#Pacific Coast Trail

[dontdenymeshakespeare]

Battleathon Week Two

Battleathon is a readathon created by Mel from Mel Lenore Reads and co-hosted by many others in the BookTube and Bookstagram community. This one is a bracket-style readathon, that relies on star ratings, and while it involves dragons and there’s a fantasy slant, you don’t have to read solely fantasy books for this readathon. I will be reading mostly fantasy, though, because I feel like I haven’t…

[placeswordsdreams]

Samuel Boardman Scenic Trail, Oregon coast

[jojo-oliver]

oceans and forests 🌲paintings i did

[codvc]

Echium Pininana (Blue Steeple) | Devil’s Slide Trail | 35mm

[mindtravelerrr]

[thorsenmark]

I’m Off to Explore Shasta-Trinity National Forest by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While hiking along the Heart Lake Trail From Castle Lake with a view looking to the west. This picturesque location is situated within the Shasta–Trinity National Forest, featuring Castle Lake and a backdrop of a distant ridge. I liked the layered look present in this image and used the nearby plant life and evergreen trees as foreground interest for a look beyond.

[drugstorewizard]

First gear spread and weigh in for PCT going southbound starting 24 of June 👹

Goal was to stay under 15lbs as a first long trail thru hiker and all this junk is at 11.5 minus the worn weight (trekking poles bc I use them a lot and spikes bc I’ll only be using short term and ditching at the post office)

[cedarboughs]

Hiking Journal: The West Coast Trail

Day VII: Last Steps

Darling River to Nanaimo

One last giant banana slug, the biggest and most beautiful and inspiring yet, greeted us in the breakfast table to bid us farewell to the West Coast Trail I suppose.

I had to rest in one of the hammocks made from washed-up fishing line. The craft these must have taken in the midst of a trek like this! And they are comfy and give the pirate vibes again.

We waded the Darling after walking briefly up its beach-to-forest canyon a couple hundred metres to see the falls.

Then two kilometres of Tideshelf Tango to Michigan Creek, the last campsite, named for an American wood steamer sank in the last years of the nineteenth century — to no loss of life, thanks to the rescue road built in the mourning for the Valencia.

It was misting out of a low sky and the tide was all the way out* so I walked far out the tideshelf into what the map coloured blue, where clams spread like clover.

Two kilometres past Michigan we visited the Pachena Point Lighthouse. This is the westernmost post on the whole Trail. Looking out to sea, it’s open water all the way to Japan.

A short and easy kilometre past there, I was beginning to tire a bit. We broke for lunch at a point overlooking two busy sea lion haulout rocks. The smell of the sea lions wafted by on occasion, but the symphony of barking and yapping from the territory-seeking older bulls and milk-seeking cubs kept up all through our time there. We ate wraps with envelope tuna and cheese that wasn’t quite so hard as when I packed it up.

Then, walking. Nine more long kilometres of inland trail, well maintained and easy to walk, but feeling endless. Final stretches either sap last bits of energy as you feel the cumulative weight of every step it took to get there; or else, there comes an infusion of energy from knowing the end is within reach. I felt both of these ways through those last nine kilometres, mostly depending on whether I was walking up or downhill. Along the way were carved stumps and, somehow, an abandoned motorcycle rusting right on the trail just out of the ferns.

This isn’t in my journal but I remember at one rest I made a point of pondering the tree across the trail. I got me thinking about cedars, which is a thing I do often. I traced with my eyes the striations of fluted bark falling vertically down the trunk like water over falls, then indeed tumbling over rock and soil and older wood just as water would. It’s no great revelation that the Great Bear Rainforest feels so remarkably alive from its abundance of life-giving water and how life piles upon and gives life to other life in all its layers. Coming from the dry prairie, that was the great novelty and reason I so loved the rainswept Pacific drainages. But looking at that plicata I thought, here is a tree that more than any other of its kin, whom I’d see as living extensions of the earth, here is elemental water given towering form. In Waterton I’d seen trees born of fire growing back in the valley, and trees of air wracked by high alpine winds. Every element grows life in time. That’s why a lawn of cut grass feels like such an abomination. How many flower blooms, clover spreads, or rippling waves of seedpods lay aborted in that featureless spread of dying yellow-green? How many tasty free-growing sources of dandelion greens and flowers and milk and coffee and wine? I don’t know how people can choose to live in suburbs among that. Even in a proper city there’s an organic life to the growth of towers like trees and an exploratory sense to the karsts of skyscrapers and an ecology to the succession of streets and neighbourhoods. It’s amazing what can grow when left to its own nature, beyond the human desire for control. It you let it alone, it will surely grow.

A few final tall ladders for good measure in the last kilometre looking over Pachena Bay. This was the harder of the two ways through the section we’d taken on day 0.9, but the tide was back up. Sorry Wallace, but the low tide is only a constant endpoint in a novel that ends there.**

Then we were done, and there was the car at the trailhead.

It was a long drive across the Island to Nanaimo, although really, to call the first mileage-marked seventy-five kilometres to Port Alberni “a long drive” of a couple of hours after taking the last full week to do that distance seems unfair. Past Alberni we finally did stop at Cathedral Grove to keep our legs from totally seizing up as we sat eating chips in the indulgent languor of off-Trail life. “The Big Tree” at Cathedral Grove, a six-metre-diameter Douglas fir, was indeed a bit bigger than all those cedars and spruce we walked among along the Trail, but it was strange walking along interpretive paths so flat and maintained.

On the way into Nanaimo we stopped for takeout pizza. I can talk about blackened fresh caught cod and rare freshwater crab but let’s be real here— that tandoori chicken pie eaten on a TravelLodge bed while waiting for the shower was the most satisfying meal I ate in B.C.

* Wallace, D. F. (1996). Infinite Jest. Little, Brown. Well, almost.

**Yes I know that you could have a whole argument about where or even whether Infinite Jest “ends.”

[doublescribble]

Damian Lillard and Jabari Smith Jr. 2022-23 NBA Regular Season

[a-daisy-in-the-dark]

8/31/24

[leeskic]

A few more from my rainy hike in the gorge yesterday 🌲💕

[ivankosovan]

One of my favorite moments from my 2 month roadtrip through Oregon and California. The moments I remember most have to be meeting random people along my journey. Getting to hear an individuals story of there passions and goals and why they are exploring is something I never get tired of. I think it all comes down to simplicity for most of us. To look back at memories and remember moments that mean something.

[wanderguidehub]

Big Sur Hiking Guide: Discover California's Most Popular Trails

Welcome to the Big Sur hiking guide, your gateway to exploring some of the most stunning trails California has to offer. Big Sur, with its dramatic coastline, rugged mountain trails, and mesmerizing vistas, is often deemed a hiker’s paradise. Whether you’re an experienced hiker looking for an adrenaline-fueled adventure or a beginner seeking leisurely strolls amidst nature, Big Sur has something…

[betweenapitchandacast]

8 Spectacular Hiking Trails in the Mountains

#Mountain #hiking is like no other. It presents a rugged world full of unspoiled sights. But these spectacular hiking trail in the mountains are in a class of their own. See this list!

North America boasts stunning scenery from the west coast to the east coast. The views are truly breathtaking, including the rugged Rocky Mountains, the pristine Sierra Nevadas, and the timeless Appalachians, to name a few. Many people see mountain ranges as a place to escape and enjoy outdoor activities, while others view them as a thrilling adventure in nature’s playground. These untouched…

[whatsy0urdream]

The Ultimate American Road Trip Bucket List: 10 Must-Drive Routes Across the U.S.

Road trips have been an American tradition for decades, and the United States has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world to explore. From coast to coast, there are endless opportunities to see iconic landmarks, national parks, and unique cities. Here are the top 10 classic road trips in the United States. Route 66 – Chicago to Santa Monica Route 66 is one of the most famous highways…