Pacific Crest Trail

The Knife’s Edge, shoutings, fire detour, White Pass, and gosh darn it

Day 117 The ramifications of how this day ended has yet to become clear to me, but I hope they have before I have to write that section. But let’s start a bit more calmly at the beginning. I slept reasonably well, but woke up for no particular reason a couple of times. Started hiking around dawn and soon after that went by another volunteer trail crew gearing up to getting going, which I didn’t…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Mount Adams

Day 115 Got going earlier today just as dawn broke as I camped early yesterday. It was surprisingly cold, so it seemed like the heat wave had passed. Also mostly gone was the smoke and the soy eventually turned blue as the sun rose. Nice. My feet hurt a bit but that disappeared relatively quickly after getting them warmed up. It actually felt much easier going today. The lighter pack due to the dwindling food…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Blueberries and Blue Lake

Day 114 I got up and going in a tad earlier than yesterday in equally warm, humid, and smoky weather. I wasn’t going to let that get to me as easily as it had yesterday, I was saying to myself. Briefly, it started raining, but stopped again before anything really came of it. Shortly after my wish for trail magic was granted, as someone had left some food and beverages for us. I had a…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Washington Blues

Day 113 I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I will have a hard time finding many positive things to say about today. It didn’t rain. There was no poison oak. My old wound didn’t rupture again. I was not killed in a bizarre accident involving an elephant, two zebras and the word “unity”. That’s about it. Anyways, let’s get back to the beginning. After a nice nights sleep I got going at 7:30. The bridge…

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Pacific Crest Trail

From Cascade Locks to Stinky Bridge

Day 112 Despite taking a zero day in Cascade Locks, I was far from ready to leave when I awoke, so it was first a bit after ten that I checked out. Though I was somewhat apprehensive about it, I chose to finally ditch my old shoes, which meant a nice weight saving and could offset the extra gear I now were carrying. Then I went to the supermarket to get six days of food.…

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Pacific Crest Trail

A Zero Day in Cascade Locks

Day 111 You probably already know most of the ingredients of a zero day. This one wasn’t much different. After breakfast and calling home, I unpacked the stuff I had ordered from Amazon and gotten yesterday. It was new socks, an emergency blanket, new trash compactor bags, which are especially thick plastic bags that I use for waterproofing, and some quite weirdly looking and large gloves that are supposed to be waterproof and breathable and…

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