Category: Uncategorized

Both feet worked for almost 700 miles, but I’m coming off to get repairs, the primary one being done on a big toe that is dislocated. It is a long story, but the bottom line is I was on the way to the Adventist Boys Camp in Oregon when it became apparent I couldn’t face the pain another day: if possible I needed to get off trail and  get diagnosed.

I was engaged in conversation with a young girl at Olallie Lake Resort, telling her my trail stories and my issue with the  accident that injured my foot, when her dad raised up from a near by hammock and said, “can I look at that toe? I’m a paramedic with the fire department.”  I said, “sure”, and the next thing you know they had taken me on as their family project iby getting me out of the Oregon woods and into civilization for treatment. The next morning with help of Karla from Olallie Resort and Jerry, my new adoting parent, I was x-rayed at a very nice Salem, Oregon facility sixty miles away. The MD said the toe would need to be reduced into place to get out of pain and I could stay in Oregon a while or go home-I said if I was to be laid up, I would rather be in Texas with family and friends. Aly, my daughter in law, drove 10 hours and delivered me to their home in Redding, Ca., where I’m waiting on a flight home to Austin, Texas.

I have mixed feelings about leaving the trail, but I had no choice. I miss my peoples and grandchildren this can be remedied by being home and rolling around the floor with fat babies(if they leave the foot alone).. I know where I stopped on the trail, the exact tree, and I know how to get back to that place. So, until then I will write down some of the memories and stories while I heal.

I started on the Canadian border with lots of greenery, wildlife and water. When I stopped there was much smoke over the Northwest from the forest fires and water was being  monitored in Washingto, a first I understand.

This section of the U.S. is going through some tough times of record heat and drought. One of the issues related to the hot temperatures is the increased temperature of the ocean waters in this area. I don’t understand it, but the locals say this alters all kinds of sea life that many depend on for a livelyhood. It all brings back memories of the last 6 years in Central Texas, another record drought.

i’m finishing this post 2 weeks after I started it. Usually this draft would e forgotten or discorded because it isn;t good enough or I’m in post surgical pain so I’ll have an excuse, but you will get it reguardless because this is the most passionate thing I’ve done in years-just walk for over 2 months.

I was talking to my friend tonight and told her I haven’t connected deeply with other humans in such a short span of time in my life-what is it ? I’m not tauting walking about the woods as the “second coming”, but I am saying it’s much more than an adventure, it’s a pilgirmage into a place where people are pretty well stripped to the essentials. it seems the crap you brought to the “walk about” that you thought would get you through-well, it isn’t near enough. There is an essence in us all that I really believe if we can turn loose of what we fear, it’s there that we can see why we are made to walk. So, walk well.

If you go, may you walk well.

If you can’t walk, crawl as you can,

All movements count, even those steps backwards

Should you need anything, look no farther than inside yourself, if there is nothing there, wait for it-

Stay with the “trail”, it will provide what you need.

  
It’s so easy to walk through a land at 2.5 to 4 miles per hour, little alone drive through at 70 mph, and forget people use to eat, procreate, worship, and die with purpose before we got here. This terrain demands humility or you die, and someone else gets to be aware of what Is. 

I have heard the tribes would ride for weeks to the huckleberry patches that cover many acres, and pick berries for weeks. When they were through, they set fire to the area to keep the forest from infringing on their food plots. I weep, this was not only in ages ago, but up to the 1950’s- then the forest service took over and curtailed such works. 

Berry’s and mushrooms are now pick by the Vietnamise and other marginal groups of the area-Seattle, etc. They camp for weeks on end and gather whatever will yield cash- they are to industrious to beg and find no place in the main stream, so they pick and pick. I’ve seen these people after spending weeks on end in the forest, you can smell them coming. I’m honored to have been near them.

  
I met “half-slow”, a 59 year old Vietnamise man, on the trail day before yesterday, who said ” yes, if leaders were to walk on PCT-maybe, just maybe peace”. I had trouble keeping it together. He left Hanoi at 14 years of age under war from the country he would come to for life-how is that possible?

I meet young Japanise who can hardly speak English, they are the right age to be the grandchildren of the men my father took the rifle from in WWII, how is that possible? They are so dedicated to finishing a walk across a “wonder”. How is that possible? We have done it since recorded time, the killing.

  

I wonder and walk. 

• The ” Spaniard”, 67 year old Mexican man from San Diego, said he is living the dream- ” I have to eat, sh–, and walk” – this is my time to live”. I have never seen a smile so deep- I have never meet him before, but I’ve known him since  I was born.
•   

What would I give up for my grandbabies to see and hear from this that is That? 

 When we get so self righteous as a specie, maybe we could go lay in the woods 80 miles from another human and deal with what comes to us. It’s not the wild beasts, it’s the 40 days and nights , and wondering if the Angels are there to care. 
  
Tomorrow will be 40 days, tomorrow night will be 40 nights, every drop of water is important-give a cup to someone not like yourself.

  
Just a walk.

  
It’s like the store the school bus stopped at for snacks after school, it’s Trout Lake doing what Trout Lake does- serve hikers, firefighters and locals. I do think it’s the most helpful and authentic place I have re supplied at so far.

  
Those are not columinous clouds, that is smoke from the trees exploding in the fires near Mt. Adams on the Yakama Nation’s land. This is the focus of this and surrounding communities the last week or so. Many are on stand-by to evacuate the area. 

It seems when your on the trail, fire and water are always on your mind, either avoiding it or looking for it-mostly living in the tension between to little and to much.

  
This last section had nice surprises.

Off to the next stop, 5 days of walking and then food!

  
I am still in White Pass living like homeless in the woods, which isn’t all that bad really. I have spent day be shuttles to Yakama by Jordan, store attendants daughter, who was good enough to take me and another hiker for supplies. I needed knee brace and ace bandage for a issue. 

We went to Fred Meyer’s store, which is really a Wal-Mart with class. We got stuff people eat and get by on – I found  bananas , apples, alvacodos, and a red onion to fix my cravings- along with various junk foods.

Seems strange to talk to folk in Austin and they are in the heat of August, when here if the clouds gather for thunderstorm, the temps go to low 50,s.  It can get turbulent in a hurry and you don’t want to be caught above timber line as the tallest object around-another name for this is grounding rod!

Tomorrow if the storm subsides, I hope to have tent order for Trout Lake resupply, and get into the Goatrock Wilderness for some serious climbing.

  
Lumber is king here, but after that the fruit business must come in as a major industry here. I have seen apple and pear trees 5 ft tall that looked like were holding hundred of .lbs of fruit each-now I’ll dream of apple fritters all night long.

  
The question: ” why you doing this walk?” Answer, not sure. I said I was doing it in honor of Boerne Lyn, Tom, Al, and Ani Tenzin Lhadron. The first three are people I loved and admired in different ways- they are dead. The last person mentioned is a Buddist nunn I meet in journaling seminary in California that said her deep desire was to do a pilgrimage in her tradition but had health issues preventing her from it. I said I would furnish the walking she could interprepit it as her pilgrimage. She and I both are in debt to each other for providing to each what the other needed at the time. 

I may make it to Mexico, that’s my aim, or I may blow up tomorrow, but I will not stop short of absolutely going the last step I am able. I have seen to much and heard to much out here to stop short of an authentic answer to what Life is asking, ” how will you live me”. Anyway, I need noodles and tent time in the rain and to  make peace with the mice and elk tonight. I’ll be about that now, and even though I miss kids, grandkids, friends and SSW family- this is where I need to be and why is not the question to ask. Later

 

 

You would think with the number of glasses I wear I could keep from getting lost, but not the case. I have found myself off trail twice this week, but thanks to Half-Mile- it tells me how to get back on course-if I turn phone on.

Lots of wildlife this week in the section of trail going into the Goat Rock country before Oregon :elk, damned mice(they run around my head and ears at night), mule deer, mountain chickens(?).
   

My bear bag,I eat out of, and feet are about the same degree of sanitary- thank God for veterinary immunity. 

  
Headed to White Pass with new shoes and lots of food- I’m heavvvvy.

I need lighter tortillias. 

 

This night is cold in tent- heavy clouds. I’m gonna get a nap. 

  
So many people have been asking for the recipe of the convenient store “steak night burrito”, o.k..

Fresh tomato( or whatever is left in deli), fresh cut spam, rehydrated black beans(!if to much water, thicken with instant potatoes), and of course a tortilla out of the hiker box( they weigh to much to pack!). Eat at least two of these before bed, and you will not sleep in the next morning- you will need to rise early! It’s healthy foods like these that keep one full of energy for all kinds of movements in the great outdoors.

Until next time, good eats.

  
A rather inexpensive 3 piece foil cook set. I prefer USPS bubble wrap envelopes for koozies to get that ramen and black bean soup hot and just right! Hard to believe, but the aluminum pouches were just throw away by the more prosperous hiker crowd.

Yes, I do sell these sets-call me and I’ll get your very own set collected this week.

Until my new shoes come in, I will be putting together more helpful deals and nutrition advice for my blog followers( I have more than 1 now). So, I know you are with me in ” visualizing ” those new shoes. Ame

  
  

Here waiting on new shoes for the next round of boulder fields between here and White Pass. 

I can’t remember when I have eaten so much. I thought I was quite the eater, until I meet Monk yesterday who informed me that his normal breakfast snack is 4 packages of Pop-tarts! He was thin as a rail, eating 3 lbs. of food a day, putting in 30 miles a day. The man could eat and walk.

It’s my second time to come off trail and resupply, shower/shave, and do laundry since July 11. I’m here at Dinsemore’s Hiker Haven in Skykomish, Wa. – where it has started to rain in earnest, after slight attempts all night.

I haven’t done any post because there has absolutely been zero phone reception for AT & T from the Canadian border to here. I also have done much less journaling or photo taking than I planned because in the evening I have just been to exhausted.

I have come to be like those guys who obsess over pack weight because your pack is your enemy when full and heavy, but is by far the devil on ur back if it’s void of food and water and still heavy from shelter, clothing, extras. So , we take out everything not being used daily and hopefully for two purposes, and keep the rest.

The Dinesmores are beyond helpful.

  
  

Monte the firefighter by night and pilot by day, did an excellent job of dropping me and two other passengers into Twisp, Washington.

Even with the drought, this country is magical: it seems all of it was created in an impromptu art show on a grand scale. Crazy crags and drops!