First 100 Miles

It has been a very challenging start to this hike. A Burning Man friend, Jill picked me up at the San Diego train station, fed me well, gave me a place to crash and generously drove me all the way to the start of the trail.
I got a late start for doing a 20 mile day. I over-estimated my ability given that the last time I did a 20 mile day was 3 years ago. It didn't seem that long ago, but my body sure knew it by the time I finished. I didn't get to my destination until 9:00 pm, and by that time I was hiking in full darkness. I have a headlamp (flashlight) but didn't want to take the pack off to get it. By the end of the first day I already had a rather large blister.
However, my destination that first day was Lake Morena Campground where I could get a hot shower. I also planned on resting for the next two days for the PCT kick-off. I hoped that by the time the hiking would start in earnest I'd be healed and well rested.
I was rested, but the original blister was still giving me trouble by the time I headed out last Sunday morning. My shoes only continued to give me more grief along the way. I tried many solutions to prevent the growing number of blisters but each solution was only temporary. I stopped many times each day to tend to my feet.
The last two days have been particularly entertaining in the challenges they offer. Water has been scarce which has forced hikers to carry a lot of water weight while covering large miles each day. I hiked a 25 mile day while carrying 6 liter for the last 9 miles. 7 of that 9 was described in the guide book as "undulating". Undulating meant that it was routed needlessly over a section that had many pointless ups and downs (PUDS). By the time I got to the end of the day it was well after dark and I was exhausted.
The wind was strong and I set up the tent to stay out of it. I slept like the dead for the first two hours. When I woke it was 11 pm. The side of the tent was buckling in and nudged me awake. The wind had grown strong with powerful gusts. The tent was being buffeted in all directions and I worried that it might be get torn. Not only that but it was too loud to get any sound sleep even though I already had in ear plugs.
Marshalling some energy to cope with this situation I tried a series of solutions which lasted for the next two hours. I tried looking for a location that was more protected from the wind. I didn't find one. I tried pulling out all the tent supports but leaving it staked down - effectively giving it a much lower profile for the wind to catch. But it was like trying to sleep under a flapping flag. I eventually took the tent down completely and found adequate shelter under some low scrub brush.
At 5:30 I got up and began breaking camp. I had to cover 24 more miles due to water scarcity. I wanted to get an early start for two reasons: 1) it would take a long time to cover that distance, and 2) the section I needed to cross is infamous for being baking hot. I felt fortunate that it was still cool that morning and I was ahead of the heat. The wind was still blowing ferociously. I knew I had a few hours before I'd start consuming much water. As it turned out the wind hardly let up all day and it stayed downright cold for most the day as well. There were some places where the trail was quite narrow along the mountainside and the drop precipitous. The blowing wind made it exciting.
After the worst of it was over, all I had to think about was how much my feet hurt. There's so many places that hurt that it's become a generalized pain. New hot spots are hard to detect because they have to get pretty bad to be noticed. It's never been like this before on any of the other hikes and I believe it has to do with the shoes mostly. Another pair is in the mail to me even as I write this.
I am currently writing from Warner Springs where there is affordable lodging. I took a zero-mile day today to rest and heal up. I hope the change of shoes arrive tomorrow.
The other big news is that there's a fire up ahead on the PCT which has closed a section off. There's a strong possibility that I'll have to do a road walk around the closed section but I'm hoping against it. It will bypass a section I'd really like to hike. The rumor is that the fire was started by a careless hiker. There's a few boneheads each year that don't seem to really grasp that fire, desert, and high winds are an explosive combination.