Halfway to Canada

Miles: 1305.3 to 1335.4 Mileage: 30.1, plus 0.6 to water Day: 69 We finally got up with the first alarm at 6 a.m. We haven’t done that in weeks.  I ate my last pop tart as we started walking. We spent most of the morning quiet, in our own heads. It’s not always the most […]

Belden brunch

Miles: 1278.8 to 1305.3 Mileage: 26.5 Day: 68 Today was the hottest day I can remember on the trail so far. It is certainly summer now. I can tell because my face is caked in salt at the end of the day and my clothes are pounds heavier from the sweat that’s soaked into them. […]

Lost in the words

Miles: 1247.3 to 1278.8 Mileage: 31.5 Day: 67 After waking up on the top of the ridge, we spent the morning going down, down, down to the middle fork of the Feather River.  We had to dodge poison oak the whole way. It really slowed me down because I had my bare legs brushing against […]

Back in the land of water carries

Miles: 1216.2 to 1247.3 Mileage: 31.1, plus .2 miles for water Day: 66 So off we go on our new schedule. We got up and moving by 7:20 a.m. and kept moving until after 7 p.m. We took a short break around 1 p.m. to eat a bag of Cheetos. And we covered more than […]

Richard is Smokey the Bear

Miles: 1197.1 to 1216.2 Mileage: 19.1, plus 1.5 road walk to the PCT from town Day: 65 We slept in and had breakfast in town. I got eggs Benedict and a waffle donut (waffle, fried and covered in glaze). The store where we sent our resupply packages was to open at 10 a.m., although the […]

As far as we can go

Miles: 1167.4 to 1197.1 Mileage: 31.7, plus .5 road walk toward Sierra City; got a hitch for the rest Day: 64 So, our end of trail plans are slowly coming together and we now have a date where our trail journey must end.  Richard’s job starts up on August 17 and he will need a […]

North we go again

Miles: 1159.7 to 1166.4 Mileage: 6.7, plus .75 from trailhead parking lot Day: 63 We stayed in bed until the last minute before the continental breakfast ended, then hurried down for coffee and bagels.  The next hour was spent trying to put our trail lives back together. After checking out, we sat in the hotel […]

To Truckee

Miles: 1075.3 to 1078.7 Mileage: 3.4 Day: 62 To reward ourselves for the 32-mile day, we turned off our alarms. Not that we slept late or anything. The sun hit the tent early and we were baking by 7 a.m.  We got up and were about to leave just as a fellow hiker walked past […]

New longest-day record

Miles: 1043.2 to 1075.3 Mileage: 32.1 Day: 61 Sure, 32 miles was suggested but I guess I never thought we’d bother. I figured we’d get to somewhere between 25 and 30, which would put us within 10 miles of the road that would allow us to hitch to South Lake Tahoe, and find a pretty […]

The last of the altitude

Miles: 1017.7 to 1043.2 Mileage: 25.5 Day: 60 The sun hit our tent early and the heat woke me up. Richard soon followed and we packed up. The air outside the tent wasn’t quite as warm as inside, but we got moving quickly enough. Just 100 feet further down the trail, we saw what would […]