(Editor’s Note:  Kristin is able to send us her blog entries when she comes to a town with internet access.  As a result, the entries are published as they are received rather than on the day the events actually took place.)

When you live out in the wild you do not get to watch the evening news, go on the internet, or skim the newspaper. When you live in the wild you have no idea what is going on in the outside world. Your world is a quiet trail and a dream of the North. So, when I saw the haze by Carson Pass I assumed it was humidity but then the next day it was thicker and had an oppressive taste and smell. When I went into town to re-supply I heard about the fires- people were being evacuated from their homes and the air was thick with smoke. I soon found out that over 100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail had been closed from Quincy- LaPorte Road all the way to Chester. There is a bus that goes from Quincy to Chester. The two hour ride costs only $3.00. But what do you do when your goal is to walk from Mexico to Canada?

You watch the Bus drive away at 55MPH and you start road walking. The route was simple enough. Turn right on Quincy-LaPorte Road, left on RT 89, left on RT 36 and eventually you will be back on the PCT north of Chester, that is, of course, if you can manage to endure the smoke-filled air, 100 degree heat and dodge the speeding logging trucks. At first the shoulder was so wide it was like I had my own lane, but after Quincy as the road wound upwards the shoulder begin to shrink and soon I had little more than a few inches of white line to walk on. Some of the logging trucks were going back and forth between the fire and a lumber yard and passed me so many times, they started waving. There were trucks and buses of fire fighters going by too.

When I finally reached Chester I saw the fire camps. The towns High School and Junior Highs’ fields were packed with tents where the fire fighters slept. Signs lined the roads saying “Thank You” to the men and women who have come from all over the country to help put out the fires.

After having lived in the woods for two months, walking around so many cars was a little stressful and I was very relieved to get back to the real PCT. A few days later a moment I had been hoping for since the beginning of my trip occurred. I saw a bear. At first I thought it was a dog, but then it flew up a tree. When I took a step closer, it ran right back down the tree and off into the bushes. It was small but looked incredibly powerful.

Later that evening as I was trying to find a flat spot to camp I heard noises coming from the bushes, I turned the corner to see another furry brown behind- two Bears in one day- I could not believe it. I continued quietly surprised by the size of the animal towering over the bushes. Then I realized it was a cow.

by Deidre O.

“Is that the summit,” I asked my Aunt Flossie for maybe the fifth time so far on our quest to summit Mount Yale. My aunt just laughed, and I stared at her in bewilderment. We had been hiking for maybe only two hours and had not even come close to tree line yet; after a quick break we kept trucking.

Pretty soon, when I first saw the snow, I shrieked and my aunt took pictures of me in shorts standing in the snow. I was in Denver on vacation from Philadelphia and summiting Mount Yale would also be my very first real hike.

Hour four brought us to above treeline. Aunt Flossie waited patiently while we stood amongst Old Men on the Mountain and I snapped dozens of pictures. We soon arrived at The Switchbacks. The Switchbacks were not too hard but one misstep and a beginner like me would fall down a few feet of rock. But still we went on with many frequent electrolyte - fueled pit stops.

Finally we scaled or bouldered across twenty yards and before I knew it I even knew what was happening I was hungrily scarfing down my lunch and taking pictures of everything and anything. When I looked down and saw the rolling hills I only a few short hours ago believed to be the real summit I laughed at myself; they were sooo far down.

We had a few other hikers take our pictures and my trusty, lime green digital beeped three times and flashed a LOW BATTERY; I almost died!

Then we started our descent. I fell at least four times on my way down the switchbacks. One particular time I glided a few feet and exclaimed, ” My hands are all exfoliated now!”

In a camp I had learned to visualize. When I told my aunt I was visualizing she told me that visualizing where your foot would go would help me get down; I seemed to fall a LOT. I laughed and told her I was visualizing an ice cold Dr. Pepper and a bag of Sun Chips.

When it was all over and my visualization had become reality I realized that material things (no matter how cold that Dr. Pepper was) could not compare to rolling down the snow on the side of a mountain 13,000 feet up, or feeling the exhilaration of peering over the boulders on the edge of the summit (I thought the summit was a flat plateau - I WISH), or even sleeping in a tent besides people I love, knowing that the best therapy would be looking at the vast nature around me and realizing my materialistic problems are diminutive in comparison.

Congratulations, Deirdre!

If you’d like to win a WA tee, stop by and tell us your story!