Current

Stoking adventure fire: 5 books to get you through winter

By |December 10th, 2014|2014 posts, AT, Current, Japhy Ryder, PCT|Comments Off on Stoking adventure fire: 5 books to get you through winter

Last week up at the mountain it rained on top of a beautiful fresh pile of 11 inches of fluffy powder. When I went to bed I had been excited to get up, gear up, and head up to Mt. Bachelor for my first day of the ski season. Reading the report in the morning dashed my hopes- all that beautiful snow was now encrusted by a lens of heavy snow.

The snow mess meant that instead of having a wonderful morning of playing in the mountains I was going to have to turn my focus back to the endless ruble pile of my own personal life maintenance. Adam and I recently returned home from a few months of work down in the Mojave, and we have stacks of mail to sort, a yard to clean up, firewood to split, map sets to edit, a kitchen remodel to plan, huge lists of projects to sew, build, create … The to do list is huge and overwhelming.

Distractions under these circumstances are welcome. I need reminders that adventures and free time exist. Following an adventure or two, watching movies about hiking, and reading books about fresh air and freedom are my remedy for feeling overwhelmed. Below I have listed 5 of my favorite books to help stoke your expedition fire and stave off the winter blues. Happy armchair adventures!

5 adventure books to get you through winter:

Rowing to Latitude, Jill Fredston

I discovered this book years before I started thru-hiking, and it planted some kind of seed that wouldn’t die. This book helped me realize that people do crazy sounding adventures- like rowing around Alaska- year after year. Jill and her husband, Doug, treat their summer adventures just as […]

Read More

Idaho Hot Springs Bike Trip

By |August 27th, 2014|2014 posts, Bigfoot Trail, Bikepacking, Cat Food Can Stove, Current|Comments Off on Idaho Hot Springs Bike Trip

When I returned home from the Bigfoot Trail Adam had a surprise- he had planned a bike tour!! Not just any old bike trip, but one that would be mostly on dirt roads and take us to over a dozen hot springs! I was stoked to get back on my Salsa Fargo and check out Idaho with Adam- a real summer vacation!

We drove out from Bend to Idaho past a few smokey fires, through the heat of the high desert, and past the smelly feed lots of the Snake River Valley to a small town along the Payette River, Crouch, ID.We chose to start our tour in Crouch because the southern portion of the 500 mile route was closed due to a landslide near Ketchum. Our plan was to ride the northern half of the Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route (IHSMBR) clockwise, and take the Lowman Cutoff to return to Crouch, the lowest point on the route. After enjoying some fine beer from the Payette River Brewing Company we found a camp site and prepped our bikes. Velcro and buckles attach our Bedrock Bags frame bags, handle bar bags, and seat bags in a nice streamlined way. After some rearranging and finagling we were able to fit everything so we didn’t have to wear backpacks.

 

After driving around a bit we found the perfect spot to leave our truck (Chisos) during the ride: the Starlight Theater Parking Field. Crouch is a very tiny town that happens to have a large outdoor theater with camping and event parking. The woman I spoke to in the Box Office was more than happy to let us park there and wished us well on our adventure.

And then we […]

Read More

Reaching the Redwoods on the Bigfoot Trail

By |August 10th, 2014|2014 posts, Bigfoot Trail, Current|Comments Off on Reaching the Redwoods on the Bigfoot Trail

On the 28th of July I found myself suddenly out of the sunny mountains and walking into a fog enshrouded tsunami hazard zone. My hike ended when my feet left  pavement and sunk into the sand of the beach in Crescent City, and soon there after were dipped into the icy Pacific Ocean. There was something magical about ending a hike at the edge of the Pacific!

The last day of the Bigfoot Trail revealed  four final tree species, Redwoods, Red Cedar, Grand Fir, and Sitka Spruce within the last 15 miles. The morning walk through the Little Bald Hills was a review of many of the conifers I had met throughout the hike: Knobcone Pine, Jeffery Pine, Douglas Fir, Common Juniper, and Port Ortford Cedar to name a few. Day 20 turned out to be a fantastic grand finale to a wonderful thru-hike.

My time on the Bigfoot Trail was mostly bliss tinged with moments of misery in just the right amount to make it a solid adventure. Thru-hiking is never a cake walk, and I probably wouldn’t love it so much if there weren’t challenges like getting lost on overgrown trail or dealing with my ever present sole pain (sore & bruised feet). I loved the rugged, remote, and awe inspiring terrain of this route. There was never a dull moment, even the roadwalks were entertaining with their unique emerald triangle road trash and spectacular scenery.

Swimming was possible almost daily, and some of the swimming holes were in the top 10 pools of my life (check out the Stewart Fork of the Trinity and the North Fork of the Salmon!!). Discovering trees at each new mountain range helped ease the pain of the many […]

Read More

Bigfoot Trail preparation

By |June 24th, 2014|2014 posts, Bigfoot Trail, Current|Comments Off on Bigfoot Trail preparation

This Spring has been busy with things other than hiking, and I am left feeling like a pop-corn kernel about to burst. Soon (early July) my feet will touch down on the Bigfoot Trail. This trail was created by Michael Kauffmann, an adventuring botanist and author from Humboldt County, CA.

The trail highlights 32 different species of conifer in it’s 400 miles. I look forward to the scavenger hunt aspect of this trail, and will learn a whole lot about trees as I walk, not to mention maybe see Bigfoot!

The trail starts in the Yolla Bolly mountains in Mendocino County. These mountains are where I went skiing and adventuring as a kid, they are close to my home town, Willits. The Bigfoot Trail travels through the Trinity Alps and Marble Mountains before turning west through the redwoods to it’s north terminus in Crescent City. The BFT connects with the route I created in 2011, the Japhy Ryder Route, and might provide a great alternate start.

After weeks of work on the computer, my friend Treehugger and I created a map set for the Bigfoot Trail to help supplement Michael Kauffmann’s guidebook. If you are interested in the mapset contact me. Tree, her partner d=rt, and their amazing dog Justa started their hike of the Bigfoot Trail on the 24th of June, follow their blog on trail journals.

 

 

Besides spending a bunch of desk time on maps for this hike I have not been prepping much. My conditioning has consisted of gardening and building a patio, my food and resupply prep has included a couple trips the grocery outlet for bars and some time in the kitchen drying up strawberries. I expect the first week of the trail to be […]

Read More