There was no way around it. This was gonna hurt. For a trail that runs 211 miles, ending on the summit of the highest point in the Continental U.S., you don’t expect the first day to be the one with the longest and largest climb. And yet, that’s exactly how the John Muir Trail introduces you to the scenery of the High Sierra: by exacting a pound of flesh.
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All That You Can’t Leave Behind
Divorce, loss, upheaval, trauma. For as long as there has been wilderness there have been people who seek its healing and its catharsis. Packing with them emotional baggage as heavy as that which rests upon their shoulders, I’ve never counted myself among them—until now.
Recreation
Open at 5am. That’s what the hand-written sign hanging from the door had promised, though the lady inside insisted it was wrong: they actually open at 4.
Not That Patagonia
The rock strewn dirt road we’d arrived at just as dusk cast a pall of gray over the mountainside was more than just a home for the night. It was now our yellow brick road—albeit a less brightly colored one—leading us to a distant town stop that we could not see, an Oz of a far less fantastical sort.
Improvisation
One highway dividing two starkly different trails. That was the realization that was coming clear to us as we surveyed field upon field of rock leading off toward distant waves of low lying clouds.
Rust and Relaxation
I’m never quite sure. That’s the problem. You’d think 10,000 miles of trails would have clarified an answer to what is otherwise a simple question, but here I am. Having taken not one but two zero days in Flagstaff, the question remains: is a day off more likely to rest weary legs or accumulate rust upon them?
Atonement
After two days of what can only be described as sensory overload, my first thought was: did I really just see that? Getting up close and personal with one of the world’s greatest natural wonders will do that to you. My second thought was more akin to wondering what price the trail would now exact in exchange for those past two days.
Stone and Sky News & Updates - July 2021
Normalcy. Remember what that felt like? I’d very nearly forgotten myself. The 4th of July has come and gone and the heart of summer is finally here. But it’s not just any summer. Here in the U.S., it feels like we’re slowly tiptoeing our way out into the light, emerging from a state of pseudo-hibernation....
The Path Taken
It’s a daunting question: if someone asked you to sum up the past year of your life, what would you say? What have you done, and why? Perhaps more important than any of that: what has it meant? When I had the chance to summarize not one year, but the past 16 years of where...
Trick or Treat
When I was a kid, Halloween was my fascination. No, obsession. Every year, I'd read the same Halloween-themed books and even dress up in the same Dracula costume. Every....year. There was something that drew me in about the season and about all things macabre, which was surprising considering how much it terrified me.
Appreciation
Coming down the stairs from our room at the Toaster House, I could smell the coffee that I hadn't even heard Jefferson make while we were packing up. We stood in the kitchen enjoying a cup or two while admiring the convenience of it. No fuel to pour, no pot to fill with water, and nothing to pack up afterwards.
Destination: Pie Town
Contrary to popular opinion—including my own—it is sometimes very much indeed about the destination, the journey be damned. When the journey is along yet another hot and dusty road for miles on end, it's not hard to see why the old adage might begin to lose some of its shine.
Not that Cuba
Dark and frozen. All the attributes anyone would want in a trail morning...sort of. Kissed by overnight frost, the flat spot we managed to find in the dark had predictably pooled and focused the night’s cold. It was a morning that made me even more thankful for the decision to reincorporate coffee into our routine.
Dream Beneath a Desert Sky
I never thought much about the stars. Not until I shared a tent with my Dad in the wilderness. He would gaze idly at the night sky, pointing out constellations, shooting stars, planets, and the Milky Way. His awe of what hung above our heads was infectious.
Where Water Goes to Die
One truck. Then another. And another, and another. On and on went the 4am procession, racing past our tent that wasn't 20 feet from the shoulder of the highway we'd followed since leaving Rawlins yesterday. Hunting season had apparently followed us all the way from north of the Wind River Range to here, where midnight had marked the beginning of the local rifle season.
What About Bears?
Remember this post? Yeah, me neither. Aside from navigation, it's true that questions (read: fears) about bears seem to be at the top of most people’s minds, but the reality is I’d be sorely disappointed to hike a long trail without seeing them. Having seen bears perhaps a hundred times in the wild, I can say with certainty that it never gets old.
Navigation: Getting from A to B
How do you know where you're going? It's a pretty simple (and important) question, and one that's among the most common we hear (perhaps second only to “Have you seen any bears?” Answer: yes). So, here goes—a crash course in finding your way along the CDT, with something to keep both the new school and the old school happy.
Rookie Perspective #4: Marias Pass, the WetzWalds and Mt. Man’s Trailside Chat
We did it. We finished the Montana miles we set out to having arrived at Marias Pass on 9/4 (the same day as Mt. Man’s birthday). Quick aside: Can you believe it? He’s finally 40! It’s about time.
Death Valley
After making a circuit around the airspace above our hammocks, it landed, and then perhaps not believing its eyes, took flight once again on the same circuit. Upon its second landing in the same spot, it swiveled and tilted its head almost out of disbelief, staring down at me lying in my hammock. Apparently this owl hadn't gotten the memo that we'd be invading her home for the night.
Observation
Question: What's the best kind of hitch? Answer: The kind where you get one before you even start trying. After almost two full days of resting our feet, we walked along the wide paved shoulder of the one street that runs through the town of Lincoln, Montana.
The Death of Puritanism
The world is infatuated with purity tests, or so it seems. And right when I fall into the obvious trap of thinking this must be a new phenomenon with blame to be placed squarely on the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, I stop and remember that: 1) almost nothing is new; and 2) being puritanical certainly is not.
The Day that Time Stood Still
When we'd dusted the sleep from our eyes and set off down the trail, the morning sun was ablaze as a scarlet fireball hanging low in the sky. A thick haze seemed to be everywhere, giving the impression that we might be entering an impenetrable fog at any moment.
Trailside Chats: Beardoh
New Mexico at last! A few short miles delivered us to Cumbres Pass and another hitch in the backup of a pickup truck to the nearby town of Chama. After being turned away by the miles of snow slogging in Montana, spending the month of July traversing the state of Colorado was a redemption of sorts.
Trailside Chats: Ace
Inching ever closer to the end of Colorado, there was nowhere to hide from the relentless wind—a preview of what is sure to come in New Mexico. Hearing myself think over the wind was a challenge in its own right, which made it all the more enjoyable when I sat down for a Q&A with Ace, aka Emily Newcomer, over dinner in a quiet, sheltered spot among the pines...
Trailside Chats: Sweet Pea
I could tell you about the day and how the trail is now referred to only as Trail 813 on all recent signage, as if it were a prison inmate with only a number to replace its actual name, but I've got a better idea. Instead of my usual philosophical ramblings, I figured it was time to shed some light on these three phenomenal people I have the good fortune to be spending so much time on the trail with.
The Legacy of Water
Its fingerprints are all around us. The lingering patches of snow that still cling to the coolest of high alpine corners. The lifeblood of the thick carpet of tundra-thriving grasses, bold enough to color such a forbidding landscape with their flowering blooms. Even the glaciers that long ago sculpted the waves of stone we've called home for these past 6 weeks.
Gatorade Please, Bartender
At 8.3 pounds per gallon, the weight of water is something you notice. While the heaviest of the commodities we tote around with us, it's also inarguably the most important which is why the decision of exactly how much to carry away from each water source is such a critical one. Fortunately, in spite of the rapid snow melt in Colorado, water sources have been plentiful.
The Mountain that Blew its Top
Four months before I was born and a small, towheaded terror was introduced to the Brownscheidle household, an altogether different sort of terror was unleashed on the Pacific Northwest not far north of the Columbia River that divides Oregon from Washington.
The Great Range
I wasn’t always this soft. Age and a career in front of a computer has a way of doing that, slowly obscuring who we really are underneath. Some people go to church to be renewed. I come here.
Mmm, That Looks Delicious
The rain that had rocked us to sleep was now a distant memory, the moisture on the lowland grasses and the faintly muddy trail the only reminders that it had even been there at all. The morning began with some brief x-country walking followed by a climb up a rough herd path that eventually delivered us back to the top of the Rim.
Desolation
Returning somewhere that holds a special space in your memory can go one of two ways—either the anticipation proves too great for the reality to live up to the recollection or the memory is renewed and reaffirmed. Today was most certainly the latter.
Final Alternate
Leaving the hotel at Snoqualmie Pass, the sky was blue in every direction and the night's cold had coated low-lying pockets of vegetation with a fine frost. We had decided to take one last alternate, and like a couple of the others we've taken, we'd again follow the course of what was once the original PCT, this time detouring towards Goldmyer Hot Springs.
54 Miles East of Seattle
All morning it was thoughts of a bed and our first day off in over 600 miles that propelled us on. The return of the sun a day before had morphed into cloud cover this morning and by the time we had our first view of the I-90 interstate, the rain had begun to fall yet again. With only a handful of miles remaining to get to Snoqualmie Pass, it hardly mattered.
Irrational Fear
Lions. Tigers. Bears. Oh my. Like Dorothy setting off alone on the yellow brick road, I sometimes wonder whether people to whom thru-hiking is a completely foreign undertaking have an image that this journey is one rife with peril at every turn.
Goat Rocks
It was still pitch black a few minutes after 5am when I unzipped and reached through the open door of the tent to light my stove for coffee. Against a black backdrop, the flame of the stove cast a soft blue light under and through various holes of the windscreen around it. It looked like a jack-o-lantern fitted with a candle burning blue and it was an oddly calming way to begin the morning.
What Happened to the View?
First and foremost, a big Happy Birthday to my wife Emily. It's the first birthday of hers that I can ever recall not being there to celebrate with her, and it's a painful reality. She is the most supportive and loving partner I could ever have hoped for and today is her day.
Frustration
Mentally and physically exhausted. That's how I began the day. For me, the surest sign my fatigue is setting in is my utter and complete lack of patience with anything and everything: the disgustingly dirty state of my feet, the rock that I stubbed my sandal on, hell, even the ant that is stupidly clinging to the mosquito netting of my tent as I packed up this morning.
Mini Matterhorn
The day after such an amazing highlight like Crater Lake can easily feel empty, a letdown. Though there may not have been anything quite as stunning as the day prior, the first 10 miles of the day had us rounding Mt. Thielsen, a dramatically sharp peak whose uppermost reaches conjured up the image of a miniature Matterhorn.
Crater Lake
As recently as 8 days ago, today would never have happened. With yet another wildfire burning along the PCT, the trail was closed for several days where it travels through the western portion of Crater Lake National Park. Though the official PCT gets not a single glimpse of Crater Lake itself, inexplicably routing through lower forests…
A Golden State of Mind
Today marks my last full day and night in California, and although the trail is positively pulsing with excitement at the prospect of reaching Oregon, it would be impossible to forget the nearly endless string of beauty that has been on display as we've followed these first 1700 miles.