Day Four
31 August 2016
Mile 2518.8-2540.7
Day total 21.9
Tally 79.1 miles
Total up/down: +5765/-8114ft
Camp: near Image Lake Trail
LL: 48.196496, -121.044992

Despite feeling completely at home out here, there are subtle things that feel weird. When we meet people we are section hikers, not thru hikers. Today a girl said she knew we were thru hikers because of my “hello kitty backpack,” referring to my ultralight setup. It felt really good, but also felt weird. This class is not my class. I do not feel apart of their summer. I feel like a normal hiker just passing through while these other hikers are coming to the end of their journeys. I too am coming to the end of my journey, but it is one for completion and not the close of a killer hike. It is a strange feeling.

One thing I have particularly been happy about is the warm nights. Mornings have been brisk, but I am super toasty at night. I am reminded how much I don’t like to put my tent up. As one of the few daily chores I have, I remember why I prefer to cowboy camp. But this is Washington, so it is not smart to risk falling asleep without cover…though we did cowboy two nights ago.

Day Three
30 August 2016
Mile 2495.7-2518.8
Day total 23.1
Tally 57.2 miles
Total up/down: +6856/-6671ft
Camp: 1/2 mile past Mica Lake
LL: 48.167563, -121.155024

My body is screaming. I have not worked out in months. I have been eating junk food, drinking coffee, and steadily gaining weight as my scrawny muscles turn to mush. Now my weak baby feet are getting blisters, my thighs are bloody from chafing, my shoulders and knees are tight and bruised, and my low back sometimes siezes in pain. I feel like a poser trying to claim this PCT finale, as I shuffle into camp as a bundle of aches. Every time I stand up after a break I have to shake the life back into my legs. I am definitely not in thru-hiker condition right now. But I love this. I wake up each day excited to get on trail, ready for the beating. I cannot imagine a better way to spend my short break from school.

We have decided to stick with 20-25 mile days so we don’t keel over in piles of misery. Endless of course is fine, having 3000+ miles under his feet this summer. For the rest of us, we have been plushly living in our off-trail lives. We are strategically headed to Stehekin, to catch the bus times just right to get in and out in the same day. S+M has a stricter finish then the rest of us, so we are trying to travel the appropriate distances to get her back in time.

One thing I have been thinking about the last few days is a special hiker dress. I need to have people donate old running tech shirts so I have enough material. I hiked most of the PCT in a lively Target clearance special. It was made of rayon and stayed surprisingly classy. At least until it started to disintegrate with my whole backside exposed and my deteriorating unders on full display, despite my nightly efforts to patch the tears. I retired that dress to my growing pile of clothes for another memory quilt, and replaced it with a new dress. I am hiking now with that same dress. I have only positive things to say about hiking in dresses. Anyways, I want to design a dress based on my favorite features from all those dress experiences.

Day Two
29 August 2016
Mile 2471.3-2495.7
Day total 24.4
Tally 34.1 miles
Total up/down: +6393/-5564ft
Camp: Glacier Peak Wilderness
LL: 47.996623, -121.121417

I realized today how much I have been holding onto these last 200 miles. I put my life on hold, waiting to think about what adventure I will do next. Today my brain has been flooded with all these ideas of what to do while in grad school. School is my priority, so I am at peace with the fact that I won’t be hiking a long trail in the next few years. But that doesn’t mean I am prevented from adventuring. I need to find ventures that can be crammed into one or two weeks.

I am thinking that next summer I want to drive up to Washington to climb Mount Adams and to Oregon to climb Mount Hood. Then I will slowly work my way back to SB while climbing all the major peaks in between. I have been thinking a long time on climbing each state’s highest peak. I have a few in the books, but I think it’s time to start bagging some more. I am also thinking I could drive back to CO to finish up the fourteeners the summer after that. This summer the record for self-supported and all human-powered climbing of 57 fourteeners was completed in 31 days 8 hours by Joe Grant. This is an incredible feat, and equally inspiring, to get out there myself. I also really want to hike other trails like the CDT, TA in New Zealand, Heyduke, and AZT. I also want to cycle from Washington to Florida. This fall I will spend a couple months in Antarctica, doing top secret geology things. I am super excited! After getting off the ice, I plan to spend about two weeks cycling across New Zealand. All of these ambitions require me to get my ass into gear. No more laziness or crappy food. Hopefully the lure for adventure will keep my motivation going strong! And of course, you can stay tuned here to follow along!

I am too tired to write more. Sorry.

Day One
28 August 2016
Mile 2461.6-2471.3
Day total 9.7 miles
Tally 9.7 miles
Total up/down: +1954/-1860ft
Campsite: Lake Janus
LL: 47.825071, -121.099114

Endless is reading us a bedtime story; Mauki by Jack London. We are tucked into our fart sacks for the night. Our ultralight gear slightly different, but mostly the same. The people are Endless P. Summer, S+M, and Tim Tam. This is all too familiar. The reality of the trail not quite tangible. Everything from the last year completely wiped away. It could be August 2015 all over again. Where has the last year gone? Being here, together again on the PCT, things make sense. I have missed this. The last twelve months have felt like the life of a stranger. Today felt like coming home.

To catch you up, I will give some back story. In May 2015 I stood at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT. I hiked anout 2461 miles before the horrible fires in northern Washington forced an end to the trail, just 200 miles shy of the Canadian border. I went to the northern Terminus with my trail companions at that time, but it didn’t feel real. To be honest, I am not sure it would have felt real even if we had hiked to the end. Regardless, I have felt a longing to return and cover that final gap.

In the mean time, I moved to Southern California for grad school. I went from a comfortable salary in the oil and gas industry to borderline poverty on a grad salary (I am still elated to have made that change!). I had a rough start with school, and am still transitioning to a new project and advisor. I don’t think I was quite ready to go from the outdoors and personal freedom on the trail, to 15+ hour days at a desk. I understood the physical and mental endurance of thru-hiking. I woke up every day excited. Every day seemingly the same yet actually new and exhilarating. I was addicted to the challenge. I was not prepared for the mental and psychological warping of grad school. I felt stretched in thirty directions, expected to excel at everything, and spend all my time on research with no thought to anything else. At first I took solace in working out. 7 miles of bike commuting each day, alternating long swims and long runs, climbing in the evenings, and hiking on the weekends. The true embodiment of a weekend warrior. When school hit the fan, exercise completely ceased and my lifestyle took on fast food and late nights on coffee. I am slowly putting myself back together. It has been a slow process. The biggest move towards sanity has been knowing I was returning to the trail. My life for the next four years is grad school, but I live for the moments of adventure. I live for putting ideas into motion.

That brings us back to the PCT. About one year after stepping off the trail, I am back to finish the last stretch to Canada. Two days ago I flew into Seattle. I met up with Endless, my hiking companion of over 1700 miles last summer. You can check him out on Instagram @endlesspsummer or his blog at establishinganewbaseline.wordpress.com. He hiked the AT and CT, as well as several hundred miles on the PCT this summer before joining us. He is a formidable hiker and great trail presence, providing us with unlimited entertainment. S+M joined us Saturday night. We caught up for supper at a great ramen restaurant, Kizuki Ramen and Izakaya, with her friend Gen Ma. S+M is an amazing artist and now a skilled electrician, as well as the happiest person I know. She is also my idol, so I have nothing but great things to say about her. In December she leaves for a PeaceCorps position in Guinea, which is incredibly exciting because my sister will be starting her PC position in Guinea at the same time! Stay tuned for upcoming adventures to the west coast of Africa! She can be followed on Instagram @katehendricksonart. This morning we were joined by Tim Tam, or Tim Tam Slam, otherwise know as Tami from last summer’s accounts. She might have the coolest work life, working for Clif Bar and Outward Bound. I can definitely see myself wanting to be like her when I grow up and venture back into adult life. She has a great blog at tamiankeny.wordpress.com and on Instagram @tamiankeny. She has an eloquent way of putting into words the experiences I also grappled with. It felt right to be surrounded by these incredible people. Tim Tam drove up from Portland and then the four of us drove to Baring to gather ourselves at the Dinsmores before hitting the trail. The Dinsmores are these incredible people who open their home to hikers as they pass through on the PCT. In trail lingo they are called trail angels. They have a garage bunkhouse, dedicated hiker box, big lush lawn, and shower setup for hikers to stop in and stay the night before heading back out on trail. Of their many generosities, they also accept and store hiker resupply packages. Since the SBA TSA doesn’t allow trekking poles in carry-on bags, I mailed my poles and food to the Dinsmores.

So here we are. Ten miles into the trail. I stayed up too late to spin off this first post. But I have been thinking about the trail for so long. I am happy to be here.

I am ecstatic to say that I will be reuniting with my PCT trail family at the end of this month to finish the last 200 miles of trail that were closed last summer due to fires. I have been giddy with anticipation, so all my excitement has bubbled up as word vomit!

Brief recap of my past year:
I moved to California. I miss Colorado, but have been enjoying the beach life! Grad school fills 99% of my time. With the other 1% I do exciting things like sleep, eat, and explore southern California.

Recently I ventured back into the Sierras to the Rae Lakes and 60 Lakes Basin areas. Obviously, I am now pumped for getting back on trail. The one unfortunate aspect of grad school is that my exercise habits have been tossed aside for vending machine meals and late night coffee benders. My crew is setting an admirable pace of 25 mile days, so we will see how my body holds up. No time like the present to get back into shape! Anyways, I am packing my food boxes tonight to ship off tomorrow. And by the end of next week I will be standing in Seattle, making final preparations before hitting the trail. The plan is to meet up with my hiking companions in Seattle and then ride out to Skykomish together. We will take the trail running and zoom up to Canada. This will be my last summer jaunt through the woods before cracking down on some research goals and preparations for my new adventure to Antarctica this fall. I cannot wait to see my trail family and be back outside! My brain and body need a vacation from laboratory life.

This is all you get until I cover some ground. Stay tuned!