Thursday, June 16, 2011

June 3, 2011

Start: 587
End: 610

Today was a great day! The wind finally calmed down and we walked through some beautiful pinyon and Jeffrey pine forests. It reminded me a lot of central Oregon where the ponderosa pines grow. We got through the first 15 miles of the day to the next water source by 1:30, with only a minor detour on a road that appeared to be closed, but ended up being the right way.

We took a nice long break near the spring and ate another amazing lunch. After lunch we wanted to get in about 7-10 more miles so that we only have to do about 22 miles a day for the next 4 days. After 8 more miles we found a nice camp spot in the middle of a burn area amongst little purple and yellow flowers. For the majority of the day it has really felt like we are now officially in the Sierras due to the presence of more pine trees and granite outcroppings.


So, as you may imagine, there is plenty of time to talk about a lot of things, but most conversations usually lead back to either food or poop. This next little anecdote is about the latter. One of 12 ounce's students in SCA came up with a staged description system to let other people know how urgently you need to go without being blatant about it. There are 5 stages, each can have a plus added to the rating depending on urgency. Without further ado, the stages...
Stage 1: you just pooped and you couldn't poop even if you tried.
Stage 2: you could squeeze something out, but it isn't urgent.
Stage 3: you will need to go by the end of the day.
Stage 4: things are moving and you need to go in the next hour or two.
Stage 5: there is no time to wait and you must drop your bag and dig a cat hole in the next 5-10 minutes.

To accompany the stages, there is also a rating system for the experience during the poop.
1: just normal, nothing special about it
2: an especially good poop
3: there is an amazing view during the experience
4: you have an animal sighting while in process
5: same as 4 and you make eye contact with the animal
6: same as 5 and then the animal also poops

Enough about that for the day, it's looking a little bit like rain tonight so we are cowboying but also set up our tents as emergency shelters in the event it starts raining. Here's hoping for a dry night!

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