Mexico border near Campo, California. Let the walking begin!