Hike for a Hospital

The ADZPCTKO (annual day zero pct kick off) is an event which runs in late April for 2 days every year, and hosts anyone that is involved in the pct including, current thru hikers, section hikers, trail angels as well as people who have hiked the trail in previous years. This year I believe there were over 800 people. After arriving at the ADZPCTKO with Kristina and Louisa late on day 4, we registered and were given a campsite in the "youth area" which was about a 10 minute walk from the main camp site and has about 30 youths. Turns put this was the best place to camp as it had a bonfire, music and youths. I drank coors beer, which according to hotwing comes from Colorado. It tasted a bit like double brown, but wasn't the same.

I woke up a little worse for wear, so I downed a delicious cold microwaveable breakfast burrito and went to see the talks that were on that day. I went to; desert hiking techniques, hiking yoga, overuse injuries, and a talk about bears in northern cal. In the evening we watched a pct short film festival. virgo's trailer about his documentary on trail angels won. You can see it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVi6Ce0vvZM&feature=youtube_gdata_player. I also ate a deep fried taco. I love America.

The party the next night was bigger as no one usually plans to hike the next day. So we had a large proportion of the non youths at the Bon fire. I met the trail angel Terry Anderson with an introduction of a swift grab to my testicles. She reminds me of my aunty glenys and we got on great. The ball grab is Terry's favorite wrestling move and apparently is the best way to meet new people.

I played night frisbee for a couple of hours and went to bed. Holden thought my English is so bad that when I try to say Dave, it sounds like knife. I don't believe this to be true.

On day 2 of kickoff I had a more relaxing day and got some new inner soles, a new tarp tent (about half the weight of my macpac tent), and a closed cell roll mat so I can cowboy camp under the stars in the desert. I am sending my other tent and mat ahead just in case I need it for the sierras.

We watched 2 films about the pct and played night frisbee with glow sticks that upchuck gave us to wear as targets. I had my first American cheeseburger and chocolate brownie.