Category : Pacific Crest Trail

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,668 mile (4,294 km) trail running through the tallest mountain crests and volcanic peaks of California, Oregon, and Washington from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. I walked its entire length in 2013 and was back on trail for more casual fun in 2014 and 2015. In my opinion, it is a 16″ by 2,668 mile slice of heaven.

Photograph looking south along the clear Colorado River from the Beamer Trail canyon shelf in Grand Canyon.

North Kaibab, a Trail Closure

So much water! So much trail destruction everywhere! This morning I heard that the North Kaibab trail is 1000% closed for maintenance until June 2. In fact, the entire North Rim is closed until June 2 (at least to cars)! And starting tomorrow the Canyon below Glen dam is about to experience a rare Spring “High Flow Experiment.” Shit’s gotten real in the Grand Canyon area this winter! Wow! Usually it opens May 1. 2023 has thrown a monkey wrench in thru hiker’s plans, and many of them refuse to back down. I’m not hiking but I still got excitedly thinking about fun (but still pretty much impossible) detours, and reminiscing about my time on some of them. (I have ~2500 miles solo on foot in Utah/Arizona after crossing them a few times.) (Inadvisable before fall 2023) AZT Re-routes in continue reading…

Creek Fire smoke in central Nevada

Flu and The Trail, part 2

This post is an update to my March 16 post, Flu and the Trail. It turns out you can thru-hike during a pandemic, but if you’re not still asking yourself “should I?” and considering your impacts on other people, I hope you’ll keep reading and hear me out. After volunteering several months of my life over several years to help thru-hikers on the PCT, I left with a bad taste in my mouth. I met several burned out trail angels who felt similarly, and noticed quite a few hikers themselves abandoning the trail shaking their heads. Why? Because thru-hikers are generally privileged, and often self-involved and entitled. It’s not exactly “rewarding” work to help people who don’t really need help. Bear with me when I explain how I got here. It is based in experience with hikers, and I have continue reading…

colorful sunset

Flu and the Trail

We’re now at least a couple months into the surreal shitshow called “COVID-19” (a coronavirus). I’ve spent the past week and a half-sequestered very remotely, not just because of the misanthropy I’ve felt more and more while scanning the news and social media, but to enjoy the wild, help build an off-grid house, and perhaps survive (and help others survive) the pandemic I’ve been warning friends about since I was a nurse in Portland in the oughties. This type of thing was bound to happen, and it’s too bad more people aren’t more prepared. (That said, not many of us have the resources to be prepared.) While cutting wood, plastering, and painting over the past week, various unrelated COVID-19 impacts have come to mind. Having gotten more and more worried about hoarding, I came to town yesterday to stock up continue reading…

High Sierra glacial basin

Nature : Museum

Discussing my latest backpacking trip with my guy, I came up with an analogy which I like very much, and which seems original and enlightening. I compared modern wilderness visits with museum visits of the recent past (pre-2010). My first memories of museums were of the Anchorage Museum as a young teen, then the Louvre and Musée D’Orsay, and the Met in NYC and Mutter Museum in Philly as an older teen. Even if relatively brief, I treasure those visits for several reasons. Be they small or petty reasons it doesn’t matter, the memories are large as a very deep breath. Memories of carefully-curated open space and light, surprises of color and subtle hushed sounds. Photos were disallowed and so I would stare without blinking in an effort to somehow memorize what I had seen, feelings and all. I tried continue reading…

mount morrisson sierra nevada

Dear PCT Class of 2019

I’m getting ready to go on a hike of my own, but I wanted to drop you a note to let you know it’s still snowing in the High Sierra. My 2017 blog post “Dear PCT Class of 2017” with tips about snow travel and whatnot definitely, definitely applies, since we got more snow (* see footnotes) this year than we did overwinter 2016/2017. I spent the winter shoveling, plowing, skiing, and snowshoeing in the Sierra, and I’ll tell you what: nobody who knows anything about avalanches or snow conditions (in brief, they suck) is going back there behind the Crest right now. I hope you read my 2017 letter and do all the other research and preparation you can, and don’t rush a thing. There are a lot of us who are very concerned for your safety. Remember that continue reading…

Annual Whitney Debaucle: 2018 Edition

This story is about this year’s weird ass annual Whitney hike. I’ve been sleeping on top of Whitney every year for six years now, and each year it seems to get worse. This year I made a loop, planning to go in over Baxter Pass and out via the Mountaineer’s Route on Whitney. It didn’t happen that way. Something happened on top of Whitney that turned the whole trip into a skidmark. The story starts off a little slow, but stick with it. It ends with poop and helicopters, which always liven a story. The way in I actually walked to Rae Lakes all the way from the center of Independence. WHO DOES THAT? Me. I do that. I’m not afraid to walk a lot of “bonus miles” to get to a trailhead. I mean rides in cars are nice, continue reading…

Gotta Outnumber Rotten Folks

OK so a little rant about the “sexual harrassment” on the trail. Believe it or not I was at one point relieved at how different things were on the Pacific Crest Trail compared to the Portland Oregon cycling circle jerky community I had come from. In the bike community I tried to have a little half-dressed fun cheering cycling races which I was also RACING IN, and then got called all sorts of names by strangers AND friends. “Whore,” “slut,” “butterface,” “anti-feminist.” OMG. Next thing I knew, after I’d been beaten down into silence, it was a huge trend to cheer races like that. Ahead of my time, I guess. What folks didn’t know is I came from a childhood of grade school bullying about my body, questioning whether I was a boy or a girl, and whether I was continue reading…

High Sierra Access Passes & Transportation

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 is THE time to explore. There are so many cool things to see, continue reading…

View of Yosemite Falls and Half Dome from the West

More PCT high snow tips

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 your GPS takes a dive in a stream crossing… Navigating in trees as continue reading…

Latergram

Hiking with my good old hiker trash pals Coincidence and Hot Tub in the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness, near where we’ve been camped out the past couple days in the rain in our buses. We’re so lucky to have such a reprieve. Love is our best weapon. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Blaney

Bubbling Springs

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. 😉

PCT angel helper Paint your Wagon

Paint Your Wagon

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 without killer miles (

storm clouds over silver pass

Bad Weather

Yesterday after leaving my blissful private hot spring spot, I climbed 3300 feet into a hail storm, hid from thunder in a granite cave, and crossed Silver Pass (~11,000ft) in pouring rain and wind to my camp 17 miles later. Just to say, blissed out cool shit doesn’t always come easy.

Lionheart

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.)

thunder storm over south lone pine

Lightning Storm

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 for food/gear resupply and sometimes to quit.)

H Y O H

This probably looks like a boring rural snapshot but if you’re a Pacific Crest Trail hiker or are following the Sierra storms or just a hiker, it’s kind of a big deal. The storms have officially hit. It’s on! The winds are gusting. Let’s have FOURTEEN INCHES!!! Oh yeah and Independence now has a nascent organic / health food shop and cafe with salads, pizza and sandwiches and they know hikers are coming and are trying to be ready for them. They have beer, fruit, and Newmans O’s, too. It’s that yellow building right there.

Leave No Trace in Advertising

I’ve been shopping for new gear for 2016 and something is bugging me… So here’s my call out to manufacturers and users of tents and sleeping bags and camp stoves and other camping gear. All outdoor folk who love nature. (Hopefully that includes you.) Stop advertising gear with images that clearly violate the Leave No Trace ethic. Stop glamorizing these violations. Instead, set great examples of people camping using LNT principles. Dude. What are you talking about?! More specifically, I’m talking about images of camps set up right on the sides of lakes. They’re so pretty, but they’re so… wrong. Please stop posting photographs of tents pitched less than 200 feet from idyllic lakes. Less than 100 feet from lakes. Less than 50 feet from lakes! What’s the problem with camping near water? I’d like to camp right by the continue reading…

A Walk from Onion Valley to Road’s End

In the middle of October, after having finished an amazing L2H hike with two great guys (Bulldozer and Abram), I was looking at wrapping up my season and heading back to Portland to spend the holidays with my mother. But it was driving me crazy that I hadn’t finished my Sierra High Route hike. I walked around Mt. Williamson, summiting two 14ers to compensate, and I made some excuses, but still it was driving me crazy when I wasn’t trying to put it out of my mind. I’m not sure I’d feel right if I didn’t complete the SHR in one season as I intended. LoveNote showed up in Lone Pine and planted the seed again, a few days later. When I told her my excuses, she (and her dog) gave me this look: And that did it. Next thing continue reading…

Sierra High Route Part 5: Tuolumne Meadows to Twin Lakes

This 23-mile stretch of the Sierra High Route took me almost three days. I left Tuolumne Meadows Saturday June 13th at 7am and came out at Twin Lakes on Monday the 15th at 4:30pm. Granted, I’m usually able to hike 23 miles in one day, that’s when there’s a trail and I don’t have three unusually steep mountain passes to get over. Over three days I had my ass handed to me by this route and once finished, tentatively decided to not continue hiking it. Day 1: Tuolumne Meadows to Cascade Lake June 13th. I was originally set to leave on June 5, and was posted up in Tuolumne acclimating to the elevation, but rain came in and wasn’t letting up so I postponed. I’m actually glad it worked out this way, because I not only avoided rain but snow, continue reading…

Little Package