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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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?
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
Cache Conundrum
Bang. Silence. Another bang. The gunshots reporting in the not-so-distance were all the reminder we needed that hunting season was in full effect. Exiting our camp site that was nestled into a cozy thicket of pines, we turned down the trail and passed a succession of pickup trucks, presumably belonging to nearby hunters out stalking their prey on another chilly autumn morning.
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?
The Prestige
There are—apparently—two constants to the soundtrack of hiking atop the Kaibab Plateau in autumn: the telltale crunch of small, angular stones beneath each step; and the trembling of aspen leaves in even the slightest breeze, a sound that could easily be mistaken for gentle raindrops.
John Muir Would Be Proud
Six weeks ago, as part of a talk titled In the Land of Dust and Fire: Hiking the American West, I mentioned this quote by John Muir which he gave when asked what he thought of hiking: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike!”
Mind the Gap
Gap. Saddle. Pass. Col. Notch. Call them what you will, but the reality is the same regardless. Reaching one typically heralds a road crossing and the end of a descent but it’s the climb back up waiting on the other side that usually catches your attention. Beginning today, those gaps will start coming faster and more furiously as the trail edges into the higher peaks of Vermont.
Appalachian Archaeology
A swirl of clouds against a blue sky was all that remained of the clouds that had held hostage the open space above the treetops yesterday. Buried in the forest as the Long Trail typically is, it’s easy to forget how expansive and brilliant that sky can be—until you have an opportunity to peek out from above those very trees.
Rookie Perspective #5: Outside the Bubble
We finished our road walk from Doc Campbell’s to Silver City. As far as road walks go, it was quite pleasant. Well maintained, not busy, nice views. While Mountain Man and I were disappointed not to walk along the Gila River, a shady river valley with over 50 river crossings in 20-degree weather sounded like too much discomfort and too much cold.
This is Not the Gila
It wasn't supposed to work out this way. Watching the snow fall and the temperature plummet yesterday, we knew that our plans were about to change yet again. The adventure along the Gila River that we'd been looking forward to—tracing the river at the floor of the canyon and crossing it some 100 times or more—was about to meet an unfortunate end before it even began.
The Checkerboard
The massive expanse we've been walking through these past three days since Atlantic City is an unusual one. Neither forested wilderness nor arable farmland, but an arid and windswept region that pries apart the Continental Divide from nearly the border of Colorado to the foot of the Wind River Range.
The Folly of FKTs
The 100-meter dash is not for the slow-footed. It is the domain of the rocket ships of the human race and the winners are bestowed the title of world’s fastest man or woman. One simple question though: Why?
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.
Wind River
The day’s writing done, my light went out and was immediately replaced by starlight. Even from among our sheltered stand of trees, there was enough of a clearing to stare up at them from the comfort of my hammock while I listened to the breeze run through the tips of the pines. It's the way you dream of days ending.
Winter Wonderland
Come morning, it was the lulls between the wind I noticed most. Only seconds in length, they were still a new feature in the storm that had blanketed our little camp with 6 inches of snow and relentlessly buffeted our tarps with wind throughout the night. They also pointed to the last gasps of the storm as the sun supplanted the clouds even though the temperature had risen at best into the 20s.
The Snows of September
It's amazing how quickly things can turn. Mountains are fickle like that, especially in the “shoulder season”—that no man’s land beyond the heart of summer where autumn can so often confuse itself with early winter. Expecting the unexpected, and being prepared for just about anything is what hiking in shoulder season is all about.
Rookie Perspective #4: Marias Pass, the WetzWalds and Mt. Man’s Trailside Chat
We did it. We finished the Montana miles we set out to having arrived at Marias Pass on 9/4 (the same day as Mt. Man’s birthday). Quick aside: Can you believe it? He’s finally 40! It’s about time.
Thimbleberry Lane
Late yesterday afternoon while traversing the never-ending burn zone that is northern Montana, a bright sign appeared beside a trail junction. Dated one day before we'd left our last town stop in Lincoln, it detailed the location of a new forest fire burning in the wilderness only a couple of miles due west of the CDT.
Death Valley
After making a circuit around the airspace above our hammocks, it landed, and then perhaps not believing its eyes, took flight once again on the same circuit. Upon its second landing in the same spot, it swiveled and tilted its head almost out of disbelief, staring down at me lying in my hammock. Apparently this owl hadn't gotten the memo that we'd be invading her home for the night.
Carcass Highway
If you feel like you haven't seen anything good, than you just haven't been paying attention. You also might think that even while paying close attention walking 25 miles of nothing but roads might be the time when that wisdom falls apart. Not today.
Trailside Chats: Sweet Pea
I could tell you about the day and how the trail is now referred to only as Trail 813 on all recent signage, as if it were a prison inmate with only a number to replace its actual name, but I've got a better idea. Instead of my usual philosophical ramblings, I figured it was time to shed some light on these three phenomenal people I have the good fortune to be spending so much time on the trail with.
This Never Gets Old
I'm sitting on the beach in the Bahamas. The water is an impossibly deep shade of turquoise, the sand as bright and fine as baking flour. The wind blows, filtering through the palm trees and issuing a gentle, constant rustling sound as they sway slightly.
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.
Endurance
In August 1914, with the world peering into the void of what would become the First World War, a wooden ship unique among all but one set sail from Plymouth, England bound for Antarctica. Apart from its cousin ship, Fram, no other wooden ship had been built—or has been since—with such attention given to strength and the ability to withstand the crushing power of an Antarctic winter’s ice floes.
Lewis and Clark
While walking for hours on end each day, something I often think about is how much harder this would be if the trail didn't exist at all. You can get a small taste for this during the occasional bushwhack or stretch where the trail essentially goes cross country with little to no markings. But I'm thinking bigger than that even…
The Silence and the Fury
The same chorus of white noise from the brook not 10 feet from our tent that had played us a lullaby last night played us back into consciousness this morning. Leaving our campsite deep within the forest, it was time to make our way up onto a vast plateau and the blast zone that constitutes the entire northern half of the mountain.
Red Rock, Meet Blue Sky
There's very little that the Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest have in common, except for one important detail: they're both landscapes defined by water. So much of the lush green Pacific Northwest and it's snow-capped peaks is owed to its surplus while the arid desert and mesa of the Southwest have a character shaped by its near-complete absence
Solitude
Just as the sun began to crest the distant ridge, we were already saying our goodbyes to the Desolation Wilderness. The uncharacteristically rock-choked trail that had begun almost upon entering the wilderness yesterday continued for a few final miles as we hewed closely to the shore of Echo Lake…
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.
Persistence of Memory
Up the stairs to the fifth floor, a collection of Impressionism, surrealism, and cubism masterpieces adorns the starkly white walls of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Nestled among Monet’s famous Water Lilies triptych and Pollock’s massive drip painting canvases hangs a work of a very different kind, scarcely larger than a piece of paper.
Just Another Volcano
Sometimes out of the darkness, sometimes out of the clouds, it appears. Dominating a skyline of steel and glass from nearly 60 miles away, the icy icon that is Mount Rainier is a fixture of Seattle summers before vanishing behind a cloud veil of mystery for the remaining 9 months of the year.
Liquid Sunshine
Well, it started out promising anyway. Bright stars and the Milky Way had illuminated the night sky as I cinched up the sleeping bag around me last night, and although a layer of clouds had moved into the valley below us by morning, the red flare of the rising sun seemed to be a harbinger of another nice day in the North Cascades.
Mental Endurance
The moon was bright and clear in its corner of the sky as it rose above the shoulder of the mountain we camped high upon last night, but it didn't last--it too was soon swallowed by the clouds that cast a light but cold rain down on my tent overnight. When I woke this morning, little had changed and it was off again in full rain gear once more, hoping for the best.