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The publishing of the PaCT
At last, my lifelong friend and hiking partner Peter Miles Bergman is taking orders for his 263-page art-book and memoir chronicling the two halves of our Pacific Crest Trail hike and the 23 years in between. As a character in the story my opinion may be suspect, but I love this book and the companion…
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Twice As Old: Following Suit
This is the second chapter in a series exploring a Pacific Crest Trail hike that began on April 16, 1996 and didn’t end until my partner Peter Miles Bergman and I had doubled in age and fulfilled a 23-year-old pact, completing a TAOist thruhike. In the first chapter I looked at how the planning of…
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Twice As Old: The Plan
This is the first of a series exploring a Pacific Crest Trail hike that began on April 16, 1996 and didn’t end until my partner and I had doubled in age and fulfilled a 23-year-old pact, completing a TAOist thruhike. Anyone who has tried to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, or any long trail, will…
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The PaCT is fulfilled
I’m now home in Reno after two months on the Pacific Crest Trail that defied many of my expectations. I plan to digest and write about it in the months to come. Though I didn’t carry a phone, Pete did and he posted some amazing photos and stories on Instagram. I have a stack of…
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PaCT – walking beyond the horizon
On this day, May 31, in 1996, I hiked up a snowy Mount Whitney with my hiking partner Pete. We were 767 miles into an attempt to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, and had no inkling how much snow lay ahead of us in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was our first time wielding an…
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Home Again
Mile 2640. Pete drops me off back at the fifth wheel where we started, with plenty of time left for him to join Jess in Denver for a family dinner. For me the physical travel is done. Pete will get on a plane tomorrow and fly back to Chicago. It seems like we have covered…
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The Sno-Chi-Minh Trail (Storm #5)
Mile 2518. Back on I-80 in Wyoming, Pete tells me about the Snow-Chi-Minh trail. The story is that the Elk Mountain section of I-80 is so bad in the snow that a detour up to Rock River and back south to Laramie is often a better alternative. We laugh as though this is a ridiculous…
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Back to Utah (Storm #4)
Mile 2199. Our momentum carries us past Twin Falls, where Pete has friends willing to put us up for the night. He tells them we’re merely following Bergman driving rules, “…when you’ve hit your groove, for God’s sake don’t stop…”. In Ogden another blizzard hits, reducing visibility to near zero. We pull off, thinking we…
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Fish Dinner
Mile 1865. On twenty minutes’ notice Ann’s parents, Bob & Carol Fish, welcome us into their home in Nampa, Idaho for dinner. Bob is in the middle of painting the kitchen, which he continues as the rest of us enjoy stir-fried veggies, African bean soup, and rice. We pass along hugs from Ann, talk a…
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Touring Central Oregon (Storm #3)
Mile 1636. We’re impressed with size and variety of the landscapes of central Oregon. Volcanic features are definitely the main theme, but forests and pastures also abound. There are several passes to surmount, one of which features a SNOW ZONE sign that, true to its word, marks the boundary of a blizzard. There are many…