Pacific Crest Quest

The last week or so has been a complete blur. After Takoda and I rode south from Agnew Meadow to Vermilion Valley resort, my mom's friend Jason met me there with the camper despite having to negotiate his way around a wildfire that was burning in the area and had created some road closures. We raced home for the first meetings for grad school and my T.A. position at CSUN, finally arriving about 6:00 am on Wednesday. I had meetings with my graduate advisor that day and the n

From the beginning of my ride in April, I had been warned about Forrester Pass, the highest of the passes on the PCT at 13,000 feet. It was an imposing pile of rock, that's for sure, and as we approached, I couldn't even see where the trail went--it seemed just to dead-end against a wall of stone. Then I realized that we were going basically straight up the wall, on a tiny thread of a trail. I was glad that it was just Shyla and me on this section, although I was humbled w

The closer I got to Vermilion Valley and Edison Lake, the more rugged and forbidding the landscape became. I would be riding back towards this same area from the south in just another week or so, and there would be even more granite to cross when I came north from Kearsarge Pass. #2014PCT

Although further south the trail was dominated by bare granite later, as I first rode out of the Agnew Meadows area on my way to Vermilion Valley Resort, on Edison Lake, I passed some impressive lakes and thick forests. Edison Lake was especially frightening to see because of the extremely low water levels; essentially the lake has been drained to keep up irrigation for the farms in the central valley. But the high alpine lakes still looked full, even unusually large ones l

I drove south out of Washington on August 16th and 17th, after finishing that last leg from Stevens Pass to the Ross Lake trailhead. My mom borrowed a trailer and met me at Mammoth to take Shyla back home to Topanga where Dr. Beth Stolzy would be able to stitch up the wound on her neck that happened in the fall at the end of our last ride in Washington. My goal for this short ride was to ride south from Agnew Meadows on the east side of the Sierras near Mammoth, coming out o

After Alina and I separated north of Stehekin on Wednesday, I rode on to the Ross Lake trailhead following a series of trails off of the PCT to get there. I took the Parker Creek trail to the Thunder Creek trail to the Panther Creek trail, and that last one turned out to be not really meant for stock. About two miles from the trailhead where my truck was waiting, Shyla was negotiating a series of extremely narrow, short and steep switchback; there was hardly enough space fo

We had been warned that this section of the trail would be one of the most challenging, and it certainly lived up to--or exceeded--that claim. The mountains were steep and rugged, and still had snow on the peaks, and the forests seemed impenetrable at times. There is an awesome beauty about the landscape, and it commands respect. #2014PCT

As Alina and I headed north from Stevens Pass towards Stehekin, we faced a densely forested wilderness area, full of downed trees and other obstacles. It was beautiful, but also foreboding. It didn't help that we had rain much of the time as well. This was taken during one of the brief breaks in the weather, when the clouds were clearing up ahead. #2014PCT

On Saturday, Alina and I teamed up again for my last section in Washington (she has one more stretch to do after this), leaving from Stevens Pass and heading towards Stehekin, where we planned to take a zero day and then we would be separating as she rode on to Rainy Pass and I would "connect the dots" to the trail I took along Ross Lake to the Canadian border. I had wonderful help with my truck in this section, as a friend of my mom's named Paul Larson--someone she grew up

With our new supplies Shyla and I continued north out of Chinook Pass on Tuesday, and once again I was reminded of how thankful I am for all the people who help to make a ride like this possible. Besides getting the food and water we needed (and having Carol's generous offer to drive out to help if we hadn't been lucky enough to find another good Samaritan), at the same time that I was riding, my aunt Karen and my cousin McKinley were making a heroic trip to move my truck an