www.patreon.com/posts/18867377

I have the opposite experience that most hikers do, thanks to Dave at the Bud Pharm I was able to find temporary work while my feet rested up. Also turned my cookie making prowess into $40 cash plus some other little things that’ll help upgrade my hike. Leaving town with more cash instead of less is a good feeling for sure. Just one more moment where the trail is teaching me that it provides. Just one more experience that makes me just that little bit more confident that of course I’ll make it to Canada.

flowers at sunset, coming up from cajon pass

Big thanks to my friend Lionel who bought me my altras, I’m so happy to be hiking in these again

Finally, a bridge as gay as me!

Pinecones twice the size of your head are freaky… lets hope the pine cone rain doesn’t get me!

Made it to 300 the other night! Then hiked an extra 7 miles to visit Deep Creek hot springs

flowers at sunset coming out of Cajon pass

flowers along a dusty desert path

The little lizards are so cute!

pack+dirt= the best chair you’ve ever sat in I promise. Or maybe hiking all day just makes me so tired I appreciate every break I allow myself.

Passed an old mine on my way out of Big Bear

I’m so grateful to be here, and so grateful that there’s so much of the journey still left to go.

This was the longest stretch yet between resupplies, yet somehow I made it into Wrightwood with more food than I set out from  Big Bear with. Crazy huh? I got really lucky in the hiker boxes at the Cajon Pass Best Western – 5 whole Mountain House meals!!! That’s over $50 worth of food, and honestly those freeze dried meals are the easiest and tastiest food I get on the trail, so I appreciate them so much.

After walking a marathon into Big Bear and still feeling good, I decided pulling 20s on the regular shouldn’t be that far out of my reach right? I walked 20, then 22, then 20, then 18, then 24 miles to get here, and for the most part I’m feeling strong, but I do know I need to let my body rest after that. Especially after all the climbing that happened on that 24 mile day yesterday.

Luckily I’ve found a farm where I can stay for free, and potentially even work for a day or two. It would be nice to hit the trail again with enough money in my pocket to make sure I can buy my next pair of shoes (that’s not an urgent need though, these shoes I hiked out of Big Bear in are still practically brand new). I don’t want to stay too long because so many of my friends are leaving today, and it’ll be a lot of work to catch up again. If I can maintain these 20 mile days though, hopefully I’ll catch up by the time we get to the next resupply in Agua Dulce.

www.patreon.com/posts/18821563

One month ago today I began hiking north from the border with a girl named Grace, and now that it’s been a month and 369 miles (but felt like 4 lifetimes) I’ve found Grace again! As well as another good friend named Scraps who also started on the 15th of April.

Life is good.

Huge shoutout to the woman who answered yes to backpacking as a honeymoon trip and then proceeded to raise me half in the woods. You taught me the fine art of the squat pee, which is of course very useful out here. You also made sure my wild backpacking ways were balanced out with theater- my other big passion, so kudos there as well.

You’re a big part of why I’m out here, and I know you wish you could be here too, so I hope you enjoy reading about it and seeing all my photos.

With love from the trails, happy Mother’s Day mom.

In case I start writing words that don’t make sense to you, here’s some of the lingo we use on trail:

thru-hiker: One who hikes the entire length of a trail

Section-hiker: One who hikes sections of a longer trail

Day-hiker: Strange beasts who exist in the woods but actually smell nice. Often yogi-ing has turned out well when encountering these people

Yogi-ing: Lightening the food load of those who carried more than they need – like yogi of yogi and boo-boo fame.

Trail family: a group who happen to be moving at the same pace who hike and camp together, and look out for one another as a family would.

Trail angel: a non-hiker who helps make a thru-hike possible by generously helping provide rides, snacks, drinks etc. They truly are angels.

Trail magic: the snacks, drinks, etc. left by trail angels. Magical moments unlooked for on the trail.

Hiker trash: another term for thru-hiker; we all end up looking and smelling homeless eventually, so this term refers to that phenomenon.

This is a shoutout to trail angels Rick and Donna who let me sleep in their horse barn last night and then made sure I was well fed before driving me back to the trail this morning. It’s because of the generosity of folks like you guys that I’m able to be out here, so I want you to know how grateful I am.

Thanks,

-Gracetopher “McGuyver” Kirk

May 10, 1998 it was Mother’s Day, and to remind us all of that fact two little infants called Daisy and Jonah got to add to our mom’s mom credentials.

Now it’s May 10, 2018, and Daisy and Jonah finally graduate from their teenager selves to being 20-somethings. Or well, they’ll be 20-something’s next year, this year I get to call them 20-nothings because that’s what people called me 5 years ago. 20 years ago today a little 5-year-old me could hold both babies at once (under supervision of course), but now they’re both taller than me and that’s so unfair that I’m leaving civilization right now goodbye good riddance see you in 100 miles when I get to Wrightwood.

On the night of May 7th, I camped at Mission Spring Trail Camp – mile 239.9. We’d walked less than 10 miles that day, but Lumberjack was not doing well, and Sugar had yet to catch up to us. It had been a tough climb in the heat, especially since we’d started a bit later than I generally like to personally. I could have gone on that night, but when Lumberjack suggested waking up at 2 am to get an early start, I knew that was the way to go.

Leaving at 2 am meant that me and Lumberjack got in a 10by10 and keep on going to hit a total of 13 miles before 10 AM. Then we celebrated by hanging out on a couch on Onyx summit. From there we said we’d press on at least 6 more miles, but breaking for lunch 3 miles later we decided nah, we got this. Let’s just crush some miles and get all the way in to town in one go! So that’s exactly what we did – it made for an exciting day passing the 10% mark, hitting my highest miles in a day so far, and then getting to celebrate by catching up with some girls I haven’t seen for 100 miles or more who happened to have an extra bunk in their Airbnb.

Best part? I got to celebrate walking 26 miles by soaking in a hot tub. Basically, yesterday was the best day on trail so far.

www.patreon.com/posts/18695351

Today may just be the best day so far! Good miles, good people, hit that 10% mark, made it into town for a well deserved shower and laundry and now I’m off to the hot tub. Life is good 💜

Boldly Went has published another of my pieces! It’s a work in progress about how I’ve encountered privilege on the trail.