Meghan – Page 5 – Team Westlander

Sipping Through Slovakia

The last rays of direct sunlight we saw were from the top of Rysy before hiking down into Slovakia six days ago. Since then, our motto has been “It’s not a day in Slovakia if it doesn’t rain!” So we looked at each other completely perplexed when the clouds finally broke on the second day of our bike trip into wine country. Why so bright? Are we still in Slovakia? Finally realizing how long it had been since we’d seen the sun, we bowed our heads slightly in gratitude and slathered on more sunscreen.

And gratitude is perhaps the best theme for recounting our biking experience through the Slovakian wine country. While we truly enjoyed the trip, so many elements defied our expectations. It sounded like our kind of adventure… rent bikes for a few days, plan a loop through a wine region, and taste along the way. But we are not in Napa. We are in Slovakia.

First, we were grateful we spent the day in Bratislava exploring and planning before we headed out to the countryside. Bratislava’s old town is so wonderfully quaint with a maze of winding streets and beautifully restored buildings filled with cafes and history (and an especially delicious sweets shop serving an endless list of delectable cakes and flavored sipping chocolates).

Second, we were grateful the tourist information office had a couple maps that actually showed bike routes out to at least some of the wine country…. despite them not knowing a lick of information beyond that (about either biking or the wine country), and despite the company we wanted to rent bikes from telling us we should not bike out that way and why don’t we just do a nice day trip instead?

Third, we were grateful to find at least one person in Bratislava who looked at our potential routes and confirmed that they were in fact possible. They weren’t.

Fourth, we were grateful when we finally reached what seemed to be the highest point in Bratislava on day one, walking our bikes most of the way, and began descending toward a lovely, cruiseable trail. And we were super grateful that the multitude of trained-to-kill german shepherds* guarding every house on a particularly wealthy block of this descent (that was not on the recommended bike route but was necessary to take) were behind closed gates.

Fifth, we were so grateful for the kindness of the woman (I’ll call her Mary) at the first winery we visited towards the end of our first day. Having no information on wine tasting and customs in this region, despite our efforts to figure them out, Mary informed us that the wineries only do tastings on reservations made ahead of time, but she invited us in to try one of their wines as she happened to have a bottle open. It was sensational, and that isn’t simply because it was our first and we’d just ridden several miles through the rain to arrive there. It was really delicious. And Mary gave us quite a bit more information on touring the area and helped us get oriented.

The custom is a bit different here. People do not generally go out to the wineries to taste (unless they’re on an organized tour and/or have scheduled ahead of time… not exactly our m.o., nor do we have any idea how we would have learned that ahead of time). Instead, they go to different wine shops in the towns to taste, and thus they do maybe one or two tastings over the course of a few days, rather than doing a few smaller tastings each day. This helped explain why, when we asked people where we should go to taste wine, they barely mentioned actually tasting the wine in their recommended sites of wine country. Instead we were told we should visit several historical sites and a couple castles in the area “and then maybe visit this shop and taste some wines, have some lunch” etc. Inevitably, we did exactly that, but we only really understood it all in retrospect.

Sixth, we were grateful for Robo and his girlfriend at VinoCentrum in Svaty Jur for allowing us to taste several wines from the local region, pouring us a few glasses of the ones we particularly liked, and serving us incredibly delicious cheese and bread. Robo also regaled us with a few stories of previous tourists and of the recent history of the region as it revives itself from its communist past and again seeks to make Slovakian wine unique to its location.

Seventh, we were grateful for the woman at the hostel for giving us our own room, even though it was a shared, four-bed dorm. Most (All?) other travelers on that floor smoked like it was their last day on earth. Thankfully, our room stayed relatively smoke free.

Eighth, surprisingly, I was grateful to be riding my ill fitting boy’s mountain bike (“lady bikes” were not available when we rented) when the paved trail we were hoping to take out and back to Pezinok for the day ended in a muddy road (it had rained all night). I was even more grateful for it when the muddy road ended in a single track of mud and grass that we eventually opted out of for the even muddier but wider flattened field below the track. Brian was also grateful I was on a mountain bike for that part. And perhaps I should say we were even grateful for the muddied, unpaved road as it made certain we limited our adventure to something we could actually do without too much stress. We were both grateful to find paved road again. And we were ecstatic to learn we could throw our bikes on the train to get back to our hostel rather than bike back along the crazy mud flat.

Ninth, we were grateful for the delightfulness of the countryside and towns we visited. Despite our bike trail being alongside a major road, a route chosen to fit our level of biking experience, the other side of the trail was lined with beautiful vineyards much of the way. And the vines were heavy with perfectly plump fruit.

Street up to the church in Svaty Jur at sunset

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Svaty Jur with its hostel almost a full mile straight uphill, its hidden castle ruins, and its interesting and friendly people serving both delicious wine and delicious treats! We also loved our day in Pezinok with its historical self guided walking tour and small town pride and preservation. We tasted some absolutely delicious wines as well as the local table wine that people bring their jugs to have filled. And we found another chocolate shop and indulged in another sipping chocolate as well as a small bit of fondue (served to us by Scarlett Johansson’s doppleganger).

And finally, tenth, we were grateful for a lovely, fairly event free and mostly sunny last day of riding in which we saw two castle ruins and biked down the Danube before returning our bikes and crashing early.

*Brian and I both love dogs. We are not bad-mouthing german shepherds as a breed. But these particular ones were guard dogs. They were scary.

Over the Tatras

In Krakow, sometime during the first week of our 2015 world travel adventure, Meghan asked, “What do you think about hiking from Poland, over the mountains, to Slovakia?”

I’m sorry…what? Fortunately, Meghan had read this was actually possible (“somewhere on the internet,” she claimed). So we started doing our research. The Polish tourist haven of Zakopane, a two hour bus ride from Krakow, was our jumping off point. And when I say tourist haven, I truly mean it. The main walking drag in Zakopane resembles Main Street in Disneyland: tons of people and tons of street vendors selling chotzkies, fast food, and the local, salty mountain cheese. Zakopane sits on the north side of the Tatra Mountains that stretch east to west along the Poland-Slovakia border. And based on the number of people in Zakopane, and along the trail we started to hike on, half of Poland comes to the Tatra Mountains during the common holiday month of August.

As we started off on our journey, we discovered that hiking in the High Tatras is very different from the Pacific Crest Trail. For all we know, these differences apply to hiking all over Europe. First off, our detailed map of the region and subsequent trail signs listed the distance between places in time, not length: e.g., 1 hour and 50 minutes to Schronisko PTTK Murowaniec. According to who? Certainly not us. During our first couple days, we discovered that the times listed were a bit shorter than we hike not including breaks.

The second big difference from the PCT: the trails we were on tended to go straight up and straight down hillsides instead of gently contouring up and down. And they did so using giant stone steps rather than smoothed dirt paths. I think we left our knees somewhere near a creekbed on day 2. By the time we made it to Slovakia on day 3, we were popping ibuprofen like tic tacs.

Finally, we were amazed at the average speed of the European hikers. We’ve never been the fastest hikers, but after spending a couple months hiking before we left for Europe, we felt in pretty good shape. Maybe it’s the walking culture over here, but we were passed by all types of different hikers including grandmas and families with 6 year old kids. This was all discovered on our first day of hiking.

Walking toward our first mountain inn felt like we were walking into the Shire from Lord of the Rings

We arrived at our first Schronisko (Mountain Inn) about two hours after starting. We have no idea how far we hiked. The inn was bigger than we anticipated. There must have been 20-30 rooms. Each with a number of bunk beds. And the restaurant/beer hall was enormous with lots of picnic tables outside too. The culture there reminded us of “apres-ski” at a big ski lodge. But instead, this was apres-hike. Upon arrival, we dropped off our bigger bags, and took a loop hike that gave us our first real sense of the Tatras.

The next day we tried to pick a route to our next mountain inn that would avoid any big climbs. We knew the following day’s climb up Rysy, the tallest mountain in Poland and the border between Poland and Slovakia, would be exhausting. However, relaxed hiking was not to be. We hiked a fairly forested route that still climbed and dropped on stone steps as if the trail designers just tried to make a straight line between two points.

Our final few miles that day were on a paved road packed with tourists walking up to Morskie Oko, a popular lake, and our second mountain inn. Our roommates that night were a lovely family from Warsaw who gave us delicious tea and recommendations for the Polish dinner menu at the inn.

We checked the weather report for our coming day’s climb over Rysy and discovered thunderstorms were forecasted for the afternoon. Of course, this came as no surprise to us since thunderstorms seem to be following us everywhere this summer. We set our alarm for 3am to get out early and avoid the predicted storms.

The route to Rysy’s summit is only 2.5 miles, but is predicted to take 4 hours (we did it in 5). It climbs 900 meters: 100 meters in the first 1.5 miles, and 800 meters in the last mile. There are chains to help along the way when the path turns to rock scrambling. One section close to the top had you hold a chain as you edged along a wall with very narrow folds in the rock for foot holds and nothing but a huge drop off below. That part was short but terrifying.

We were some of the first out in the morning, and we were passed by about 20 people, so the top was crowded, but not too bad. And an incredible victory! We took one picture and a short break for food, but we headed down shortly after as clouds were gathering for the promised storms.

Left: Meghan on a set of chains (this set wasn’t too difficult … there are no pictures of the hard ones) Right: our selfie at the top of Rysy !

The way down on the Slovakia side was much less steep. We made our way to a cool inn just below the top ridge in a barren rock field. We had a nice break there since we didn’t take any real breaks on the way up, and we watched a couple people trekking up supplies to the inn. It looked insane: a keg of beer, cases of soda, etc, all piled in a high tower on their backs. Then we decided to push on to get down to our hotel for the night.

Left: guy carrying supplies to the inn Right: Brian with the inn in a rock field in the distance

Heading down the rocky stepped path, we felt the first few drops of rain only 15-20 minutes below the inn, too late to turn back, but still 2 hours from the hotel. We donned our raincoats just as the skies opened and released a torrent of rain and hail. The hail came down heavy and painful, a mix of peas and garbanzo beans. At the same time, we reached a section of trail with chains again. We tried to take some shelter near a rock, but it was no good, so we pushed on to try the chains. The rocks weren’t too slippery, and we were able to make it down the chains despite climbing down through rivers of water and hail. Oh yes, and thunder. We were gripping metal holdings on exposed rock (the closest tree was still an hour or so away) in a pouring hail thunderstorm… with 500 of our closest friends (Thankfully most of them taller than us!). The hail finished but the rain continued, and we pushed on in the line of people, down and down, balancing from rock to rock, past a couple lakes at the base of the exposed bowl we were in. Unfortunately the storm didn’t move, it just dumped everything it had on top of us. We probably would have hiked more slowly in nice weather, but we wanted out of the storm. Despite our rapid (though slower than European) pace, we got down without slipping. The rain let up eventually, and we were able to pull our hoods off by the time we reached the trees, though anything not covered by raincoats was soaked through. We arrived at our hotel at last, 9.5 crazy hours after leaving the last one and literally grateful to have survived the day. We celebrated with beef goulash, bread, cabbage and beer after a short nap.

The next day only called for a 3 mile, fully downhill hike into the town of Strbske Pleso. Of course, we got caught in another thunderstorm, but luckily we could wait out most of this one amongst some trees. We made it into town and celebrated (again) having hiked from Poland to Slovakia. One more adventure in the books!

How was Krakow? Hot.

Hi friends and family! We want you to know that we love you and miss you and think about you a lot. We have found it difficult to make the time and find the energy to write these first couple blog posts on our foreign travels just due to getting used to the rhythm of traveling. But we are adjusting and are excited to share our first couple weeks with you!

We flew into Krakow, Poland to start our tour of central/eastern Europe and who-knows-where-else and immediately got two small shocks upon arriving: 1) the hottest, most humid environment we felt we’d ever been in. Seriously, Krakow in August seemed to put Raleigh, NC to shame. I’m not sure we brought the right clothes for this…. and 2) We walked off the plane onto the tarmac, through the airport, and out to the cab stand. That’s it. There was no immigration check of any kind. We felt Polish already! (I learned later that one is supposed to get a stamp on one’s passport to legally stay in the country, but that many places do not have the funds to staff immigration officials, and so there is nothing at the airport.)

We didn’t let the heat stop us from exploring, but it did slow us down and made mandatory the drinking of decent quantities of beer as that was one of only a few things we could get cold (along with ice cream, and every once in awhile, soda… oh yes, and iced coffee for Brian once he figured out how to ask for it). There was no air conditioning, and by day 6 we fled to the mountains to embrace some cooler weather. But before we fled, we had a wonderful time exploring the city and a few surrounding must-see sites. I’ve described several below for those interested in more specifics.

The real adventure, of course, comes simply from being in a foreign country, navigating foreign customs, transportation systems, and language. Luckily, Krakow is quite the sophisticated city, and tourists and English are common enough that we could challenge ourselves without feeling completely lost most of the time. Additionally, we found the Polish most welcoming and friendly. And most were very patient and willing to try to communicate with us in a mixture of English and Polish as we attempted complicated pronunciations of simple phrases. (I think years from now, when I no longer remember any Polish words at all, I’ll still be able to ask “Do you carry peanut butter?” in any Polish grocery store, so often did we ask that question.)

Among the things to do and see in Krakow, Poland, we hit a few major sites in between walks around the city, meals, and beers… though really, we also count meals and beers among the “things to do”.

In fact, let’s just start there.

Krakow boasts many different types of food (our first meal was actually a pasta carbonara), but we were interested in Polish delights and tried many of those. We started with the super touristy but truly awesome Pod Wawelem where we feasted on cold soup (chlodnik) a platter of meats and pickled cabbage and sipped delicious beer. We also tried a couple of flavored vodkas, and wow, do they know how to make vodka delicious. We then ended up having way too much vodka as this place brings you a free sample of the cherry vodka at the end of your meal. Oops! We’d already had two shots. What a fun afternoon!… we think, we don’t really remember.

Pierogis, little dumplings filled with deliciousness, were also a must try. We went to Zapiecek, recommended by both a host at our hostel and Yelp, and we were not disappointed. They really put Mrs. T’s to shame. And we didn’t realize that pierogis seem to be a common dish all over eastern and northern Europe as you can get them filled with many different things native to different countries. We had a sample plate of the traditional fillings: a few with pork, a few with cabbage and mushroom, and a few with potatoes and cheese. As badly as you might be craving veggies if living on a Polish diet, skip the cabbage and mushroom and double up on the meat and cheese. Delicious! And they have a sampling of sweet, fruit-filled pierogies… also tasty, but we liked the savory ones better.

Zapiekanki is a Krakow street food favorite, and the Platy Nowe is the place to get it: a circular building in the middle of the Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, that houses about 10 different zapiekanki stands. Zapiekanki is a large slab of bread (think of a loaf of garlic bread sliced lengthwise) topped with cheese, canned mushrooms, and a myriad of other toppings and sauces depending on what you order. It’s like street pizza that is nothing like pizza, sounds kind of gross, and tastes delicious…. especially after a couple beers, but even without.

Bar Mleczny (Milk Bars) are cheap, cafeteria-like restaurants serving tasty, traditional Polish food. They’ve changed over the years, but were (are?) subsidized by the government to provide workers a cheap place to eat during the day. We experimented with our Polish at one a little further off the tourist path and tried borsch (barszcz), potato dumplings (kopitka), and our favorite, pancakes with spinach (nalesniki z spinakiem). Seriously, we could have eaten nothing but the pancakes (which are really filled crepes) for every meal (okay, alongside a kielbasa at least).

And finally, kielbasa. You can’t expect us to leave Poland without at least trying a good kielbasa. Of course, if we’d visited this place earlier in our stay, we might have gone back every night. Recommended again at the hostel was Kielbasa Guys, a kielbasa food truck located near a crazy flea market in a less touristy part of town. These guys roll up around 8pm, light the fire, and rotate kielbasa ’til 3am. And it was spectacular… crispy outside with a juicy flavorful center that leaves you both full and yet desperately wanting more kielbasa.

And now for a few tourist destinations well worth the time and effort…

The Mound: Two miles west of the city center lies Kosciuszko’s Mound, created to commemorate the Polish leader, Kosciuszko, who gained military experience in the American Revolution before becoming a military leader in Poland. The fortress around the mound is now a museum dedicated to some of Krakow’s military history as well as Kosciuszko’s life. The mound is literally a small hill with a path to the top that one can climb to get panoramic views of the city. Despite the crazy heat and humidity, we were happy to make this our first activity in the city to get a bird’s eye view of Krakow and learn a bit of its history.

Free Walking Tour of Old City Krakow: This was a really fun tour that led us around some of the interesting sites of Old City and regaled us with entertaining stories and facts from across the centuries. We learned about the various architecture of the area, about Pope John Paul II’s (or JP2 as we were told on one tour) presence as a student and later visits as a cardinal, about the university, the churches, and Wawel Castle. And yes, the tour was free (though tips are encouraged), and the tour guide was quite entertaining. Our tour guide even recommended a place to eat lunch when we told him we wanted to try a milk bar. He asked if we wanted to “try a milk bar” or go more “authentic.” We opted for more authentic and were not disappointed.

The varied architecture of the Wawel cathedral

Wawel Castle: This is the place to see in Krakow. The castle has been around essentially since the beginning of Polish time, and the architecture of the various buildings, towers, and grounds is a testament to the many pieces of Polish history. We didn’t take any official tours, but we did get to see the incredibly beautiful cathedral on the grounds and were lucky enough to be there while the president (yes, of Poland) was also visiting. We waited awhile in the crowd for him to emerge but had no luck and eventually left.

Wieliczka Salt Mines: The mines are a 40 minute bus (or train) ride southeast of the city but well worth the trip. The mine was started in the 13th century, but 19th century miners passed time carving magnificent sculptures in the salt while they worked. The mine is a complex maze of corridors and caverns and original scaffolding remains in many places. The tour is fascinating, and the piece de resistance is an enormous cavern into which was carved an entire cathedral that still holds weekly mass to this day. A sculpture of JP2 is there, as well as a salt relief of “The Last Supper”. Particularly entertaining on our trip was a couple getting married in a small side chapel. They had been taking pictures with the photographer all along the route (which largely resembles a Disneyland ride through a mine) and at the end of our tour we passed by a small side chapel while they were exchanging vows.

The gate at Auschwitz and the train platform at Birkenau

Auschwitz-Birkenau: Surreal in so many ways. Preserved (and in certain areas reconstructed) in such good condition we struggled between the reality of where we were and the feeling that we were on a movie set. It became almost more difficult for us to believe the atrocities that occurred here, because seeing the actual concentration camp – walking the same grounds as so many holocaust victims, seeing their living conditions and judgment chambers, and standing in the gas chamber and crematorium – made it so much more difficult to believe any person or group of people could so easily and so methodically exterminate entire ethnic groups. Of course we do believe it, I am not saying that we don’t… only that the human soul, when confronted with the reality of the space, cannot hold that much suffering at once. And thus, rather than crumble immediately, we spend the day staggering around in shock and somewhat unable to take in all that we see.

The tour was ~3.5 hours, and our tour guide was very good at emphasizing the magnitude of the atrocities that occurred. Additionally, there are blocks currently memorializing the victims from each country. These we found worth exploring after our tour and were very well done.

All in all, this visit made for a very humbling last day in Krakow, ending a great first week of learning, exploring, and sweating… Next post we’ll share our crazy mountain experience. Even the PCT couldn’t prepare us for it.

Crushing It

Last week marked our final week of hiking on the PCT for this season. While you can rest assured that the adventure (and blogging) will continue next week when we head off to eastern Europe, we were sad to see the end of another crazy, amazing hiking season.

Our final week was a microcosm of our whole summer experience. We changed plans due to weather, hiked in areas we hadn’t planned on at the beginning, had interesting experiences with wild animals, met wonderful people, and were offered help by amazing strangers. Amidst it all we were blessed with beautiful scenery and strong legs, both of which helped us make it through the more difficult hiking of this last week.

South-bound from Ashland, OR: After almost two full weeks of storms (during which we backpacked along the CA coast and visited Aunt Carol in Florence, OR), we finally had a window of good weather to continue hiking, and we were ready to go. We drove down from Eugene, OR and spent the night in Yreka, giving us the best access to the trail in the morning to continue hiking north from where we’d left off. And then we checked the weather one last time. Storms. Right where we were going to begin again. Well, shit. By this time we were almost used to weathering these disappointments and were able to make a quick change of plans. In 10 minutes time we were driving north back toward Ashland, OR to hike “backwards,” or south-bound, from there… in the clear weather we were promised by the good people at the Medford meteorology office.

The vast majority of PCT thru-hikers (those trying to hike the entire trail in one, long hike of usually 5 months or so) walk from south to north. This makes hiking south-bound quite a different experience aside from the fact that we were still continuing the same activity as before. One must read all maps and guidebooks backwards (they’re all written for north-bound hikers) as well as all directions to off-trail water sources and other notes of interest. Changes in elevation are also reversed, and we mentally prepped for some long, slow climbs and quick, steep descents. We also passed many more hikers than if we had been hiking north, enjoying many more social encounters.

And, what joyful hikers they were! You see, we passed many of them near one of just a few true markers of progress along the trail: the Oregon/California border. So happy is the thru-hiker that has completed the 1,700 mile stretch of the PCT through California and finally entered Oregon that the air is electric with their presence and energy. While the border did not mark quite as major a milestone for us, we enjoyed conversations with other hikers and took the requisite photos. Truthfully, the actual border crossing is one of the less majestic places along this section. But, perhaps to the thru-hiker, nothing is more beautiful than seeing “Welcome to Oregon” etched simply in a wooden sign.

Strog, Bling, and Jaws (our constan, and uncomplaining puppet companion in the middle) at the Oregon/California border

Please, no more cowbell: Cowbell. That musical “instrument” we just can’t seem to get enough of… well, we’ve had more than enough cowbell. Our cowbell incident began shortly after sunset as the last rays of light were dying and we were tucked snuggly in our sleeping bags, reading our book. We heard the distant clanging of the bells and smiled to each other. We’d heard them periodically all day, and they reminded us of wind chimes. Then we heard them getting closer… and closer… and closer until a cacophony of bells resounded in our ears. We bounded out of our tent (ball point pens in hand) in case we needed to take cover behind something sturdier than nylon. In the dimming light we could make out shadows of the massive bovine in a semicircular pattern around us. We hoped the herd would continue moving on as quickly as they seemed to approach. But the bells told us we would not be so lucky. We quickly learned that we’d pitched our tent in a nice little forested area right next to their dessert meadow. That’s right, at 9:30 pm, half an hour past “hiker midnight,” 30+ cows were bowing their heads to feast in the meadow next to our tent, tinny clangs ringing out with each movement.

While they seemed harmless enough, cowbell isn’t exactly on the list of sleep-inducing nature sounds. We had to get rid of them. We threw the rain fly over our tent to make it more visible, stood next to it, and raised our arms high and wide to make ourselves appear the larger animal. The cows that noticed us scared easily enough and began running. And once a few of them go, well, herd mentality and all. We successfully created a small stampede of fearful bovine. We watched them scamper off while listening to the lovely sound of receding cowbells.

The bells resounded faintly in the distance for the remainder of the night while we, with earplugs firmly embedded, slept like babies… until about 4:45am when an increasing clanging drew us from our slumber. Yeah, we thought that would be the end of our cowbell experience too. But no. They were back for breakfast and approaching fast…. okay, not fast, but fast enough that we broke camp in record time and set off for the day at a light jog to try to keep ahead of them. You see, they also use the trail, and following 30 cows for who-knows-how-many miles was a little more cowbell and cow pie than we were ready for. We hiked a full six miles before we could pause without hearing bells.

When you wake up to cowbells, at least you fall asleep to an amazing view! Eastern sunset sky closing our longest hiking day this year, 22 miles

We made amazing time that day, hiking 14 miles before lunch and 22 total (our longest day). Turns out nothing motivates quite like cowbell. The next day, we had a short, steep descent into the tiny town of Seiad Valley, CA. We pitied the north-bound hikers we passed who had to hike up the trail: it climbs (or descends in our case) about 5,000 feet of elevation in under seven miles, mostly through exposed, burned out forest. Of course, we would soon have our own insane climb of 5,000+ feet over ~20 miles… not quite as steep, but an entire day of exhausting climbing nonetheless. Thankfully, Seiad Valley provided a shady respite between the descents and climbs. We relaxed and filled our bellies with BLT’s, milkshakes, popsicles and other treats – everything the hiker body loves.

(Left) Strog shows off the remaining 3 pounds of pancakes from a previous hiker’s attempts at the famous pancake challenge in Seiad Valley. The original stack is 5 pounds to be eaten in under 1 hour. No hiker has completed the challenge since 2008. We nibbled some of the remains. (Right) Bling enjoys juicy melon in the shade on a 100 degree day in Seiad Valley.

The beginning of our climb out was also dotted with treats and marked our second foraging experience on the trail: blackberry picking! (Our first experience was thimbleberry picking after a couple locals told us they were edible and ate a few in front of us. Quite tasty!) We scoured the bushes for ripe berries and filled the little remaining space in our tummies with the delicious fruit. Maybe not the best climbing fuel, but it sure fueled our spirits!

Marble Madness: Completing our climb out of Seiad Valley, we then hiked over the Marble Mountains. It was incredibly rugged and incredibly beautiful.

And, unfortunately for us, turning incredibly stormy…

(top) Sever thunderstorm building in the distance; (bottom) the same storm later that evening

We were not supposed to get storms during our last few days, but as we know and has been drilled into us this summer, the only thing constant is changing weather. We avoided the worst of the storms that night, though thunder kept us in a grove of trees for awhile earlier in the evening. Of course, this unexpected change put us on our guard. Was this a fluke? Would the weather get worse? Would our trip be cut short by weather just two days before its official end? The answers to those questions are: No, Yes, and Sort of.

The next day we asked everyone we passed if they knew what weather we could expect as they would have gotten a more recent report than we had. Almost every person knew, and each one had a different forecast; “perfectly sunny!”, “20% chance of storms but only this afternoon”, and “take shelter for the entire afternoon and most of tomorrow” are a few we heard. Of course, as we hiked we watched another set of clouds roll in ahead of us. By noon, the first claps of distant thunder could be heard over one hiker’s weather report: “Naw, I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to storm at all.”

The trail finally crossed a road that day, and the increasingly frequent claps of thunder told us it was time to leave the trail again. We caught a hitch into the town of Etna and debated our next move over some pizza. We did not want our first post-entire-PCT-hike meal to be filled with the disappointment we felt being driven off the trail early by weather (we were honestly drowning our disappointment in pizza). We wanted to end the hike on our own terms.

Crushing it: We scoured the PCT weather reports for an area with clear skies, and strangely enough, back up near Ashland in southern Oregon (where we’d hiked south from and where our car was conveniently located), everything looked peachy. We were extremely lucky and found a hitch who drove us from Etna all the way up to Ashland. From there, we hiked north-bound for our last two days to Hyatt Reservoir. This put us at just over 500 PCT miles for the summer – a figure we’re pretty pleased with (especially considering all the storms that kept us off the trail for many days) – and allowed us to end the trip with a strong feeling of accomplishment. We crushed it!

Our PCT adventures for the summer have come to a close, but we’re excited to take off on a flight to Krakow, Poland on August 4th to continue this year of adventure on a different continent. To all our family and friends, thank you for all the love and support – we couldn’t be doing this without you!

Two happy hikers at our northern-terminus for the summer (near Hyatt Reservoir)

Plan B… Plan C

Plan B

The ranger looked at us, eyebrows raised in skepticism: “But it’s just the two of you.”

Pause for an expected response we never gave…

She, continuing: “There’s been some aggressive mountain lion activity in that area.”

We had driven out to Redwood National Park for a backcountry trip over 4th of July weekend. Strog picked a great route for us, and we’d filled out all the paperwork for campsites as required by the park. We were discussing getting back to our car on Monday by hiking back via a few trails when the ranger began voicing her concerns.

She continued explaining: “There’s two of them, siblings. The other night they stalked a group of hikers for a couple of hours… Seven hikers yelled at them and threw rocks, but they didn’t leave…. The lions got within 30 feet of the hikers. Do you have your flares?”

Flares? You mean sticks of fire meant to be waved about… in a dense forest… in the middle of an extreme drought? We shook our heads, no.

She: “Go to Walmart. Get some flares and maybe a little air horn. You’ve got to hit them with something different they’re not expecting. You have a Leatherman.”

This was not a question. We travel light. No, we don’t carry a Leatherman, because the chance of us needing to break out our black belt level hand-to-paw combat skills typically hovers around zero.

Us (looking a bit dazed at this point): “No.”

She gave us a sympathetic look and tried to reassure us: “Well, this one couple… He was in the lead and so was the one attacked, and his wife fought off the mountain lion with a ball point pen. She gouged out its eyes.”

Finally, a weapon worthy of the situation.

She: “I don’t want to scare you, but these two have been much more aggressive than we expect. We think the mother didn’t teach them to hunt properly. I’m not sure what they’ll do. Give me your cell phone number – though cells usually don’t work out there – we’ll try to reach you in case of another incident… and I’ll take an emergency contact number [in case you are the other incident].”

With all the paperwork filled out – save for our last will and testament – we headed back to our car like prisoners to the gallows.

We briefly discussed our new Walmart shopping list. At this point, the lions were probably expecting flares. We added to it clown costumes and ninja stars. We assessed our meager collection of ball point pens accumulated at various motels along the way. They seemed inadequate, and we added a Mont Blanc to the shopping list as well.

We did not go to Walmart. Instead, we drove straight to a second visitors center to get a second opinion. The second opinion made us feel much better. Perhaps it was that this ranger reviewed the incident report in front of us, or that she seemed fairly confident that two people together would probably be fine. Of course, she added in that she wouldn’t go alone, and that she’d prefer to be in a bigger group, but “mountain lions are supposed to be afraid of humans, right?” Right?!

We continued to drive toward the trailhead, feeling marginally better but still a bit nervous, when we realized we hadn’t filled our water bottles for the hike in. We stopped at a third visitors center on the way and decided to get a third opinion while filling our bottles.

Third ranger opinion: “It sounds like the first chapter of White Fang. I wouldn’t go out there.”

We changed plans.

Plan C

There was one backcountry camp open – the one that “always has spots available”. We told ranger number three we’d take a spot there (4pm on Friday of 4th of July weekend leaves few options). She looked at us in disbelief for choosing that camp, then shrugged as if to say, “better than being eaten by a mountain lion.”

Our new route had us climb three miles up to the first camp, a trek that was fairly easy once we completed the initial challenges. The first challenge was following the written instructions to the trailhead. Succeeding there meant completion of the only challenge. We failed. We followed signs instead. Thus, we were met with three more challenges: 1) break through the thorny thicket of hell, 2) walk past the seal carcass of putridity, and 3) cross the creek of stagnation. Seriously, we would have skipped all of those things if we’d just walked up the highway 100 yards – which seemed dangerous, but was clearly the thing to do.

Despite our lamentations, we saw some beautiful flowers

The rest of our hike up that day was relatively uneventful. Much of the trail was overgrown, and holes in the trail were sneakily covered with branches leading to a few rolled ankles. However, we made it to the backcountry camp in one piece and settled in for the night. The next day, July 4th, we had a very enjoyable hike through amazingly tall redwood trees out to the beach. It’s wonderful feeling so small amidst these enormous trees that have been around for hundreds of years and will be alive long after we’ve passed. We celebrated the night of the 4th with Snickers bars – about as patriotic as apple pie (or as close as we could get).

Before we left on this three day trek, we were warned by the ranger (the one who compared the recent moutain lion incident to White Fang) of the elk herds that can sometimes be found along the beach trail we planned to walk on. We were told to 1) give them a wide berth, and 2) never turn your back to them. We added elk to our list of things not to turn our backs on: bears, mountain lions, and the ocean. (We’ve just decided to hike back to back for the rest of our trip.) Sure enough, as we worked our way along the beach trail, we ran into a herd of elk straddling both sides of the trail. We were definitely not going to be giving them a wide berth. And we had no choice but to turn our backs to at least a few of them. We nervously began an infinite loop of Jingle Bells, loud enough to let them know we were there, but not so loud as to frighten them. it seemed to work fairly well as the closer ones moved out of our way while the rest just stared at us (in fascination of our singing?). Pictures of the elk were taken at a “safe” distance, so you can’t really see them, but trust us, they were big (especially the one with the antlers).

The next stretch was filled with beautiful ocean views as we hiked through an area only accessible at low tide. We’d awoken extra early that morning to be sure we reached this section at the right time and so had the beaches (and the elk) all to ourselves.

The trail finally turned back into the forest, climbing up the bluffs through overgrown rainforest turning back to towering redwoods. We reached our camp in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day reading our books.

Our hike back out the next day was lovely, and we got a hitch back to our car from a wonderful couple. In the end, we escaped the moutain lions of Redwood Park, and we were pretty happy with our decision to go with plan C.