Apr 22 - small world department.

Great day hiking. Perfect weather and fabulous scenery.

Camping at BLM Hatch Campground. Neighbor to the north fed us hot dinner and 2 gallons of water.

At dusk I went to see if neighbor to the south could spare water, as the northern neighbor was running low. His name is Beetle and he's here with son and grandkids. Grew up in mid-town Palo Alto, a mile from our home; graduated from Cubberly HS in 1960, across the street from our house. Go figure. Now he lives in Durango. We only know one couple in Durango; "do you know Kent Ford?" Of course, they used to run rivers together. Beetle sent me home with wine and two huge pieces of birthday cake.

We're happy and healthy and a little bit tipsy.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.381512,-109.616596(I+Am+Here+Saturday+April+22+2017+08:51+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Apr 21 - through Moab and into bumps and weirdness

Good resupply visit to Moab.
And then out into the "Behind the Rocks Wilderness Study Area". Fins and domes and lots of convoluted Slickrock. Too much grandeur for my mind to absorb at once.
We're happy and healthy. Photo is taken from the tent.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.532132,-109.544332(I+Am+Here+Friday+April+21+2017+07:29+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Apr 20 - 4 grouse and a canyon

We crossed our first canyon today -Negro Bill Canyon - a bit of route finding and a nice creek at the bottom.

4 boy Dusky Grouse all full of hormones couldn't stop displaying. Quite a sight.

Great weather. Windy now and grit everywhere. We're happy and healthy.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.593527,-109.487443(I+Am+Here+Thursday+April+20+2017+05:40+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Apr 19 - across the Lasal Mtns

Very pleasant easy walking on Forest Service roads. Our routing took us just below the snow, so no slogging for us. Big views all day. Very pretty and satisfying. It's nice to be out walking. We're happy and healthy.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.547349,-109.290922(I+Am+Here+Wednesday+April+19+2017+08:24+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Apr 18 - Gateway and walking

Hitchhiking Grand Junction to Gateway in 4 lifts and 2.5 hours. And we're walking. All sun. All red rock beautiful already. All good. We're happy and healthy.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.616256,-109.037122(I+Am+Here+Tuesday+April+18+2017+08:27+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Apr 17 - on the train

We are tucking into our bunks in a little double-decker sleeper closet, approaching Elke Nevada. Our bears, unlike the bear on the poster, are comfortably resting in a big cushy bed at home.

We're happy and healthy.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.787231,-115.861970(I+Am+Here+Monday+April+17+2017+10:17+PM)&iwloc=A&z=11

Next Up: TransUtah - CO->NV

We'll leave in a few days for our next big hike. We will spend about six week hiking across Southern Utah, from Gateway Colorado to the Nevada border. We love the Colorado Plateau and we are over-the-top excited about this trip. This route is a combination of off-trail hiking, trails, and jeep tracks. It is a route that James designed with great input and advice from Jamal at www.acrossutah.com.

The best way to view our primary route, alternates, and resupply locations is on CalTopo: https://caltopo.com/m/6GBN. It is best viewed from a full screen, not a smartphone.

We will write a short post entry each evening, but they will only post here to WeGoHike when we have internet access, which will occur every 3 to 8 days.

We will be stopping at the following places to resupply and recharge batteries and hopefully to update this blog: Moab, Needles Outpost, Hanksville, Boulder, Escalante, Bryce NP Lodge, Orderville/Mt Carmel, Springdale, New Harmony.

We are going to carry a Garmin InReach, which will update our location a few times per day. You can see our location our Delorme Map page: https://share.delorme.com/share/AmyBird. If you want to track our location, send me an email and I'll send you a password. I'm password-protecting the page because there are buttons on the page that allow the user to send me a satellite-based text message or to request my location. Those buttons are enabled ONLY for Steve and Alan to use for emergency purposes, and we don't want random people using them willy-nilly. If you do get the password and you are watching our progress, please note that Alan D and my brother Steve are our emergency contacts and they are the only people who need to care if something goes wrong. If the Delorme data goes silent assume it is because it has failed or has no battery power remaining.

If you use an iPhone with Spot Buddy app, you can configure it to view our data as follows:
MapShare Name = AmyBird
MapShare User ID = 809140
MapShare Password = send me an email and I'll send you the password.

And finally, about this blog WeGoHike and DoingMiles.com. In this little blog we post fleeting thoughts daily while we are traveling; it is just for friends and family. DoingMiles.com is our attempt at concise and useful trip reports and we hope it gets into the hands of anybody who likes to hike.

Stay healthy and enjoy spring wherever you are. Much love, Amy&James

Jan 6, 2017 - DoingMiles.com

Pals,

We launched DoingMiles.com on December 24th. It's a big deal for us and we hope you'll to take a look.

For years Jim and I published our trip reports on the forums at BackpackingLight.com. We made a real effort to write reports that would be useful to hikers looking for inspiration and information. About a year ago the forum changed its infrastructure and it is no longer viable for us to use it as the platform for our reports. That was the push we needed to build our own website.

It's been fun, hard, frustrating, rewarding, and very time consuming. We only have 15 articles now, but we have about 25 more in various levels of draft form. You can subscribe to get email notification of new articles.

Among other things, we decided to use affiliate links and donate the revenue to land conservation groups. I had not been aware of the dynamics of Amazon affiliate links and how much potential money is sitting on the table. I added Amazon links to WeGoHike's header. You can read more about how it works at our Code of Ethics page. We hope you are not offended by this decision, and if you are so inclined we hope you'll use our Amazon link when you shop there.

WeGoHike is for our friends and family, and we will continue to write our little daily updates here. Our short, concise, just-the-facts trip reports will be over at DoingMiles.

We are happy and healthy. Wishing you good health in 2017, xoxo Amy and James

Sep 27 - Oct 2: Ebbett's to Tuolumne on the PCT

The Baxter Pass trip had glorious weather and scenery, and I craved more. The season in the Sierras is short, so we quickly mapped another trip. This one was an easy-to-plan and easy-to-execute hike on the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail.

Steve dropped us at Ebbett's Pass and we walked southbound for 5.5 days on the PCT to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite NP. We had hiked parts of this in past years, but about half was new to us.

We had perfect weather: bluebird skies, pleasantly cool days, light frost at night. Aspens were golden and the high meadow ground cover was in full autumnal colors. Hours after we finished a cold front arrived with cold temps, clouds, and an inch or two of snow. Our timing was perfect.

The scenery was all fine, and included one expected delightful surprise. For the 10 miles south of Sonora pass the trail stays on or near the top of a volcanic ridge. The views were vast and the sense of space was grand (see photo). It is completely different than the granitic Sierras that we already know and love.

We met about 10 other hikers along the way, all of whom were thru-hiking the PCT. 4 French in one group; 2 Canadians, both solo; 1 solo young German woman; a pair of young American women; a pair of American brothers. We enjoyed visiting with them. They all seemed at-ease and happy, and surprisingly unconcerned about the impending onset of winter. September is grand in these mountains, but October is the shoulder season and can bring serious snow.

We bussed up from Lee Vining to Reno to visit Linda and Ray yesterday. And now we're headed home to finish the final steps in remodeling our kitchen, to see our bears, and to play some Pickleball!

Sep 12-19 - Sierra from Baxter Pass

It had been far too long since we had hiked in our favorite range of mountains, the Sierra Nevada. Shortly after returning from the Colorado Trail hike Jim started planning a mostly off trail route in the High Sierra. 

We took a 7.5 day hike loop hike, starting from the infrequently used Baxter Pass Trailhead, through the most beautiful mountains we know. A few hours of light snow, otherwise all glorious sun and crisp autumn days. Life does not get better than September hiking in the Sierra Nevada. 

We traversed two peaks (Mt Baxter and Mt Gould), climbed a third as a short side trip (Colosseum Peak), and Jim climbed three more (Perkins, Cotter, Bago) while I waited at nearby lakes. Jim likes climbing peaks a lot.  I like the lake basins right at tree-line a lot.  We also crossed an unnamed col that we christened Bed Bear Pass in honor of our friends at home. 

During short legs on the heavily used John Muir Trail we saw many dozens of hikers. While off-trail    (~90% of our trip) we met only two hikers, Ben and Nadine, who were happily hiking Alan's Southern Sierra High Route.  We had a nice short visit with them, and Nadine lives near us so we'll be able to see her again. 

I didn't feel inspired to write our usual nightly blog post, thus this single summary. Tappity tapping in the wilderness doesn't feel right.