After a full day of banding songbirds, Ed and I stayed up almost all night catching owls. Conditions couldn’t have been better: clear, calm, and cold with no moon. Though we have caught a few owls every night this week, last night was the best yet – 63 saw-whets! We finally turned into bed at 4:00 am, slept an hour and a half, and headed out at dawn for another field day of banding songbirds. It never stops…

Saw-whet Owls are just unimaginably cute. I can’t get over it. Those big eyes and soft, soft feathers get me every time. And saw-whets are normally very hard to find; before banding them here, I had seen exactly two in my whole life. Handling 63 in one night blows my mind!

Winter is coming to Maine. The forecast for Sunday calls for a high of 38 and snow showers. Brrr.

First, though, we’ve got several warm(ish) days of northwest winds to look forward to, after enduring almost two weeks of south winds (bad for migratory birds around here). Ed and I are hoping this brings one last big push this week before we head home at the end of the month. We only caught 11 birds this morning, but enjoyed an Orange-crowned Warbler and the first cardinal of the fall at Petit Manan Point.

I’m staying up tonight with Ed to capture Northern Saw-whet Owls. It’s 11pm, and we’ve caught three so far – not bad, but not spectacular (a good night at Petit Manan Point might yield 20 by midnight). We take turns checking seven mist nets outside our trailer once an hour, luring in the fist-sized owls with a boombox which continuously broadcasts their calls at full volume.

Couple of interesting things about saw-whets. You can tell how old they are by looking at different generations of feathers in their wings, and this is made easier by spreading their wing under a blacklight (fresh feathers glow pink under UV rays). We use a light called the “stink finder,” designed to find cat pee stains in carpets. And Saw-whets often take a minute to fly away upon release, so you can sit one on your shoulder to pose for photos. Cool stuff!

It’s been a crazy week on Metinic Island. We captured and banded 200+ new birds on five out of the last six days, capped by a tremendous 467 (!) yesterday, an all-time record at this banding station! It was such an incredible effort that special, “half millennium” T-shirts are in the works for this crew.

Chuck and I managed to catch a fist-sized Northern Saw-whet Owl in a mist net after dark – definitely the softest, cuddliest bird I’ve ever held. And I even got a life bird today: two White-rumped Sandpipers huddled down on the beach. Looks like rain coming, which means a couple of slower days ahead. We could use a bit of a rest…

Adrienne, Chuck, Andrea and I gathered around our digital weather display this afternoon as a windstorm slammed the cabin on Metinic Island. When the wind hit 50 mph, the refrigerator inside our kitchen started to shake. When it hit 62 mph, we all ran outside to rescue a microphone (which records calls of migrating birds) after it blew off its support.

Otherwise, the weather is looking up. We had enough sun to replenish the solar battery today, and the lights are back on. And we put in a full, uninterrupted day of banding this morning, catching 129 birds. I found a Yellow-throated Vireo and an American Golden-Plover. Life is good.

On the PCT this summer, I was all about consistency. I never tried a truly huge day (my biggest was 35.8 miles), but, increasingly, I found myself wondering: given easy trail and a light pack, how far could I really hike in one 24-hour period? (No running allowed). What if I walked from midnight to midnight?

Today, a week after finishing the PCT, it was time to find out. I’ll probably never be in better shape to attempt a 24-hour hike. In the interest of carrying as little as possible, I decided to park my car at a strategic location near some running paths in south Eugene and use it as a resupply station between a series of loops.

I started walking at 12:08 am, using a GPS to measure mileage. For six hours I walked in the dark, dodging Friday-night revelers and a sneaky skunk while waiting for the sun to come up. By dawn I’d already logged 21 miles, off to a good start.

I hit 30 miles before 11 am, somewhere on the Ridgeline Trail near Spencer Butte; I worried about my legs feeling tight, but kept a steady pace with few breaks. The afternoon was tough mentally, not close to the beginning or end, so I did a bunch of laps around the Rexius Trail and hit 50 miles around dinnertime. With legs like iron, I pushed on into the night and finally, mercifully stopped at 11:42 pm, having walked 64.0 miles (103 kilometers) in less than 24 hours!

I drove home, pulled on compression tights (purchased last year when I ran a marathon in Australia and flew home to Oregon the same afternoon), and collapsed into bed, having slept less than two hours of the previous 40. What a day! This summer has definitely redefined my perception of reasonable mileage. But, now, I’m done with long walks for a while – promise!

During an early sunbreak on a breathtaking ridge in the Pasayten Wilderness, I felt the first, bittersweet twinges of regret that this trip is nearly over. It’s been nearly four months of nonstop hiking, without much time to pause and reflect; I suppose the enormity of it all is really beginning to sink in. I hiked a while, misty-eyed, reminiscing over the summer – then I tripped on a rock, a mean-looking cloud blotted out the sun, and my reverie was snapped. Onward to the finish line!

My thermometer read 28F this morning, and the weather continues to deteriorate, so I’m glad to be out tomorrow. I hiked a frigid 29 miles today under threatening clouds, wearing gloves, hat, rainpants, and down parka most of the day; by late afternoon an intermittent, sleeting drizzle had set in. Time to wrap this thing up – winter is arriving in the mountains.

Last night was very windy in Stehekin, and I woke up to gray skies this morning. Finally, the weather I had expected in Washington: cool and cloudy. I just hope any real rain holds off for three more days…

Because of breakfast and shuttle schedules, my dad didn’t see me off until after noon (next time we see each other, on Sunday, we’ll be in Canada!). I hiked a steady 20 miles up to aptly-named Rainy Pass where a heavy, saturating mist is now drizzling down, enough to soak everything; luckily I found a dry(ish) campsite, just before dark, under a thick tree about 20 feet behind an outhouse by the trailhead parking lot. Gotta love the wilderness.

A couple miles before I reached the Suiattle River crossing this afternoon, I found a sign proclaiming, “New! PCT + Bridge,” pointing down a freshly cut side trail. Knowing that the bridge had been out for a few years, and sick of hauling myself over miles of poorly maintained trail (thick, head-high brush with lots of deadfall), I followed the sign to see what adventures awaited.

Turns out the PCT has officially been rerouted to incorporate a new bridge three miles downstream, where better bedrock exists. I found the trail crew and a Forest Service employee putting some finishing touches on the excellent bridge before they are airlifted out on Thursday, mission complete. They were pretty excited to see me, saying I was maybe the first hiker to use the new route (!), which also now incorporates a spectacular, 700-year-old stand of oldgrowth. Unfortunately, it adds at least four extra miles, and I fell short of my target this evening despite hiking 27 rough miles today. It’s gonna be tight getting to Stehekin tomorrow…

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 through 20.0 heavy, sluggish miles before camping on a mosquito-infested ridgetop. My pack felt crushingly loaded, I ate very little even for dinner (still full!), and I could barely keep my eyes open as I hiked through the afternoon and evening. But the buffet was worth all that – I’d definitely do it all over again…

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 Woodpeckers along the way, and should arrive at Stevens Pass tomorrow. And I’m going to bed with a happy stomach after demolishing a packet of Mountain House Beef Stroganoff, labeled to serve four people – who are they kidding, really??

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 is calling nearby in the darkness. Two new birds for the trip!

I hiked 29.1 miles today despite an unexpected 2.5-hour break at a smorgasbord of trail magic – a guy named Not Phil’s Dad had set up canopy, chairs, and stovetop with chili and hot dogs for PCT hikers. He’d spent three weeks sitting there already, at a random gravel road in the forest, and seemed a little disappointed to have seen very few hikers so far – not more than four in one day – so was very happy when nine of us converged there this morning (me, Turbo, Mr. Furious, Lovebird, Raven, Doc, Hercules, GQ, and Viper). Guess I’m at the front of the main wave, if there’s any herd left this year.