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.
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Bald Mt. Brook
A second straight day of easy walking after a good night's rest at Steve's bunkhouse in Caratunk. A great guy--he left us coffee on the porch this morning and even gave us each a postcard with an individual, personalized congratulations message for finishing the trail. It was one of the more thoughtful things I've seen on the whole trail.
Bemis Mt.
Nothing much exciting today, just a beautiful sunny day with one big climb off the bat and another short-mileage day to keep easing my body back to recovery from whatever sickness I had. I feel good and rested after one more night in Andover, and I'm here for the night with Chris, Anna and Beau, Ramblin' Man, Capt. Hook, and Sparrow.
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.
Bromley Mt.
The trio rolls on, but not until after a late start due to last night's feasting festivities preceded by a day of long miles. The three of us hitched into Manchester Center for more eating and a resupply, but ended up hanging around into the afternoon, shortening our day to a very nice relaxing one. It's cozy to be in this enclosed hut for a night with thunderstorms predicted.
October Mt.
A nice rainstorm rocked me to sleep last night in my tent and also drowned out the humming chorus of mosquitoes outside. I slept in a little bit this morning as the rain continued and got a late start at 9:30. No views or anything at all to see today except for the beautiful Upper Goose Pond, where I spent some time on the shore enjoying the breeze right at the water's edge.
Peters Mt.
One last stop at the post office this morning after bringing back the rental car to send home my backpack and the extra things I cut out. All told, I cut out 12.5 pounds including the old backpack and traded it for the new pack weighing less than 2 lbs. In the end, I hit the trail with a new pack fully loaded with water and food for 5 days weighing just 28 lbs--about 15 lbs less than the pack I carried over 2 months ago at the very start of the trail.
Cove Mt.
Nice comfortable day to walk the flat miles of the Cumberland Valley, though it rained on and off for much of the day. Having left the north end of the Blue Ridge, the valley was about 15 miles of flat walking through fields and farmland--something entirely new for me on the trail so far. It was a nice change despite the poor weather on this Memorial Day holiday. A wonderful smell of honeysuckle lingered in the air all throughout the day.
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.
Brown Mt. Creek
Well, Mom made it through her first day just fine, so we kept on chugging along today. Started a bit late this morning, but I knew the trail would be a lot easier today--mostly downhill and flat with a couple of gentle climbs mixed in. Stretched the day out with a couple of nice long stops by a few of the stream crossings today, taking our time to relax, have a snack, and soak our feet in the cold water.
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.
Lost Mt.
Too hot for this Vermonter. Sunny today, and should be all week, but the temp was in the 80s with very little wind and no clouds. I've decided that heat is simply Kryptonite to this Mountain Man. Lucky for me, this pasty-white Superhero (Hi Sarah!) at least packed his sunscreen. Nice walk today, and spent some time just soaking my feet in a small cool stream that the trail crossed over.
Iron Mt.
My first thought was: snowday. I think Mickey-One-Sock said it best when he walked out the door this morning before quickly returning to proclaim: "Did you look outside yet?" Sure enough, our second week of April snowstorm was here with snow already on the ground, and Lead Dog and I were lacing up to hit the snowy slopes for a 10-mile day that simply continued to morph by the hour.
Bald Mt.
Started out the day with not much going right. Slept very little in my tent as coyotes pranced around it and animals from nearby farms made noise all through the night. Add to that some swollen glands in my neck from some bug I must've caught, and tired legs for some reason, and it was tough to get going.
Spring Mt.
Great day to get back on the trail with Emily B. along for the day. It's been great to see her, though actually seeing a familiar face seems to be the only thing that makes me homesick for some reason.
Blue Mt.
Date: 3/14/04 Starting Location: Low Gap ShelterDestination: Blue Mt. ShelterMiles: 7.2Total Miles: 57.1
Springer Mt.
Day #1 of my adventure is finally here!!! I left the lodge at 9:30 this morning after a nice breakfast, and walked under bright blue skies all day on very level and easy trail to Springer Mt. and the southern terminus of the AT. Saw a few local day hikers on my way to Springer who were amazed to see me in shorts and a t-shirt, themselves bundled as if it was still mid-winter on such a nice day.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
Mirage
Deep in the heart of the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest is not the place one might typically think of evoking imagery of the ocean. In every direction, a uniform pattern of trunks and canopies extends toward all points of the compass in such a way that it’s difficult to imagine the forest ever coming to an end. The trail snakes its way through a labyrinth of sameness that makes it feel almost disorienting.
I Left My Heart in the San Francisco Peaks
The lightning flashed without even a whimper of thunder, so distant was it. The crescent moon that hours earlier had tucked the sun into bed and took its place in the sky was nowhere to be found, obscured by banks of thick, dark clouds that should not have been there.
Starting Line
Since I’d first heard of it in 2016, the Arizona Trail has captured my imagination. Completed only five years earlier in 2011, it stretches nearly 800 miles north-to-south down the length of the state, from Utah all the way to Mexico. Along the way, the vast and often unsung diversity of Arizona is on display
Journey’s End
When you finally put the last piece of a puzzle into its rightful place, exactly how long should you admire the completed work before taking it apart and putting it neatly back into its box? A few minutes? A few hours? A day? A week?
Pavlovian
My feet seem to know where they need to go. Limbs move, trekking poles find their next position with a gentle clack against the rock, quads laden with lactic acid somehow swing each leg forward only to have the process repeat itself nearly 50,000 more times.
Alpine Zone
It was not an acoustic illusion. The deafening rain on the shelter’s metal roof hadn’t been lying after all, the wall of gray having unleashed a flurry of drops that matched the maddeningly loud sound above our heads. Eyes and ears in agreement, it was undeniably pouring.
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.