Category: General

Tomorrow probably won’t be so busy.

Besides hiking the Oregon Coast Trail, I didn’t hike this year.  I don’t know why, just content, I guess.

That is until I picked up some hikers hitchhiking into the town by me.   One of them was Freebird.   A “repeat offender” long distance hiker, like me.   I have met him a few times on the PCT and we know some of the same hikers.

He was hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail.   A trail that runs from Glacier National Park to the Washington coast.  It crosses the Pacific Crest Trail.   It comes within 5 miles of my cabin.

Even though in the past, the PNT has not been a popular trail, there were 13 hikers in town that day for a small concert that was happening.   They said that earlier there was kind of a trail days celebration in another town nearby.

It was weird seeing hikers in my town.  It was like my worlds collided. Seeing other hikers made me discontent and made me long to be on a trail.

I have a couple books on the trail but Freebird gave me Li Brannfors  email.  He is the Johnathan Ley of the PNT   li_brannfors at hotmail.com  After emailing him I had the maps, tracks, way-points and notes loaded up in my smartphone Gaia GPS app and was ready to head out when fires broke out and threatened my cabin and closed the trail.

Then I got all excited about my cabin burning down and started planning on living in a tepee for the winter and forgot about hiking.

Well, the fires didn’t make it to my cabin,  so, I’m tucked away in my cabin for another winter.

I still plan to hike that trail.   I think I’m about at the halfway point.  I live between the CDT and PCT, so it’s cool to know I could walk out my door and walk to either trail.

I always worried about the water situation, but Freebird said there was lots of water.    All the hikers I talked to said they liked the trail.

Time is what I have lots of and though I’m mostly not very productive,  I did create some wrapping paper, I like, with supplies I had in my cabin.

I made wrapping paper by painting newspaper with  house paint,  then putting a branch down on top of it and lightly spraying with metallic gold spray paint.   I then sprayed it with some glitter hair spray and stuck some greenery on top.

I met a couple of women working in a hostel that were traveling around the world cheaply by using the workaway site to find places that would let them stay for free where ever they wanted to travel (some even supply food), in exchange for a few hours of work everyday.

I thought it sounded like a great way to travel.   There didn’t seem to be a big commitment; they would stay for a couple of weeks and then find a new position and move on to another place they wanted to see.

I’ve been to the backcountry of my mind—but not this year.  This year I drove to the trail head and spent 5 months doing dough-nuts in the parking lot.

The Internet is to blame.  New hermit rule—no Internet in the hermitage.

The thing with the Internet is you are never alone and without solitude you always just hang out on in the front country of your mind.

The decision to turn off the Internet has been assisted by my laptop dying—and this one is not under warranty.   Since my laptop is also my entertainment system, it means no music, no videos, no spider solitaire.

There are some logistical problems with living a life without a computer.  Like loading my GPS for hikes, getting maps, and ordering stuff.   But I’m happy and excited to be returning to a life of peace and solitude.

I’m writing this from the public library in town which gives me 2-30 minute sessions a day–no loitering on this Internet.

I’m signed up to attend a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat at the end of this month.      You sit silently  for 10 days from 4am to 9:30pm watching your breath go in and out.

Under what to bring, they list a meditation cushion or a meditation bench.    I found some cedar under my cabin and these instructions on the Internet and in about 10 minutes had built my meditation bench.   It’s  ingenious the way you cut both  legs in one cut.   I didn’t have any hinges so I screwed it together.  Then I put support pieces around the legs.

I got some meds and now I’m hiking on.   It’s hard to leave.

I finally got up at 2:30 in the afternoon and started to hike.    I still felt bad but thought it best to move out of the rain and to a place with water.

For a  while now I have bouts of stomach pain and vomiting, then it goes away, and I feel fine.

I have the trailer at Hiker Heaven all to myself.   I’ve had a hot shower, changed into cotton sweats, cooked myself some eggs, and watched a movie.   Good times.

Man, am I loving  being a southbound section hiker.   I haven’t seen another hiker in 9 days.   The water worries me some though.   Even water that is running, like the faucet at Cottonwood Creek is very bad.  

My reptilian brain gets in a snit  over the water issue. 

Happy to be here, though.

I’m at the Kennedy Meadows Internet Cafe.

It was a long and beautiful hike through the Sierras.   I got some altuitude  sickness and once got locked out of my bear can but all turned out well.

So happy to be out here now–weather is great.

Hiking out in the morning.

I’m at a new trail angel’s place called the Red Moose Inn in Sierra City—super nice people.

Barefoot and Chacos did not feel that great,  Chacos and vibrams have not been that great either… my feet really hurt some of the day.   I hope the shoes I have in Echo Lake improve things.

Yesterday, north of Sierra City,  I was charged by a bunch of mountain bicyclists but I held my ground and yelled at them.  They laughed and biked on.   There were vans with the name of YUMA on the side that brings people up….they may be responsible this plague .

Still meeting north bounders who are confident that they will make the border this year.   Their optimism is creepy.

That’s all.