Just a last few miles today as the great adventure with my Mom has come to an end. Rolled into Rockfish Gap just a few minutes before Dad showed up to whisk us away to the hotel. Another day cluttered with grocery shopping, laundry, a much-needed haircut, and very little time to relax and chat with Mom and Dad. It's been a great hike with Mom all week.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Denouement
When we had gone to bed, the sun still dominated the sky with only a handful of brave clouds fending for space amid its rays. When we had woken up, everything had changed. What first began with the lightest of drizzles morphed slowly into droplets that sounded a bit more like sleet. By morning, the snow that dusted the ground and our tents told the rest of the night’s story.
A Trail Runs Through It
By the time we'd laid our heads to rest last night, the official CDT was miles away. Turning away from the Black Range, we'd opted instead for an alternate that would take us along the course of the Gila River and today would grant us our first glimpse of it.
Trail Ancestry
It's hard to top hiking in the fall. The heat of summer is a thing of the past, replaced by crisp, cool nights and a kaleidoscope of colored foliage. The rustle of leaves a new sound effect to complement the bugling of elk.
A Birthday Ode to Ace
Four years ago, I wrote this post sick to my stomach over a tearful goodbye as Ace went home to our house in Seattle and back to work while I continued on my hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Rereading it now, I can still feel my insides turning over seeing how broken hearted she was to say goodbye for what we both knew would be a long time.
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.
The Great Range
I wasn’t always this soft. Age and a career in front of a computer has a way of doing that, slowly obscuring who we really are underneath. Some people go to church to be renewed. I come here.
The End of Newdle-palooza
Little did I know how close we were. Our hammock spot last night was a mere few hundred yards from the junction of where the Tahoe Rim Trail joins the Pacific Crest Trail for a 50-mile stretch through the mountains along the west side of Lake Tahoe.
Roots
Nearly one year ago, I arrived at an unassuming stripe of cleared forest that would never have been identifiable as an international border had it not been for the small silver obelisk marking precisely that. A few feet away, a collection of square wooden posts also declared this the end of a Pacific Crest Trail adventure that had begun 2,650 miles and…
Stehekin
The snow of yesterday evening and the cold that came with it lingered all through the night, with an occasional new dusting adding to the blanket of white that now clung to everything. By the small hours of the morning, however, the sky was filled with nothing but stars, setting the stage for a beautiful sunrise.
Blueberry Forest
Since crossing I-5 outside of Ashland, I've felt closer to civilization in Oregon than any other stretch of the trail so far. The best evidence is the number of consecutive road crossings, many separated by less than half a mile, that we seem to encounter every day here.
Christmas in June
A mid-year Christmas occurred on the side of the road this morning, just after 9am outside the Tuolumne Meadows post office. When I showed my ID, the man behind the counter was happy to unload the five boxes with the same unintelligible last name written on them.
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.
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
Brink Road
What an exciting first day in New Jersey, my 8th state! Quite a few rocks still laying around ala PA, but nice trail, lots of nice views from grassy ridges (a welcome change from Pennsylvania), a smell of spring and blooming mountain laurel in the air, and my first bear sighting since Shenandoah. I crossed the 1300-mile mark today on my first day out with the new ULA backpack.
Blackrock
Woke up this morning, had a great breakfast in the hotel, packed up, made myself a new Pepsi-can stove and hopped in the car for Mom and Dad to drive me back to the trail. Sad to say goodbye to them again after spending such little time together, but happy to be back on the trail for my first day in Shenandoah National Park.