Daily updates from the trail.
Today, we, in order:
All told, this made today …
Think back to what you were doing last Thursday. It doesn’t matter what it actually was, and my point isn’t that it was likely reasonably predictable. It’s more that last Thursday probably doesn’t seem all that long ago — there’s been an intervening weekend, and now the week has started again.
To me, right now, last Thursday feels like …
When a survey was sent to past PCT hikers, they were asked what their favorite and least favorite sections of the trail were. Favorite was usually the High Sierra; least favorite, however, was …
Hiking the PCT isn’t something you should try if what you’re looking for is absolute enjoyment, every last minute of the way. There are days that are amazing, days that are fun, and then there are …
Three days ago, my backpack tore itself apart. Or, at least, tried to: the long metal “stay” running up and down the spine broke free of its enclosure, and punched a hole through the bottom of the bag. It wasn’t trip-ending, but it was concerning: not only did I not have the support I needed from the stay, but, well, holes in the bottom of the bag containing all the possessions you need to survive are generally frowned upon.
So, I did what any enterprising through-hiker these days would do: I hiked about ten minutes up the trail, pulled out my …
In the eight days and 100 miles we’ve been hiking, we’ve come across naturally-occurring water out here twice. All anyone thinks about when planning the next segment of their hike is water: where it is, how sure they can be of it, and …
As I lie down beneath the stars tonight, I’m filled with a kind of sadness — because I’ve already felt such friendship with so many fellow hikers out here, and because it’s obvious that some of those connections will be lost soon enough.
It started this morning in Julian, when, after showering (again, just because we could!) and a two-course breakfast (waffles, mmm!), Clare and I went out to sit on the front porch of the hotel…and suddenly found …
Clean! After 77 miles out hiking through the desert, it really is just about impossible to describe how good it feels to be clean again. Layers and layers of desert dust mixed with sunscreen are now gone from our bodies, and (mostly) from our clothes.
This is due to the glory of …
It’s true, believe it or not — it really does get hot in the desert. OK, so that surprises nobody…and, in fact, it hasn’t even been that hot: today was the first day it got to be over 80° out there. But …
The trail isn’t all deprivation, because at 8:45 this morning, I was eating French toast, bacon, poached eggs, and fresh orange juice.
As you might have guessed, today was …
When you hear the word desert, you probably imagine the places Snoopy’s cousin Spike trundled through: almost completely barren, except for the odd Saguaro cactus and a vulture flying overhead.
Today we climbed…
So many people we’ve met already! This is a social trail, far more so than anything we’ve hiked before. 25–30 people start each day at the southern terminus, and the relative dearth of camping spots means you end up meeting practically all of them. There were well over …
A 5:15 AM alarm at Girlscout’s house began our first day on the trail. After months and months of preparation (and literally years of thinking about it), it’s kind of crazy to suddenly have it be here like that. We dressed (in hiking clothes, of course), put our all-too-heavy packs into the back of his car, and off we went. The night faded into the grey of dawn as we drove…I don’t honestly remember the conversation much, because…
Where do you spend your last full day in civilization before starting a 2,650-mile hike? The obvious place: at the mall, of course! Better yet, a big, fancy suburban Southern California mall. And then go see Fast [and the Furious] Seven, to see lots of incredibly expensive cars get blown up.
…
The Louisiana countryside is pretty much a perfect place to relax do some final preparations for a couple of days before leaving.
We’ve brought all the resupply boxes inside, laid them all out in neat rows, gone through our packs one last time, prepped them for the plane trip, done a last load of laundry…pretty much everything that can possibly be done. We have only a little bit of stuff to do today (most of which will be spent at an Easter celebration at Clare’s grandparents’ place, in a nearby town), and then we’re finally ready.
It’s both a little nerve-wracking and exciting…
We’re currently in Austin, TX, visiting some close friends (who are about to have their first child!) on our way to Clare’s parents’ place in Louisiana. Our car is loaded with our packs and 23 resupply boxes, which we’ll leave with her parents to be shipped to us as the summer progresses. We fly from Louisiana to San Diego on Monday, April 6th, and then start at the trailhead on Wednesday, April 8th — less than a week away now!
The past two or three months have been a blur, in many ways, as I kept myself laser-focused on the enormous amount of work to be done to allow us to take this trip. Now, however, I feel such a wide range of emotions as the beginning of this hike actually approaches.…
