Category: Uncategorized

It is good to be home.

With Dan, with Myshkin, with the garden tomatoes, with cotton clothes and a couch and a water tap and all these objects imprinted with a sense of me. It is good to be home.

At the same time, transitions can be hard. I get confused that the value ratio of my possessions has now inverted: what used to be extremely high value of very very few objects has become relatively low value of an abundance of stuff all around. The clarity of such simple living in the wilderness, where there are few decisions with clear consequences, has now become a convoluted, messy life of many low-stakes choices. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. But this is all standard re-entry stuff. Transitions are confusing. Transitions are hard. Transitions mean change. If there’s an emergent theme in this last hike for me, it is the richness found in the unknown, the terra incognito not just of the land itself but of our understanding: how we understand the world, ourselves, our past and future, and how it all converges on the very moment we stand in. Transitions, between any two things, capture the quality of the unknown too. Approached with care, we can find the unknown anywhere, everywhere. It reminds me of the real number line: almost entirely made up of numbers we know little about, and we only have to squint a little beyond the familiar ones–1, 2, 3, but also 1/2, 2/5, etc.–to realize that those we know are almost invisibly small islands afloat in a sea of those we don’t.

For those of you who have read along and shared this trip with me, THANK YOU for your companionship. I will mothballing the blog for the time being, and if you subscribed, you’ll next get an update when I reactivate it for my next long hike. At this point that seems to be once very couple years, so maybe you’ll hear from me in 2019! I’ll probably post some smaller hikes here in the meantime, so if you’d like to read about those check back in on your own time. (Case-in-point: I’m heading back out tomorrow for a week-long traverse of the Bailey Range in the Olympic Mountains of Washington. Gotta get it while the weather holds.)

About this particular sequence of high routes in the Sierra Nevada, my sense overall is that this was an effective way to link up some beautiful and challenging cross-country hiking. I had hoped to take advantage of my acclimatization by hiking them all together, and as the days passed I definitely felt I was climbing faster and more easily. There’s also something to be said for extended stays in the wilderness, for attempting to transition from visiting to inhabiting. I often find this takes at least a couple weeks, sometimes much longer. I’m actually not sure if I successfully made that transition on this trip, and perhaps it would have taken the extra ten days I had originally planned for (I had a fifty day itinerary but ended up finishing in forty).

For future hikers of this long-high-route, consider looking for some cross-country passages to connect Cottonwood Trailhead (end of the Southern Sierra High Route) with Lodgepole (beginning of the Kings Canyon High Basin Route). I took three trail days to go from Cottonwood to Lodgepole, and while I enjoyed those days (especially the amazing High Sierra Trail from around the head of Big Arroyo Canyon, west to Lodgepole), there are probably some great cross country options that would be in better keeping with the spirit of the rest of the trip. Another consideration is the awkwardness of rehiking a few sections of the JMT, since all three of the high routes make use of the JMT to detour around technical ridgelines or subranges. While I think you could pare down the overlaps and make an overall more efficient route, I found that I wanted to experience the high cross-country sections of each, which mostly don’t overlap, and that meant a few times revisiting parts of the JMT a second time. I was able to hike the entirety of each route except for the Sierra High Route from Upper Basin (just south of Mather Pass) to State Lakes, around 12 miles. Overall, I really enjoyed all three high routes. I found each to have a unique set of challenges and character, no doubt partly due to the particular temperament of the author and how (and when) they choose to divulge information. Each one was great and would be a fabulous hike in its own right as well.

If you have any questions about the route, feel free to contact me. Happy trails to you!

Today I leave Bishop and make my way south near the sharp Sierra Crest along the Southern Sierra High Route. I’ll come out at the Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead in 7 to 9 days or so, and hitchhike into Lone Pine CA to resupply (and update the blog). Look for new posts to appear around then, and in the meantime you can get an impression of my progress at the Map Page above.

Just a quick note to say I've got my permit and I'm setting off. Look for blog posts to appear in six to eight days, when I pop out of the mountains at Red's Meadow Pack Station to resupply. Until then!

Welcome to the blog for my High Sierra hike of 2017.

I’ll be spending most of August and September hiking in the Sierra Nevada, the prominent mountain range in California that contains Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, and Kings Canyon National Park. I’m stringing together a number of proposed routes for my trip: the Sierra High Route by Steve Roper, the Southern Sierra High Route by Alan Dixon and Don Wilson, and the Kings Canyon High Basin Route by Andrew Skurka. Each of these routes in turn are made of previously known passageways, documented in various books of hiking and climbing routes in the Sierras and many traveled by humans long before white folks came to the area.

The nature of each of these routes is to hew closely to the high country of the mountain range and to visit the less frequently traveled places. Consequently, the routes privilege cross-country travel, and trails are used primarily when they seem to provide the only viable means of connecting one cross country area with another, without getting into technical climbing. Many of my days will be spent on class 2 or class 3 scrambling routes over passes and mountains, interspersed with lake-dotted valleys, basins, and cirques.

Please read the blog, and please comment or email if you have the impulse to do so! Your time and attention are meaningful contributions to my trip. By clicking the ‘follow’ button on the landing page, you can receive an email notification whenever there is a new post without worrying that you’ve missed something. So very relaxing.

Where do I begin?
At Twin Lakes just west of Bridgeport, CA, on the eastern flank of the Sierra.

Where do I end?
At Road’s End, a trailhead in Kings Canyon National Park.

How many days will I be hiking?
My current plan is to spend around 50 days. Humbly I go – plans are easily derailed.

How many miles will my total trip be?
Around 470, plus or minus 10-20% (mileage is hard to calculate off of trails).

Am I hiking with others?
I’m going alone. Alone!

How will I deal with food?
I packed up boxes with food and will have them mailed to me. Three of my resupply stops are small resort areas high up in the mountains, relatively close to my route (Red’s Meadow, Parcher’s, and Lodgepole). Two of my resupply stops involve hiking out to a trailhead and hitchhiking into a town (Lone Pine and Independence). There will be five resupply stops all told.

How will I maintain a blog while in the wilderness?
Every night, I write a blog entry on my smartphone and save it. When I get internet service, typically at resupply stops, I’ll upload all the saved entries. This means a number of days will pass with no updates, and then many updates all at once.

If there is no trail, how will I know where I’m going?
Map and compass, and written descriptions of the routes I’m attempting to follow. An example, from Steve Roper’s book “The Sierra High Route”:

From the basin ascend north up grass-covered ramps and gullies alongside the cascading stream that originates near the ridge far above. After a gentle climb of some 800 feet … the hiker arrives at an extensive flat area at 10,900 feet. To the northeast, about a quarter of a mile distant, lies a broad, grassy saddle. But instead of aiming for this obvious gap, turn slightly left and proceed due north up a rocky slope that ends on the east ridge of Mount Conness.

What is the terrain like?
I’ve read that it is quite a lot of talus and scree, ie accumulated broken rock debris. Typically the terrain would be mostly snow-free in August when I begin, but the winter of 2016/2017 saw over 200% of normal snow in the Sierras, so there may still be quite a lot of snow lingering in the high country. I’ll be traveling with microspikes (like mini crampons) and an ice axe.

Why am I doing this?
The answer is complex. I hike to live in relationship to myself, to illuminate my senses of joy, fear, loneliness, freedom. I do it to see what it feels like to just take the next step, especially when I’m bored or frightened or resistant. Hiking puts me into the wild and also pulls from me my own inner wilderness, and that is an invigorating place to make a life, for a time. This blog is, of course, my long answer to the question of why I hike. Thanks for reading.