Day 1! 20.57 miles

Aaaaaaaaaaand he’s off!!!

Today was so great! I experienced super crazy nostalgia as Alanna, Luci, and Grandma Susan drove me to the trailhead! This trail that I’ve been obsessed with for 2 1/2 years has finally met its match! :)

The family drove me all the way to the terminus where we took pictures and then I was on my way!

The early morning at their house was freezing cold! But luckily when I got to the trailhead it was a nice 60 degree sunny morning :)

I meandered down the first part of the trail with the hugest smile on my face! Just excitedly taking in the familiar scenery and the beauty of it all. I was beaming when I saw my old friend, the Yucca..

Speaking of friends, I made my first one before mile 2! His name is Jacob, he’s 19, and really awesome! He hiked the Appalachian Trail last year, and is planning to do the Continental Divide Trail next year, making him a Triple Crowner before he turns 21!! it turns out we have a very similar natural hiking pace, so we headed off together.

Jacob 

It seemed like every turn brought back memories of our 2016 hike, I even stopped to re-enact one of our favorite photos taken on location! 

Thinking about you Bee’s Knees :)

The temps were about 15 degrees cooler than in 2016, so we found ourselves CRUSHINg the first relatively flat miles. We did 13 miles by noon! Eventually we ran into a hike named John from Japan. It’s his first time to America, but his English is quite good! 

John

So far John and Jake and I have a pretty matched pace; we ended up walking all the way to Lake Morena (mile 20) together. On the steep hit descent up Hauser Creek Canyon, we were told to stop on trail by a few rangers and fire Dept. people. There was a dehydrated hiker being airlifted off the trail!

Poor guy! 

Overall I felt a lot better physically than last time. For one the sun was less intense, two the pack is about 5lbs lighter, and three because this time I only had 4 liters and last time we took 6! (And didn’t drink too :p)

Legs started getting the normal hamstring tenderness which is usual for hiking 20 miles on your first day after not being super active for the past week. I was hoping to somehow magically avoid all blisters, but alas, my soft, weak Oregon feet got shredded up by this desert sand/heat. Nothing major, only one on the right on the bottom, and all the rest are in between my toes on my left foot (don’t know what’s happening there.. haha) I’ll spare you the pictures.. (today)

At Lake Morena Campground, we walked up the road a little to the small store and I had a great tuna melt! I also picked up some tortillas and fruit snacks to compliment my food bag for the next 20 miles. John decided to say there for the night, but Jacob and I decided to go about 1/2 a mile outside the campground to avoid the $5 to camping fee there. I’m glad we did as we found a sweet place to throw down feet from the trail..

Not bad for the first campsite on trail!

Another addition/upgrade to my gear. Still Big Agnes, but only 1lb 15oz, the Fly Creek HV UL2.

(Heightened Volume) (Ultra Light) (2 person)

Well, it’s been a night long day and since it’s almost 8:30pm, I gotta get to snoozing! 

Thanks for reading!

April 19th T-1!!

This is it! In less than 12 hours I’ll be starting my Northbound PCT journey! 

After some great catching up with Lt. Dan and a nice big meal at Denny’s we headed out to Alanna’s house out in Boulevard. They live on an awesome 30 acre farm just east of the southern terminus, and Claire and I stayed here the night before starting in 2016 as well. 

It’s supposed to get down to around 35° tonight, so Alanna offered me a sweet spot to sleep in the camper up on a hill on the property! It’s a thru-hikers dream bed, and she told me it has the best sunrise view of the whole property..

Alanna’s daughter Luci was just 4 days old when Claire and I saw her two years ago. So now she’s 2 years and 4 days! Even thought the weather was getting colder out, it was still sunny and we took a walk around a good portion of the property. 

Wild lilac growing all around

A sweet greenhouse on the property with lettuce, carrots, and lots of other things to try!

Alanna and little Luci. She’s so cute!

What a great place to grow up!

Back at the house they had the fireplace roaring for the cold night to come. Alanna and Russel had some extended family over. Russels brother and mom were there and we spent most of the evening playing with the two “outdoor” cats that were inside becoming spoiled with the extra family and friends visit, extra warmth, and extra food :) After multiple servings of a great home cooked meal, I was ready to hit the hay!

Tomorrow’s a super exciting day, and I’m super pumped and excited! Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

April 18th: Day -2.. Less than 36 hours!

It’s getting REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAL!!

This morning I woke up in Portland, and now I’m just an hour’s drive away from the start of my biggest adventure to date!! PCT 2018 here I come! 

Claire and I and Dona had a nice breakfast at the Tin Shed, and I got to say goodbye to all of my coworkers (again). They’re like “Leave Already!” Took Star for our last walk together for a looooong time. Tulips are popping up like crazy, and blossoms are in full effect on the streets of our new neighborhood :)

Yesterday, I moved most of my belongings into my car, and thanks to the help of Claire, squeezed, and I mean SQUEEZED my car into our tiny garage:

Speaking of Claire being awesome, check out her free-hand sharpie work to transform my Tyvek groundsheet for my tent into a dual purpose, hitchhiking sign for when this scraggly beast is trying to bum a ride into town! (My tent floor isn’t rectangular, which is why the sheet looks crooked, but it’s just skewed when folded)

THANKS CLAIRE!

You might be wondering, “Why are you posting a blog post when you haven’t even started the trail yet?” Great question. I’ve actually picked up some new gear for this year and just wanted to highlight a few differences! 

Firstly my pack: 

I went from my big, comfy, 5lb, old faithful Osprey Atmos 50 to a new, 2.5lb ULA Circuit pack. I am extremely happy with this change, as it goes hand in hand with a base eight decrease from 20lbs down to around 14lbs. If I had the same baseweight as last time, I would want to sacrifice the hip belt comfort and all around sturdiness and support of the Atmos, but because I am going a lot lighter this year, this pack will serve me great! It’s the lightest pack that I’ve found (in my price range) that still has a solid frame in it.

Next up is my new Sunday Afternoon Sun hat! It is modeled at the top of this post, and if you go back and look, you can see that it has a nice, solid, wide brim in the front, but the brim isn’t solid in the back. This way it can lay down on my neck and not interfere with with my backpack and push my neck forward. Claire helped me pick it out at REI. Since I’m starting the trail this year with trekking poles, I’m not taking an umbrella for the sun. Therefore, the wide brimmed sun hat :)

Next up! My new Outdoor Research Helium II rain jacket! This puppy comes in at ~6oz in the extra large, or something ridiculous like that! I used my 10oz Marmot Super Mica rain jacket a couple times in the desert in 2016. Twice during unexpected hailstorms, multiple times as a wind breaker, but never for rain... :p  A rain jacket is definitely an essential item for the entire hike, but I figured I could downsize and switch for my heavier-duty Marmot when I stop back into Portland on my way up before facing the notirious Washington rain.. plus, it can do this!!

Another addition/upgrade.. this one is called the Patagonia Capiline Midweight baselayer. It’s a little lighter and warmer than the orange baselayer I had last time, and I think it will be more enjoyable to hike in on those cold mornings, and well as having a 1/4 zip on the chest for when it starts warming up.

Next are these Possumdown gloves from New Zealand. The possum hair is hollow, like polar bear hair, allowing the glove to stay dry in light rain, and blended with New Zealand Merino Lamb’s wool, these stay nice and toasty when it’s cold out. I’m not a fan of wearing fur ever, but Possums in New Zealand (not related to Opossums here in the U.S.) are an invasive species that destroy the native plant and bird life.

Although I did loose a lot of item weight, I am gaining a little as well. For instance, because of my astigmatism development in my eyes over this last year, I am no longer able to wear monthly contacts and have switched back to Dailies. This means I’ll be carrying about 20 left and right contacts until I’m close to running out, and then Claire will send me 20 more: this doesn’t add too much to the pack in terms of weight (about 5oz,) but they do add more bulk. Another addition is my special dreadlock shampoo that I have in a little 4oz bottle. I’m also starting with some food protection bags this time as I had a few instances in 2016 where critters were messing with my pack because they smelt yummy food!

There are more new items, upgrades, and additions to show off and talk about, but those will come later, when it’s not 11pm and I’m supposed to be “getting lots of sleep” before I start my hike! 

I flew down to San Diego today, to stay with Lt. Dan for the night in Chula Vista. Claire and I met Lt. Dan very early on on the PCT 2016. I believe he and HR (Pat) hiked most of the trail as a team after meeting. Dan was so awesome to open his home up to me tonight and drive me out towards the terminus tomorow, where I’ll be staying with my friend Alanna again, the one we stayed with last time before the trail. 

Before settling in at Dan’s tonight, I HAD to put on a little more weight on these skinny bones!

Well, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for actual trail updates starting on the 20th!!

Deschutes River Over-nighter and Gear Test: PCT in 18 days!

Alooooooooooooooha!!! 

Hello everyone! Thank you friends and family for finding yourselves back here at my blog. If you're just discovering this now, that means we've recently met and you've found my blog from that tiny paper I handed you, or have meandered here from somewhere else online. Whatever the case may be, thank you thank you thank you for following along.

In just 18 days I'll be back down in Campo, CA, headed north to Canada on the Pacific Crest trail! If you haven't already, bookmark this URL so you can easily check on me from time to time during my 5 month backpacking trip starting on April 20th! If you absolutely can't wait like myself, use the navigation tabs on the side here to find old daily posts from our 2016 PCT adventure, where Claire and I hiked 900 miles from Campo, CA to Mammoth, CA. Claire is currently in school to become a massage therapist, so she won't be joining me this time. She has been so supportive of me chasing this crazy dream of mine while my body will still allow it, and I'm super grateful to her because of it!

My gear hunt has been successful, I've gotten a new pack and a new tent, a lighter rain jacket, a stove-less mentality, proper fitting shoes, trekking poles, among many other smaller, lighter items and weight saving decisions. I've dwindled my base-weight down from 20lbs in 2016, to 11.5lbs this year! To test some of that new gear and just escape the gloominess that is Portland in late March, Claire and I (and Star!) ventured way out east on I-84 to where the Deschutes River meets the Columbia River. Following are pictures from our little trip!

photo from Claire

 We started at the Deschutes River Recreation Area, about 2hrs east of Portland. We have both been camping on the Deschutes before, but along its bank about 30 miles south near the town of Maupin, out in the desert. Here, it's a little more green either from human planting efforts for the park, or simply just being closer to the Columbia River Gorge. Either way, it sure was beautiful. There are a few different trail options heading south, we decided to stick close to the river bank for the first few miles, as pictured above, and then climb up a little higher cliffside, as pictured below.

 We came across a super neat natural keyhole in a big mess of rocks. We climbed down into the little open cave area below.

We had been planning to spend a few days out there, but juggling house-hunting, working, and other grown up responsibilities and pre-trail loose ends to wrap up which demanded our attention, we decided to just do one night! Following the trail way up out of the valley, we spotted a sweet campsite to call home for the next night, and descended right back down on a tiny spur trail to the river bank.

Even though my pack will be pretty darn light when starting in the desert, I wanted to pack it completely full with extra weight to simulate how it will feel in the Sierra with the bear can, extra layers, stove, ice-spikes, etc.. What better way to do so than to pack in/out some BEERS!

 

I made a little make-shift beer cooler in the river to ensure they would stay cold while not floating away. There we were with cold Deschutes on the Deschutes!!

Nightfall made for a beautiful scene.. the moon was nearly full, and we had lots of fun posing on a really sweet boulder a few feet away from camp. Hold on for lots-o-pictures!!

Claire with her trusty beer in one hand, and even trustier titanium spoon in the other!

The next morning, we had an extra cuddle Starlite on our hands, who hadn't slept a wink and spent the entire night being nervous about what lay around us as we slept under the night sky.. poor baby!

The next day we left our tent up with the rainfly on with just our my foam sleeping pad and some non-essentil, non-consumable items in it, and did some more hiking! Even though it was only late March, and not quite wildflower season, we were lucky enough to catch a few early Balsamroot flowers among a couple other early bloomers. We hiked out and under a sheer rock cliff call Gordon Cliffs. This place was beautiful but acted as a wind tunnel and was shaded early morning as the sun could not seem to get above it's towering peaks. We found ourselves moving quickly through.

Arrowhead Balsamroot

An early Spring blossom

 Gordon Cliffs in the distance

 "The Eye" at Gordon Cliffs

A nice capture from Claire of "The Eye"

After the cliffs, we turned back the way we came but instead of taking the old railbed road we took the narrower, more rugged river trail back to camp. In a few instances there wasn't much of a trail, but we managed to get back through tall grass and rocky stone formations back to camp. Speaking of tall grass, we didn't see a single snake! Not ONE! We're in the desert for Pete's sake! Claire doesn't share my feeling and is actually quite pleased with our snake-less hike. We also only saw one tick while we were out there, and neither humans nor dog got bit.

As for other wildlife, we were lucky enough to see two different otters in different areas, scrambling up some rocks from the river below. We also got a super special treat: A great blue heron made an appearance three times in a row on our way back to the car. This one was pretty large, I'm guessing around 4 ft tall, with an impressive wingspan. We encountered him in the middle of the trail, he flew away when we were still about 100ft away. We shortly saw him again in the middle of the trail a little ways down, figuring he just flew downtrail as well. The third time this happened, I stayed back with Star and Claire was able to catch a few super zoomed-in pictures of the great bird.

All in all we had a great trip out on the Deschutes River. We were able to get out of the rainy weather but still beat the heat. We got to pack out some extra trash we found along the way, and I got to test some of my new gear. Here are some bonus pictures:

 My new pack (black): The Circuit ULA. And Claire's trutsy Dueter!

 Tree right next to campsite

 A sweet little bench close to the trailhead

 Photo by Claire

 Photo by Claire

Photo by Claire

Preparations for the trail are also working themselves out here in Portland. We finalized ans signed the leases on the house we wanted to move into. We found someone to take over our current lease. I'll have a safe and secure place to park my car for 5 months. I've purchased a new phone which will last longer on the trail and take better photos for the blog. I've made my flights down to San Diego and have squared away all my necessary documents I'll need for the trail (long-distance permit, permit to enter Canada on foot, etc..) I have 99% of my gear that I need. A big thanks to Claire's mom Dona and her Father Mitch. Those REI giftcards went a long way and I still have some left for my next few pairs of hiking shoes! I finish work on the 8th and will have 10 days to help Claire and her mom move things into the new house and to do more physical training for the trail. I am planning on making one more post soon detailing the new gear and specific choices I've made pertaining to this years thru-hike.

If you've read this far, thank you so much for following along, and I hope you continue to follow me along on my journey starting very soon. As always, stay tuned and thanks for reading!!

-David Teehee (Two-Pack)