Category: Uncategorized
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Finding Balance
I was surprised to feel self doubt as I pedaled the last miles of the long road walk. The next section of trail consisted of about 190 miles of hiking before I hit the next town. This would take me close to two weeks of hiking. Luckily, a trail angel named Ellen agreed to hold…
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News Update
More posts are coming about the North Country Trail but I interrupt them to let you know my first book, Meeting Mary Badass is now available, published through Enso Press and the hard work of Sean Hickman. As much as I hate to use them, it is available on amazon. I would greatly appreciate it…
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The Frog in the Boiling Water
As I rode my borrowed bike the 41 miles from Abercrombie, North Dakota into Fergus Falls, Minnesota, I found myself singing. One of the songs I sang over and over was “Happiness runs in a circular motion…” I realized that for much of this hike, I hadn’t been able to sing because it took too…
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Bike Your Own Hike
I have often talked about the need to hike your own hike. That is a hiker motto reminding people not to compare oneself to others in terms of speed and so many other factors. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, both times in the 1980s, I was kind of a purist, following every blaze. On…
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Saved by Angels
I was as close to giving up on the North Country Trail as I have ever been on any of my 21,500 miles of backpacking, except for when I had three broken bones in my foot on the Pacific Northwest Trail. My foot was excruciatingly painful. Temperatures were in the nineties, made worse by a…
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Weird Thoughts I Have When Hiking
After my last blog about the wind, I have mixed feelings reporting that the wind has dissipated quite a bit. It still comes up during storms and threatens to blow my tent down, but unfortunately it’s lessened in these days when the temperatures are in the high 80s and 90s. Just now I would gladly…
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Things we get used to
For me, the incessant wind in North Dakota is a bit tiring. It reminds me of the wind in the great basin in Wyoming on the Continental Divide Trail where some hikers feel the wind is making them crazy and they end up screaming for it to stop. The wind certainly has given me something…
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Holy Shit day number one on the NCT
There are about 100 people who get a ping sent from my Garmin satellite device every night showing where I’m camped. Most of the time it says “on the north country trail” and the recipient can scroll in and see where I am. But every once in a while a message goes out that says…
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Keeping it in Perspective
As I’m sitting in town after my first 97 miles on the North Country Trail, during which I’ve cried more than I’ve cried on most of my 2000 mile hikes, I’ve been thinking a lot about keeping things in perspective. Yes, my foot hurts with every single step I take. It’s like walking with two…
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One step at a time
People often ask me how I do these long distance hikes. My response is always the same. “One step at a time.” When I stand at the beginning of a 2000 mile hike, it would be overwhelming to think about the entire trip, especially if I figure that each step I take covers only about…
