Category: General

After a month at my BC cabin, I have made it home to my winter cabin on the sunny side of the mountains. It’s been 5 months since I left it and I as I drove home I wondered if everything would be alright. Would I come home to find someone had stolen my solar panel and my chain saw? If I came home and found that I had been robbed I thought I would just buy a ticket to somewhere and go.

But as I got to my locked gate, it was just as I left it. I was tense as I drove up to my cabin and was relieved to find everything untouched.

As I unlocked my cabin I noticed the window in my front door was frosted over. I opened the door to find my entire cabin coated with a thick white dust. Some of my books had been knocked of the shelf and lay on the floor covered in this mystery stuff.

There were no foot prints in the dust and it was as complete a job as could be done. It wasn’t just horizontal surfaces everything was coated even vertical surfaces.

Thinking this may be a diabolical threat on my life and possible anthrax, I thought I should save a sample to have it analyzed.

After taking pictures to document this malicious dust attack, I started throwing everything outside. I tried to vacuum but I could only vacuum for a minute before the filter would plug.

Suddenly I had an idea of what it might be. Up in the loft I have a large fire extinguisher. I went to check it and sure enough it was empty and the hose was hanging loose.

It had apparently gotten so hot in my cabin that the fire extinguisher blew. If you have ever wondered what happens when a extinguisher goes off in a small cabin let me tell you. The stuff goes everywhere. Under the couch is heavily coated, the walls, the windows everything. It blew with such force that it blew my books off the shelf.

Man, what a mess. So I went into town, bought a shop vac, and washed everything.

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Going up to my BC cabin for a bit. Selling it is on my list of things to do.

My post hike recovery time of eating, watching tv and looking at the Internet is coming to an end.   It’s time to move on to one of my cabins and start preparing for winter.

Life is so easy on the trail; all you have to do is get up and hike every day.  My thoughts on the trail are only: how much food do I need, how much water do I need, how many miles can I walk, and what a great view.  In the real world there are so many options and things to think about and do.   I miss the trail.

Arrived here a couple of days ago. I have been doing really great but started to get tired and slow about 100 miles ago, so I took a couple days off to try to get strong again.

The Sierras have been wonderful, but there has been more snow on the passes then when I hiked in 2001; I’m glad I’m carrying an ice ax. There has been a lot less mosquitoes though.

I made it through from Kennedy Meadows, 200 miles, to here with a small Bear Vault 350. I packed it full of calorie dense food like cheese, nuts, and power bars. Beware of the Twisted bars they sell at Kennedy Meadows; they contain a gag inducing combination of cod, chocolate, and pretzels.

My Chacos broke but I have gotten a new pair in town. My pack is about ready to go so I have arranged to send it in for repair and have ordered a Mountainsmith CDT to replace it.

Well it’s time to leave town and get back out on the trail. Hopefully I will be more spunky then I have been.

Everything is going great except I hear that the “herd” is only a day away.  Apparently they aren’t moving too swiftly so it may be possible to get in front of them.

The trail is great! I think I should do this every summer, it makes me so happy to be here.

The weather has been great but I usually find some shade and take a long nap during the hotest times and hike early in the morning and late into the cool night. 

Water has not been a problem; the regular water sources are all flowing. 

 I lay out under the stars most nights to sleep.   Some nights, I find a hiker to join me in good conversation and lots of laughs. 

The desert is blooming with sweet smelling flowers. 

Yesterday, a woman at a road crossing gave me a root beer float. 

I have been trying hard not to get sucked into the towns, but the wonderful Best Western at Cajon Pass has sucked me in for a night of hot baths, iced feet, tv and a big bed.   

I always feel at home on the PCT.  It’s 2700 miles of great views, fun people and a beautifully built trail that a person can just hike, hike, hike.

I take every break right on the trail and often long naps yet only once have I had to move aside to let a person pass.  The world is lucky to have such a fine unpopulated trail. 

Just because someone nails up a no trespassing sign, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t legally go there. For one thing, they may not even own the land. Often federal and state land is leased to people. Often these people begin to see the land as their own. These leases are really cheap, for instance to lease 640 acres may only cost a thousand dollars a year, but it doesn’t mean that they get to keep hikers out. I have been told by a guy who leases state land in Washington that it doesn’t give him the right to keep hikers off of it… it only gives him the right to run his cows on it and he can also restrict vehicles from coming on to the leased land.

Another thing to check is the how the land is taxed. Most of the time people who own large tracks of land have their land put it open space or forestry. This is so they pay very little taxes on their property. My neighbors chose to go with forestry because they said to go with open space would mean that anyone could come on their land. Also, even if you don’t have the right to come on private land you may have the right to use private roads that go through private land.

When my son was three, we lived in a small cottage on the Oregon coast. One day while we where at the post office, we saw a big cardboard cut out of Santa Claus standing next to a mailbox that had written on it, “Santa Claus, North Pole”. We decided to write a letter to Santa. He told me what to say and I wrote it. Then we walked to the post office and put it in the red mailbox that the cardboard Santa was standing next to.

In the letter he asked for a flashlight and a rabbit cup for Christmas. We were gone at Christmas.  When we came back there was a package on the door step. Inside was a flashlight, a rabbit cup and a box of chocolates. The box of chocolates had a note on it that said “For my folks.”

The only thing I can figure out, is the mailbox wasn’t for just any kid to pretend to mail letters to Santa, but for serious requests only.

Ever since seeing the Peruvian exhibit I have been interested in traveling to Peru.

One summer I was working in Eastern Oregon in the Wallowas . I went to a movie one night and while waiting for the movie to start, I talked with the man sitting next to me. He said he had traveled to Peru and hiked up to Machu Picchu. While camped there that night he had a vision of how to build a clock that would tell you the right time and day to do anything.

After the movie I went back to his house to see his clocks. Some were big like grandfather clocks and others were just drawn on paper. He gave me one drawn on paper. You have to set it everyday but with it you will always know the best time to do anything.

The next morning, I was driving through the woods, looking for a place to call home for awhile and I see a Peruvian shepherd dressed in traditional clothes and shepherding   about a thousand sheep. The Peruvian shepherd flagged me down. He didn’t speak much English but enough to tell me that he wanted some water and that he was from Peru.

Later that day I bought a Sunday paper and started reading the travel section. The article for that week was titled: Peru is safe to visit now.

Note: I don’t know where the clock is. I think it may be at my other cabin. If I find it I will take a picture of it and post it here and then you too can know the best time to do everything, if you can figure it out.