Chasing Alpenglow

June 15-18; Mile 1277-1332 Day 5 The day started out with wide-open views and chilly morning air. But then it was a long slog dropping almost 5000’ down down down to Belden. Parts of the trail were overgrown, and with three miles still to go, the undergrowth started to include poison oak in the mix. I did my best to dodge the clusters of three, but as soon as I reached Belden I washed off my legs with soap and water in the restaurant bathroom. Tomorrow I’d face the same slope – but instead

June 12-14; Mile 1235-1277 Day 2 After spending the night in Reno, riding three buses to Quincy, catching a ride from two local trail angels (including turning back when the other hiker in the car forgot her shoes) – finally, finally I was back on the PCT just after 5pm. I was entering the Dixie burn scar, a section that had technically been open in 2022, but which I had skipped much of for several reasons. Based on the notes I had about different camping options away from dead trees –

April 19; Miles 47-59 Day 1 The sky was an azure blue streaked with thin, wispy clouds as I arrived at the viewpoint where I had hitched to Julian two years ago. I was wearing the exact same pair of shoes that had given me so much grief in the desert heat, perhaps as an emblem of my belief that the forces which had knocked me off trail in 2022 would not stop me this year. Or perhaps I wanted to give them a proper send-off after they’d served me well for hundreds of

Years passed. I had returned to a world where time moved in hazy stretches, while each day from the five months I’d spent on trail was seared into my brain. Life continued, and I was back on the “normal” path. I got married; we bought a house. Meanwhile my sleeping pad, lying unused in the closet, grew covered in mildew. A few weeks after I returned home from trail, I finally tallied up the miles I had hiked and the sections that I’d missed due to closures. 2182 miles hiked; over 500 PCT miles remaining.

September 9; Mile 2550-2554 + 13 After 158 days the trail, my plans, my hopes all went up in smoke. Today was the end of my hike, but I did not realize it yet. I woke up disoriented in full sunshine, almost two hours later than normal. I had spent all night breathing in the wretched air, and in the morning light I could see that instead of clearing, it had gotten worse. Having lost my N95 mask somewhere along the way, I pulled my buff up around my nose and tried to

September 6-8; Mile 2487-2550 Day 155 I woke to the smell of smoke. The weather forecast had granted a 2-day window of favorable winds to get past the two active wildfires, and I had squandered the first day by going less than 4 miles. I hiked down into the valley of smoke where the trail led past the first spot that I’d ever slept in my tent. Dov and I had hiked part of this section two years ago as a loop to Blue Lakes, and so I retraced our path that morning to

September 3-5; Mile 2465-2487 Day 152 Dov and I spent the day enjoying Leavenworth, a fake Bavarian town in the middle of Washington, as the air around us filled with haze from distant fires. My hopes from the night before – that the fires would burn out quickly, that I could wait them out and still reach the terminus, that I could even walk an alternate route to the Canadian border – had all evaporated in the morning light. The fire near the border had doubled in size overnight, the decision had been made

August 30 – September 2; Mile 2394-2465 Day 148 For almost five months I had been “walking home” toward Snoqualmie Pass and the interstate that led due west to Seattle; now as I stepped back onto trail, each step took me further away once again. Section J covered the part of the trail between Snoqualmie and Stevens Pass – at only 70ish miles, it was a popular backpacking trip for people wanting to complete an entire section of the PCT with minimal endpoint logistics. My friends and I had hiked this section southbound in

August 25-29; Mile 2295-2394 Day 143 I left White Pass early in the morning and walked back to the trail. My mind wandered back three years ago to a trip my friends and I had taken from this very trailhead north to Bear Gap and out at Crystal Mountain ski resort. It was the first backpacking trip that I’d done along the PCT, and I could still remember the awe I’d felt meeting thru-hikers who continued on toward Canada. The taste of the sun-ripened huckleberries above Chinook Pass, the mist rising above the lake