Month: August 2015

It’s amazing sometimes how fast things change: last night we were asleep in a giant, comfy bed in a hotel, and tonight we’re back out under the stars. We’re camped tonight only about a half-mile away from the rim of Crater Lake, about as close as you can get, and have plans to get up…

Today was the second time I had visitors on this trail, and, this time, it was family. We’d been planning to meet up with my parents at Crater Lake for months; as we slowly made progress towards Oregon, we were able to give them gradually firmer and firmer dates of when we’d be there. Well,…

The last three days have unquestionably been the three longest days in a row of this entire trail. All three have been in the 24–25 mile range — much longer than we’d ever normally do up until we hit Northern California, and even longer than the 23 miles per day we’ve been trying to do…

As you know from reading this blog, we’re hiking the PCT from Mexico to Canada, heading north. This makes us northbounders, or NOBOs for short in PCT lingo. As NOBOs, our challenge is this: don’t start too early — usually not before late April — or else the High Sierra will have too much snow…

So far, I think I really like this state. Part of that is psychological, I recognize: it’s so nice to finally be in a state other than California, and to feel that big sign of progress. But, much beyond that, this has been a genuinely nice place to be the last several days. Oregon is…

I’m actually not even joking. Around here, smoke is pretty much a whole season unto itself. After seeing the immense amount of smoke that’s been hanging in the air for the past week, I talked to some of the hotel staff this morning — and apparently this is completely typical for this time of year.…

Doing “nothing” is never quite doing nothing, of course. Any zero day here involves plenty of pack maintenance and other chores, as you’ve probably gathered by now. But it’s still intensely relaxing and wonderful to be able to just hang out and not do a whole lot, compared to hiking all day long. Eating was…

Today, we headed towards Ashland, Oregon, near our first zero in Oregon at Callahan’s Lodge. More on that in a few, but an unplanned surprise happened to me on the trail on the way there. We got up very early this morning (so as to have as much time as possible at our hotel) and…

It only took 1,690 miles and nearly four months — but we’re finally in a different state! We started hearing cheering at about noon today, a half-mile south of the border, and kept hiking…when we approached the border itself, we saw a big group of hikers sitting there, eating lunch, and cheering each person to…

Walking high up in these mountains, with clouds above and smoke all around, makes this an ethereal hiking experience. One fellow hiker today said he felt as if we were all walking through Mordor. While, thankfully, there is no Eye of Sauron looking over all of us, it does feel a little bit like that.…

I bet you didn’t know we have 51 states, did you? Or, rather, that’d be the case if the people around here had their way. Welcome to the State of Jefferson, a movement to have about the northern ⅓rd of California secede and create a new state. It may be completely delusional, but