At eight a.m. this morning, I hit the two and a half thousand mile mark – an inconceivable distance when I started this hike, back in May. By dusk I’d logged 29.3 for the day. Just 138 miles to go… Today rocked all around. I hiked into the Glacier Peak Wilderness and was taken a […]
The Sunday breakfast buffet in Skykomish this morning was… AWESOME! I don’t know how many calories I ate, but it measured in the thousands. And I paid for it over the next six hours. My mom hiked a few miles in from the trailhead with me before turning around to head home, and I struggled […]
With 27.1 miles done by six p.m., I hit Stevens Pass to find my mom sitting in a lawn chair at the trailhead, doing a crossword, and waiting for me to arrive without even knowing what day I’d get there (I finally found cell service a half mile out, much to her relief) – it’s […]
One giant roller coaster ride today, for 31.5 miles, under a hot sun (is this really Washington?). Climb 400 feet, drop 2,200… climb 2,500, drop 2,600… and climb 2,600 more – up and down from ridgetop to valley floor, back and forth, with a wicked-looking elevation profile. But I saw some Sooty Grouse and Black-backed […]
I hit Snoqualmie Pass today in time for breakfast at the pancake house and a quick resupply before hiking north into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, totaling 24.2 miles. I am now more than halfway through Washington, past the 2,400-mile mark, with fewer than 250 remaining to Canada. Northern Washington is very rugged, at least in […]
This morning I woke to the sound of a Northern Pygmy-Owl outside my tent. I whistled it in to a small tree about 20 feet away, where the owl tooted furiously at me until I packed up and left camp. And, this evening, in fact while I write this very sentence, a Northern Saw-whet Owl […]
Lots of ridgewalking this morning until the trail dropped into a section of forest and patchy clearcuts, with dozens of annoying blowdowns to climb over. I hiked 30.3 warm, dusty miles between dawn and dusk – with the sunny weather and low topography, this section feels more like northern California than Washington! I saw my […]
The PCT doesn’t get very close to Mount Rainier, but I skirted the National Park boundary’s eastern edge for 30.9 miles today, with intermittent views of the impressive peak looming off to the west. This area is known for damp and rainy weather, but I ain’t seen it yet – Washington, so far this September, […]
Seems like everybody always goes on and on about how the Goat Rocks Wilderness is spectacular, gorgeous, and, well, spectacularly gorgeous (ad nauseam); many say it’s the most scenic spot on the whole PCT. I went through that stretch today with perfect weather. Though it certainly was beautiful, I guess the buildup had raised my […]
I’m cowboy camped on a spectacular saddle tonight, looking over the snowy Goat Rocks, after a 32.5-mile day through the forest. This morning I came around a corner to find a couple with two dogs taking a rest break. The woman was squatting with pants down, about one foot off the trail, and both dogs […]
Taking advantage of good weather while it lasts, I hiked 30.6 miles to camp on a ridgetop flanking Mount Adams today. It’s a pretty sweet spot: from my tent’s door flap, I can look out over endless mountaintops, backlit by the setting sun. And some exciting news: I’ve been hired to work at the Tiputini […]
Happy September! The forecast calls for sunny, warm weather through the rest of this week. It just needs to hold a little longer… I walked 30.9 miles into the Indian Heaven Wilderness today, where the mosquitoes are as voracious as ever, and camped with Todd, a recent Stanford graduate in plastic surgery specializing in hands […]
While hiking alone early this afternoon, I rounded a bend to find a Mountain Lion sitting calmly on the trail about 40 feet away. The big cat took a minute to notice, then, unfazed, just gazed at me curiously while I stared right back in amazement. What to do? I took some photos, then, thinking […]
After a cold night of whipping fog at Indian Springs, I hurried 15.7 miles down a 4,000-foot drop this morning to Cascade Locks, the Washington border, and a night at Best Western! It took me 20 days to walk the length of Oregon (457 miles), including a four-day injury timeout; with luck, the remaining 510 […]
I looked down on fog-filled valleys all day, smug in my alpine sunshine, until the fog lifted to my elevation in late afternoon, the temperature dropped, the wind sprang up, and I was left scrambling to set up my tent with shivering fingers as darkness set in early. It had been a while since I […]
This afternoon I walked in to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, sat down in the third-story bar, and ordered a sandwich plate, a chili bread bowl, and an amber ale with another hiker named Dewy. What a treat! We stuck around long enough for the janitor to show us a photo album of his snow […]
I walked 35.3 miles through beautifully lush, green, and snow-free forest today, on nearly perfect, soft, pine-needly trail the whole way. It felt good to set the cruise control for a while, not worrying about my knee. In the morning I walked with a semi-retired radiologist from Maine, on his first day of a section […]
I awoke this morning to the sound of a Common Poorwill calling outside my tent (decidedly rare west of the Cascade crest), so I grabbed my iPhone, turned it on, and broadcast a poorwill recording while still inside my sleeping bag, just before dawn. Apparently it was loud enough, since the poorwill immediately fluttered in […]
Early this morning, Day 99, I found a small rock cairn and some sticks arranged on the trail, spelling out “2,000” in the dirt – the two thousand mile mark! (Even better, a Three-toed Woodpecker posed quietly nearby: trip bird #168). My dad met me at Santiam Pass around midday and we spent more than […]
Lots of interesting scenery today as I walked 24.4 miles past alpine terrain along the Three Sisters, across Highway 242 at McKenzie Pass, and through several miles of lava fields to the base of Mount Washington. Some trail angels at Lava Camp fed me ravioli, chocolate, and soda while I waited out a thunderstorm there […]
Nope, didn’t climb it, just walked past it. But after a couple days of mosquitoey forest, I wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty of South Sister when I popped out next to it in low-angled sunlight late this afternoon, near the end of a 30.5-mile day (my knee has improved – thanks for all the […]
Heading north from Willamette Pass this morning, I was on familiar ground past Maiden Peak, Waldo Lake, and the Taylor Burn – all places I’ve looked for birds in summers past, and close to home. Today, my mission was a bit different: to hike 25.7 miles. All went well, and my knee felt great – […]
At 1,914 miles from the Mexican border, I reached Highway 58 at Willamette Pass today. This is especially notable for me because it’s the closest point on the PCT to my house, just a 40-minute drive west of here; so, in a way, I feel like I’m home. My mom met me at the pass […]
I struggled today with a new and formidable opponent: boredom. Having capped my effort in order to rest my knee, I set a punishingly glacial pace for 19 miles but still found more free hours than I knew what to do with, and ended up just staring into space during rest breaks. With so much […]
For the sake of health, restoration, and knee preservation, I’ve decided to divide my next two days into three – thus building in an entire extra day before reaching Willamette Pass. This means three sub-20-mile days in a row, and a lot of free time on the trail. Sounds good in theory, but it’s a […]