Category: Uncategorized
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Starting the PNT
When we arrived at the border of Canada and the United States, it took me a while to process all the cars and people there. This area had been empty when I started the northern half of the CDT in 2021. Then it struck me that back then the border had been closed because of…
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Arriving In Glacier
I wound my way from Santa Fe to Glacier National Park via a series of visits with trail friends. My first was with a young woman I met when I was hiking the CDT. Kremlin shared her knowledge of the Arizona Trail with me since she had done it a few years prior. After a…
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Embrace the Suck
As you read this, hopefully I’m somewhere out on the PNT. I’m sure I will have encountered some phenomenal scenery. I’m also sure there will have been plenty of times when I’ve had to embrace the suck. Embrace the suck is a motto for thru hikers. Rather than complaining about the hard times, we embrace…
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Perceived versus real danger
People are constantly telling me that what I am doing is dangerous. Personally, I think being born is dangerous. From the moment we’re born, we start to die. While I could get hurt or die on the trail, I am sure that being in a car is more dangerous than the hiking I do. On…
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About the Pacific Northwest Trail
I thought I’d tell you a little about this next trail. The PNT was first thought up in the early 1970s. It crosses five geographic areas, including the Rocky Mountains, Columbia Mountains, North Cascades, Puget Sound, and the Olympic Peninsula. To learn more about these you can go to www.fs.usda.gov/detail/PNT/about /?cid=fseprd1056017 The PNT is different…
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The Blessings of Doris June
“They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind–in those whom they have blessed, they live again.” Maya Angelou As I mentioned in my last post, I was blest by Doris June via trail angel Debbie. I feel compelled to write more about this. Doris June, or Dot as she was commonly called,…
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Choosing Happiness
For much of my life, happiness eluded me. My childhood was spent engulfed in the pain of trying to survive emotional and sexual abuse. After my father’s death, when I had just turned 13, I became even more depressed and isolated. Being constantly teased at school added to my unhappiness and deep feelings of loneliness.…
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The Old and the New
Ive been thinking lately about the juxtaposition of the old and the new. While visiting one old friend and two new ones in Cortez, Colorado, I had the great fortune of visiting both the Canyon of the Ancients and Mesa Verde National Park to see ruins of structures built by the Ancestral Pueblonans more than…
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Wait and See Mode
I got all my boxes packed and taped for the hike and did most of the things I needed to do before setting off on the PNT. This included getting prepared for my online presentation about my source to sea paddle on the Connecticut River river (you can find the recording here https://youtu.be/q5n9O1i0_J8 ) I…
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Thank You
I am taking this moment to say a quick thank you to all who read and follow me. And a special thanks to all who have shared with me so that I could purchase the new ipad. Through your generosity I have been able to purchase it and have enough to stay a few nights…
The Mary Badass 