... Hiking into the night

April 17th, 18th and 19th, 2015

Later that day I was sitting around Campo icing my head and not feeling so great. I was really hoping to get on the trail but with my injury and how I was feeling I didn't think it would have been safe for me to go on the trail. But then I had an idea. I can put a lot of ice into my water bladder the

and use it for an ice compress later. So I went to the market, bought my second 7 pound bag of ice and went back to fill up my water bladder. After I finished I ate some yogurt and had some coconut water then headed out on the trail around 7 PM.

 I so was still not feeling great but I kept going. As the sun went down and as it got cooler started to feet better. Once it got dark I was around 4 miles north and as I continued to go border patrol helicopters started circling me.  They never use the spotlight and didn't get too close but they would take very large circles about every 20 minutes and would come around again. I guess they eventually figured out that I was not an illegal immigrant. As I walked I listened to some owls hooting and tried not to step on any big spiders.

That night I got to about mile 14 at 2 am and found a place to lay out my sleeping bag and slept until I could see the sun coming. I crawled out of my sleeping bag feeling tired and sore and then packed up and started moving on. As the sun came up my face started to swell so I grabbed my bag of ice/ water container and pressed it against my face.

 I did this for about three hours and as I passed some runners they would ask me if I was alright, probably thinking I'd just gotten jumped. I would just say I'm fine and mosey on.

After a couple hours I made it to lake Morena, a small RV campground with a store up the road. I bought some food, took another really quick nap, packed up and started hiking again and pushed on to mile 30 by 9pm. 

When I woke up I was feeling nauseous. I slept the whole night with my head flat on the ground as a result the swelling was back.   

I decided to start walking and I felt like throwing up a couple times but didn't because it might make me really dehydrated.

 After about two hours of hiking and stopping every 100 feet I started to feel better.

 Then I had a pleasant surprise as I went up the mountain I got to a point where that cactuses and brush disappeared in pine trees appeared. So I decided to take a break where the environment is nice and after that I felt much better.