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.
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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.
Stone and Sky Wall Art FAQ
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Stone and Sky Wall Art
For all its challenges, long-distance hiking has one obvious upside: it affords you a front row seat to some of the world’s most spectacular scenery. Escaping to wild places via images on a webpage is one thing. Now, you can bring those landscapes into your home, with Stone and Sky wall art created from our...
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.
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.
Atonement
After two days of what can only be described as sensory overload, my first thought was: did I really just see that? Getting up close and personal with one of the world’s greatest natural wonders will do that to you. My second thought was more akin to wondering what price the trail would now exact in exchange for those past two days.
History Book
When you take your first step off the North Rim and onto the North Kaibab Trail, it is your first step into a different world. Gone are the ponderosa pine, traded for pinyons and eventually catclaw acacia, yucca, and all manner of cacti. The white Kaibab limestone yields to red sandstone which gives way to band upon band of other rock formations of varying colors and textures.
Stone and Sky News & Updates - July 2021
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....
To the Boot Heel
While Lordsburg floated into the distance behind us, we were swallowed by the great wide open now surrounding us. Not a tree in sight, not a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of the wind that, until now, had been a constant companion to help offset the afternoon sun.
A Farewell to Pines
There's an expression in sports, embraced by coaches and players alike, that can start to sound rehearsed, robotic even, if you listen to enough postgame press conferences: “It's a process. Trust the process.” Pick your favorite sport, collegiate or professional, and there's bound to be no shortage of coaches among its ranks that preach an emphasis on “the process.”
Destination: Pie Town
Contrary to popular opinion—including my own—it is sometimes very much indeed about the destination, the journey be damned. When the journey is along yet another hot and dusty road for miles on end, it's not hard to see why the old adage might begin to lose some of its shine.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
A Eugene O’Neill play isn't typically the first place one would go to feel uplifted. There's a depth and darkness to the themes he explores, none more so than his semi-autobiographical masterwork, Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Addiction, despair, depravity, familial dysfunction—it’s all there. And if you were waiting for a Hollywood ending, keep waiting.
Where Water Goes to Die
One truck. Then another. And another, and another. On and on went the 4am procession, racing past our tent that wasn't 20 feet from the shoulder of the highway we'd followed since leaving Rawlins yesterday. Hunting season had apparently followed us all the way from north of the Wind River Range to here, where midnight had marked the beginning of the local rifle season.
Back to Basics
Only a day and a half removed from when we stepped off the trail and into some rest in the town of Pinedale, yet returning this morning it felt like something subtle had changed. Fall, it seemed, had arrived almost overnight. The meadows were a touch more golden, the bushes surrounding lakes a brighter shade of autumn yellow…
Stone and Smoke
Of all the mountains I've spent time in, two have held a particularly special place: the High Sierra are in my heart, but the Adirondacks of my home are in my blood. What we'd see today had me wondering how much room I would need to make on that list for the Wind River Range.
Navigation: Getting from A to B
How do you know where you're going? It's a pretty simple (and important) question, and one that's among the most common we hear (perhaps second only to “Have you seen any bears?” Answer: yes). So, here goes—a crash course in finding your way along the CDT, with something to keep both the new school and the old school happy.
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.
Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
Looking back at the hillside it was nestled into, surrounded by a maturing forest of pine, you have to shake yourself a bit to even wonder: that's an outfitter up there? Even as it shrunk into the distance, I had to assure myself that it had not been a mirage.
The Day that Time Stood Still
When we'd dusted the sleep from our eyes and set off down the trail, the morning sun was ablaze as a scarlet fireball hanging low in the sky. A thick haze seemed to be everywhere, giving the impression that we might be entering an impenetrable fog at any moment.
A History of PUDs
It's the dirtiest of words out here: PUDs. Pointless Ups and Downs. It behooves you not to complain too much when you've signed up of your own volition to walk from one side of the country to the other, but PUDs are like the proverbial thorn in your side, the pebble in your shoe, the tiny thorn entangled deep in the fibers of your sock that you just can't shake…
Rookie Perspective #3: A July in Colorado. My Top Eleven.
The last time this rookie wrote we hadn’t even started hiking in CO yet. And, here we are, just three days (less than 70 miles) from the New Mexico border. I have a lot more miles under my belt, but don’t worry, I’m still a rookie.
Welcome to the Dining Room
We don't give them much thought, but they sure are everywhere. Roads. Dirt ones, paved ones, gravel ones, long-since abandoned logging ones, and every other flavor of the road rainbow. Walking long distances gives you a new appreciation of just how extensive the totality of our road system really is…
Gatorade Please, Bartender
At 8.3 pounds per gallon, the weight of water is something you notice. While the heaviest of the commodities we tote around with us, it's also inarguably the most important which is why the decision of exactly how much to carry away from each water source is such a critical one. Fortunately, in spite of the rapid snow melt in Colorado, water sources have been plentiful.
Welcome to Summer
“We’re gonna get wet.” Not exactly the “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” line famously delivered by Roy Scheider in the movie Jaws, but you get the idea. Hardly had the words tumbled out of my mouth before it was on top of us. The sting of the pea-sized pellets of hail against the back of my legs was what I felt first as we scrambled to throw on rain jackets and ponchos.
The Mountain that Blew its Top
Four months before I was born and a small, towheaded terror was introduced to the Brownscheidle household, an altogether different sort of terror was unleashed on the Pacific Northwest not far north of the Columbia River that divides Oregon from Washington.
It Always Ends Too Soon
If you’re looking for signs that you’re on the MRT, keep waiting. They don’t exist. That will change one day when word of mouth begins to work its magic on this little known route, and for many of us, it’s exactly that untrammeled state of infancy that makes the hike that much more appealing.
Washington. Another Word for Wet
The clouds that had drifted back and forth across the Knife's Edge yesterday decided to settle in for a longer stay last night and the familiar patter of raindrops was again my lullaby. I woke up hoping that the weather system had blown through to reveal the sun again but it was pretty clear that wish wouldn't be coming true anytime soon. Only rain and a light wind filled the air.
What Happened to the View?
First and foremost, a big Happy Birthday to my wife Emily. It's the first birthday of hers that I can ever recall not being there to celebrate with her, and it's a painful reality. She is the most supportive and loving partner I could ever have hoped for and today is her day.
Washington, My Home
On the last day of August, we'd finally reached the last state of the trail, my now-home state of Washington. At only about 100 feet above sea level, the Bridge of the Gods that spans the Columbia River linking Oregon to Washington is the lowest elevation on the entire trail. For fans of the book Wild, it is also the place where Cheryl Strayed's adventure on the PCT came to a close.
Welcome to Oregon
The sound of the morning was an unusual one: a distant chime and then a cluster of them, faint but clear. High on a ridge near 7,000 feet, the list of possible sources was quite limited. As it grew louder, the chimes revealed themselves for what they really were: cow bells. The patchwork of meadows we'd seen since yesterday were the perfect place for a herd of free-ranging cattle to graze.
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.
Right This Way, Ms. Mosquito
The peaceful morning stroll alongside the roar of Evolution Creek was quickly replaced by an unrelenting tide of tiny intruders out for blood. The southbounders passing us with headnets yesterday were our first clue that it had come time for every hiker's favorite part of summer: bug season. At a break before the initial ascent up to Selden Pass, the mosquitoes were voracious…
Stone and Sky
Now this is the Sierra I remember. Gone were the storm clouds and back was the sapphire blue sky that sets the backdrop for some of the world's most dramatic mountain landscapes. Today would mark the trail's first major pass so we decided to sleep in, start a bit later than usual, and keep a leisurely pace through the morning to allow the snow up on the pass to melt and soften as much as possible.
Into the Wind
Midway through the night, it began. From our protected camp site on the leeward side of the mountain just 20 feet below a small saddle in the ridge, we could hear the wind begin to howl. The wind warning we saw in yesterday's weather report was coming to fruition and it would mean that our plans for the next 24 hours were about to change.
Detour
The day began just before sunrise at 5am, hoping to finish the marathon descent from Mt. San Jacinto and cross the 5 miles of desert before the heat of the day set in. As much as I've never been a morning person (Emily can attest), I love the morning light in the moments that both precede and follow sunrise.
Ode to Ace
My best friend, my hiking buddy, my partner in all things. The extrovert to my introvert, the emotional to my rational, Emily is truly my better half. We have countless things in common, but it's our differences that constantly have us learning from and leaning on each other.
To the Shade
Just before 5:30, our little collection of thru-hikers at Lake Morena campground began to stir. A bit of a misnomer, Lake Morena is really a reservoir and one that had no water within sight of the campground itself. As Rich, Gazelle, Emily and I left at 6:30 the early morning light was beautiful and the cool temperatures reminded me of how wildly different the days and nights here can be.
Mahar Tote Road
When this day began, I had it in the back of my mind that if my luck had truly turned for the better and everything went right, there was an outside chance that I might catch up with Camel, Leki-less, and the Camera Crew by day’s end. The only problem was that their likely destination was 22 miles up the trail. What was it I had said about no more long days? Well, about that…
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.