The Butch Is Back!

Bahia Kino, Mexico

We just returned from a very relaxing five days in Bahia Kino (Kino Bay), Mexico. Kino is a sleepy fishing village about a six hour drive south of Tucson.  The weather was beautiful for snorkelling, kayaking, and watching the seabirds with a cold Tecate in hand!

PCT 2008 photos online... finally!

Thanks for being patient.   There are two slideshows of 150 pics each - each takes about ten minutes to watch.  Get comfy, sit back, and enjoy!

If you have a Flickr/Yahoo account, please use the following links:

People photos here.

Nature and Wildlife photos here.

If not, visit our website here and follow the link to the slideshow.

Fin

What a daunting task we face trying to summarize the end of a magnificent journey. Our path has brought us over 112 days (95 of which we spent hiking, averaging 16.6 miles a day). We hiked through numerous life zones, broiling heat, thunderstorms, fires and many picture perfect days. We basked in the simplicity that only life on the trail can offer - rising with the sun and finding ourselves in rhythm with the natural. We struggled through aches and pains, smoke-filled skies and kamikaze mosquitos. We made some fantastic new friends and were reminded of the generosity and kindness of people who helped us along the way. Now our difficulty lies in our transition back to the "civilized" world. We meet this task with excitement while simultaneously planning for our next adventure!

Thanks for following along on our journey. We hope you have caught a glimpse of why we have a passion for long- distance backpacking. Check back in the coming weeks for a link to the finished slide show.

Oregon - short but sweet!

The Pacific Crest Trail through Oregon is less than 1/3 the length of the trail in California and yet our experiences through this state have been as varied and exciting as it's much longer neighbor to the south. In less than a month we hiked by Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. We traversed lava fields and around volcanoes in the southern reaches of the Cascade Range. We were overwhelmed by the lush silence and majesty of old growth forests. We navigated snowfields and abundant huckleberry bushes. We witnessed thunderstorms and the resulting fires from lightning strikes. We culminated our hike at the glorious Mt. Hood and Timberline Lodge where we celebrated the wedding of our friends Bryan and Kim. Wow! Thank you Oregon.

One week to go!

Sorry - no photos this time. We finally found a library that gives a one-hour time limit and I can't upload pics (sigh).

We are in Sisters, Oregon. We have been walking through amazing country the last few weeks. Most of the PCT through Oregon is located in federally-designated wilderness or National Parks. We hiked around the rim of Crater Lake and the forests and lakes of the Sky Lakes, Three Sisters, and Mt. Washington wilderness areas. All magnificent! Our only complaint is the mosquitos (and the fact that our tent zipper broke about two weeks ago!). We are taking our last full rest day here before hiking the last 100 miles of the trek. We are both excited to do anything other than walking but sad to be returning to the world of car alarms, cell phones, bills and, well, not wilderness.

We will send out a few more post-hike wrap-up blogs from Portland. Hope all is well!

Oregon baby!

Wow, California is one long state.... even with the fire and festival detours! Our friend Griz helped us out again by gettings us around the fire north of Etna, but not before stopping by the Etna brewery. We've decided to say we are doing a "Brew-Hike" instead of a Thru-Hike as we are drinkers with a hiking problem!

The air already seems a lot clearer here in Oregon. We've been hiking through smoke for close to a month now. Mt. Shasta has only been visible two days out of the three weeks that it typically could have been seen from the trail (see above photo). We are excited to be with our friends Michelle and Kevin at their lovely home in Medford. We will stay here for a couple of days before we head out to hike the state of Oregon. We will finish our hike at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood for the wedding of our hiking friends Yum and Pep near the end of August. We've enjoyed gorgeous wildflower displays in this last section and have been delayed by wild blackberries and raspberries along the trail.

There is a chance that this will be our last post until we finish our hike. Our resupply towns through Oregon are just small outposts with little likelihood of internet services. We'll update as soon as we can.