We would love the opportunity to share with your church, school, or group. Please email us at: teamsweetwater09@yahoo.com
We know that for now the trail is over, but we will continue raising funds for the wells in India. We are still in touch with several people on the trail and wish all those hiking the best! Much love,
Hollywood
So…. The hike is over… As most of you already know Hollywood received some pretty bad news regarding his knee while we were in Tahoe. We received word from a doctor that he had three fractures in his right patella and will be off of the trail for the rest of the summer. So Homeschool and I decided that we would keep going while Hollywood recovered from his injury. On our last day in Tahoe we returned Indy, another Christian hiker from Point Loma, back to the trail. After taking him back we went out on the boat and drove to Emerald Bay. While in the bay we ate lunch on top of a large rock on the shore. After lunch ended I began climbing down the rock and as I got close to the water I looked to see if I had a smooth spot to jump to. Everything looked clear so I jumped. But it was not clear. Just underneath the surface of the sand there was a large rock that was not visible while I was perched on the rock. When I landed the rock connected with my left heel and tore a silver dollar size chunk of skin off my foot. When I arrived home in Roseville to resupply I still had planned to give it a go and try and hike but my parents encouraged me to take a trip to the emergency room. So Homeschool and I headed over and we sat and waited for about four hours just to find out that I have a severely bruised heel bone and that the heel injury will take at least two weeks to heal before hiking is even possible. It may take longer due to the depth of the gash in my foot but no one really knows.
So for the time being the hike is over… but the journey continues. While WE had planned to hike 1,700 miles, it seems that GOD had other plans. The trail has definitely taught us this lesson. I am reminded of Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord .For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The main goal of our trip was not to hike 1,700 miles, that was merely means to an end. Our main goal, and the one that God called us to, is to raise money for the Jesus Wells, and that is what we are striving towards. We now plan to focus our time and energy on fund-raising. Thanks for your continual prayers and support, we greatly appreciate it. If any of you have contacts with churches in your area, we would greatly appreciate it if you could send us an email with their information so we can further spread the word. God Bless,
Nick “Skivvies” Coibion
As many of you know from our facebook page, we arrived in Tahoe Wednesday afternoon where Caleb (“Hollywood”) had to leave the trail due to three hairline fractures to his right knee. He is now back home in Riverside where he will be able to see his regular doctor and hopefully recover in time to walk with us the last few days so we can finish as a team. So you don’t get the wrong idea, this is not the “providence” I am referring to!
One the trail, whenever something good happens that is unexpected, most hikers refer to it as “Trail Magic.” It just so happens that as we hike, ”Trail Magic” occurs quite often . When telling other hikers about some of our experiences they are in awe of the amount of “Magic” that seems to come our way. We, however, know that no “Magic” is involved at all. This has allowed us to open up conversations with other hiker by simply saying, “God is Good!! One such example happened this weekend. The day after Caleb left, one of our friends from CBU, Andrew Hochradel, saw that we were in Tahoe and told us that his parents were going to be coming into town the next day for the 4th of July. So minutes later, Mrs. Hochradel calls us up and asks if we would like to spend the weekend with them in their hotel! And on top of that watch the fireworks from their boat! After much deliberation and prayer we agreed. After spending the day at the lake we met up with them Friday night and they took us out for Pizza. The next day we woke up (in the Embassy Suites!!!!), and headed out to the lake in their boat. After cruising around the lake for a few hours, they took us to a BBQ at one of their friends homes right on the lake. After an amazing meal prepared by Scott and his family, we went back to the boat and watched one of the most amazing fireworks displays I have ever seen. We were anchored about 150 yards from the barge that the fireworks were being launched from. Some of them were so large that they completely filled the sky. All in all, it was an amazing day, and we are extremely grateful to Tom and Shari for their amazing hospitality in opening up their awesome hotel room and allowing us to tag along this weekend.
I am constantly amazed by God’s providence. He truly in a loving Heavenly Father. I am so thankful that he is our Abba Father. What happened this weekend was by no means a need, but God blessed us with it anyway because he is a great father and loves to bring his kids joy. The amazing thing is, that this weekend is by no means an isolated instance. This is but one of the many ways that God has shown his providence this trip! He is SOO good, praise him!! Anywho, tomorrow the plan is to spend part of the day on the lake, then head back to Sacramento where we will get a ride back up to Belden to continue our journey Northward. Thank you for all your prayers and support. Please continue to keep Caleb and his knee in your prayers. Love you all!!
Soli Deo Gloria-
Timothy “HomeSkool” Wilkins
This past week was an amazing week. We climbed over Duck Pass out of Mammoth with some friends on “Backpack” out of San Diego. It was a great hike with beautiful views. I will try to post a short powerpoint we put together today for a church.
Now back to the reason for such a title as the one above!
The day before the final hike out I, Caleb(Hollywood), began feeling some pretty serious pain in my right thigh. I thought nothing of it and went to sleep. The next day the pain was bad. Every step I took it seemed to feel twisted and then a small numbing sensation would go over my knee for a while. So I hiked the 11 miles into Mammoth thru Reds Meadow and went to see the doctor. The doctors took xrays, and checked me out, but said that its something that could be unsure. They suggested I take a couple days off and see how I feel, and if its still bad, then I should get an MRI to see if I might have torn my miniscus. So right now I am sitting in Burney, California at Tim(Homeschool)’s house just chilling for three days to see if my knee can recover. Then we will be off back to the hike and back to the summer, where we cannot wait to finish the hike and continue to travel around speaking on the nature of the hike itself. We are so extactic about our mission: Giving clean, fresh, and beautiful water to the awesome people that are suffering in India. Thank you all for everything that you do for us. If you dont do anything with us, but would like to, please take a look out our donations page, as there are many options rather than just a flat donation, and we would encourage you to partner with us in any of the other ways. For more information on anything you see or read, please email us at: teamsweetwater09@yahoo.com . We would absolutely love to hear from you! Much love,
Caleb “Hollywood” Childers
This past week has been the most adventurous week of the summer so far. During our time in Riverside we received a call informing us that two hikers died in the high sierras two weeks ago. So we drove up to Belden and began hiking south to Tahoe. As we arrived in Belden we soon realized that we were no longer in the hot and waterless desert, but we about to start the beautiful northern California section. We began with the first five miles of the hike gaining 4000 feet in elevation and this, because of our previous week off, proved to be a somewhat challenging task. Once we arrived at the top of the hill we decided to have dinner then possibly hike more to a flat saddle where we could camp. About five minutes into dinner I began to vomit and totally lost my appetite. We ultimately ended up cowboy camping on the trail where we ate dinner.
The next day was one of the most beautiful hikes we have had this summer. 10 miles into the hike we decided to take a break at Spanish Peak. After filtering some water and enjoying a peanut butter and honey sandwich Hollywood and I decided that we were going to take a nap, Homeschool was answering natures call. As I began to fall asleep I heard something off in the distance rapidly coming closer. I looked up and saw the back side of a large animal. Unsure of what I was looking at I woke Hollywood to see if he had a better view. Hollywood became very still and whispered to me, “That’s a bear” so I leaned over and sure enough it was a very large brown bear headed straight for Homeschool who was seated on his hand crafted “Throne”. I yelled to get the attention of both the bear and Homeschool and as I yelled the Bear looked up and bolted away from our rest area. It was an exciting encounter and one to remember for the ages. Later that day we ended up at Bucks Summit where we decided to take a rest before our last three miles. While we were sitting there by the road a man named Steve drives by, turns around, and approaches us. We share with Steve what we are doing and he returns to his truck and pulls out a cold watermelon and hands it to the three of us and then returns a second time with two huge bags of beef jerky he had made for his girlfriend. Thankfully she did not like it because it was amazing and helped us make more miles that day.
Day three of our week was all downhill to the middle fork of the Feather River which mad for a great day of easy hiking. I stayed on the trail the entire day while Hollywood and Homeshool decided that they were going to take a more direct route down the side of the mountain. Well after I reached the creek where we had planned on meeting I began to wonder where they had gone. I waited for about 1 hour then finally they arrived, soaking wet and telling me about Homeschool’s near death experience falling down a water fall. After a much needed meal we packed up and hiked another 3 miles to the river where we set up the most amazing camp we have had on the trail so far. We had a fire to dry boots and keep warm and we also set up the tent for the first time since May 3rd when we began.
Day four was also a beautiful hike until I came face to face with another bear at about 20 feet. This startled me because it was about 7am and I was not fully awake. Instantly I was awake and I yelled to try and scare the bear which I did because it had not yet spotted me when I yelled. Other than that one encounter nothing exciting really happened.
Day five was the longest day we had that week and was also the most perilous. We were walking in snow all day and ended up crossing some massive snow drifts that were hundreds of yards long. During our second crossing of one of these beasts I slipped and began falling straight down. Because I was the last one to cross the others had already moved on and I was left to fend for myself. On my way down I managed to hang on to my trekking poles and caught myself using my legs and some small trees that happened to be in my path. After this near death experience we decided that anytime we see snow we hike together at all times! We ended up losing the trail many times that night and our GPS was the only reason we were able to find camp that night!
Day six was the shortest day we had on the trail. We decided that the snow was not passable and that we needed to find a ride out of the woods. Thankfully this area was very close to a place that my family had visited every year for about 13 years so I was slightly familiar with the surrounding lakes. I knew that Gold Lake was our best bet for finding a ride out. So we began blazing our own trail to the lake and on our way down we ran into a jeep crew that was more excited to see us that we were to see them if you can imagine that. They offered us lunch and told us that if we are able to get to the highway they would give us a ride, but the highway was just out of our range so we decided that we should go to the boat launch and find a ride out from there. We hitched with a fisherman from Reno and he gave us a ride to Greagle, the place I had been vacationing to since I was young. So we eventually made it to my favorite pizza place in town, a place I had been talking about for weeks, and we ate a ton of food. While we were enjoying our meal Kristin, one of the waitresses, came up to us and told us that we were staying at her house with her family. Soon after Kimberlee, a CBU student, arrived and we got in her car and she took us to her parents home where we stayed for a while. They arranged for us to speak at their church and they took care of us like no other trail angel so far!!
That was our week,
Skivvies-
Well, I’m sitting in Riverside, CA. The snow is pilling up on the mountains. I was called by a trail angel we met in Lake Silverwood (Thanks Melody!) and informed of the snow issues in the Sierra’s right now. There is no way we can stop hiking for another week. So we are now sounding like some pretty weird Section Hikers. We told everybody we arent thru-hikers, and we arent Section Hikers-we are the Hybrid Hikers. Now more than ever this is comming up! We had planned to hike with some friends at the end of June in Mammoth, and it was going to slow us down since they are only doing 5 mile days. We still are dying to hike with them, since we love Geoff(Freedom), but it is affecting our schedule. Looks like now we will be hiking from the North down to Tahoe, then picking up with them in Mammoth and hiking north. Then Geoff will drive us back down to Lone Pine where we will set off to the north again, hiking the same twenty miles that we have already hiked, in order to make it back to Tahoe and then get picked up and go back up north where we had started off this first week. This is where we are at. The snow is too bad, and we must bypass it and come back to this section. Thank you all for your support. Continue checking back on the website as we are hoping to update it with information before we get back to the trail. The Trail is sometimes tough, and it throws some pretty ridiculous traps in your way, but it will not stop us from completing our mission! Much love to all,
Caleb aka Hollywood
Team Sweetwater
Well we are sitting in a coffeehouse in Tehachipi, just making all the last minute adjustments before we hitch out to the trail. We will be ahead of schedule again-no surprise- so we are planning on just getting a couple miles in today, anywhere from 5-10, not exactly sure yet, depending on the elevation changes and such. We spoke today at the Apostolic Faith Church here in Tehachipi and it went really well. We have also been able to spread our cards around town. We are planning on being in Onyx, CA on Friday night or Saturday morning. We are still debating whether we will be taking time off there. This is the updated news.
For past news, that we never posted, I will try to elaborate for the most part as to what has happened in the last week. We pulled into Hikertown-near Lancaster, CA, early on thursday afternoon. We spent two days there hanging out with Hollywood producer, Richard Skaggs, who has invited us back to hang out with him after the trail as well. He is also very interested in some of the stock footage that I am filming along the PCT. He had an old Rolls Royce, 1 of 24 ever made, and only one in its color, that he had been restoring. We got to put the radiator in and drive it around in circles on his front lawn. So naturally we dug into his props collection and dressed up as soldiers, mobsters, cuban drug lords, and policemen. We took a bunch of pictures, that are now up on their website, www.hikertown.com . It was an amazing weekend there, and now we are ready to get back to the trail. Thank you all for your love and support, we will continue to update the site whenever possible. Much love,
Caleb ‘Hollywood’ Childers
First off, we would like to give a thank you to all those who have been taking care of us in these past weeks. The trail has been very trying, but incredibly beautiful at the same time. So far we have been able to speak about the hike, and the money we are trying to raise for the wells in India. It has been a great experience, to which we can only gain knowledge and wisdom from here on out. If you havent had a chance to watch the Promo Video, please scroll down and check it out. It is made for churches, so please, understand the context for the promo. Thanks so much for your help and support. Im passing the “blogging ball” to Tim, aka Homeschool, to tell you a little bit about how it has been like on and off the trail. Much love to all,
Caleb ‘Hollywood’ Childers
First and Last:
On May 17st the Male Choral had its last concert. Looking forward to getting out on the trail with the boys I shaved for the last time this summer, wore a suit for the last time this summer, did my hair for the last time this summer, and wore a button up shirt with a starchy collar that chaffes for the last time this summer. On the 20th I was finally able to meet up with the guys.
- Tim Wilkins
TRAIL NAMES!!
One of the “rites of passage” on the PCT trail names. A trail name is the nickname you are given while on the trail, and are known by for the rest of your time. You are usually given a trail name for something funny, stupid, or memorable that you do. Nick recieved his trail name, “skivies” from a trail angel who after hearing that he hiked several miles in his underwear to let them dry out named him accordingly. Caleb is now known as “Hollywood” because he makes films and is always stopping to shoot some footage. I recieved my trail name last night while sitting around a picknick table eating dinner. After I made a reference to a mythological Greek character, Nick leans over and said, “you would know that Homeschool!” So from now on, I shall be known as “Homeschool.” Thanks for all the prayers and support. We would love to hear back from you so make sure to comment!
Tim “Homeschool” Wilkins
Here it is! Check out the trip plan!!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rCchKPm7R24HAsyKInuAM1g
