Category: Hiking

Paint Your Wagon
2016.09.22
Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
This guy. Hiker “Paint Your Wagon.” If you’ve been on the Pacific Crest Trail the past four years you’ve probably met him. I met him when we both worked Ziggy and the Bear’s in 2014. He’s always upbeat, a hard worker, and has a really hard time finding hiking shoes for his size 17 feet. He happened to be at VVR with his engine running when I got off a private Edison Lake boat shuttle (which I yogied a ride with on principle that I’m a web developer for the tour company that commissioned it) and I had a ride straight to Mono Hot Springs with a blistered hiker quitting said tour group. This magic is part of how I managed 4 hot springs in 4 days […]

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Secret Soak
Hiking, Latergram
Bad news – they really did weld the spring tub shut at Reds Meadow. It’s got this metal plate and there’s no way to get in. Damn! I hope they had a really good reason. I have decided to sit in the gnarly slimy rotting floaty stuff part of the spring because. It’s hot. This kicks off my birthday week Sierra hot spring 90-miler. I will be walking through a storm that’s coming in, so it should get interesting. I dream of being in a hot spring when it’s raining or even snowing on me. At least it’s mostly ON trail this time. 😉 While I’m waiting for van parts in the mail, this is how I do. I’m in my happy place.

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Tuttle Creek Ashram
2016.07.15
Hiking, Latergram
Last night I stayed in the Tuttle Creek Ashram, also known as the Stone House or the Ashrama or the Monastery by locals. Built in 1928 as a summer school spiritual retreat, it has long been abandoned and stripped, and was even threatened with dynamite demolition when the land it sits on was designated Wilderness in 1964. Its geometric design and position are sublime, and it inspires awe and reverence (for some people). It was built at 8000′ by a couple (Franklin and Sherifa Merrell-Wolff) who believed it when they were told the most spiritual places were the highest places. It also inspires nightmares. I fell asleep despite things moving around me (bats and rats, I presume) and had a crazy dream – something like a dark, […]

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Lionheart
2016.06.28
Hiking, Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
Many of my IG followers know Lionheart, die hard hiker and gentle soul. What a treat to run into her in the Sierra and hike a little with her. I hope her foot cooperates and she finds her “carrot” (at the end of the proverbial stick) wherever she is headed, whether it be a trail end or some other fun life detour. xo I hope that for everyone! Focus less on the destination. You know, as our good ol’ pal Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination…” (Yet again in photos from this week, that’s Mt Whitney in the background, right of center.)

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Latergram
2016.06.27
Hiking, Latergram
Now you’re just showing off… Attempted to summit unnamed peak (4182 meters) to the West of Forrester Pass despite a Korean film crew translator telling me “you will die.” I didn’t die but didn’t tackle the final 200′ due to a sketchy cornice. But, views for days, including down on Forrester Pass and across over to Mt. Whitney (distant to the right of center). This was an average snow year in the Sierra so it was fun to tackle the north side of the pass the typical way: post holing and glissading. If you look closely you can see some North face Forrester switchbacks and glissade tracks.

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The Annual Whitney Shit Show
2016.06.26
Hiking, Latergram, Opinion
On top of Mt Muir, 14,000 some-odd feet. Looking really smug for someone who has no fuckin’ idea how to get back down. Erskine Fire smoke didn’t even go away last night, so sunrise was a relative disappointment. Also, I was joined by FOUR unprepared East Face climber dudes in the Whitney hut and had to dress them up in my gear to stop their shivering. I cannot believe I let them wrap themselves in my $$$ cuben fiber tent. Two of them were in tee shirts! No sleep last night. All told I saved six men’s lives on Mount Whitney and yet was still asked over and over by older men if what I was doing (hiking alone) was safe. “Where’s your parents little girl?” Argh!!! […]

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Hayduke Desert Panoramas
2016.06.18
Hayduke, Hiking
My 850-mile backpacking trip this Spring took me through Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, through all these National Parks and wild lands I’d never seen before. What better way to see them for the first time than to walk through them and sleep in their dirt? I couldn’t think of one. I took some neato panoramic photos, so maybe the next best way to look at them is to click on them, blow them up in your browser, look around, and pretend you’re there. Most these iPhone panoramas were taken in remote areas, difficult to get to by car or foot, and most of them were on detours or alternates off the main Hayduke route. Get yourself an eye full of red rock! Arches Canyonlands I took […]

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Lightning Storm
2016.06.11
Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
Dear @wild_ish I was serious when I said I was jealous you were headed up to Horseshoe Meadow to hike in the rain tonight but maybe now I’m worried about you. I hope you and your posse and my other friends are alright. This was the biggest lightning storm I’ve seen in years, with countless strikes, wind, and speed. As it approached I could sense its intimidating enormity and I ran for cover inside. You can’t do that tonight. Yikes. 😬 (To those unfamiliar with the Southern Sierra, that is Horseshoe Meadow road switchbacking up the mountain, from ~4590 to ~9900 feet, just south of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 at 14,505 feet. PCT hikers use this road to come off the trail […]

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No Comment
2016.05.30
Hayduke, Latergram
Ultra runner on the Zion Rim trail: “You thru-hiking?” “Yep.” UR: “Where you headed to tonight?” “I’ll probably finish.” (A lie. I have learned to not tell people where I’m going to sleep.) UR: “Oh well, that’s a ways… But you might be able to do it if you skip Kolob Arch, that’s half a mile each way and pretty technical hiking. Maybe you could do it, yeah, there might be time.” “I think I’ll be fine. I hiked 800 miles to get here.” UR: “Oh, from where?” “Arches.” UR: “I hiked the Appalachian trail, finished the last 200 miles last year. And last weekend I did the rim to rim in Grand Canyon, that was something else…” “Cool, well I better go.” It’s already like my […]

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