You probably just saw a whole bunch of updates come through on this blog, after a long period of silence. I’m writing new blog entries every day. But it can take 10-20 minutes to post each one, once I have cell service again. This means that I can only post when I both have good cell-phone service and enough free time to be able to do it.
I know a few folks got a little worried for me since this blog hadn’t been updated in a while. I really appreciate the concern, but don’t want people to worry needlessly. It might well be as long as a couple of weeks or more at times between updates, if I’m really busy and/or there just isn’t much cell-phone service around — which is likely to become the case more and more as we head into the Sierra.
Please don’t worry about me just because it’s been a while since you’ve heard. In many cases, it might be literally impossible for me to communicate — without cell service, I have no line out. In others, I just might not have had the time.
In either case, we’ll be just fine. One thing that’s already become clear is that we’re more prepared (and/or more conservative, depending on how you look at it) than about 80% of the people on the trail — and they all make it just fine. We have two cell phones with us. We also have a satellite beacon that works absolutely anywhere in the world, and, when activated, literally calls in the helicopters to rescue us. That turns a whole ton of situations from “grave danger” into “merely deeply humiliating”…and we’re very experienced hikers who both have the gear and the experience not to end up in those situations in the first place.
So, all in all: know that if you don’t hear from me for a long time, it most likely means we’re just deep in the mountains, enjoying the spectacular beauty, still writing, but unable to communicate out for a while. And, when we emerge, you’ll get lots more updates to this blog…and lots more pretty pictures.
And, in the mean time: onward!
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