Just going for a walk

When I touched the Northern Terminus of the PCT, I died as a thru-hiker and was reborn as a day-hiker. Well, today I fully resumed the latter, resurrecting my Saturday hiking habit by heading out into the Santa Ana Mountains and Cleveland National Forest. For this hike, I headed to the top of Los Pinos Peak via the Bell View Trail. This hike has been on my list for a while, but that area has been closed for fire recovery for at least the last year (if not more). So when I got back and saw that the way was now open, I figured I had to take it. Plus, it's a considered a tougher trail--it's a ridge trail that goes up and down lots of local peaks on its way to the top, and it's pretty overgrown for the last couple miles to boot--and I figured I'd better make use of the remnants of my PCT fitness before I lost it all! But as I started the hike, I immediately realized that I had basically forgotten how to hike. On the PCT, towards the end, it would take me 20-30 minutes to wa

And on Sun's Day, we arrived into Seattle well into Night, from a road Rainy and Foggy and Long. And as it was so Late, we sought Refection on the Road at a 24-hour Golden Arches. And I sought their famous Apple Pie because that's a tradition in my family (and yes, I am being Serious about that), and they told us it would be 8 minutes before they would be Ready (although this turned out to be Not True), but we were willing to wait. And I also sought a chicken sandwich Meal, but was told they were out of Meal 4D, then out of Meal 4C, then out of Meal 4B and at point I gave up and went with whatever chicken thing the guy on the intercom said and it ended up being comparable in size to a hamburger and by the way when was the last time you ate a simple McDonalds hamburger because let me tell you those things are small and (especially to a hiker) are basically flattened sliders. But Something is better than Nothing in this case, and we took the Foodstuffs to the hotel and ate them w

How do you get home after a thru-hike? I think the majority of folks will take a flight. Which makes sense: it's fast, it's efficient, and it can go pretty much anywhere, including overseas. But for me, I always figured I'd take a train. And I admit a large part of it is an overly romanticized notion of looking out the window, watching the world go by, and just feeling that sense of perpetual movement that you don't get from a plane (a plane is too far from the ground, so that while I know intellectually that I'm moving--and moving fast--and technically can see it, I can't viscerally feel it).  And another large part was so I didn't have to check-in my backpack: just the thought of the straps catching on the carousel makes my skin crawl. (So there's a solution to that, which involves putting your backpack in a large compactor bag and properly sealing the top but still, why risk it?) And so it was that I found myself aboard Amtrak's Coast Starlight, o

Well, I'm here in Seattle, in the heart of civilization, with the trail behind me and done. (Well, until I go back and grab all those sections I missed due to fire or otherwise, but that's for another time.) And I admit the ending of the blog is rather anti-climactic, but as I said to Apocalypse, the terminus itself is pretty anti-climactic, but it's still pretty awesome. And I will say that, after having made my peace with the blog and defining it as part of the trail for me, I feel that writing an entry for every day on the trail is as much an accomplishment as finishing the trail. They're both grinds that wore on me day after day, and they both had their times of put-your-head-down-and-get-it-done, but also their times of sheer wonder. But now that the trail is done, what's the future of the blog? Well, thinking about it some, I have ideas! First, I figured I'd do a question-and-answer thing: let folks (i.e., y'all) submit questions, then answer them in a

PCT Entry Log PCT 2021, Entry Log Day Date Start [mi] Hike! [mi] End [mi] Traverse Blog entry 1 4/16 0.0 8.8 8.8 Southern Terminus > Windmill Link 2 4/17 8.8 11.2 20.0 Windmill > Hauser Creek > Lake Morena Link 3 4/18 20.0 17.1 37.1 Lake Morena > Buckman Springs Rd > I-8 > Kitchen Creek Rd > Cibbets Campground > Makeshift tentsite Link 4 4/19 37.1 4.4 41.5 Makeshift tentsite > Mount Laguna Link 5 4/20 41.5 18.0 59.5 Mount Laguna > Storm Canyon > Pioneer Mail > Sunrise Trail