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.
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Beardoh & Sweet Pea
The all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at Callahan's this morning necessitated a bit of a late start as we tried to correct our mistakes from the past--Exhibit A: Donner Pass, Exhibit B: Seiad Valley--attempting not to overeat and then immediately hit the trail.
The Second Time Around
As with most evenings on this trail, I am cozy in my hammock before 8:00pm. Sweet Pea would be proud. This is the second time I’m doing this hike (the first time was in 2015). And with each passing mile, I can’t help but think how little has changed and how much has changed, all at the same time.
The Golden Staircase
The confluence of two creeks, a mere stone’s throw from our proverbial bedroom window, seemed not to care that morning had broken. Nature’s white noise machine chugged along, ignorant of day and time. The alarm on my wrist was more particular about exactly what time it was, and its buzzing was as inescapable as the reality it brought with it. Everything ahead of us was in one and only one direction: up.
Nüümü Poyo: The People’s Trail
Reality came knocking early. Saddled with 6 days of food for the final stretch to Mount Whitney, we could delay the inevitable no longer. In accordance with the first law of hiking—that what comes down, must go up—we pointed our steps back up toward Bishop Pass for the second day in a row, aiming to reverse everything we’d done the day before.
Sierra in Bloom
If you’ve ever read John Muir’s book, My First Summer in the Sierra, it’s plain to see the deep and endearing love he had for the mountain range that his name has become nearly synonymous with. You also may have noticed that he had an equally deep and unwavering loathing for the sheep that grazed throughout the Sierra at the time.
Troubled Horizon
When dawn broke, it started by touching only the tops of the mountains surrounding our camp, before spilling down the flanks of granite to where we lie in our hammocks. It was nature opening the blinds.
The Other Side of Yosemite
The Sierra must be seen to be fully believed. And Yosemite is the beating heart of that Sierra. Of the more than 4 million annual visitors to Yosemite National Park, the vast majority never leave Yosemite Valley, however. With highlights known the world over—El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Glacier Point—you can hardly blame them.
Adventure Consulting
What is ”adventure consulting”? At Stone and Sky, it encompasses 3 things: People on the trail and readers of the Stone and Sky blog may know me best as ”Mountain Man”, due to more than 10,000 miles of hiking experience on long-distance trails alone. The other sides of me you might know less about? Writer....
Desert Fire
Your eyes are not your friend. Well, part of them anyway. The eyes that soak in every shade of the flames of sunrise emanating from the eastern horizon and illuminating Roosevelt Lake far below? That part is telling you the truth. The other part that tells you that lake—the destination of our next resupply tomorrow—doesn’t look so far away? That’s the lying part.
Mogollon Rim
The morning discovered us in a state now quite familiar: strolling past a shallow depression full of dark brown water. Fine crystals of frost on nearby meadow grasses sparkled in the first rays of sunlight, while those that had been warmed for but a few minutes had already melted into droplets that now weighed heavily on the blades to which they clung.
Denouement
When we had gone to bed, the sun still dominated the sky with only a handful of brave clouds fending for space amid its rays. When we had woken up, everything had changed. What first began with the lightest of drizzles morphed slowly into droplets that sounded a bit more like sleet. By morning, the snow that dusted the ground and our tents told the rest of the night’s story.
Border Eve
Truth be told, I’m running out of superlatives. Another day, another pass, another dazzling display of mountain pornography that almost defies description. Before we even began any of the hard work of climbing our way back into the high country, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was seeing accurately the massive shape nestled in the grass 50 yards off the trail.
John Muir Would Be Proud
Six weeks ago, as part of a talk titled In the Land of Dust and Fire: Hiking the American West, I mentioned this quote by John Muir which he gave when asked what he thought of hiking: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike!”
Hidden Masterpiece
A person could get used to this, even in spite of the weather. The familiar pitter-patter on the roof of our tent at 4am sounded hesitant, almost apologetic, as though it knew that the clouds it brought with it would obscure nature’s masterpiece. The masterpiece we’d so looked forward to seeing.
Reunion
It feels like a long time since we’ve had a hiking day like this, absent a place to be and a schedule to keep. In truth, we did have somewhere to be but with only 11 miles of sweet, sweet National Park trail between there and here, it felt about as leisurely as things ever get out here.
Pancake Power
Pancake Power is serious power. Just ask Gazelle. She’ll tell ya. My little Canadian friend and fellow lover of pancakes would have approved of the way this day began, with coffee, eggs, sausage, and the most divine blueberry pancakes courtesy of our hosts at Nye’s Green Valley Farm B&B.
Midway
I remember. Not the smell of cotton candy or roasted peanuts, not the bright flashing lights of this ride or that one. I remember the crush of people and what it felt like to walk through them, meandering my own personal maze down the midway at the New York State fair.
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....
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Triple Crown
One final night came and went, and the stars that had thrust aside the evening clouds dissolved into the gray light of morning. I rolled over and lit the stove for coffee before closing my eyes for a few more minutes thinking how, in spite of this being our last day on trail, it felt no different than any of the others.
Rookie Perspective #6: The End
Holy shit! We did it. After more than 100 days and 2500 miles we reached the southern terminus of the CDT. Most importantly, Mountain Man did it. I cannot believe he has hiked three of these bad boys. And today, when we touched the obelisk marking the end of the trail for us, he completed his Triple Crown. He set out to achieve this goal and he did it. I couldn’t be more proud of him.
Entr’acte
In less than 5 miles, there's only so much excitement that can happen. In the hours before taking even the first step of those 5 miles, we tossed and turned in our little home on the windswept and sun baked sands of the desert outside of Lordsburg. Like a prison spotlight, the moon had bathed even the small hours of the morning with a bright, white light.
The Crucible
In 1953, when playwright Arthur Miller’s seminal work—The Crucible—about the Salem witch trials premiered, its parallels to the ill-conceived anti-communist crusades of Senator McCarthy were obvious. Like the real life protagonists of the McCarthy era hearings, those of The Crucible fight not only for their lives and livelihoods…
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.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Food. Hot shower. Laundry. Grocery store. An easy hitch, or better yet, no hitch at all. Sounds basic enough, doesn't it? It's a simple recipe for the ideal resupply stop. And yet you'd be surprised by how few stops we make that check even that modest list of boxes.
The Checkerboard
The massive expanse we've been walking through these past three days since Atlantic City is an unusual one. Neither forested wilderness nor arable farmland, but an arid and windswept region that pries apart the Continental Divide from nearly the border of Colorado to the foot of the Wind River Range.
Wind River
The day’s writing done, my light went out and was immediately replaced by starlight. Even from among our sheltered stand of trees, there was enough of a clearing to stare up at them from the comfort of my hammock while I listened to the breeze run through the tips of the pines. It's the way you dream of days ending.
Winter Wonderland
Come morning, it was the lulls between the wind I noticed most. Only seconds in length, they were still a new feature in the storm that had blanketed our little camp with 6 inches of snow and relentlessly buffeted our tarps with wind throughout the night. They also pointed to the last gasps of the storm as the sun supplanted the clouds even though the temperature had risen at best into the 20s.
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.
Thimbleberry Lane
Late yesterday afternoon while traversing the never-ending burn zone that is northern Montana, a bright sign appeared beside a trail junction. Dated one day before we'd left our last town stop in Lincoln, it detailed the location of a new forest fire burning in the wilderness only a couple of miles due west of the CDT.
Carcass Highway
If you feel like you haven't seen anything good, than you just haven't been paying attention. You also might think that even while paying close attention walking 25 miles of nothing but roads might be the time when that wisdom falls apart. Not today.
A Parting of Ways
We're missing something. Well, two somethings. Two someones, to be precise, and it hasn't felt the same without them.
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...
This Never Gets Old
I'm sitting on the beach in the Bahamas. The water is an impossibly deep shade of turquoise, the sand as bright and fine as baking flour. The wind blows, filtering through the palm trees and issuing a gentle, constant rustling sound as they sway slightly.
Rookie Perspective #3: A July in Colorado. My Top Eleven.
The last time this rookie wrote we hadn’t even started hiking in CO yet. And, here we are, just three days (less than 70 miles) from the New Mexico border. I have a lot more miles under my belt, but don’t worry, I’m still a rookie.
This is Where I Leave You
Everyone learns differently. Myself? I've always been more visual than auditory, which made a brief time this morning all the more interesting as I became transfixed by the bugling of the resident elk herd. Unmoved by our presence in their valley last night, we awoke to find them sprawled across the high alpine meadows just beneath the Divide, happily grazing away and calling to one another.
No Thanks, Thunderhead
I thought we were done with this foolishness. If there was one thing we had no interest in seeing, it was yet another storm cloud to start the day. The forecast certainly made no mention of them, and yet there it was, dominating an otherwise azure sky, pouring rain on the valley below and now chasing us down with alarming speed.