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(Cue up your very best Jeremy Clarkson impression) Today, on The Pacific Crest Trail: Clare sees a lion; Andrew drinks a cola; They both sit on a couch Yes, all of the above really happened today. Plus: we went farther than ever before, and did our first “twenty” — 21.5 miles, to be exact! It…

Oh, what a joy it was to look outside our door this morning and see blue skies! After getting rained out all day yesterday, the sun looked so, so good. When we returned to Ziggy and the Bear’s place, it was completely unrecognizable from just twelve hours before: sunshine everywhere, the carpets were all drying,…

Normally, you don’t stop hiking just because it rains. But, then, normally, rain doesn’t happen quite like this. The weather forecast last night said we’d get “light showers” from about 3 to 4 PM today. OK, no big deal — we got hailed on two days ago, so this is going to be a piece…

Our descent down Fuller Ridge was both brutal and incredible. Brutal because we spent eighteen miles going down the side of a mountain; incredible because the views you get from a trip like that are just spectacular. We woke up this morning at 8,800′ with 31° chill in our tent and ice in our water;…

Our hike this morning was the strangest yet for this trip: it was cold! It’s the first morning yet that I actually wanted to leave my hoody on for a while after I started hiking, and, even hiking up hills with a big pack, there were times I was a little too chilly. It was…

Today, we, in order: Climbed 1,500 feet up a ridgeline; Up there, walked along our first “crest” of the Pacific Crest Trail, and it was spectacular; Descended 2,500 feet off that very same ridge; Continued walking along power lines and roads for another eight miles or so… All told, this made today

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

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

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

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

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

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…