I’ve walked the Appalachian Trail twice, plus another 2,000 miles working as an Appalachian Trail Conservancy ridgerunner for seven seasons.. How did I start all this? By locating the nearest trailhead to my home and setting foot on the trail. That one hour greeting let me hear my call to the trail “If I just …
Category Archives: Hiking
Oregon Coast Trail: Port Orford
September 13, 2019 There are many aspects of this particular journey that are different than my other long walks – the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Benton MacKaye Trail, and others. One of those is what piques my interest today. Generally, I have walked each trail once, in a single direction. By contrast, we have …
Oregon Coast Trail: River Crossings
September 4-6, 2019 Three days, in which we walked into the night toward a lighthouse, stopped briefly at a County Park, camped near a river to cross at midnight, stopped briefly at a State Park, walked another six miles on beautiful beach and finally rested at a hotel in Port Orford. I’ll bundle these three …
Oregon Coast Trail: High Tide
September 1, 2019 Our hotel rest stop was a welcome break and a sort of new beginning for the rest of the trip. We took an entire day off at the Villa West Hotel, at the crossroads of US101 and 126 in Florence, Oregon. We stayed until checkout time at 11. John’s willingness to take …
Oregon Coast Trail: Amanda
August 28, 2019 Although I have been disappointed by the roadwalking along 101, my suffering pales to that of Amanda, the Yachats woman, and the thousands of others, who were cheated out of their homeland here, tortured, murdered, and forced to walk along the lava rock coast to an encampment. It would have taken great …
Oregon Coast Trail: Seal Rocks
August 27, 2019 This day had similarities to yesterday, with a few variations in the details of food and campsite services. We had beautiful beach walking, some awesome rocks, not so much roadwalking, and early evening arrival at South Beach State Park Hiker-Biker site. My notes for the day: 7:20 away from camp at South …
Oregon Coast Trail: Whale of a Day
August 25, 2019 On which we walked big miles, made a big leap in our thruhiking style, and saw some really big creatures! Adding a few more words or phrases to the words above, like in one of those grammar games, we walked something like sixteen miles, starting our day at 5 a.m. at Devil’s …
Oregon Coast Trail: Stamina
August 24, 2019 I awoke with gratitude for being in the quiet green spaciousness of the Cascade Head rainforest. Our choice to stop our forced march to the Sea Echo Motel in Lincoln City and sleep in this forest was a good one! This is what we needed! The stop also broke up our road …
Oregon Coast Trail: Roadwalking
August 22/23, 2019 “I’m going to call this Horrible Hill!” says John as we pace up the hill on the shoulder of US101. He must not be using Regina’s Meet the Mountains Technique, I thought. It wasn’t the elevation change bothering him, though, it was the threat of zooming trucks veering over the white line …
Oregon Coast Trail: Rain Day
August 21, 2019 7:56 Zach drops us off by boat on the Netarts Spit. We walk the beach, wondering when the forecasted rain would start. It’s overcast and raining oh so slightly. As we walk, the only ones on the beach today, my mind wanders to the rhythm of my feet. This is our eighth …