Posted overview here:
Personal trip highlights:
Meeting some sex and the city aged ladies and their teen/preteen kids at the toilets by the parking lot and comparing notes on water carried. I felt 140 oz (1 full camelbak + 2 30 oz smart waters) was A LOT, but ended up drinking through 110 oz of it without much cooking and hardly peeing at all.
Dave said to bring him something back from the trail-- I found shiny new Kirkland sunglasses which solved the dilemmas of not wanting to take nature souvenirs out of the park, not wanting to feel pressure to capture the perfect moment on camera, and thinking I was the only one in here that didn't have shades on.
There was this crow that sat in a tree and did a weird percussive call with a rattle and a typewriter carriage return at the end of it a lot of the afternoon before the rest of the overnight BPers showed up.
I finished the Alan Watts book just at nightfall, but it was not a riveting read. His youtube lectures (verbatim) were much more accessible.
Watching sunset over the ocean and trying to figure out where the wedge was and whether Jens and crew were diving there. (It turns out they did corona del mar right before there was a big oil spill that closed all the beaches).
Helping some late arrivals find their campsite in the dark and marveling at how gone to pot my night vision has gotten. Is it getting old? Is it from eye strain of reading or the headlamp?
The cool breeze in East Cut on the hike down in the morning.
Following someone else's Altra footprints out of the campground. I think I might have seen some bunny prints (and an actual bunny).
***
Gear shakeout-- I worked out some of the backpack weight and posted it here.
I weighed the pack at 29.2 lbs, but was probably more like 30.6 because I carried my purse in.
This exercise was mostly academic because the water I carried in was 37% of my weight and I don't think I would have cut back on it.
I could cut 20% of weight (approx 6 lbs) without buying new stuff and knowing more about what to expect...
- 9% from tuning the sleep system (not so many stakes, skip the tarp, skip the pillow I was too lazy to reinflate when it went flat, use camp chair as sleeping pad instead of inflatable).
- 5% from leaving purse in car and just bringing keys + phone
- 3% from skipping cooking and just cold soaking.
- 2% from not packing quite so many snacks.
Plus the Squirt multitool I unlocked from completing this adventure weighs 56.4 grams vs. the 179 gram pocket knife I borrowed from Jens, so that nets me another 123 gram savings! :)
