adventure | Going Wherever It Leads

Our five-year PCT trailaversary quietly passed us by last month with no more fanfare than my husband mentioning it in passing in the middle of the night after he got the baby back to sleep, otherwise I would have forgotten. (Catching longtime readers up to speed – we had a baby and moved from the West Coast back to Maine. Emily is now 20 months old.)

Just as I was clumsily gaining my hiking legs around Idyllwild, California around this time five years ago, this weekend Emily, not inelegantly, gained hers and summited her first mountain — Great Pond Mountain, elevation 1,029 feet.

And amidst all the chaos, stress and uncertainty of our daily pandemic life, it somehow seems the perfect time to resurrect this blog.

We are now going wherever it leads at toddler speed. This means noticing varieties of lichen on rocks, bugs crawling through grass and moss, birds singing, lots of collecting pine cones (Emily handing them to me, instructing “put in pocket”), scaling boulders with the help of Mommy’s hands, stumbling, and getting back up again.

Although we’ve been spending several weekends in the woods or on the coast, this felt like our first real hike since moving back to Maine from Washington State this past December.

Great Pond Mountain Wildlands in Orland offered us the quintessential Maine coastal forest trail, remote enough to safely social distance, south enough to be free of snow this time of year, and far enough from home to afford Emily a good car-nap each way.

The trail was lined with red spruce and giant granite covered in mint green lichen and deep green moss, the smell of pine needles kicked up from our feet — the landscape that had been calling us home from the dry high desert and rolling hills of Walla Walla, where we’d spent our last four years since getting off the trail. It’s early spring, so only little buds on some trees and mucky spots beside springtime streams that I lift Emily over. A 2.9-mile round trip out-and-back path with a lovely summit loop at the top that Emily walked completely (almost 0.5 miles), the rest of the time she rode in her hiking backpack on Daddy’s back.

My heart was so full seeing her as ignited by hiking as we are — excitedly searching for the next blue blaze, blazing down the trail herself. While walking, she chattered away “Mommy hiking. Daddy hiking. Emily hiking.”

We had a typical trail lunch (or as Emily calls it, a “picnic table,” whether or not we’re at a table) of salami, cheese, crackers and fruit sitting on a flat rock, sheltered by pines and spruce with a view of Maine’s spring forest — shades of brown dotted with pale blue lakes and, farther out, the ocean and coastal mountains, a darker shade of the gray-blue matching the overcast sky.

She’s gotten used to our quarantine hikes — the big event of her little life at this point. This morning after I explained what we were doing for the day she was eager to help us pack, naming the things she would need, “water bottle, cheddar bunnies, books” — for the car ride. She got Mommy’s hiking shoes out of the closet and almost had a tantrum when Daddy suggested they go play while I showered. She didn’t want to play, she wanted to help get ready for our adventure.

As new parents we are far from ones to be giving advice, but here are some things that worked for us to keep her interested for a full hike:

Searching for the next blue blaze (first pointing them out ourselves our voices full of exagerated excitement, then letting her lead the way to the next one)
Taking it slow, letting her scale a boulder or meander off-trail when she needs to explore
Interspersing having her walk on her own with carrying in a trail pack (we have an older version of this one) or in our arms
Me running ahead while Daddy shouts “Let’s catch Mommy,” then hiding behind trees and popping out to her squeals of delight
Lots of singing

Here’s a great resource for those interested in getting out for a hike with littles: Hike It Baby.

A note on hiking safely during the COVID pandemic: We take the time to find out-of-the-way lesser-known public lands and trails. We look at the number of cars in the parking lot and have one or two nearby backup plans if it looks too crowded. We practice physical distancing on trail.

Until next time, happy trails,

Comet, Not a Bear, & (introducing) Alarm Clock

So we have tamed down our adventures for the month of August, quite to my liking. Over the eclipse weekend, we rediscovered the joys of car camping. Car camping so lazy that on Sunday we only roamed a few hundred feet the entire day –down to the river and back to cool off. We had a sweet set-up along the John Day River beside a giant juniper that provided shade, along with a tarp, to just relax all day in this no-cell-service-no-internet zone, with some friends, whose gourmet car-camp cooking put ours to shame.

Jason had an in with this rancher in the middle of nowhere Eastern Oregon (Twickenham, to be exact), beautiful canyonlands and ranch country near the Painted Hills, that has a similar feel to the Southwest.

It was definitely a working ranch. As we were greeted by our host, complete with cowboy hat and handlebar mustache, a threesome of donkeys greeted us in the middle of the road as well.

Some photos of the ranch:

The three-day-old donkey named Eclipse and watchful Mama

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litter along the cow path

view of the ranch from a nearby hill

another nice shot of the cow pelvis

more donkeys (I was kinda obsessed)

playing around with my 75-300 mm lens

sunset reflected on the hills, first night

second night sunset even better

morning of the eclipse, breaking camp, love that morning light

Then, for the eclipse we drove up to a part of the ranch on the height of land with amazing views of hillsides, valleys, and Mt. Jefferson and Hood in the distance. It was a perfect morning –just enough clouds in the bright blue sky to make it interesting. Before the event, I wasn’t quite convinced it was necessary to drive four hours away, brave the traffic (which was mostly hype –there was no traffic getting there and mostly minimal coming back), all for an extra 3% of coverage. (Walla Walla was at 97%) But man, Jason was right, that 3% made all the difference.

He described the difference like this –what was something you looked at in the sky all of a sudden became an event all around you. And that’s how it felt. As the moon overtook the sun, the air slowly became colder and colder, even though it was still bright. The quality of the light changed so that everything looked different, a sunset orangey tint to the air. Then during the two minutes of totality, you could whip off your glasses and look around. The sky became night, even a few stars were visible. A 360 degree sunset spanned the purple clouded horizon. And the moon! It was total black with a crisp thin bright white line of light all around it that twinkled. It was amazing. I would definitely drive even further to experience it again. (2024?)

I hesitate to post photos because I did not have the lenses nor the skills to do it justice, but here’s a pale hint of what it was like: