It turns out that it's kind of impossible to write as much as I'd like to while living in a van. At least in a van that's parked on a beautiful BLM road way up in the hills, looking out over everything. It's winter still, and cold; I don't have much of a kitchen; I … Continue reading The infinite possibilities of the known world
My public service announcement to the PCT class of 2014
To everyone who's hiking the trail this year: I know you guys are really busy right now, and you're really excited. You've got homemade bars to vacuum pack and gear spreadsheets to make. You haven't yet found the perfect windshirt (what is a windshirt, anyway?) and your permits have yet to come in the mail. … Continue reading My public service announcement to the PCT class of 2014
Gear
Below is my typical three-season gear list. Gear varies a bit depending on the trail. I update this list regularly. Pack- Superior Wilderness Designs 35Liter (w frame and hipbelt) -or- Superior Wilderness Designs 50L Long-Haul 25 (ounces) 35 Shelter- zpacks Hexamid solo tarp (now called the "pocket tarp", Sea to Summit Nano bug … Continue reading Gear
UGGHHHH, SO EXCITED
I bought a van. A giant beater of a cargo van with a bed platform inside and a mechanically solid engine. It's dark and cold in there but I sleep amazing in the glittering Southern Oregon nights, buried under a thousand blankets and my zero-degree sleeping bag. In the mornings I'm groggy and stiff and … Continue reading UGGHHHH, SO EXCITED
sometimes I collect images of things
and you can see them on my tumblr. If you're into that kind of thing. xo c
Food on the PCT
I've been meaning for a while to write a piece on the things I ate on the PCT. Food is an important trail subject and a highly subjective one- our relationship with food changes continuously and our tastes and fancies come and go like the wind. Here, I am the subject, with my fussy gut … Continue reading Food on the PCT
The Vandwelling Dream
Readers! So much has happened/is always happening; sometimes the constantly-forking nature of my life (all our lives?) baffles me. Currently I'm dogsitting in a beautiful house way up on a hilltop in Southern Oregon. This morning I ran in the cold and the smell of the ponderosa pines and the sun came out with its … Continue reading The Vandwelling Dream
I meant to tell you
About December and January, but then I didn't, and now January is practically over. It went like this: I got systemic poison oak, my face swelled up, I didn't want to get steroids. I stopped kissing my dogs, I washed everything I owned, I acknowledged the existence of poison oak everywhere in the forest here. … Continue reading I meant to tell you
After the trail: November in 1,357 words
(I've switched to past tense. It's getting wild up in here!) I went south; I sold my trailer to a woman on craigslist, put many of my possessions on the curb (before, everything I owned could fit in my trailer, now it fit in the back of a borrowed sedan) gathered my dogs and drove … Continue reading After the trail: November in 1,357 words
After the trail: The return of the existential despair
When I wake in the morning I sit up in bed and stare out the big window at the backyard. Outside the rain is coming down, hard, the wind lashing the trees. It's the same storm that, a few hundred miles north, is dumping feet and feet of snow in the Northern Cascades. The storm … Continue reading After the trail: The return of the existential despair
CARROT QUINN 
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