Some important terms to know for long distant trails: NOBO - Northbound (Mexico to Canada) SOBO - Southbound (Canada to Mexico) Yo-yo - Complete the trail one direction, turn around and hike it again the other way (yep, crazy right?) Flip Flop - completing the whole trail, but hopping around to different parts of the … Continue reading Mix in some SOBO
Our second hitch gave us a good tour of the town, as well as recommendation of where to stay. We settled into the Black Forest Lodge, complete with fireplace and more importantly, shower. It only took about three rounds of shower apiece to finally feel like we wouldn't get the white towels dirty while drying … Continue reading Soak in the Hot Springs
Wow, what a week of wind! We last left off with us leaving behind the idle lifestyle in Idyllwild. We were finally back on trail! Since we were practically restarting as far as conditioning and fitness, we took the shorter access trail to get back to the PCT, rather than the ridiculously steep and longer … Continue reading The Wind to Oz
It's amazing how you can spend months of planning and thousands of dollars on gear to have a good leg up on your upcoming thru-hike, only to have the whole event compromised by a $30 pair of insoles. Steve's foot perils all began when his standard insoles began to bunch up while hiking. No problem, … Continue reading The Soulless Insoles
Our Easter morning started out as any other day on trail. We'd camped at a lovely flat overlook of the Tule Creek Valley, large enough for our whole family and more. We only had 6 miles until the water cache, with another well maintained water cache 2 miles from there. So our 14 mile day … Continue reading Easter Magic
The fabeled Hiker Feed was indeed an event, but after meeting the trail angel host, Fruit Bowl, we learned the 18th annual dinner was beginning the following afternoon, well after the time we'd be passing the mile marker. Such is life. We had a lovely evening at mile 26 at Boulder Oak Campground for the … Continue reading Beautiful friends in beautiful places
First report to you live from the trail! Uncle Kevin & Humberto hosted us for 2 nights at their home in Escondido and saw us off at the Southern terminus at the Mexico border at Campo, CA. It was wonderful to have time to spend with them for the night before we started. Having family … Continue reading First Report from the PCT
Our visas were set to expire the next day, so we set our course for Laos. We knew we would receive a month-long visa upon arrival at the border. Though we hadn't planned to stay in Laos that long, it would give us plenty of time to work out our strategies for the duration of … Continue reading Our Crash Landing into Laos
With a week left of our Thailand visa, we continued north toward our planned border crossing, though still undecided of whether to go to Myanmar or Laos. Tom, Steve, & I caught the morning train to Chiang Mai, which turned out to be a small commuter train, with fairly limited seating considering we had another … Continue reading New Year in the North
Back to the train we went to continue our journey north. The next largest town along the train line was Phitsanoluk. We settled into our 3rd class seats, working to be in seats out of the sun, as any seasoned 3rd class traveler should strive for. An hour north, we passed through the monkey town … Continue reading New temple, New friend
SMOR Adventures 