Day 33 (ODT 1)

Day 33 (ODT 1): 10 miles

I started at the western terminus of the Oregon desert trail and will be hiking 750 miles through eastern Oregon and ending in Owyhee State Park near Boise, Idaho.

It was an alright first day. The ground was deep soft sand so it made walking a little slower and really burned my hips on the first day. They also burned because my pack is heavy as hell and I’m carrying way too much food. I planned on bringing 5 days of food as a cautious estimate to start out (which likely would have been more than enough), but I went crazy at the grocery store and bought a lot of food. I’m probably carrying at least 8 days of food, if not more.

That would put my pack at roughly 30 pounds no including any water, of which I’m carrying 7 liters currently. It’s definitely overkill but I’m always cautious starting out in a new environment. So with that water, my pack is around 45 pounds which is nowhere near what I normally carry. I’d say normally I’d cruise around with 20ish pounds including food and water in the summer. I’m starting out this trail on difficult mode because of my stubbornness.

The trail started off by a canal, but I won’t be seeing much water from here on. It’s 26 miles to my next water source at Sand Spring. I did cache water at one spot today and when I got back to it felt like a total fool. I couldn’t find it for 5 minutes before finally looking behind the correct rock. I didn’t mark a GPS waypoint cause I figured I’d be smart enough to remember. Bold thought.

I got to do my first cross country hiking in the trail today. I will be doing a lot more since 35% of the trail is cross country/off trail. I did pretty good today, ending up at exactly where I was supposed to on the other end of the XC.

I ended the day really early around 6 because rain was rolling in, and when this soft desert sand gets wet, it gets sloppy. So I wanted to have my camp set up before it got messy. My body was also feeling tight as hell after only 10 miles from the heavy pack. Gotta eat