Wrightwood, Mile 265

We made it to Wrightwood, mile 365! The only crappy thing is that I have an injury. It feels like a strained muscle in my quad (hopefully nothing serious). James had to take most of my weight about 11 miles from Wrightwood. The days leading up to the injury we some awesome mileage days. We did 3 twenty mile days in a row! Everything seemed to be going fine. I felt a slight discomfort in my quad the last day but nothing that worried me to much. At mile 342, we came to a McDonald's and ended up staying half the morning and most of the afternoon eating. The McDonald's was packed with hikers, some had hiked as much as 35 miles to get there that day. It's amazing what a hiker will do for food. When we left we began a 20 mile stretch without water. With our packs filled with 5 liters (and a few cold burgers) we headed out and then the pain began. It was a little more than the previous days so we stopped short at 5 miles.

I woke up feeling great. We even got up at 4:30am so that we could make it into Wirghtwood in the afternoon (there was about 20 miles remaining), but then it happened. My first pain. We climbed the first couple thousand feet without an issue, but by mile 10 I had to stop. It was around 10am. Pain was shooting up my leg. It wasn't in my knee our anywhere to scary. It felt like it was just in the muscle itself. So we switched the wieght around and I walked with a limp, trying not to bend my leg that much. It was the muscle that lifted my foot up to avoid rocks, so instead I swung and dragged my foot around. By 5:30pm (7 hours later) we had made it an extra 6 or 7 miles. We grabbed our resupply package from the local Hardware store and they showed us a list of trail angels we could try calling. We wrote down 4 numbers. The first three numbers no one answered. James and I were pretty sure we were going to have to try and stealth camp somewhere, but then with the last number on the list we got an answer.

Thank God for Trail Angel Patty! She came and picked us up, took us to her home, told us to remove our shoes, showed us where we could shower, gathered our cloths to wash, and then feed us! She handed me some frozen veggies to put on my leg and a beer for my soul! Her home was beautiful. I couldn't believe that she welcomed dirty hiker trash like James and I into her home.

We keep on being blissed by this wonderful amount of hospitality, meeting wonderful people day after day. We're not just hiking to reconnect with nature anymore we're hiking to reconnect with our fellow species. The trail is just way more than I thought it was.

Well, I plan on resting for the rest of the day and we plan on going slower from here on out. I'll hopefully post if I leave tomorrow or not, but until then we'll be resting.....