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Sourdough Gap
I have stopped being surprised by how often I go looking for one thing and come back with another. It happens on trails, and it happens off them. This one started before sunrise, driving toward Chinook Pass with the cold blue sky gathering light behind the mountains, the warm colors yet to arrive, and it…
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Coyote Wall Loop
Some weeks give us plenty to carry. But every so often, a trail asks us to set all of it down. I drove south last night with a full week still riding along, four hours of highway between me and The Dalles, and thirty minutes of dark road saved for this morning. I almost did…
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Chain Lakes Loop
The best things I carry up a mountain are rarely the ones I find in my pack. I drove to Bellingham last night, leaving only the last dark stretch of road to Artist Point between me and the sunrise. The playlist in the background kept me company as my mind began to wander. Somewhere on…
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Ancient Lakes Trail
We spend years becoming who we are, yet almost no time thanking the person who set us on that path. A few nights before my hike, one of my boys dug out his old yearbooks, which sent me looking for mine. Buried beneath them, in my keepsake box, was a loose stack of letters and…
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Little Si Trail
I almost talked myself out of this hike. It was late in the afternoon, the light was already fading, and after a long week the easy thing would have been to stay home. Instead I grabbed my boots and drove toward the mountains, into the sunset for once instead of the sunrise, and made my…
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Myrtle Falls, Skyline
I still lay everything out the night before a hike, then pack a little more than I know I will need. Old habit. The drive to Paradise started in the dark, headlights reaching only as far as the next bend, a familiar playlist keeping me company the way it always does. Somewhere on that winding…
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Kelly Butte Trail
We don’t always notice the things that shape us. Sometimes it takes a shift to bring them into view. I had time to think about that on my early morning drive, in the dark hours before sunrise, with a familiar playlist keeping me company the way it always does. A song I’ve heard a thousand…
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Hurricane Hill
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, WA: Some mornings stay with me for reasons I never see coming. Yesterday’s drive toward the Olympic Peninsula gave me plenty of time to think, and I kept returning to a conversation from the week before that nudged me to consider what truly mattered. Last week’s early morning drive ended at a…
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Crystal Peak
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, WA: Some questions arrive loudly. Others just sit quietly and wait. Long before daylight reached Crystal Peak, I travelled familiar roads, through Buckley and Enumclaw, beneath the night sky gently softening into day. Gratitude found me on the drive, the way it usually does. This time it wasn’t tied to something…
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Trail of Ten Falls
SILVER FALLS, WILLAMETTE NATIONAL FOREST, OR: Some journeys begin before the first step ever touches the trail. Mine started on a long drive toward Oregon with enough road for the weather to give me all four seasons and for my mind to wander. Somewhere on I-5 south, I caught myself grateful for something seemingly ordinary.…