Tag Archives: PCT

People of the PCT: Honeybun [in section I]

On day four of my section hike from Tuolumne Meadows to South Lake Tahoe, I was taking a break and swatting flies in spectacular but hot Jack Main Canyon, about forty miles from town, when a fellow in a straw hat with an enormous staff dashed by, flashing me a smile. I caught up toContinue reading “People of the PCT: Honeybun [in section I]”

PCT Section I: From Tuolumne Meadows to Sonora Pass (mile 960-972)

In the last couple of weeks had the opportunity and the great joy to complete two more sections of the PCT, from Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite NP to the south Lake Tahoe area. Almost exactly 150 miles. In writing up this I’m going to try and follow the advice of a friend who saw aContinue reading “PCT Section I: From Tuolumne Meadows to Sonora Pass (mile 960-972)”

Secrets of the PCT: Pinyon Point

This doesn't look like much, does it?

Trailnearpinyonpoint

This is a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, section F, heading north through the Mojave Desert.

Let me say I grew up far away from the desert and never thought I liked its lack of trees and aridity, but well, maybe I should have known better. Should have listened to my elders. For example:

Plazaatpinyonpoint

This is a sort of plaza, at about six thousand feet, overlooking the vastest desert in Southern California. This area, which I'm calling Pinyon Point,has numerous sites in which to roll out a pad in beauty and serenity (and perhaps wind, for at its height, it does experience weather — that's why, I think, the pinyon pines grow so well there).

Yet it's all but unused. I made a fire there a year and a half ago, after a snowfall, and near as I can tell, the campfire hasn't been used since. I confess I kind of like it that way, so I'm not going to reveal the exact location, although readers who would like to know can write me, and I'll probably tell.

I was rolling up my tent this past Sunday, and heard a pair of PCT walkers stop and chat on the other side of a rock, not fifty feet away, and yet completely oblivious of my presence.

Let me show you a little more —

A weekend on the PCT with pinyons and snow: 2015

Having just fallen in love, so to speak, with the pinyon pine, I'm distressed to learn that the species may fall prey to "forest mortality" in the Southwest (as discussed a few weeks back here).

What can be done — if anything? Are these forests doomed, or — ?

With my young nephew Eli Huscher went back to the Walker Pass area of the PCT this past week to explore this question. I'm not a scientist and have no answers as of yet, but I think it's an important question. 

I'll begin with a picture of the tree that inspired this new-found devotion. (The pinyon's not the most spectacular of trees — but in the harsh desert landscape of the Mojave, it's a hero.)

Pinyonpine

Okay, the rest of the pics I'll put below the fold — please enjoy!

Joys and sorrows of section e of the PCT: November 2014

Every section of the Pacific Crest Trail has its joys and sorrows, its highpoints and its lowpoints, but section e, jeez. Not a lot of highlights, unless you count the industrial: Which I don't. Or unless you count camping by the Los Angeles Aqueduct, built back in the l920's by the famous/infamous William Mulholland/Noah Cross. Continue reading “Joys and sorrows of section e of the PCT: November 2014”

Why are Americans so extreme?

Heather Havrilesky wants to know what it is about extreme fitness that fascinates Americans: A blond woman in a hot pink spandex tank hoists a sledgehammer over her shoulders, then slams it down with a dull thud onto the big tire in front of her. Beside her, another woman swings her sledgehammer even higher, grimacingContinue reading “Why are Americans so extreme?”