Author: Fancypants

The Pacific Northwest’s mountain ranges, I hadn’t realized, are completely dominated by volcanic activity. This has been evident on the trail so far largely by looking up at the mountains around us, which often seem to rise out of nowhere and stand alone, unlike the High Sierra. But today we got much more direct evidence…

We’d heard about the Sisters several hundred miles ago, a set of three striking mountains in relatively close proximity somewhere in Oregon. I wasn’t quite sure exactly where they were until today, when we came around a corner and suddenly it was obvious that that’s exactly what we were seeing — the first of the…

Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to say here — at least in this part of our hike, some days just aren’t that different from the day before. We’re fortunate to still be in the part of Oregon that’s packed chock-full of lakes, relatively flat, and heavily forested; this means we’re spending our days cruising…

To my delight, we’ve continued meandering from one lake to another in this part of Oregon. We easily passed half a dozen large lakes today, and just as many smaller ponds, most of them ranging anywhere from “pretty” to “truly beautiful”. It’s as if someone flipped a switch, and suddenly Oregon has gone from dry…

Just like the Wienermobile, a fishing tournament is not exactly something I expected to see on this trail. Yet there we were this afternoon, sitting in the grass in Shelter Cove, Oregon, watching a crowd of a couple hundred people listen intently to the announcer as the results of the contest started to roll in.…

We’ve been hiking in forest-fire smoke for so long now that it’s come to seem almost ordinary to us. Yesterday, we thought we’d perhaps finally started to come out of it as it disappeared in the late afternoon and evening. But, then, almost everybody we camped with yesterday described the same thing: waking up at…

We’re camped tonight just a few feet away from Treeman and Hedgehog, and got to eat dinner out here with them. Physio and Cashmere are just a short ways down the trail, as are Morningstar, Cookie Monster, and Rob Steady. We spent all day long bouncing back and forth with them on the trail —…

Our alarm went off at 3:00 AM this morning, insanely early even by hiker standards. It was painful getting out of bed, but we had a mission: we were headed up to the rim of Crater Lake to see two things — the Perseid meteor shower, and sunrise over the lake. As bad as you…

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

We’re in the middle of a heat wave up here in Northern California. There’s never a weather report for being on a random mountain at 6,500′ — but our iPhones have been reporting expected highs of 102°, 104°, and similar temperatures for nearby towns. Those are usually several thousand feet lower and hence hotter, but…