Whether you’re dealing with wired headphones at home, or guy-lines and ridge-lines on the trail, there’s an antidote for all of your cord headaches: the Figure 8 Wrap. It’s simple to learn, and can be the difference between pitching your shelter in record time during a downpour and struggling to untangle knot after knot.
Search Results for: 1
Stone and Sky News & Updates - July 2021
Normalcy. Remember what that felt like? I’d very nearly forgotten myself. The 4th of July has come and gone and the heart of summer is finally here. But it’s not just any summer. Here in the U.S., it feels like we’re slowly tiptoeing our way out into the light, emerging from a state of pseudo-hibernation....
Hitchhiking 101
Don't be an asshole. That's good life advice in general, but it's especially true when it comes to asking perfect strangers for a favor, even one as simple as a little help getting from Point A to Point B. But I'll come back to that.
Canyoneering 101
The 5:30am alarm came as early as ever, this time with the added realization of just how cold a night it had been. Each bundled in our warm layers, we broke camp as quickly as we could to start moving and even then still kept on down jackets and wind shirts longer than usual. It’s the easily forgotten dichotomy of the desert—sweltering days matched by equally chilling nights.
10,834 feet
With X-man leaving after only one zero day and Emily having flown home to Seattle, our little hiking group has been whittled down to just four. We set off from the cozy confines of the Idyllwild Inn at 6am, hoping to get a hitch to the state park where a side trail would take us back to the PCT on the north side of the trail closure.
Mile 100
With yesterday's weather having blown through, we found ourselves with the most favorable hiking conditions thus far and with an early start we tried to take full advantage.
Day 1
Today began at the oh-so-early hour of 4:45, when we woke up at Scout & Frodo's, packed, ate breakfast and were off to the start of the trail just before 6.
John Muir Trail 2015
An image gallery of photos from the John Muir Trail—the jewel of the High Sierra, running 210-miles from Mt. Whitney to Yosemite Valley. Start Point: Yosemite Valley, CAEnd Point: Mt. Whitney, CATotal Length: 211 miles
Wonderland Trail 2013
An image gallery of photos from the Wonderland Trail, a 91-mile footpath circumnavigating Mount Rainier within Mount Rainier National Park. Start Point: Longmire, WAEnd Point: Longmire, WATotal Length: 93 miles
ME 15
One last short day heading into the town of Monson, ME before beginning the 100-mile wilderness tomorrow. Also, my last day alone on the trail since my friend Gerry from home is meeting me tonight to finish the trail with me.
US 201
Well, so I lied awhile back when I said that my last 20-mile day was actually going to be my last. So, now I'll say it again: "This is my last 20-mile day." There. A much easier stretch of trail today for Chris, Anna, and I to race along on, and with our early start we were gunning to catch the canoe ferry across the Kennebec River which only runs until 4pm.
Wedding Zero Day 1
Date: 7/2/04 Starting Location: MA 2Destination: MA 2Miles: 0Total Miles: 1586.6
CT 341
A short day heading into Kent, CT with Northern Harrier, Footloose, and Jan, who is heading home to New Jersey from Kent. A nice little quintessentially New England town, good food, and of course it's always nice to do laundry. Splitting a room tonight with Footloose and Harrier to relax a little and get some more rest. Lately, everyone seems to be feeling very worn down and shelter registers are filled with more and more pessimism and hikers talking about their "trail blues" and overall mental and physical weariness.
501 Zero Day
My first zero day in about a month, and I decided to take it at the very last minute this morning when the caretaker said the rain would clear by tomorrow. And since it's been pouring all day, this 4-walled shelter has been the perfect place to wait it out indoors away from the distractions of town, although it's begun to get quite cold.
501
Not much sleep last night with the road noise, even with my earplugs. It's a nice day to walk though, in the 70s again and sunny all the way to the fully enclosed 501 shelter where I got talked into staying the night after a short day, to celebrate one section-hiker's 2000th mile. This was even better because after only one day of no problems, my new pack has quickly fallen apart with 2 pieces of webbing ripped clear through, 1 broken zipper, and load lifter straps that don't lock off.
US 501 Zero Day
My mom and dad are here! Got a hitch from the campground into town this morning and waited at the laundromat for them to arrive. Spent a very short day getting groceries, eating lunch and dinner, running to the outfitter, and getting my mom's pack ready for her week-long adventure with me on the trail. How many moms choose to vacation by hiking the AT for a week, not to mention starting out on Mother's Day?
US 501
Beautiful night to be in a tent last night. No rain coming, so I left the rain fly off to be more comfortable. Every time I woke up, I opened my eyes to see a giant bright moon and a star-filled night sky. It was enough to keep me up a few times just to watch.
US 11
Date: 4/22/04 Starting Location: Partnership ShelterDestination: US 11Miles: 11.6Total Miles: 543.9
Damascus Zero Day 1
Aaaahhh. My feet are loving this, and after the recent beating they took, they deserve it. Hanging around the town today and killing time at Dave's Hostel with Mo, Camel, Nails, Dances with Scarf, and Condor. The sky is clear, and the sun is shining--we're back to shorts and t-shirt weather.
Erwin Zero Day 1
Thought I'd move on today, but after doing so many miles and getting so little sleep in the last 2 days, I'm here to stay and relax a bit before hitting the trail tomorrow. Slept on the couch at Miss Janet's Hostel last night, but not before being sucked into watching movies til 2am.
Hot Springs Zero Day 1
Taking my first "zero" day today, after rolling into Hot Springs a day ahead of schedule with Professor T on our last day of hiking together. We've had a great time hiking together with gorgeous weather and scenery for 2 weeks across the Smokies and then some.
Triple Lava Loop
11,249 feet. Not ninety minutes ago, it had basked in the first rays of morning light before anywhere else, the sun spilling down from Mount Hood’s summit until it wakened the glaciers and, eventually, the forests below. Towering some 6,000 feet into the dizzyingly empty space above our heads, it’s a height difference that human minds aren’t fully equipped to understand. Judging with only your eyes, it might as well be 60,000 feet.
Ghosts of the Columbia
Close your eyes and picture the Pacific Northwest. Tell me what you see. Gray skies? An unshakeable mist? Maybe bright green sword ferns, super-sized trees, and fountains of Starbucks coffee on every Seattle street corner?
The Shining
Fifty miles east of Portland, Oregon, a snow-capped cathedral of glacier and stone holds a blue sky atop its broad shoulders. Even on a sunny day in August, ski lifts spin skiers to the only place in North America where turns can be had all 12 months of the year. But even that may not be Mount Hood’s most well known feature. That honor belongs to a place that has haunted people’s dreams for 42 years.
Tumanguya
The buzzing on my wrist comes as no surprise. In those brief moments drifting in limbo between asleep and awake, I struggle to register what exactly it is floating above my head. Beyond the soft armor of mosquito mesh surrounding me, and through the tarp stretched taut above, an amorphous shape of white bends into unrecognizable shapes and patterns, like sunlight seen from beneath the surface of water.
Where Stone Meets Sky
The Sierra. The range that has captured the fascination of icons like Ansel Adams and John Muir. Superlatives have been spilled over its incredible beauty, its almost idyllic climate, and the trails that beckon you to explore it ever more deeply. It may best be known as the Range of Light, but to me, it is simply the place where stone meets sky.
The Second Time Around
As with most evenings on this trail, I am cozy in my hammock before 8:00pm. Sweet Pea would be proud. This is the second time I’m doing this hike (the first time was in 2015). And with each passing mile, I can’t help but think how little has changed and how much has changed, all at the same time.
The Glacier and the Avalanche
It’s easy to love John Muir, or at least the idea of him. That’s the appeal of idealists. Soaring rhetoric and a righteous cause in the proper hands can bring a groundswell of change that compounds like an avalanche. But it is a rare idealist who is able to effect change in the world. John Muir was certainly one of them.
The Golden Staircase
The confluence of two creeks, a mere stone’s throw from our proverbial bedroom window, seemed not to care that morning had broken. Nature’s white noise machine chugged along, ignorant of day and time. The alarm on my wrist was more particular about exactly what time it was, and its buzzing was as inescapable as the reality it brought with it. Everything ahead of us was in one and only one direction: up.
Nüümü Poyo: The People’s Trail
Reality came knocking early. Saddled with 6 days of food for the final stretch to Mount Whitney, we could delay the inevitable no longer. In accordance with the first law of hiking—that what comes down, must go up—we pointed our steps back up toward Bishop Pass for the second day in a row, aiming to reverse everything we’d done the day before.
Uncharted Territory
To wake with the realization that you’re not on the trail you’re supposed to be, might normally be cause for alarm. But in this case, it was by design.
Mysteries, Revealed
Morning broke with a chorus of crashing water and overlapping birdsongs, melodies and harmonies, calls and answers. To hear these as the first sounds of morning, and then to open your eyes to the scenery you’d almost forgotten in your dreams, is very nearly the definition of waking up in paradise.
Evolution
Evolution is a very very slow process. We need only look at ourselves to know how true that is. How long does it take for us to change even the smallest of things—a habit, perhaps? Real change, it seems, requires a patience that does not come naturally to a species whose lifespan is but a fraction of the earth’s.
Sierra in Bloom
If you’ve ever read John Muir’s book, My First Summer in the Sierra, it’s plain to see the deep and endearing love he had for the mountain range that his name has become nearly synonymous with. You also may have noticed that he had an equally deep and unwavering loathing for the sheep that grazed throughout the Sierra at the time.
A Tale of Two Winters
The Sierra Nevada—literally, “the snowy mountains”—has recently begun to challenge its very name. In the past twenty years or more, the cyclical nature of snow and sun in these mountains has become anything but cyclical.
Troubled Horizon
When dawn broke, it started by touching only the tops of the mountains surrounding our camp, before spilling down the flanks of granite to where we lie in our hammocks. It was nature opening the blinds.
A Banner Day
From our perch on a hidden bench above the trail, the same soundtrack that had lulled us to sleep was now the first to greet us. There’s something a little comforting about it. That while you’ve been asleep, the gears of nature have kept turning, almost completely unchanged. That everything is, by all appearances, exactly the way you’d left it the day before.
The Other Side of Yosemite
The Sierra must be seen to be fully believed. And Yosemite is the beating heart of that Sierra. Of the more than 4 million annual visitors to Yosemite National Park, the vast majority never leave Yosemite Valley, however. With highlights known the world over—El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Glacier Point—you can hardly blame them.
Out of the Cathedral
There was no way around it. This was gonna hurt. For a trail that runs 211 miles, ending on the summit of the highest point in the Continental U.S., you don’t expect the first day to be the one with the longest and largest climb. And yet, that’s exactly how the John Muir Trail introduces you to the scenery of the High Sierra: by exacting a pound of flesh.
On the Trail with Ulysses
Writing, like sleep, has never come easily to me. There’s a restlessness to it. Perhaps, because the search for the right words is a struggle that haunts every writer—the burden of imperfect communication. Then again, perhaps it’s because nearly all of my writing happens in the unlikeliest of places…