Little Package Blog

Shoes
2016.04.08
Hayduke, Latergram
Thanks mom and little sister for getting me these shoes for Christmas – they’re taking me such cool places!! And if you’re wondering wtf is going on with my gaiters, here’s your answer: I was post holing up to my HIPS. Funny story about that. So I’m postholing, and sometimes trying my luck at crawling over the snow without sinking, so obviously there’s some grunting and deep breathing going on. It’s hard work. I’m going along like this then suddenly, somehow, I hear the voice of my mother, calling my name. “Caroline? Caroline, are you OKAY?” What? How? Apparently I had pocked-dialed my mother while postholing in the woods in the Henry Mountains. So I picked up the phone and told her I was doing just fine. […]

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Canyonlands Paint
2016.04.01
Hayduke, Latergram
In Canyonlands if you have eyes you will see ancient native American homes and graineries and whatnot. If you get sort of obsessed you find ones that not many other people might have found, complete with 800 year-old nibbled maize stalks and really subtle art. That’s me. Each time I found a new one I’d be so bowled over I’d almost cry. It was a very look don’t touch and don’t leave footprints affair, just to find one and try to imagine their lifestyles was a special treat. These were people who knew the land. Their (lost art) integration in these sandstone cliffs is nothing short of breathtaking. Can you see the art in this photo?

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H Y O H
2016.03.05
Latergram, Pacific Crest Trail
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.

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Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Latergram
Pepperflake and I left our “trusty” vans behind and walked 75 miles over the Inyo Range and through Death Valley to see the superbloom. We walked along a question mark route he only created and mapped the day before. A totally spontaneous and somewhat risky backpacking trip through usually unforgiving territory turned out to be wondrous in that old-fashioned hippie drifter kind of way. Because we were walking to see the flowers, mostly. After loitering over a few beers in Stovepipe Wells five days in to our hike, we hitch-hiked with a man celebrating his 30th birthday to Badwater to see as many flowers as we could. We slept in a golden canyon and spent the next morning desultorily hiking the badlands. Full circle, we hitched a […]

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