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....
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Rookie Perspective #2: The CDT Back Flip, with a Twist
As I said in my previous guest post, I’m a rookie. What do I know? However, as we began planning for the CDT I quickly learned that conditions must be perfect (said to the tune of Flight of the Conchords, of course) in order to hike this big ass trail continuously and without performing any mental, logistical or geographical gymnastics.
2000 Miles
It may have been a meager arrangement of sticks on the ground, but it was meaningful just the same. A humble spot on a trail full of highlights, it didn't quite seem fitting of all that this point represented but it did make for a perfect place to reflect on all the miles that brought us here. 2000 miles.
2 Hours and 20 Minutes
Two hours and twenty minutes. That's how long it took to travel from Seattle to Dan Diego today--nearly the same distance that will take me 5 months to cover on the trail. It's a humbling thought.
Long Trail 2002
An image gallery of photos from the Long Trail, a 271-mile footpath stretching across the state of Vermont from Massachusetts to Canada. Start Point: Massachusetts-Vermont State LineEnd Point: US-Canada BorderTotal Length: 273 miles
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
Wonderland Trail 2006
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
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.
ME 27
Hiked again today with Chris, Anna, and their dog Beau up and over Spaulding Mt., past Sugarloaf ski resort, and up and over the Crocker Mts. down to the road that leads into Stratton, ME. We struggled for a hitch more than any other time I can remember, but we finally got a ride in for resupply just as the sun went down and the temps started getting quite cold while we waited.
US 2
Tough. Long. Tiring. Yup, that pretty much encapsulates today. Lots of ups and downs, but I felt suprisingly more energetic throughout all of it, even trail running a bit over the last couple of miles down to the road. It's always an uplifting feeling to feel like my body is regaining its normal strength a bit. Waldo, Walk On and I are in a terrible and hot motel room tonight since The Barn Hostel is full.
NH 25
At long last, a short day! Hiked with Chris today and caught up with one another on how our respective hikes are going. Nice to slow down the pace for a change with so few miles to do. I arrived at the Hikers Welcome Hostel for a night indoors for the second night in a row and a crowd of thru-hiker friends to gather 'round the tv with to watch movies all night.
NH 25A
My first full day in my 13th state! All I can say is: "New Hampshire? Bring it." Hiked one last big day alongside Camel--perhaps my last 20-miler of the trail! Tired legs today after last night's late arrival, and the trail turned pretty dramatically more diificult with several rugged and steep ups and downs.
Wedding Zero Day 2
Date: 7/3/04 Starting Location: MA 2Destination: MA 2Miles: 0Total Miles: 1586.6 Wedding...
MA 2
I slept in this morning, but I'm way behind on sleep and this weekend's off-trail time at the wedding should hopefully help out on that. I felt awful and very tired when I started climbing up Mt. Greylock, but much better after taking a very long rest on a trailside rock.
VA 624
Lots of PUDs today, but several cool things to see including my first sighting of a Pink Lady's Slipper flower, the Audie Murphy Memorial site (USA's most decorated WWII veteran), and the dramatic Dragon's Tooth rock ridge.
Damascus Zero Day 2
Beautiful day for town R&R with the other thru-hikers, eating my face off, and catching up in my journal. Spent most of the day running errands around town and going back and forth to the outfitter across the street from Dave's Place Hostel where I'm staying.
Erwin Zero Day 2
Well, so much for that plan. Loaded my pack in Miss Janet's shuttle to head back to the trail this morning, but the shuttle left without me. So, I'm stuck here for another day off in sunshine while pack rides around in the "Banana Boat" van for the day. Disappointed about missing the shuttle but it was very serendipitous in the end.
Hot Springs Zero Day 2
Another zero day today as I wait for my friend Emily to come into town this afternoon for an overnight with me on the trail when I head back out tomorrow. Ate most of the day and ended up back at the Paddler's Pub for some beers with Emily and my thru-hiker pals. I'm still mourning the loss by my Duke Blue Devils to UConn in the Final Four.
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.
Skill Short #1: The Figure 8 Wrap
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.
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...