Tag: me

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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Walking through Vegas
2016.05.29
Hayduke, Hiking, Latergram
Just walked about five miles through Las Vegas after hiking out of Zion this morning and a few wild hitches through Utah, Arizona and into Nevada. My first hitch was about as terrifying as they come, and I was glad it ended well. My last hitch broke down which is why I was walking. Realizing I wasn’t feeling right and almost puking on the highway shoulder (could have been the 3 milkshakes?), I dove into McDonalds for some ice water. A few minutes later a gorgeous older indigent black man I noticed and smiled at on the curb came in and gave me a sealed gallon of spring water. He said he knows a transient when he sees one and offered me a Pepsi a woman had […]

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Stung by a Bark Scorpion
2016.05.27
Hayduke, Latergram
Nobody told me Instagram upped its video length limit from 15 to 60 seconds! So here you have almost my entire reality TV diary-style scorpion video from a week ago. Before I was stung that night I was only worried about flash floods coming down the Kanab Creek (a real danger, and what I’m alluding to in the video except I was in Arizona not Utah) but now all I’m scared of are flash floods of scorpions! I also I think it’s funny how I was still really wanting to hike those twenty miles even though I couldn’t walk and wasn’t sure if I was a goner or not. Thruhiker priorities are funny/stupid! And sun glove finger tans are funny/stupid. And I did walk 20 miles that […]

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Bark Scorpion Attack
2016.05.21
Hayduke, Latergram
Further down the rabbit hole: Thursday night I accidentally slept with an Arizona Bark Scorpion, the most venomous scorpion in North America. I was alone in the dark in Kanab Creek, deep in the Grand Canyon without a satellite phone or rescue beacon, so what transpired was… “neat.” I cowboy camped at Showerbath Spring, too close to the spring. Dumb, dumb, dumb. When I rolled over in my sleep at 9:40pm, I was jolted awake by the most awful thorny sensation It felt like I’d been whipped with highly electrified and very sharp barbed wire. JAB JAB! I frantically pulled off my shirt, and suddenly there it was on the ground next to my left hip. It was a little wheat-colored slip of a thing, just like […]

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Sploosh
Hayduke, Latergram
I had anxiety about the plunge pools in Saddle Canyon (within Grand Canyon National Park) because nobody gives too much detail about where they are and how to navigate them (and I won’t either – mwa ha ha). And it was thunder storming when I entered. And I was alone. It was weird, but it was nothing to fear. In fact, I had a great time. They’re slippery rock chutes leading into deep puddles. Slip, SPLOOSH! Like Alice and the rabbit hole… ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said […]

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That Time I almost became a Grand Canyon Statistic
2016.05.11
Hayduke, Latergram
I am the worst daughter ever. My mother worries about me of course, and this morning she told me she had a nightmare about falling and was worried about me falling. And before that this morning I went to take a self portrait on the edge of the Grand Canyon, with a 600′ drop, and tripped and almost had a bad – very bad – fall. And the camera caught the whole thing. And I sent it to her. What an asshole I am. But usually, when I’m not goofing off I’m a graceful gazelle, poised and oh so balanced. Ha! Really. I am. Don’t worry mom! And Happy Mother’s Day!

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420
2016.04.21
Hayduke, Latergram
Yesterday I got to the head of the Round Valley Draw slot canyon, where a gash opens in a wash so narrow you can straddle it, but deep! The gash stays narrow and the hole gets deeper, the fun is going in. Tired and a bit nervous about the drop in (lowering my backpack with rope, getting myself down, etc) I started to make camp. Suddenly I was seized! Get in there! Not like it’s going to be warm or even lit in the morning! So I dropped in, easy peasy. Looked at my clock, 4:20, so I made a quick self portrait, 4:21. Best high EVAR. Happy 4/20

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Free Flow Dance
2016.04.14
Hayduke, Latergram
Some free flow dancing after finishing up wading down the Escalante River yesterday. I’m not scared of many things but rivers over knee-deep have almost claimed a couple friends of mine (as I watched) and I have a deep respect for their power. The Escalante was pretty low but mostly opaque and with patches of shallow quicksand. I was alone so there was nobody to laugh it off with. My anxiety was high and I had to talk myself through it; I even sobbed in gleeful relief when I discovered my phone had fallen out of my pack 20 yards back and not a mile upstream as I feared. It took all my nerve to do it once, and to do it again for a phone? I […]

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Escalante Admirer
2016.04.13
Hayduke, Latergram
Had I known I was being watched from above, this moment’s tension would have shattered. I was leaving my nice eagle’s nest view/rest spot below Stevens Arch because I’d realized I had dropped my phone somewhere along my walk down the Escalante River. I had bolstered all my courage to wade the thigh-deep waters, and now I was bolstering more to head back and do it twice more. First I had to walk straight down off the wall. (But that doesn’t scare me – fast-moving water scares me.) My “secret admirer” captured my descent. I found my phone in the bushes at left. Then I’m sure I did a little dance and wept a little. And I was being watched. It’s weird to think about. I found […]

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Out There
2016.04.12
Hayduke, Latergram
Proof I’m doing just fine. 20 days without a shower, 17 days without a town stop, hiking solo. Almost wishing I could do this whole thing without stopping in town, but also sort of looking forward to a shampoo and some light beer. Here I’m atop the Waterpocket Fold, with Navajo Mountain and Lake Powell in the background, behind me — to the south. Doing great! (Total tally at town day (4/14) is 22 days without a shower and 19 days without a town stop.)

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We Three
2015.10.09
Hiking, Latergram, Lowest to Highest
My wonderful hiking partners and I make it to the top of Mount Whitney despite all that moisture!! Lots of hugs and next up: hot cocoa. L2H completed, and for Abram (left), the H2L2H (highest to lowest to highest)! My third summit in three years, and third time sleeping on the top. I climbed four 14ers this summer: Mt. Sill, Mt. Tyndall, Mt. Williamson, and Whitney. Backstory: Abram had no Microspikes (crampons) and so I lent him one of mine after his makeshift ziptie “spikes” failed (they break quickly in the cold). We skipped the icy 99 switchbacks and went straight up the Trailcrest chute, each with one spiked foot. When half-way up, we spotted a beautiful woman headed down, alone. That gave the boys courage to […]

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Pineapple Express
2015.10.02
Hiking, Latergram, Lowest to Highest
On October 2, I tackled Telescope Peak. Google it, it’s something like one of the world’s shortest climbs with the most elevation gain, and unless you can keep your eyes peeled for desire paths, there’s no trail. No joke, that was sorta really hard. 😜 Thanks Kevin for capturing my swagger on film, for giving me the L2H trail name “Pineapple Express” (you can see the pineapple kool-aid in my pack but not the dried pineapples inside), and for hanging tough. I’ll never forget how incredibly quickly you fell asleep once reaching the top! Get free L2H maps which include the foot route over Telescope east-west.

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