11,249 feet. Not ninety minutes ago, it had basked in the first rays of morning light before anywhere else, the sun spilling down from Mount Hood’s summit until it wakened the glaciers and, eventually, the forests below. Towering some 6,000 feet into the dizzyingly empty space above our heads, it’s a height difference that human minds aren’t fully equipped to understand. Judging with only your eyes, it might as well be 60,000 feet.
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Tumanguya
The buzzing on my wrist comes as no surprise. In those brief moments drifting in limbo between asleep and awake, I struggle to register what exactly it is floating above my head. Beyond the soft armor of mosquito mesh surrounding me, and through the tarp stretched taut above, an amorphous shape of white bends into unrecognizable shapes and patterns, like sunlight seen from beneath the surface of water.
Where Stone Meets Sky
The Sierra. The range that has captured the fascination of icons like Ansel Adams and John Muir. Superlatives have been spilled over its incredible beauty, its almost idyllic climate, and the trails that beckon you to explore it ever more deeply. It may best be known as the Range of Light, but to me, it is simply the place where stone meets sky.
The Glacier and the Avalanche
It’s easy to love John Muir, or at least the idea of him. That’s the appeal of idealists. Soaring rhetoric and a righteous cause in the proper hands can bring a groundswell of change that compounds like an avalanche. But it is a rare idealist who is able to effect change in the world. John Muir was certainly one of them.
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.
A Banner Day
From our perch on a hidden bench above the trail, the same soundtrack that had lulled us to sleep was now the first to greet us. There’s something a little comforting about it. That while you’ve been asleep, the gears of nature have kept turning, almost completely unchanged. That everything is, by all appearances, exactly the way you’d left it the day before.
On the Trail with Ulysses
Writing, like sleep, has never come easily to me. There’s a restlessness to it. Perhaps, because the search for the right words is a struggle that haunts every writer—the burden of imperfect communication. Then again, perhaps it’s because nearly all of my writing happens in the unlikeliest of places…
Sky Island
When she pulled up in her 30-year-old pickup truck, honking jubilantly as she did, I had a feeling we were in for quite a time on our resupply stopover. DD, our trail angel host for the rest of the day and night, was a spitfire force of nature. Alternately with a joint, chewing tobbaco, or a beer in her mouth—sometimes all three…
Nadir
Along with two other hikers, we rode along in the car of trail angel MJ, watching the comforts of Superior shrink out the back window on our way back to the trail. Another zero day gone in the blink of an eye, it was back to the work of shrinking the distance between us and Mexico.
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.
Land of Mystery
The southwest is a land of mystery. Of wide open space and eerie desolation. The kind that you can easily fill with all of your fears—the setting of the drama becoming a character all its own.
Bumps and Bruises
Diverse. That’s the word that kept rattling through the recesses of my brain while following the now red ribbon of trail beneath my feet. Gently rising and falling far more frequently than at any preceding mile of the trail thus far, we traversed around drainages and ascended over small shoulders of ridges before descending to a neighboring wash.
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.
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.
History Book
When you take your first step off the North Rim and onto the North Kaibab Trail, it is your first step into a different world. Gone are the ponderosa pine, traded for pinyons and eventually catclaw acacia, yucca, and all manner of cacti. The white Kaibab limestone yields to red sandstone which gives way to band upon band of other rock formations of varying colors and textures.
The Prestige
There are—apparently—two constants to the soundtrack of hiking atop the Kaibab Plateau in autumn: the telltale crunch of small, angular stones beneath each step; and the trembling of aspen leaves in even the slightest breeze, a sound that could easily be mistaken for gentle raindrops.
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.
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.
The Trail Itself
What is at the heart of any trail experience? It’s a question I’ve had more time than most to ponder over, the luxury of a charmed life whose privilege is never forgotten. And over many years and many thousands of miles, I’ve come to the realization that the experience of a trail is not about the trail itself, not the thing physically beneath your feet. It’s about where it takes you.
Mountain of Indifference
It’s a habit I ought to break. That’s what I told myself hardly an hour into our hike after returning to the trail following a much needed day off. The man who’d delivered us back to the string of white blazes beckoning us ever northward was Rick Swanson. He and his partner Tim own and operate the Swanson Inn, an idyllic Vermont inn just outside the town of Waitsfield…
Homecoming
The air, even overnight, could be worn like any other article of clothing. A bit like a shirt that fits a size too small. Suffocating with its humid stickiness that gives everything an imperceptible dampness, even the things you know to be bone dry. Sleeping in it is an exercise in futility. At least it always has been for me.
Appalachian Archaeology
A swirl of clouds against a blue sky was all that remained of the clouds that had held hostage the open space above the treetops yesterday. Buried in the forest as the Long Trail typically is, it’s easy to forget how expansive and brilliant that sky can be—until you have an opportunity to peek out from above those very trees.
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.
To the Boot Heel
While Lordsburg floated into the distance behind us, we were swallowed by the great wide open now surrounding us. Not a tree in sight, not a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of the wind that, until now, had been a constant companion to help offset the afternoon sun.
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…
Priorities
I wonder about the world. Not the world of nature we've had the luxury of escaping to these past 4 months, the other one. The one hikers semi-jokingly refer to as the “artificial world.” Detachment from the cares and strictures of that world is a feature of thru-hiking, not a bug, but roiled by a pandemic, that detachment has grown exponentially.
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.
Stone and Smoke
Of all the mountains I've spent time in, two have held a particularly special place: the High Sierra are in my heart, but the Adirondacks of my home are in my blood. What we'd see today had me wondering how much room I would need to make on that list for the Wind River Range.
Open Season
Hanging from trees a few steps off a dirt road, the sound coming toward us as we packed up was not surprising. Growing louder, an ATV and a 4-wheeler came around the bend and the two hunters aboard stopped to chat with us about whether we'd seen any other hunters or any big game recently.
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.
The Snows of September
It's amazing how quickly things can turn. Mountains are fickle like that, especially in the “shoulder season”—that no man’s land beyond the heart of summer where autumn can so often confuse itself with early winter. Expecting the unexpected, and being prepared for just about anything is what hiking in shoulder season is all about.
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.
Gear Porn
I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Up until a few short days ago, warm weather and clear skies had been the norm since we'd returned to Montana. Two days south of Helena that all changed as the blue skies with long views vanished, replaced by a smoky haze that has stubbornly refused to move on down the road. Each Montanan we cross paths with tells the same story…
Serendipity
It didn't go as planned, but not in the way you initially might think. Most of us are hard wired to assume that a departure from the plan is, by default, a bad thing. But some of the greatest aspects of thru-hiking are the unexpected twists of fortune that swing the other way, delivering you a surprise that you never could have anticipated when the day began.
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.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Hike your own hike. It's a mantra you hear often on nearly any long distance trail. In real world terms, its meaning is simple: you do you. Hike at your pace, linger when you want to, and take the detours that most captivate your sense of adventure. Answer to no one’s whims but your own.
500 and Counting
It sounds like a reasonably long distance when I say it out loud. I can't even tell you two cities that are roughly 500 miles apart, but if I could my next suggestion would certainly not be to walk from one to the other. That's what planes are for.
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.
Sky Symphony Intermission
Up a few more flights of stairs to the roof of Colorado, that's where we were headed. At a cruising altitude of 12,000 feet and with an idyllic summer day to enjoy it, it's easy to do the smart thing and let the snow-speckled photos do most of the talking.