Paint Yer Wagon 2014.05.12 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Hiker trash fashion in full swing at Ziggy and The Bear’s. Hippie (left) in her slip dress and inveterate house cleaner and helper Paint Your Wagon (right) in… something. He zeroed here a week, and just came out of the shower with this sexy Santa’s helper look. Read more
Fig Jam 2014.05.09 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail A strangely “quiet” moment at Ziggy and The Bear’s. Hiker Fig Jam plays and sings old time banjo for others soaking their weary feet. Read more
Natalia 2014.05.08 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Natalia is just about as spunky as ever, despite a tumble on trail and a strong narcotic. Today Doug and I did a little rescue op near mile 207 and brought her to the Banning, CA urgent care. A lot of you might recognize her from kickoff. You know, with the “sexy” homemade quilt… After her fall, Natalia was adamant that nobody should use hiking poles. “They’re dangerous.” Read more
Matt’s Pack 2014.05.07 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail 170 miles later, I help Matt with his pack again. He’s from the Lake District in the UK, and is making the best of what he arrived with, including this uncomfortable pack with a bottomed-out hip belt. He’s lost weight and the belt slides down, putting the pack weight on his shoulders. Like my flip flop ingenuity?! Haha, just trying to get this fella to Canada. Read more
2014.05.05 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail All that remains of the 90 year-old Al Bahr Shrine Camp, a former asset to hikers near mile 47 of the PCT, and a major asset to the community of Mt. Laguna. When it burned they lost over 100 members of the community (they moved away). Businesses are fighting to stay open, and fans of Al Bahr are fighting to keep the leased property out of the forest service’s hands and rebuild. Learn more: https://www.facebook.com/AlBahrShrineCampRebuilding Read more
Eagle Rock 2014.05.03 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Missing these guys BAD. Us goofing off, two weeks ago, just off the Pacific Crest Trail. Read more
Mile 31.2 2014.04.25 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail The natural and the unnatural. Mile 31.2 of the Pacific Crest Trail, 4155 feet up. Read more
Wrecking Ball 2014.04.22 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Pepperflake doing what he does again, this time on a wrecking ball. Read more
Bucky 2014.04.21 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Bucky (section hiker ’09, ’10) checks out the register at Scissors Crossing. Read more
Gotta Walk 2014.04.20 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Gotta Walk at Eagle Rock yesterday. Super animated lady, training for “Grand to Grand” by hiking the PCT. Wow! Read more
Apache 2014.04.18 Latergram, My VW Westfalia, Pacific Crest Trail Yes! Hiker Apache gets a Pepsi at Warner Springs Community Center. Last time I saw this guy he was vegging in Belden. He sat quietly while I received a box containing shoes of the wrong size (big bummer) and some other major trail drama went down. I love this guy’s mellow, and mad style. See you at Kickoff, Apache. Read more
PCT Gear Review 2013.10.23 Bikes, Opinion, Pacific Crest Trail I was really comfortable with my gear along the Pacific Crest Trail, so I thought I would share it with you, and explain why it worked. Please note beforehand that I purchased all these items with my own money after carefully researching them, and was not given anything for review. The following are my opinions. If you look at this photograph with me, I will talk about the items shown, left to right, one row at a time. Click a link to skip forward to that gear item. Read more
The Wall of Snow 2013.10.09 Hiking, Pacific Crest Trail We started hearing horror stories about the snow on the trail while in Stehekin 9/28-9/29, but by the time we got to Mazama and Winthrop 9/30, the stories had whipped into a terrible tale of impassable “walls of snow,” irreconcilable avalanche and hypothermia dangers, etc. etc. There’s a great blog post that talks about the chaos on the PCT during this time and about the ill-fated group that headed north one day ahead of us (October 2). I decided to ignore the stories and see for myself. By then I’d learned that fear-mongering was really shit-thick on the trail, and that it did me no good. I formed a team of four for safety (including a South African who had never seen snow before), and waited for […] Read more
PCT Finisher! 2013.10.08 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail That morning (10/6) I knew for sure I was a PCT finisher. Nothing could stop me from making the last 8.11 miles to the border. I kept yelling “PCT finisher!” And yet, it still really hasn’t sunk in. I really did walk 2660 miles from Mexico to Canada alone through the woods. Crazy. PCT finisher! Read more
Devil’s Staircase 2013.10.06 Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail Look closely you can see there was a bit of trail- cutting. Cherub climbing Devil’s Staircase Read more