Mile 2653, Day 157 Day 156 – Day 158 Granite Pass to THE TERMINUS!! back to Hart’s Pass (8/31– 9/2): I woke up on Granite Pass and had a beautiful sunrise, with my first rainbow on trail! After hiking a couple of miles I caught up to Carrots and Bugs, who were just leaving camp.…

While on trail, other thru hikers and I talked a lot about how people can really glamorize thru-hiking by making it look like one big lake-swimming-stellar-view-and-group-hangout party. Even my blog tends to focus on the biggest highs and the lowest lows, instead of the mundane everyday life of hiking. In reality, an average day can…

Mile 2599.8, Day 155 Day 141 – Day 145 White Pass to Snoqualamie (8/16– 8/20): I hiked this section with the same group: Flamingo, Classic, Omelette, and Canvas. On our second day out of town we had lunch at Dewey Lake. It was an amazing swim in the middle of a hot, sweaty, and exposed…

Mile 2295.9, Day 141 Day 126 – Day 130 Shelter Cove to Santiam Pass (Sisters/Bend) (8/1– 8/5): Due to the Windigo Fire, I skipped up from Ashland to Shelter Cove, and I will come back and do that section another time in my life. It’s sad to have to skip such a large chunk of…

Mile 1718.7, Day 125 Day 106 – Day 109 Chico/Halfway Point to Burney (7/12– 7/15): This was a very hard section for me, but not because the elevation was tough. It was the heat, sun exposure, and ashy burn zone that made it so difficult. Most of this section was burned by the Dixie Fire…

Mile 1267.5, Day 103 Day 85 – Day 89 Tuolumne Meadows to Sonora Pass (6/21– 6/25): Joe (Fiber King), Diana (Wildfoot), and I hiked out of Tuolumne Meadows into a beautiful Yosemite landscape: granite domes and walls, lush meadows, forests, and flowing rivers. Accidentally omitted from the last blog because my selective memory blocks out…

Mile 942.5, Day 84 Day 63 – Day 65 Kennedy Meadows to Cottonwood Pass (5/30– 6/1): Wildfoot (Diana), Fiber King (Joe), and I set out from Kennedy Meadows loaded down with bear canisters, but in high spirits to finally be in the Sierra. Kerrie’s plantar fasciitis was horribly bad for the last week, and was…

Trail Family Name: Las Tortugas 🐢 (formerly known as Joe and the ‘ginas) Hiking Together Since: Day 1 & 2 Hobbies: going to dive bars, getting to camp early, and having family dinners Indie 🤠 Likes: a good beer, touching all the plants on trail, and nerd candy Dislikes: rolling her ankle, when non-trail-family pitches…

Mile 704.6, Day 62 Day 53 – Day 57 Tehachapi to Walker Pass (5/20 – 5/24): We met the nicest trail angel in Tehachapi named Jason who let us stay in his house and meet his family, so we ended up having a lovely double zero! He had the cutest black kitten named Ollie and…

Mile 566.5, Day 51 Day 33-39 Cajon Pass to Six Flags (4/30 – 5/6): After a restless night of sleep at Cajon Pass (and one last McDonalds breakfast), we hit the trail again for a really hot, steep stretch to Wrightwood. We had to enact the midday siesta break again to avoid melting in the…

Mile 341.9, Day 32 Day 19-22 (4/16 – 4/19): With our new fanny packs fully stocked with a variety of snacks and sunscreen, we set off on a huge day to summit Mt. San Jacinto (10,834 feet). We had a long brutal descent through snow, made longer by our stubbornness that we didn’t need to…

Mile 179.4, Day 18 Day 8–11 (4/5 – 4/8): On Day 8 we had our first zero day in Julian! We got to do our town chores at a leisurely pace, jump in the pool, hang out at the local bar, and still be in bed by 10. Julian was such a hiker friendly town…