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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Bumps and Bruises
Diverse. That’s the word that kept rattling through the recesses of my brain while following the now red ribbon of trail beneath my feet. Gently rising and falling far more frequently than at any preceding mile of the trail thus far, we traversed around drainages and ascended over small shoulders of ridges before descending to a neighboring wash.
Rust and Relaxation
I’m never quite sure. That’s the problem. You’d think 10,000 miles of trails would have clarified an answer to what is otherwise a simple question, but here I am. Having taken not one but two zero days in Flagstaff, the question remains: is a day off more likely to rest weary legs or accumulate rust upon them?
Pancake Power
Pancake Power is serious power. Just ask Gazelle. She’ll tell ya. My little Canadian friend and fellow lover of pancakes would have approved of the way this day began, with coffee, eggs, sausage, and the most divine blueberry pancakes courtesy of our hosts at Nye’s Green Valley Farm B&B.
The First Law of Hiking
The rain is deafening. Inside the spacious shelter of Taylor Lodge, nestled into the shadow of Mt. Mansfield, the sound is amplified by the metal roof making each drop sound like the beat of a snare drum. Lying in the dark, it’s hard to know whether my ears are being deceived by the acoustics or the downpour really is that heavy.
Homecoming
The air, even overnight, could be worn like any other article of clothing. A bit like a shirt that fits a size too small. Suffocating with its humid stickiness that gives everything an imperceptible dampness, even the things you know to be bone dry. Sleeping in it is an exercise in futility. At least it always has been for me.
Wind of Change
As if bemused by the accelerating pace of our hectic lives, the natural rhythm of the world moves ever onward, inexorably slowly, one season slipping into another almost without our notice. It's one of the many small joys of trail life—the rare attentiveness to even subtle changes in the world around us that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The Magic of Kindness
Like a truck stuck in second gear. That's what it felt like when my feet took their first steps away from our camp this morning. The evening rains had left only to return a time or two overnight, ensuring that we'd be packing up wet tarps, at a minimum. There was no blue sky to herald the morning, only a thick cloud that we seemed to be finding our way out of little by little.
Evolution
It took me a moment to recognize what I was looking at. Scattered flecks of grey and white were sprinkled on my hammock as I went to turn in last night, and it was then I realized that the smoke hanging on the horizon that had given us such a scarlet tinged sunset had also given us these little flakes of ash. It was odd to have that connection to something happening so far away.
Wonderland
“This is the part I hate.” I can still hear him saying it. The smile on his face minutes later, waving goodbye from the front door, is the truly indelible part. The sweeter half of an otherwise bittersweet memory, as Emily and I pulled down the street heading home to Vermont from our Thanksgiving visit. It was the last time I saw him alive.
Happy Birthday, Have Some Hail
A cold night made for great sleeping, and just after the morning no longer required a headlamp, we were off and beginning our fifth month on the trail. A mile or so down the trail, we entered the Mt. Adams Wilderness. Knowing that this massive volcano of over 12,000 feet was looming nearby, even though we'd had no view of it since the weather had turned for the worse two days ago…
In the Heart of the Cascades
It stretched into the distance as far as I could see. With my back towards the Three Sisters, Mt. Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, and Mt. Jefferson towered over what looked like a boundless expanse of nothing but volcanic rock. Wave upon wave of fields were piled high with the stuff.
Land of Lakes
The terrain today was something quite different from anything we'd seen on the trail so far. Like the deep woods of Maine, it was lake after lake after lake of varying sizes all day, with many separated by no more than a tenth of a mile or two. Perhaps not surprisingly, with the advent of so much standing water, swarms of mosquitoes were not far behind.
Cruise Control
The elevation profile looked particularly benign today, so when we set off this morning it looked to be a fairly comfortable day. But by the time we reached a road crossing little more than four miles into the day, we sat by the side of the road contemplating what to do. Beardoh had been struggling with worsening indigestion, stomach cramps, and fatigue the entire week…
Migraine Meltdown
The title very nearly says it all as the migraine that began its infancy late last night blossomed into its adolescence in the first hours of hiking this morning. Having to pause and take my medication put somewhat of a damper on an otherwise celebratory moment when we came across a small cooler near a road crossing that contained a handful of cold beers.
Coppertone Strikes Again
Some days everything seems to go right, and this was one of those days. Yesterday's good fortune of spending the night at Nancy & Terry's cabin in the woods was perhaps the most relaxing and satisfying surprise of the entire trail thus far and the trend only continued this morning when we were greeted with coffee, pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast.
The Unexpected
This is going to be a very short post as I fight the sleep that is beginning to hang on my eyelids, but the uneventful miles today quickly morphed into a most unexpected evening. Three miles before a road crossing in the late afternoon, a handwritten sign placed next to the trail described a family that was offering to host thru-hikers for the night, a mere two mile walk down the road.
Donner Pass
Of the three historical signs I passed this morning commemorating various points of interest around the crossing of Donner Pass, not one of them mentioned the infamous and ill-fated Donner Party. And rather than rehash the gruesome story of their fate in my mind, I stood for a few moments along the now quiet Highway 40…
Nearos and Zeros
An extremely brief morning of hiking was punctuated by one final surprise just as we reached the highway that would take us into South Lake Tahoe for some much anticipated time off: another sighting of Coppertone and his van of trail magic. Setup in a nearby stand of trees was his usual arrangement of camp chairs surrounding a small table.
Boat Ride
Today was a short story of a near-o to the shore of Lake Edison, where we caught a "ferry" in a small fishing boat to Vermilion Valley "Resort" across the lake.
Out of the Cloud
With a short day on tap, the order of the morning was sleeping in...until 6:30 anyway. Another cold night in the books, the morning began much as the previous evening had ended, the air thick from a low lying cloud having settled into the high mountain saddle.
Trail Magic
Our usual start time of 6am came, and off Proton and I went. At 7:15 we came to the crossing of a little used road and parked there was an RV, of sorts. Out popped Coppertone, a former PCT thru-hiker turned trail angel (pictured in the red hat below) asking us whether we'd like a root beer float or pie ala mode. Not exactly your typical breakfast, but in hiker-land, anytime is the right time for pie.
Zero Day
Ah, the "zero" day, a.k.a., a day off. Since we arrived in Idyllwild a day early, we'll actually be taking a double zero and the timing couldn't be better. Idyllwild is a town filled with hiker-friendly people and we spent most of the day truly relaxing--Epsom salt foot baths, doing a puzzle on the deck…
Hiker Train
Just a short post tonight as we lay in our sleeping bags cowboy camping under a sea of stars. After picking up a resupply box from the Warner Springs post office with the rest of the crowd from the community center, our little hiker train of Proton, XC, Gazelle, X-man, Ace and I set off on a bit of cross-country travel to reconnect with the PCT.
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
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.
Moose Mt.
Hiked in tandem this morning with Camel, trying to catch up on the last few months of each other's hiking stories on the way into Hanover, NH for breakfast. We crossed over the Connecticut River into New Hampshire, nearly avoided a camera-dropping catastrophe, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Lou's with Footloose.
Woodstock Stage Road
Nice terrain, lots of PUDs. Not much more to say about that. Footloose and the Camera Crew and I popped in to the tiny "town" of South Pomfret to grab dinner, snacks, ice cream and beer at the general store. We had some great chatter over dinner across from the store before deciding to stealth camp on the porch of the Suicide Six ski area just up the street.
US 4
Meeting my parents this evening, so time to make some more miles! Awesome to catch up with Lucky Star this afternoon before making the long climb up to Killington Peak. Also great to meet up with the Camera Crew again while we all ate lunch at Governor Clement Shelter--I haven't seen them since Damascus!
Palmerton
A very hot and steamy day for walking with water few and far between. Fortunately, with a lighter pack and a lot of miles behind me, the heat bothererd me much less than normal and my need to drink tons of water is pretty well diminished. Lots more PA rocks today, but no rattlesnakes or copperheads yet again.
Pass Mt.
nteresting night last night. A few hours after the thunderstorms passed, the power came back on at Big Meadows Lodge so Footloose and I went down to the taproom to enjoy some always delicious beer while listening to some live bluegrass/folk music. Tons of fun to hear music for a change and sing along with everyone to some familiar songs.
Lewis Spring
What an exciting day! Just when I thought the park was getting kind of boring, I start off my day with a morning sighting of a black bear running across the trail up in front of me! Next came a very cool sighting of the rare Yellow Lady's Slipper flower hiding in a hillside of trillium. That's not all.
Cove Mt.
Well, the weather was absolutely perfect hiking weather today and the terrain was easy to boot. Hiked the day with Skyline and Sundance as we passed the first of our many future crossings with the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Damascus
A night of shivering in the cold, added to 26+ miles today....no need to be a rocket scientist to guess that I'm sleepy and that my dogs hurt reeaaalll bad. All is redeemed though by Lead Dog's kindness in having me stay at his nearby house only 30 minutes away in Bristol, TN. It's amazing how a beer and a good long soak in the hot tub can erase the effects of three 25-mile days.