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.
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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.
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 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.
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 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.
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…
Rocky Mountain Wall Art
The Rocky Mountains. Perhaps no mountain range better resembles the image of the American west. Soaring spires of granite, vast alpine landscapes of lush greenery, and hidden lakes that serve as reminders of their glacial origin. The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) affords a front row seat to it all. From the snowy San Juans of...
Southwest Wall Art
The southwest is a land of mystery and contradiction. Sweeping desert landscapes, stately saguaro, and an arid ocean of seeming desolation that hides a wealth of life in plain sight. On thru-hikes of the Continental Divide Trail and Arizona Trail, along with a section hike of the Mogollon Rim Trail, we saw up close the...
Pacific Northwest Wall Art
Ice-capped hulking volcanoes. Mountains cloaked in ancient forests. Coastal beaches shrouded in mist adjacent to one of the quietest places in the United States. One word always comes to mind when I think back to the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. No, not rain: diversity. Not far from our home, two trails wander—with unparalleled access—through...
Wilderness First Responder
The wilderness is—news flash—a wild, and scenic place. The fact that it occupies a romantic place in our brains outside the familiar is, in large part, the essence of its appeal. It also explains the sheer terror that many people associate with being out in that wilderness.
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Trails of a Different Kind
Skiing isn’t an inherently sensible thing to do. Think about it. From the time we realize, as infants, that standing up seems like a cool thing to do, we spend nearly every moment from that day forward trying to avoid the pitfall of that decision. Namely, we try not to fall flat on our faces. Gravity, it turns out, is an effective teacher.
Stone and Sky Wall Art
For all its challenges, long-distance hiking has one obvious upside: it affords you a front row seat to some of the world’s most spectacular scenery. Escaping to wild places via images on a webpage is one thing. Now, you can bring those landscapes into your home, with Stone and Sky wall art created from our...
Adventure Consulting
What is ”adventure consulting”? At Stone and Sky, it encompasses 3 things: People on the trail and readers of the Stone and Sky blog may know me best as ”Mountain Man”, due to more than 10,000 miles of hiking experience on long-distance trails alone. The other sides of me you might know less about? Writer....
Shortcuts in the Wild
Automation is having, shall we say, a moment. Spreading its tendrils through our lives everywhere from our homes to our cars and to the supercomputers disguised as smartphones stashed in our pockets, its promises are many. More efficiency, less time wasted on the perfunctory tasks of daily routines, and more focus on the things that really matter.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind
Divorce, loss, upheaval, trauma. For as long as there has been wilderness there have been people who seek its healing and its catharsis. Packing with them emotional baggage as heavy as that which rests upon their shoulders, I’ve never counted myself among them—until now.
Up Close
Stars, sunsets, sunrises, distant mountains. This trail has been full of them—atmospheric settings abounding in a land of vast open space. Day after day your eyes are drawn to them, these obvious sights, and yet to focus only on them is to overlook that which is right in front of you.
Recreation
Open at 5am. That’s what the hand-written sign hanging from the door had promised, though the lady inside insisted it was wrong: they actually open at 4.
Not That Patagonia
The rock strewn dirt road we’d arrived at just as dusk cast a pall of gray over the mountainside was more than just a home for the night. It was now our yellow brick road—albeit a less brightly colored one—leading us to a distant town stop that we could not see, an Oz of a far less fantastical sort.
Confession
The overgrown grass of an epic monsoon season now seems to coat every hillside. At daybreak, the sun turns it all a golden, buttery hue that is difficult to forget. A brief window of time where it feels like you are seeing things as they truly are, saturated in colors that will soon be washed away by a sun ascending to its throne high in the sky.
The Redefinition of Clean
Absolutes are tiring. And also pointless. Stepping back onto the trail after nearly 48 hours worth of rest, my state of being clean does not—surprisingly—disappear in an instant. Little by little, sweat, dirt, and sunscreen conspire against this newfound state of cleanliness and begin to return me to a version of clean more becoming of a thru-hiker.
A Brief History of Time
Honest question: What day is it? Away from the routines and patterns of home, it’s remarkable how something so familiar vanishes so quickly, each day seamlessly bleeding into the next, only the rising and setting of the sun demarcating one day from the next.
Mercury Rising
I told myself to file away the morning’s chill into my memory bank for safe keeping. Like a mental block of ice, I had a feeling I would soon be in need of opening the mental freezer to find some measure of relief from the oven we’d soon be descending into.
Saguaro
The flames dance and flicker to the music of a barely perceptible breeze floating down through the Ponderosa pines. Daylight fades, and the red embers pulse and shimmer.
Wilderness of Rock
I didn’t remember having gone to sleep in the Sierra, but after rubbing the sleep both from my eyes and from my legs it sure seemed like that’s where I’d woken up. Scattered pines, lumps of stone, a trickling stream. It even had the blackened char of a recent burn clinging to the bark of surviving trees.
Sky Island
When she pulled up in her 30-year-old pickup truck, honking jubilantly as she did, I had a feeling we were in for quite a time on our resupply stopover. DD, our trail angel host for the rest of the day and night, was a spitfire force of nature. Alternately with a joint, chewing tobbaco, or a beer in her mouth—sometimes all three…
Oracle of Arizona
We slept in a ditch. Not exactly like the one from the CDT last year, and certainly not this one from the PCT—I’m beginning to sense a troubling pattern—but a sandy, flat, wash nonetheless a literal stone’s throw from passing traffic.
The Upside of a Pandemic
Every trail has days like today. Hell, the last 4 days. The rest of life is no different. In between the few snapshots worthy of putting on display for anyone who might care to see them, the real work takes place. Quiet. Sweat. Fatigue. Pain. Frustration. Elation. A thousand other qualities, none of which anyone gets to see but us.
Desert Solitaire
To watch the desert sunrise or sunset is, in some sense, to witness it for the first time. An expanse of land brought to life with color beneath an equally expansive sky, only to have the sunset slowly steal those very same colors in exchange for an ocean of stars. Blackness yielding to layers of gray before deep hues of blue, red and orange bleed away
Oasis
My mind floats an inch or two just above where my head is. Almost imperceptibly detached from the rest of me, it examines the trail that is about to pass beneath me. It imagines what a passerby might see if they look at me in this moment. Eyes glazed over with concentration. Sweat and salt caked to my shirt.
Nadir
Along with two other hikers, we rode along in the car of trail angel MJ, watching the comforts of Superior shrink out the back window on our way back to the trail. Another zero day gone in the blink of an eye, it was back to the work of shrinking the distance between us and Mexico.
Daggers of the Desert
Another day, another few million scrapes, jabs, cuts, and pin pricks from all manner of plants that seem dead set on reaching out and getting a bit too familiar with anything that might be passing by. In this case: us. So it seems only fitting to turn the spotlight on these floral “friends” whose penchant for inappropriate touching is downright criminal.
Superstition
The last time I looked up at the sky, it was filled with nothing but stars. By the middle of the night, those same stars were nowhere to be found, as though they might never have been there at all. Was I dreaming?
Pit Stop
Strange. I don’t remember there being rocks under me. In the trance-like state between dreaming and waking, not a whole lot makes sense. Yet, as the dust from my recent slumber settled, it was starting to making quite a lot of sense. I just didn’t like what it added up to.