Home Stretch!

Vince made it to Stehekin yesterday - a little town that has only one public (satellite) phone and no cell phone service. Cool idea... at least for a vacation. Anyway, he's in the "home stretch" of sorts, but I guess there are good chances for snow the next several days. So, here's to hoping that won't hamper him. He's hiking with a few others - Miles "O'Dark" who I met around Lake Tahoe and a girl (tail)named "Monologue" - so that's good. :)

Anyway, last town before he gets to the border (woo hoo!). It's been a pleasure managing Vince's blog. Be sure to check back for more pictures and more posts on here to come though! Thanks for reading!

Pictures from Oregon are Up

I just uploaded approx 160 of the 500+ photos from Oregon. Here are a few of 'em - visit the Photobucket site for more. Enjoy!

Monica


Brothers

Crater Lake

Almost There!

So I'm half way through Washington now, and only have ~250 miles to go! Washington has been really fun so far - huckleberries are out in full force, so I've spent a lot of time trying to make up for my lack of fresh fruit. Compared to Oregon, Washington has a lot of elevation change, and is relatively slow going. As a headlight is needed by 8 pm at the latest, I've started getting up at 5 am so I have enough time to put in 25 miles by the end of the day. Makes for some really chilly mornings, but the sunrise definitely makes it very worthwhile, and the early morning is such a great time to hike. So far I've had pretty good luck with weather, with only 2 unpleasant days so far. I unfortunately had to hike over "the knife's edge" in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, known as one of the sketchiest sections of the PCT, in a complete whiteout with high winds, which was pretty scary. 15 feet visibility at best. For you Bozmanites, very similar to the Bridger Ridge, but much more narrow and exposed. Today I woke up to rain and had to hike all day in the freezing cold wind. Luckily I ended up at Snoqualmie Pass, and I took advantage of my last opportunity for a hotel. Definitely nice to dry out, and they're calling for sun all week, so I'm excited to head back out. One thing that has really motivated to hike through unpleasant weather is that I see so many locals out hiking at the same time. All seem to make the comment that the bad weather is well worth the amazing scenery. I definitely agree! Coming up is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, which sounds like heaven to me . . .

Movin' on Up

Vince called from White Pass, WA today. "Only" about 350 more miles left - YAY! He's been doing about 25 mi/day in the Cascades. He said he's had an exciting time the past week -- lots of steep elevation changes have left him worn out... which says a lot for someone who has been hiking almost every day of the past 4 months... And yesterday he hiked through a foggy "white-out" of sorts on a sketchy part of the trail - pretty steep. He also had a run-in with a bee's nest which left him with a couple stings and a lot of nervousness (very luckily no allergic reaction though!). But alas, he got into White Pass today and had a good meal of greasy food and got his resupply boxes, which he had needed as he was out of food by this point.

I also received more pictures from him, which I will post to the Photobucket page in the near future... there are a lot to sift through there, as it's all of Oregon, so it might take me a bit. But for now, thanks for reading and have a great day!

Vince's progress map (click to enlarge) :

One More State!

At the Washington border! Crazy to think that I only have a little over 500 miles to go. Oregon was a really fun state to hike through. It was unbelievably hot for the first week, with temps over 100 degrees. But it soon cooled down, and the terrain was really mellow (smooth trail, no rocks), so very fun to hike. My bother Daniel and his buddy Adam came out and hiked with me for 5 days near Bend. Despite bad blisters, they both seemed to have a great time overall. The scenery was spectacular, and evidence of volcanic activity was everywhere. We even got to hike through some massive lava fields, which made for one of my favorite days of my hike thus far.

Compared to the rest of the trail, Oregon is very flat, so I was able to put in some big mileage days. Twice I hiked nearly 200 miles in about 6 days. There's one section of trail that is one of the flattest of the whole PCT, and where many hikers try to put in their longest day of hiking. I decided to try for 40 miles! I started hiking at 5 am (after hiking 25 miles the previous day), and put in 20 miles by noon. After an hour and a half lunch break, I was able to reach 30 miles by 4 pm, and actually made it to 40 miles just after 8 pm. Other than my lunch break, I only took four 15-minute breaks throughout the day. As expected, I was absolutely exhausted, and incredibly hungry. All I needed was a place to camp. Easier said than done! The vegetation is so dense in Oregon, and the terrain somewhat hilly, so it can be really hard to find places to camp. I have no problem whatsoever cowboy camping on the trail (sleeping under the stars, no tent), but they were calling for rain, so I needed to find a spot where I could set up my tent. I had to hike 8 more miles to find a spot, and didn't get to camp until 11:00, and still hadn't cooked dinner. So I ended up hiking 48 miles in 18 hours, breaks included! I seriously considered hiking 2 more miles so I would hit 50 miles for the day, but I was worried about finding a camp spot soon after. I'm glad I stopped, as I found the following day that there wasn't a spot for another 5 miles beyond the 50-mile mark. 48 is good enough for me! The following day I didn't leave camp until noon, and ended up hiking only 9 miles that day. While certainly sore, I felt good, and didn't even get any blisters from my long day.

For the last 50 miles I got to hike through areas of what I expected Oregon to be like: dense, lush forests, moss-covered trees, and tons of waterfalls (the earlier sections of Oregon were much drier). Yesterday I hiked along Eagle Creek, which made for another of my favorite days of the trip. Tons of waterfalls! I even got to hike through Tunnel Falls, where you actually get to hike behind a huge waterfall! However, it rained non-stop for the last 2 days. Incredibly, this was the first time that I hiked through rain all day long. I actually enjoyed hiking through the rain, as it just added on to the excitement of hiking through such lush scenery. But, all my stuff got soaked while setting up camp, and I woke up soaking wet from the condensation inside my tent. Luckily I didn't have to camp again last night as I made it into the town of Cascade Locks, on the Washington border. I can't imagine having to camp multiple days in the rain, especially with a soaking wet down sleeping bag. It's very likely it'll happen in Washington, but as my fried Brian said (who hiked the trail last summer), it'll just add on the experience of the PCT!