Category: Hiking

Saufleys Garage Circus
2017.06.04
Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
I’m not back but here’s an update. Lots of hiking planned this year, but first, gotta feed the karma jar with some volunteer work along trail. Here’s Hiker Heaven hijinx with (L-R, background) Rocco doing Rocco best, Young Blud (bunny ears), Black Swan (juggling), and me in the rafters. If you ever want to spend a week or two or three angeling a trail angel, this is THE place to be. Heaps and heaps of good times. Thanks to the Saufleys and class of 2017 for keeping it real. I love you allllll.

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Hiking the Lonesome Miner Trail – Part 2
2017.05.11
Hiking, Lonesome Miner Trail, Opinion
(Continued from part 1) I started hiking the Lonesome Miner Trail in late March – a bit too early this year, it turned out. 2017 is a BIG snow year. It was cold and there was still snow up there in places. Because the trail is so steep, the snow and ice really were not in my favor for crossing certain areas safely (e.g. not accidentally sliding down the mountain). Also, much of the trail is on the north faces and in the shade, so it was COLD. I decided to come back and finish after letting the trail thaw over the month of April. Returning – May 1 2017 Glory be! Flowers are blooming in the Inyo foothills and as it turns out, up high too! […]

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Hiking the Lonesome Miner Trail – Part 1
2017.05.02
Hiking, Lonesome Miner Trail
I finished a solo tour of old mines in the Inyo mountain range of central California west of Death Valley. The “Lonesome Miner Trail” — what the late Wendell Moyer* called it — is 40-50 miles of rough, hard-to-follow disused trail involving somewhere near 17,000 vertical feet of elevation gain/loss. Because I didn’t have shuttles arranged, I added about 50 bonus miles (and 14k more vertical feet) to the route: I walked thru Death Valley to the Hunter Cyn trailhead. That was 18 miles with 7.5 liters of water on my back, only to experience torrential rain the first night in San Lucas Canyon. Ugh! I didn’t have to carry all that water! To avoid what was pretty heavy snow on steep terrain, I hiked out the […]

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Whitney, Tim, and Willy
2017.04.23
Bikes, Latergram, Lowest to Highest
Women guard your husbands ‘cuz if they this fun they’re at risk of getting snagged on the local adventurettes. This is Tim. He stopped to smoke a cigarette near my van and I bummed one cuz… good lookin’ lone motobiker? I asked about his planned rides. When he mentioned the Inyo Range, I convinced him that if he was gonna bike it, he needed to do it right, and ride the entire crest. He asked if I would want to come, and duh, guess what I said. So the next day found us BRAPPING the fuck up Cerro Gordo Road, riding clear past the salt tram to New York Butte, then back down the Swansea Grade. We hit some high speeds, which in hindsight was just stupid […]

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High Sierra Access Passes & Transportation
2017.04.15
Pacific Crest Trail
Minor updates to this snow report and trailhead access information page were made Spring 2023 because of the high snow (water content) year. Basically what I’m pointing out is that hikers should plan to carry extra food as they might have to spend an extra day or two just accessing trail towns from the trail. In other words, be prepared to WALK MOST THE WAY TO TOWN. In snow. PCT/JMT High Snow Alternate Route I mapped out a bypass route which I myself would gladly hike (and which I have indeed hiked and explored a lot of) instead of hiking in the High Sierra summer 2023: https://caltopo.com/m/ER3HU. The Owens Valley is wet and green, something some of us might not see again in our lives, so this […]

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More PCT high snow tips
2017.04.12
Hiking, Opinion, Pacific Crest Trail
In my last feverish post, I totally missed some really good points about hiking in snow – really crucial stuff like navigation. A 2011 nobo thru-hiker made me aware right away (but doesn’t necessarily want to be credited). So without further ado here are more tips from someone who has gone through the difficult and uncomfortable, but very survivable process of trudging through the High Sierra in a high snow year: “GPS/phone = major time saver. THERE IS NO TRAIL. Forget the trail being avalanched away. It’s just not there” (until many people walk it first). Learn how to read a map and navigate by it (that is an invaluable link to a precious map-reading resource, BTW). “Carry a paper map back up, because you know, if […]

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Angels Landed
2016.12.10
Hayduke, Hiking, Latergram
I’m 39 years old (surprise!) and I’ve never felt so scared, overwhelmed, or uncertain about the future as I do today. Something is very, very wrong with the U.S government. I’m going to sign off Insnagram for now because I have more important things to do with my time. You all know where to find me (no, not on FB) and you know I like you, and your grams. But it’s time to make a plan. Besos from my winter bunker. 😘😘😘 #latergram from June in Zion, from when I still felt on top of the world (looking a little tired from having just hiked 800 miles to get there).

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Bagby
2016.10.29
Hiking, Latergram
Three hot springs in three days while driving from Lone Pine to Portland. Amazingly I had tubs to myself at all three. Funny that Bagby ends up being one of my favorites of all my soaks this season, given it was also one of my first in the 90s and I’ve been so there many times. It’s just so damn quaint, and soooooo damn hot. As hot as you want it to be. Hiking in through clouds of other hikers’ clove cigarette smoke really brought back memories of Portland in the 90s and hiking out in the pitch dark brought back memories of wild good times past out there with folks like Monika B and Patrick P. (Especially since folks have doused some trees along the way […]

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Sierra Views
2016.09.26
Hiking, Latergram
More Sierra trail for you (far left), this time the incredible Lamarck Pass trail. Wow. If you’re ever in the Bishop, California area and want a beautiful challenge with lots of endangered whitebark pine and a spectrum of rock color, head up Lamarck. See off there in the distance top right, that mountain? That’s the beast I’m going to tame on my mountain bike tomorrow to celebrate my actual birthday – 14,246 feet with THE Abram (abramwashere.com) who makes most die-hard hikers look like weenies. All that other stuff I did the past week? That was just getting ready. 😈

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Bubbling Springs
2016.09.24
Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
Hot spring four of four in four days while rambling the High Sierra. I think I covered about 80 miles in all – I changed my route mid-way through so I’m not sure. Blaney Hot Springs isn’t so hot but it occasionally percolates up from the pits of hell and the bottom can get very hot when it does vent. Not many springs I’ve been in actually bubble up like this. The evening before I took this shot, I had dinner in the pool with two optimistic JMT hikers, one of whom goes by the IG handle @endlessbummer – which I just love. I also love they detoured off the JMT for a hot spring – that shows class. 😉

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