Its winter and I am sitting at work waiting for the phone to ring, the mail to arrive, or my lunch break to show up. Don't let anyone tell you that the insurance industry isn't stimulating. Okay, enough complaining about my job, on to the good stuff!

The Pack: Old Osprey Aurora 65
The Deets: I got it at an REI garage sale years ago. It was their early version of the current Aurora model where the hydration bladder sits directly behind you.
Verdict: I would not use it again. It was heavy (4+ lbs). It loaded funny, looking like a pregnant woman on my back. It pushed the weight too far from my body, which was less uncomfortable than unwieldy. Don't do it. I hear the new Osprey Auroras are nice, WeeBee loved hers.

The Sack: REI Nooksack UL 30 Degree
The Deets: I bought it many moons ago for less than $100. It weighs just over 1lb. REI doesn't sell it anymore I don't think.
The Verdict: I love this bag. It is light. It packs REALLY small. It is synthetic which was nice because I woke up to condensation in my tent quite a few times. It is made out of Primaloft, the stuff that they use to stuff the Patagonia Nanopuffs, so like the jackets, it is warm without being lofty. It was warm enough most of the time. There were a few nights, between 5-9, that I was cold. Even with all my clothes on. And I was always jealous of other people's lofty bags, just because they looked so cozy. So, if I did it again, I would carry a lofty 20 degree bag at least for the Sierra and Washington.

The Tent: Six Moons Lunar Solo 
The Deets: Weighing in at 23 ounces (not including stakes, the optional pole, or ground cloth), it is real spacious for its size. 
The Verdict: I am divided on this tent. Pros: it is light, it is big (I could bring all my gear inside, it is opaque (unlike the Hexamid tent), it is easier to set up than the Hexamid, it packs pretty small. Cons: it is tough to set up, if you set it up poorly, it flaps all night, I had problems with condensation all but one night in Washington and often earlier in the trail, the netting tore in several places, there were also some mysterious punctures in the fabric (I didn't notice when they happened, but it was VERY early on. Oh, and when it rained, the inside walls of the tent got wet so when I packed it away, the floor and everything would get real wet, forcing me to take a long lunch (damn!) to dry it out. Fortunately, the weather was good enough at lunch all but once to dry it out. I don't have a good answer. The Agnes Fly Creek 2 person tent is tempting but it weighs 33 oz...

Length of Trip: 2660 miles
Duration of Trip: 161 days
Number of Zero Days: 16
Average Miles per Day (with Zero days): 16.5
Average Miles per Day (without Zero days): 18.3
Longest day: 31 miles

California
Length: 1699 miles
Duration: 106 days
Number of Zero: 9
Average Miles per Day (with Zero days): 16
Average Miles per Day (without Zero days): 17.5

Oregon
Length: 457 miles
Duration: 25 days
Number of Zeros: 4
Average Miles per Day (with Zero days): 18.3
Average Miles per Day (without Zero days): 21.7

Washington
Length: 508 miles 
Duration: 29 days
Number of Zeros: 3
Average Miles per Day (with Zero days): 17.5
Average Miles per Day (without Zero days): 19.5

Well I did it! I finished last Friday, September 27, 2013!! I beat the snow and am now happily moved into the "Big House" here in Seattle. Binge watching "Orange is the New Black" and eating ALL the food :)

Weebee and I left Stehekin with wayyy to much food, a poster tube that she wasn't to open until the border, and two bottles of Barefoot Moscato champagne. It had snowed the night before we left, fortunately it was about 6,000 and wasn't a problem. It really just made the [already spectacular] mountains look even better.

Our second night out, I camped with Uber Bitch, Bristlecone, Swiss Army, Weebee, and a section hiking couple just before Foggy Pass. It was a little snug, but I was in no mood to walk any further. Champagne is heavy. It was a cold cold night. My sleeping bag was only rated for 30 degrees, which was not enough...even with my liner, all my clothes, and snuggled into a garbage bag. Swiss Army thought it got down to 25 degrees, but I am pretty sure it was colder. I tossed my sleeping bag on top of my tent the next morning while I was packing to air it out. Because I had slept in the bag inside a trash bag, it was pretty wet from condensation. On top of my tent, it froze pretty crispy in about four minutes. Crazy cold.

The next day was unbelievably beautiful. Really, the PCT doesn't let up until you hit the border, it is rugged and steep and breath-taking all the way. We had a snow ball fight just before Woody Pass (there was a 6" blanket of snow in that area). We camped at Castle Pass (3 miles south of the border) with the same group from the night before plus Caveman, who had promised to finish with us. We split a bottle of champagne around the fire that night (we figured that two bottles at the border would leave us too drunk to walk the eight miles from the border to highway 3) and reminisced. 

Fortunately that last night was a little warmer. Why was it warmer? Oh, because there were clouds. And it snowed. It was only a dusting, but it accumulated on my tent and was enough to cause wet feet.

Weebee, Caveman, and I hiked together the last three miles. I knew that there were two switchbacks immediately preceding the monument, so I was just waiting for that first hairpin turn. We made the turn and glanced up at the hill. I noticed a narrow clearcut on the opposite hill. The border. We let out a "whoop!" and jogged the rest of the way to the monument, screaming the whole way.

We hung around, took tons of pictures, ate our remaining food, and drank the champagne. I can't explain how surreal it felt. Five months of hiking culminated in this one moment. I still haven't fully processed what I have accomplished. I'll try to put a post up with some deep thoughts soon. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of Northern Oregon and Washington

No, I am not at Disneyland, but rather I am in Stehekin, my favorite place in the world!

Holy cow is Washington ever beautiful. If I loved the state before (and I did), I adore it now. My opinion has been in no way affected by the abundance of blueberries. In no way affected. There has been a fair bit of rain, but luckily there has been at least a short bit of dryness each day so that I can dry out my tent and gear. I also have been fortunate enough to be inside hotel rooms during the last two big thunderstorms (thanks Mom and Dad!). In fact, during the last one, we were at the Cascadia Hotel in Skykomish, a place I HIGHLY recommend. We snuck next door to the Whistling Post tavern to watch the Seahawks-49ers game. Go Hawks! I also highly recommend this bar. Although its tap list was limited, it had great atmosphere and just felt like a place I’d like to hang out.

The section between Snoqualmie Pass and Stevens Pass was magnificent and filled with blueberries :) However, boy oh boy was there a lot of elevation loss and gain. We would climb 2500-3000 feet only to descend the same mere miles later. Then rinse and repeat. It sure was beautiful though. There was a lot of ridge walking (my favorite) and views of big ol’ craggy peaks. Also my favorite :) The section finished with a climb up Mill Valley and then a descent through Stevens Pass ski hill. It sure was a different experience seeing it full of berries and mushrooms instead of skiers and snow! At the parking lot, someone had left a cooler of fruit, soda, and beer for thru-hikers. It was a momentous occasion then, during which I drank my first Rainier beer since leaving this fair state in April.

If the last section was steep, this section (Stevens to Stehekin) was deep. I say deep referring to the remoteness, not the deepness of the valleys. We started in the mist and fog into the Henry Jackson (?) Wilderness. Unfortunately we saw very little because we were walking in clouds, but what did peek through were serene alpine meadows at the foot of huge granite faces and enormous rock falls. We were pretty socked in for the next two days, with two hundred feet of visibility at the best of times. It was alternately foggy, windy, rainy, and snowy, and sometimes all at once! But, you know, I’ve heard that the weather is rarely good in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. On the third night, we reached our goal, next to Glacier Creek. At this point, the clouds had lifted a bit and we could see the bottom bits of several HUGE glaciers above us. The next morning I woke to clear blue skies and frost on my tent. As I climbed out of camp, I realized that we had been camped right under Glacier Peak. No big deal. Just an ENORMOUS MOUNTAIN RIGHT ABOVE US. The rest of the day was characterized by close up views of Glacier Peak and far off views of Mount Baker and other crags to the north and east.

During this whole last section, all I could think about was Stehekin, and more specifically the Stehekin Pastry Co. 95 miles away. 75 miles away. On the last morning, I awoke just 12 miles from High Bridge, where the park bus will pick you up and bring you to “town.” I basically ran the 12 miles hoping to catch an early bus. I haven’t walked that fast since I was racing to meet Bill in Ashland. I got to High Bridge at 11:00, less than four hours after I started. Holy cow, I impressed myself. Unfortunately my memory of the bus schedule was a little fuzzy, I thought that a bus left the Landing at 11:00 and arrived at High Bridge at 11:45. Not true. The bus didn’t show up until 12:15. Gave me time to dry my tent I suppose.

Now I sit in the bakery, one of my favorite places in the world, surrounded by my parents, grandparents, friends from Stehekin, and as much food as I can eat. I am in heaven and must leave you to finish gorging myself  on baked goods and fresh produce.

This is Carrie's (Siesta's) mom.  She asked me to update her blog.

Oregon Part 2 will follow this post. My lovely mother will guest post it.

So. To leave Oregon, I had to cross the Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia river. I giddily walked across the 1,856 feet of open steel grating. See, the Beidge of the Gods, to me at least, is probably the second most important milestone on the PCT (Kennedy Meadows South, the gateway to the Sierra being first). It signifies all the hard work I've put in over the last four months. The California-Oregon border was certainly a big deal and certainly signified a hue milestone, but it was just a sign in the forest. There is something magnificent about crossing the Columbia river into my home state.

Literally as soon as I stepped off the bridge and onto Washington soil, the sky that had been blue in Oregon, opened up and began to dump buckets and buckets of rain. I threw on my new raincoat and pack cover, thankful that I had finally seam sealed my tent (after 2150 miles on the trail and after carrying the seam sealer since South Lake Tahoe, mile 1094).

About half an hour later, I stopped to take off the raincoat, not because it had stopped raining, Because it hasn't, but because it was so warm and I was getting swampy in the raincoat.

WeeBee caught up with me and I shouted to the heavens, shaking my fist: I have been gone for four months an THIS is how you welcome me home?!! The heavens responded with a peak of thunder. Awesome. And so began the final leg of the journey.

I had a great time in Oregon. After spending the better part of three and a half months in California, it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. 

I entered Oregon with Feather and Shorts. The border was mile 28 of a 31 mile day. I was racing to meet Bill in Ashland. I was surprised at how easily I walked the 31 miles. I was, however, dismayed at my hunger and the lack of skin on the bottom of my toes the next day. Nothing a 24" pizza and some Neosporin couldn't fix!

Bill and I set out the next day for the longest romantic walk in the woods ever. Well maybe not the longest...but 105 miles is pretty long for anyone not thinking in thru hiker terms. We had a great week (read bills account in the last post). Well I had a great week. I think Bill had fun...?

We met my parents, brother, and his fiancé at Crater Lake. They had rented several motel rooms in the nearby town of Prospect. I knew that the rooms slept eight total and so partly to help entertain my family and partly because I didn't want my friends to camp in the rain, I invited them to join us. 

Now see, town was something like 30 miles away. This didn't concern me because my brother drives a Crown Victoria. You know, like a police car. It is an enormous car, although apparently it is larger in my mind than in real life. In my head, I thought that we could fit eight people onto the two bench seats no problem. In the end, we had to completely rearrange the trunk. In the backseat, I sat on Bill's lap, mom sat on dad's lap while WeeBee was squished in the center under a grocery bag of snack food. Fun Size, my brother, and his fiancé filled up the front seat. Loaded thus, the Vic was quite the low rider. A stinky low rider as four of the eight of us hasn't showered for at least five days. Yum. 

I had a great time with the family. We are spectacular food and paraded as normal tourists in denim shorts at the crater's rim. It was tough saying goodbye, but WeeBee and I has to make miles, so off we went. 

We sped through the rest of southern Oregon and into the Sisters Wilderness. Let me tell you, if you ever have the chance, definitely go explore that area, it was so beautiful.  One day, WeeBee, Goodall, and I were hiking along as we do, several hundred meters between us, when I ran into a couple heading in the opposite direction. I spoke with them briefly in order to ascertain whether there was a Trader Joe's in Bend. They confirmed this and then we parted ways. Two hours later, when we all met up for siesta, WeeBee excitedly told me that the couple, Mark and Chris, had offered to let us stay with them when we got to Bend! 

WeeBee, Goodall, Bagels, and I ended up staying with Mark and Chris for two nights. They were hands down, my second favorite trail angels (sorry! First place goes to my "California parents" Kermit and J-Bug). They fed us exquisite food, have us comfy beds to sleep in, helped us run errands, and let us play with their friendly pets. We entered their house already as friends and left as family. If you are reading this, Mark and Chris, please know that I cannot thank you enough! This break revitalized me and helped me continue through Oregon. 

Stay tuned for our adventures on Mount Hood and in Northern Oregon!

Captain’s Log: Star Date 8/11/13.

To begin, I am not Carrie.  I will never be Carrie.  Carrie will probably proofread this before she lets me post it, so I half expect this paragraph to be gone by this time tomorrow.  I had the honor and the privilege of hiking this past week with Carrie Rose Agnes Eidsness, formally known as Siesta.

Our itinerary for the trip was to begin in Ashland, OR on August 4th, and end the trip in Crater Lake in August 10th.  This meant we were traveling 104 miles of PCT over 6.75 days for an average of 16 miles per day.  Now, as many of you know, Carrie often refers to her 24 to 27 mile days.  Now, when you’re hearing these sorts of numbers being casually thrown around, it kind of skews your perception of distance.  That being said, when Carrie informed me we were doing 16 mile days, I was stoked.  “Heck,” I said to myself, “16 mile days are for scrubs.  I am going to crush through these days and show Carrie what a real hiker looks like.”

The first night was bad.  We started the day at 11:00 a.m. after waiting 45 minutes for a motorist to take pity on us.  Apparently, having non-cute boys with beards with you isn’t that best way to get a ride.  For those of you that aren’t aware, Southern Oregon isn’t the coolest place during the mid day and August 4th wasn’t an exception from this rule.  The first ten miles were a blast.  Carrie and I had tons to catch up on and chatted up a storm while climbing a mountain.  Side note: The South Cascades tend to skew your perspective of what a mountain is as well.  What normal people call mountains are apparently “flatlands” to PCT hikers.   At about mile 12 I was starting to feel it.  I should probably mention that I had done a poor job conditioning my feet prior to starting the trip.  While I had been biking daily, it hardly builds foot calluses and my soles felt more like velvet than leather.  We had taken a break on the side of the path when another through hiker passed by.  Carrie informed him of our game plan and he commented on the posh lifestyle that 16 mile days would afford.  I almost slapped him. By mile 16, I was miserable.  We had stopped once an hour for the past eight hours, effectively limiting us to a pace of about 2 miles an hour.  It was 7:15 p.m. and Carrie mentioned that I was stumbling back and forth across the trail.  In turn, I informed her that we had to either find a campsite in the next 5 minutes or I was going to break down in tears.  We ended up in the middle of some wonky, incredibly lumpy, wasp infested field.  I managed to choke down some dehydrated soup with 86% of my daily sodium intake before collapsing in the tent. Through a haze of pain, I performed surgery on my feet, draining the liquid from the 4 blisters I had accumulated throughout the day. I’m not sure I was even inside my sleeping bag.

Day 0000002 of the exodus from Ashland:  I don’t remember half of this day… I remember waking up at 6:15 a.m. and forcing Carrie to pack up the tent before eating a Poptart.  She looked angry. [Editor’s note: I was angry, but only because he didn’t let me eat my poptart in my sleeping bag, as I do every morning].  I choked down some apple cinnamon oatmeal and looked to the trail.  It was pure hell in the most basic sense of the word.  My body, in an effort to figure out what I was doing, had sent all the blood down to my feet, making them, and the blisters, swell in size.  Once I had squeezed these elephant feet into my shoes, I took off at a tiptoeing run down the trail in an effort to put as little weight on my heels as possible.  This became a ritual for me every morning, after every break, and basically any time we even considered stopping.  The rest of the day was a blur of pain and regret.  That evening, we stopped after Grizzly Creek and I drained a blood blister that had merged with a wart between my toes.  It was cute.  Once again, I feel asleep somewhere in the tent.  Additional details are unclear.

On day three Carrie woke up with a sore throat.  We decided this was from the massive smoke clouds that had been chilling over the trail since Ashland or earlier.   It was kind of like hanging out in a club with a smoke machine and as a bonus, you were also getting emphysema.   We hiked our traditional 16 miles and ended up at the edge of the “Lava” fields at about 7:00 p.m.  I was feeling feisty after drinking two liters of Gatorade, and after dinner I challenged Carrie to walk another thirty minutes.  Two steps into this challenge, I knew I had made a terrible decision.  The “Lava” fields had a trail paved with small pebbles on which we walked.  These “small” pebbles were the size of golf balls minus the smooth exterior.  With every step, a pebble would poke through the shoe into my blisters just to say, “Hello!  I see you’re still sore!” Unfortunately, I had challenged Carrie, so on we went.  As the time went by it soon became clear that lava fields were not the best spots for camping.  On either side of us, mountains on mountains of rocks ranging from baseball to SUV size were stacked on one another with small breaks for trees with rocks at their base.  At 8:30 p.m. I was ready to cry but was too exhausted to even make the effort.  We had one liter of water between us and were 5 miles from the next water supply.  Fortunately, Eagle Eyes Carrie spotted a campsite in a small gap in the trees and we were able to set up the tent moments before the blood red sun vanished behind the smoky mountains.  That night, I woke up at 12:30 a.m. with 3 ants crawling up my leg, one on my stomach, and a raging dry throat.  I downed half a liter of water and performed a partial xenocide before the fireworks started. The first bolt of lightning hit at 1:00 a.m. and Carrie was up in a flash.  We spent the next hour watching an impressive display only marred by the fact that the surrounding landscape was dry as dust and ready to go up like a stack of hay.  By 2:30 a.m. it had finally died down and we managed to fall asleep for the remaining four hours of the night. 

On day four, with our remaining half liter of water, we completed the final five miles into Fish Lake.  There, we enjoyed a breakfast of steak & eggs and pancakes accompanied by the traditional 8:00 a.m. milkshake.  After downing four liters of water my throat still hurt and I had a runny nose leading me to an unfortunate conclusion: Carrie and I both had colds. Hiking through a creepy forest afterwards, we met Stumbling Beef and Swiss Army, respectively the funniest and most caring hikers I met on the trail.  Again, this day faded away into a pained march, ending at 7:30 p.m. at Christi’s Spring.  Swiss Army took off into the night but not before enquiring about my blisters and offering his condolences.  We fell asleep to the sound of mosquitoes bombarding the rainfly, like the sounds of the forest cd.

Day five we played leapfrog with Swiss Army all day.  We ended camping at a couple of streams at the beginning of a 20.8 mile dry stretch before Crater Lake.  The trail before the campsite was filled with thousands of tiny, tiny toads, about the size of quarters.  We tiptoed into the campground, for reasons other than the blisters this time.  At 10:30 p.m. Swiss Army hiked back past us looking for his spot.  Apparently he had lost it in the last 21 miles and was looking for it.  I didn’t have high hopes for success.

This blog post is going downhill.  I am losing steam as the hour grows late and my time with Carrie is growing short so I will wrap this up with much fewer words than it deserves.  In retrospect, I have forgotten many critical events in several of the past days, but when the journey is this packed with fun, everything can’t be included.

On day six, we completed the trek with a 22 mile day.  I was exhausted and when we hit the town, the first order of business was to get myself a family sized pizza at the local restaurant.  Carrie, Swiss Army, and I also bought milkshakes, endless soda and just about depleted the restaurant of side dishes.  A fellow hiker named Wight shared his campsite with us and we ended the evening roasting marshmallows by a roaring fire while the car campers next door brought us a plate of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes.

All in all, this trip was eye opening for me.  In many ways, it really illuminates for me how often our perception is skewed, both by what we are doing and what others are doing around us.  This trip with Carrie gave me a real opportunity to experience what she experienced.  Throughout the trail, Carrie’s hiking buddies have praised me as a tough guy who did a great job hiking these 104 miles.  I’m not a great guy.  I’m just a guy who moaned and griped his way through 104 miles while hiking 16 miles a day.  That’s not impressive.  What’s impressive is that these PCT hikers do more than what I did day after day after day.  Not only that, they are able to wake up every morning and say, “Yes!  I AM looking forward to xxx hundred more miles of this!” I don’t have that kind of mindset and am thrilled that I know someone who does.  Carrie’s strength and commitment have been astounding to me in this hike, more so when I found out what she was going through every day.  I admire her, and I admire everyone who even attempts the PCT.

As a couple of last notes: PCT folks are fantastic.  The amount of support I received from Swiss Army was incredible.  The man knew me for a combined total of three hours over 4 days but made me feel like I was not only a hero, but an important member of the trail community.  Carrie’s friends WeeBee and Funsize are awesome individuals who provide great support and friendship to Carrie throughout her journey.   Finally, if you are intimidated by an adventure of this proportion, don’t be.  WeeBee said it best, “Thru hikers aren’t amazing people.  We are just people that put one foot in front of the next for five months.” Sectional hikers, people that hike only part of the PCT at a time, are amazing too.  These people experience the same great landscape, the same awesome towns, the same incredible stories that PCT hikers do.  They just smell better in the process.  So if I can leave you with one message in all my ramblings, go out and hike.  Even if you moan the entire time, you are on your way to becoming an incredible person.

-Bill

Sorry in advance for this inevitably disjointed post. I am exhausted...and writing it during the commercial breaks during Julia Roberts' Sleeping with the Enemy, and oh Jesus. Her hair.

This was a "short" section, just 100 miles. We started at the Castle Craggs State Park. It was beautiful if buggy. We climbed out of the park and headed south for a few days. As we were mostly ridge walking we had some incredible views, that is until the smoke moved in. Don't worry though, the fires are allegedly in Oregon and not on the trail.

WeeBee's parents were doing trail magic at highway 3 and at the trailhead here in Etna. Their 1978 VW bus is one of my favorite sights on the trail.

Oh Lawd. The movie just ended. Have you seen Slwwping with the Enemy?!! What do you think happens when the cops get there?!!

Okay. Back to the trail. The trail felt very full during this section. At one point there were twelve (yes TWELVE!) hikers at a spring!!! I am not sure if this is because the "herd" has caught up, because this was the first water source in 14 miles, or because we all left town at about the same time, but there certainly were a lot of us.

I had some foot pain on the last two days of this stretch, but nothing compared to how they felt on Hat Creek Rim. It sounds like a lot of folks has feet troubles in that heat though, so that makes me feel a little better.

Today's zero was a great zero, charging me up for the trail. I am getting close close close to Oregon and Ashland! Can't wait!!!

Socks are very important to me. After three months on the trail, I consider myself a bit of an expert.

Ladies synthetic dress socks: Yogi recommended wearing two of these as they are cheap and I am not sue why else. I hated them. They don't wick sweat away, they become saturated in dirt very quickly, wear put pretty fast, and gave me big old blisters. Bottom line: don't do it!

Wright socks: I had worn these in the past and a fellow hiker recommends them. These are thin double layered cotton socks. They felt good on my feet but they wore out pretty quickly (rotating two pair, they wore out in about 100 miles). Bottom line: At $6-10 a pair, they are not for a thru hike

Smart wool PhD light mini: these socks were recommended by a woman in the REI near Agua Dulce. At first I thought they were too think on the sole, but I've grown used to them and really enjoy them. After over 1000 miles (I have had them that long and probably worn them 300 miles or so), they finally sprouted small holes on both heels. Bottom line: at $14 a pair (they were on sale) they are really fantastic socks.

Girls Wigwam lightweight: I bought these because they were on sale for $6 instead of $10. I had them for about 400 miles before I regrettably lost one :( I loved them, they had shown very little wear. The only downside was that they Are very low and let dirt into my shows. Bottom line: if you have smallish feet (I wear a 7 when I am not hiking) kids socks may be the way to go!

Keen Olympus lightweight: I am testing Keen's new line of super durable socks this summer. Unfortunately the lightweight version is not durable at all. The socks sprouted holes after less than 75 miles of wear. Bottom line: nope. Not worth it.

Keen's Olympus mid weight: these are much better than the lightweight version. I have worn then for over 300 miles with no problems. Bottom line: I don't know what they would cost retail but I like this weight sock.

Darn Tough midweight: I picked these up in Tahoe at WeeBee's recommendation. These are guaranteed for life (as are the Keen's). So far I love them and while they show a little wear, they show no signs of holes! Bottom line: at $17 a pair, they are pricey but guaranteed for life! Do it!