I feel like I’ve woken up from a deep sleep and don’t know quite where I am.

Kirk and I spent almost 2 weeks in Utah, and a solid 7 days rafting the San Juan River for a level of immersion I can’t remember having in a long time.

It was 7 gluttonous days of more food than we could eat, more beer than we could drink, and more red rock cliffs than the eye could take in.

And what set this apart from my 5 month CDT adventure last year was the total disengagement. No phone, no blogging, no route finding, no food stress. I slept better and deeper last week than I can ever remember. It was a float of body and mind…the current pulling our boats and thoughts along, drifting from eddy to eddy.

When we got back to Bend I couldn’t remember which way the door lock worked; which light switch was which. Kirk said, “I forgot how the house works.” We were in so deep the past few weeks that it feels like I am seeing home with fresh eyes.

5:30 at Crows Feet Commons, April 27 in Bend. Come hear about my CDT thru-hike last year!

I went back to where it all started last year. The Continental Divide Trail Kickoff in Silver City, New Mexico.

I printed some hikertrash to wear for the weekend.

and set up my booth in the Big Ditch for the vendor fair on Saturday.

I met the Reynolds, some blog readers of mine last year!

And went on a hike with some of the folks from Silver City I met on the same hike last year.

It was nice to spend a few days with Allgood who started his CDT hike the next day, and meet Julie from TOAKS, and Spirit, who was also setting off on her thru-hike.

I passed on the CDTC Trail Ambassador torch (or hiking pole) to Allgood.

And caught up with some hiking friends from last year, like Race.

It was a real pleasure to attend the event, get some closure on my thru-hike, and reflect on the challenges and successes of the hike last year.

CDT, it’s been real!

I’ve given 5 presentations this month on the Oregon Desert Trail around Oregon, and hope to get out on many more trips to help spread the word. It’s always going to be a route for the more advanced hiker (to thru-hike that is), but I can see lots of people getting out for sections.

I had the opportunity to write a post for the popular blog Appalachian Trials recently, and decided to talk about what it’s like to create a trail from a thru-hiker’s perspective. I met Zach, the website’s founder (and book author) a few years ago at the Outdoor Retailer show. We seem to run into each other there often and since he is looking to expand the scope of Appalachian Trials to some of the other long trails, it was the perfect opportunity to draw some attention to what we have going on in the West.

Getting to Know the New 750-Mile Oregon Desert Trail

I‘m one of those backpackers who set foot on a long trail years ago, and haven’t been able to tear myself away from the freedom of a good long hike. It got to the point that after my PCT thru-hike in 2006, I decided to ignore the fact I had just gotten a master’s degree in design, and focus on finding a job where I could get paid to hike. That’s the dream, right?

Well, I tried leading trail crews, guiding, teaching light-weight backpacking courses, leading wilderness therapy trips, working for Outward Bound, and finally after years of earning enough to barely pay my bills (and hiking a few thousand more miles), I decided to settle down in a regular job. Truthfully, I had to find a way to save for my next thru-hike. I still found time to get creative with my passion though, and founded Hikertrash with friend and fellow thru-hiker Brian Frankle. Fast forward to the end of 2015; I returned home to Bend, Oregon after finishing the Continental Divide Trail (and Triple Crown!) and found myself spiraling into the despair of life off trail. But out of the depths of discontent came the dream job: managing the new Oregon Desert Trail. Getting paid to hike!

Origin Story

The origin story for this 750 mile trail started with a thru-hiker’s sleepless night. Brent Fenty, Oregon Natural Desert Association’s (ONDA) executive director, lay awake one evening imagining a way to connect the highlights of Oregon’s high desert, a desert you may be surprised to find covers almost half the state. For this avid outdoorsman (and former PCT thru-hiker), a trail seemed the natural solution to this idea. By connecting the remote and stunning regions in Oregon’s high desert like the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, the Steens Mountain, and the Owyhee Canyonlands with a trail, hikers could be immersed in the very land ONDA has been striving to protect for 25 years. Perhaps by introducing more people to these amazing landscapes, the Oregon Desert Trail could help foster a sense of responsibility: responsibility to help protect, defend, and restore Oregon’s high desert for generations to come.

2011 kicked off three years of inventorying and ground-truthing the route, and through the thousands of hours of volunteer and staff work, the Oregon Desert Trail (ODT) emerged as an immersive desert experience that can be explored through cross-country travel, old roads, and existing trail.

What’s in the Middle of the Desert?

By nature, the Oregon Desert Trail is a remote backpacking experience. The desert in this part of the country is sparsely populated, and one will be much more likely to see herds of pronghorn antelope and the well-camouflaged sage grouse than other people. On the flip side, the remote nature of south eastern Oregon boasts one of the last uninterrupted night-skies left in the country. No light pollution means unparalleled views of the Milky Way and stars you could only dream of in the city.

Volcanos and plate tectonics play a big part in what makes this part of Oregon unique. Hikers will walk among 80,000 year old lava flows in the Badlands Wilderness, and brush the edge of the largest fault block mountains in the country along Abert Rim and Steens Mountain. Active faults also mean hot springs! The trail passes near the developed Summer Lake Hotsprings and Hunters Hotsprings, as well as Hart Mountain Hotsprings, Alvord Hotsprings, and several soaking pools in the Owyhee Canyonlands. There is nothing better than a soak after a long day of hiking, and the ODT provides!

This ain’t the PCT

There are challenges to a trail of this type. At this stage, Oregon Desert Trail hikers need to be experienced with map and compass and/or very comfortable using a GPS device as the route is unmarked and contains quite a bit of cross-country travel. However, for those looking to break free from a traditional trail experience, this is the hike for you. There is freedom in the desert, freedom to make your own routes, to explore a near-by peak or canyon, and truly immerse yourself in a trail that isn’t quite a trail.

As many of the long trails in the country are getting more and more popular (I’m looking at you Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail) you are almost guaranteed solitude and a true wilderness experience on the Oregon Desert Trail. We’ve had 5 thru-hikers finish the route. Yep, we’re still in the single digits. This will probably always be an experience for the seasoned thru-hiker, but as our first fall thru-hiker Huck Finn shared, “Perhaps the biggest highlight is the freedom I felt. The fact that the ODT is currently an idea more than anything else is awesome. I found any lack of structure/signage to be a positive. The fact that most of the people I met (which were few) had no knowledge of it was great. No one can say, ‘Well, that’s not the trail,’ or ‘Huh…you’re doing it wrong.’ I love that it is a ‘choose your own adventure.’”

Water (or lack of) in the Desert

Water can be quite elusive in this part of the state, and hikers need to be prepared for long distances between water sources, or to cache water for themselves. Water availability is perhaps crux of the hike on the Oregon Desert Trail. But never fear, there are plenty of resources available to figure it out. All of the folks that have headed out on the trail so far have hiked from west to east (or from Bend to the Owyhee Reservoir) and four of the five hiked in late May/June/early July. Lots of the water is seasonal and much more available in the spring than the fall, but it’s still doable. Just be prepared to carry more water if you decide to go with this option. Summer is bloody hot out there, so it’s probably best to stick to the shoulder seasons. And speaking of water, the last 200 miles of the trail are primarily in the canyon of the Owyhee River. Wading, a bit of swimming, and crossing back and forth to find the best route of passage is to be expected. Or if you are like me, you can packraft it. Going downstream in this case is probably much easier than trying to walk or paddle upstream, but if you like a challenge maybe you can be the first person to hike from east to west!

So How do I Hike it?

The first thing I did when starting to work on the trail was give all the resources a good once-over from a thru-hiker’s perspective. Because I haven’t hiked it yet, I approached the task like I was embarking on the most detailed planning of a hike ever. I know if I can get the materials in the shape I would want them before setting off for 750 miles, they would surely be helpful to others wanting to do the same.

• Maps – The trail is broken down into 4 regions, with each region spanning about 160-200 miles. In those 4 regions we have 25 sections, each with detailed maps indicating the type of tread (cross country, trail, or road), waypoints, mileage between waypoints, water sources, trail town info, and declination information.
• Databook/Waterchart – I love a good databook. I immediately went to work creating one based on the observations and feedback from our 5 thru-hikers, data found on the maps, and info included in the first version of the ODT guidebook. In addition I included a water chart which ranks water sources from reliable to questionable to unreliable, and color coded them to match the maps. I’ve included historical data from the past 5 seasons hikers have been inventorying or hiking the trail, and have a column for this year’s hikers to include their information on water sources. Better yet? It’s a Google Sheet; hikers who like to use their smart phones can download and update the chart electronically when they are hiking. Once connected to data or Wifi again the info will update automatically for the next hikers.
• Guidebook – It’s nice to have a play by play account of what you will encounter in each section of the trail, and the guidebook will tell you to “take a left at that tree,” or “look out for pictographs around the next corner.” It references the waypoints on the maps and the databook and includes a bunch of helpful information on planning your hike.
• GPS Waypoints – You don’t NEED a GPS to hike this trail. Huck Finn did just fine last year without one, but they sure are helpful. We have downloadable waypoints you can use however you like to “hike your hike.”
• Hiking Project Website & App – This is the age of the app. I loved using Guthook’s CDT App on the trail last year, if only to reassure myself from time to time that I was going in the right direction. We’ve teamed up with the Hiking Project to get the first 160 miles of the trail on their website and free app (and are aiming to include the rest of the miles by the end of the year). Included are elevation profiles, a slimmed down version of the guidebook, and a real-time view of where you are on the route at all times. Important junctions between cross country and trail sections are marked, as well as water sources…and all match up with the waypoints and info you will find in our other ODT resources. And yes, it can be used on airplane mode!
• Water Cache Guidelines & Maps – So the first 160 miles of the trail isn’t doable without caching water. But luckily the hikers who have already completed the trail gave us detailed notes and maps on where they cached their water. We also drafted some caching guidelines because caching can be a tricky thing if you’ve never done it before. Now depending on how many miles you like to hike a day, you may want to cache more than what is suggested, and as time goes and more people head out into the desert we should have more and more information available.
• Town Guide – I’ve identified 16 communities along or near the trail that could provide important services to hikers along their journey. Town can be a generous term in some cases as many spots along the ODT consist of a single store/gas station/restaurant/bar/post office all in one building. I’m in the middle of creating maps of each town with a directory of where you can eat, resupply, sleep, and more. As Huck Finn mentioned, not many people in these desert communities know about the trail or the “crazy” people who want to hike it, but I have been and will be visiting all of these places to spread the good word and let them know some dusty, tired hikers will probably descend on their towns to clean them out of nachos, pizza, and beer.

Future of the trail

I’ve got LOTS of plans for this route. A few things I’ve been dreaming up include exploring other ways people might like to get on the trail like bikepacking, packrafting, skiing, and horseback riding. Parts of the trail can already be biked like in the Fremont National Forest near Paisley, and we’ve started scheming up a way to create a parallel bikeable route for the whole trail. I’ve already mentioned you can packraft the Owyhee River, and other rivers like the Chewaucan and Donner und Blitzen river are floatable certain times of the year too. How about a ski tour? The Steens Mountain could offer some stunning terrain for your next winter adventure, and horse packers will love the remote and beautiful country.

The ODT passes near some caves which hold traces of human DNA dating back 14,000+ years. There is an incredible amount of human history in this area of the world, and don’t be surprised to find arrowheads, pictographs, and old hunting blinds. I’d love to develop some resources so hikers can learn more about this area…that also includes the incredible geology of the area and the rich wildlife that can be found among the sagebrush seas. Perhaps we’ll hold some educational hikes, or suggest what reading materials to carry with you so you can learn all about the place you are walking through.

Just on the other side of the Cascade Mountains from the western terminus of the Oregon Desert Trail is the PCT. Maybe we can link into that trail, and connect to the Idaho Centennial Trail in the east. Maybe we can make a loop in northern Oregon that could take hikers through the equally impressive Wallowa and Blue mountains.

Anything is possible!

I’ve only been on the job for three months, but like I said: DREAM JOB! Stay tuned as the resources get refined and more hikers get out there and experience the remote and incredible beauty of Oregon’s high desert. One of the best ways to support the development of this trail is to get out there and hike, but becoming a member of founding organization ONDA is a good one too. And please, check out thewebsite for all the resources mentioned above, and let me know if you have any questions.

I hope to see you out there!

It seems the Oregon Desert Trail is a media darling! It’s fun to be working on a trail and have so much interest from hikers and the press.

Here’s a podcast I did with The Source, our local Bend, Oregon weekly newspaper

And a blog post I wrote for MSR about the Oregon Desert Trail.

http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/blog/the-thru-hike-youve-never-heard-of/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

There are more posts and articles in the pipeline, it’s all quite exciting!

I spent the weekend at the ALDHA-West Ruck and talked trail and sold some hikertrash. Photo courtesy of Robert Curzon

I also gave my first presentation on the Oregon Desert Trail at our Bend REI, and will be doing 4 more the week of March 21 in Ashland, Medford, Grants Pass & Klamath Falls. Here’s some more info for those who are in the area and might want to attend.

I’m planning my first big section hike of the trail in late May…stay tuned for more details!

Ahhrrg, I have a half-finished short movie on my hike that I put together months ago, but now it lays buried under months of not feeling very creative. Well, I’ve been preoccupied by my new job, I’ll have to dive into that more in another post, but in short, it has been an incredible few months of thinking like a thru-hiker to help take a trail to the next level…EXCITING!

So I’ve neglected my CDT movie for a while. And to be honest I was disappointed with the footage I took. Lots of feeling lazy and holding a shaky camera when I had a light tri-pod in my pack.

Maybe I need to change the background song, I could try another (start over) but I want to work on it again.

And that got me in the mood to watch some of the other movies I’ve made on recent adventures. Here’s the show roll! And maybe the movies are never as interesting to other people as they are to me, but it’s fun, and it really takes me back on those adventures.

Lets see what we got,

Here’s an early one:

Then we went back to the same river a few years later and I made this one:

I wrote about all these trips on my other blog, but there’s nothing like watching the videos again.

ahhhhh, it’s fun! I want to make a movie!

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions, but when Oboz asked me to write something from a hiker’s perspective, I was able to come up with a few! See that post below.

This blog has been silent for a while, the biggest reason is that I’m no longer on an epic trip that I’ve been planning for years. In fact, it’s still a bit challenging to be done with the CDT. I have an awesome new job helping to shape the Oregon Desert Trail, like I mentioned before, but I still don’t have the next “big thing” in mind. And now that I hiked the trail “last year” that experience seems farther and farther away every day.

It’s no wonder readjustment is hard. There’s no way you can replicate the energy expended and endorphins released that comes from day after day of hiking. Being in the middle of some of the most incredible wilderness areas on the planet is hard to replicate too when you return to four walls and a stack of bills to pay each month. If anything I should be grateful that I’ve had that experience, so many never know that level of freedom, but it comes with a price. Day to day life has a hard time measuring up to a long distance hike.

That being said Kirk and I have been out a lot. We skied,

rafted & packrafted,

and even ski kayaked.

This winter is the best we have had in years! And we’ve camped. Snow camped, car camped, river camped, and that has been a challenge.

I’m shying away from 15 hours of nighttime in the winter, and the cold! Last weekend we spent New Years Eve trying to sleep in the back of Kirk’s truck in a snow park…brutal with the single digit temperatures. I will still winter camp, but it’s just another level of planning, another level of suffering, and those four walls back home start to look pretty good!

I guess I’ll keep floundering a bit until I have another big goal in front of me. I think working on the ODT is best of all possible things I could be doing right now. I’m immersed in what I love most, and get to draw on all those random outdoor jobs I’ve had over the years. It’s really quite an amazing fit.

In the mean time, here are my hiking resolutions for the New Year. I think I need them this year!

It’s been a busy year of hiking! Making time to get outside and put some miles on my Oboz Lunas was easy this year since I was hiking the Continental Divide Trail, but 2016? There is no long hike on tap for the new year, so now what?

Well, since so many years passed between my last long hike (the Arizona Trail in 2009), I know how hiking can take a back seat to life…you know, things like a job, life in a city, and even facing the fact that your significant other might not like hiking as much as you. So here are a few resolutions I’ve made that will help me keep hiking at the forefront of my year.

1. Walk to Work I’m lucky enough to call Bend, Oregon home, and we’ve had a great snow year so far. But what I’ve realized after shoveling out my car for the 10th time in just over a month is that it’s easier to just walk to work than dig, defrost, and slide on the slick streets. A walk to and from work is a great way to make sure my legs are moving every day, especially when the weather is more conducive to skiing than hiking. A walk to work helps calm my mind…especially this time of year when I’m so busy that all I want to do is curl up on the couch under a warm blanket until spring. A walk to work is another way of saying urban hike!

Sometimes I even find inspiration in my socks.

2. Keep the Backpack Packed Does your backpacking gear get put away for long periods of the year? Even in Central Oregon we have warm, mild spells in the colder months, and I find I’m much more likely to take advantage of a favorable weather window when my pack is prepped and all I need to do is grab enough food for my hike. Put that headlamp, tent, sleeping pad, water bladder, and warm layers in your pack. Better yet? Keep your pack in the house where you are likely to see it regularly. I bet it will call to you and you’ll end up feeling sorry for your gear if it doesn’t get enough love.

3. Shop for Hiking Foods I bought a big box of Ramen dinners the other day. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Ramen at home, but I still can’t get enough on the trail. The companion piece to keeping your pack packed for spontaneous adventures is keeping a stock of backpacking foods in your pantry. I like to have bars, instant oatmeal, and a few meals on hand at all times. Also think beyond your traditional hiking foods. Depending on the length of the trip I sometimes hike out salad, chips and salsa, or even burgers. The key is ease. Ease of walking out the door with everything you need, especially if time is short!

4. Tell Stories and Cultivate those Hiking Friends  Since coming back from the Continental Divide Trail this fall I’ve been telling a lot of stories. The result is folks that I didn’t know were interested in backpacking suddenly had an interest. While I enjoy the solitary experience on the trail, it’s awesome to hit the trail with friends, so in the new year I resolve to keep telling stories and make some trips happen with friends. I can’t think of anything better than helping someone discover their love of backpacking.

5. Stay Inspired I like to have a goal in front of me to look forward to. Even though I don’t know when my next long hike will happen, I have a folder on my computer filled with links to other long trails I’d love to hike. I like to say that my favorite trail is the one I haven’t hiked yet, and perusing those websites and planning materials helps to get me through the darker days of winter and long spells between backpacking trips. Stay inspired!

When your beer tells you to go for a hike, listen.

6. Live for the Weekends I used to think “weekend warrior” meant I was a sad desk-bound worker bee, but if I’m smart about it, the weekend can offer the perfect bite-sized trip that could turn my year into a series of adventures. To get the most out of my weekend I often like to get packed up on a Thursday, so when 5 o’clock on Friday hits, all I have to do is pack the car and drive. Your ability to wring the meat out of the weekend is greatly enhanced if you can wake up Saturday morning and simply go. Having an entire day in the wilderness makes the weekend feel much more substantial.

These are just a few ways that I resolve to keep hiking a priority in 2016. The key is making it easy and convenient so you can spend more time outside.

As I’m writing this the votes from the first “open” election in decades in the West African country of Burkina Faso are being counted. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer there from 1999-2001, and know what a huge deal this is. Until about a year ago the “dictator-president” Blaze Compaore was overthrown from his 27 year seat of power.

Tides are changing in Burkina, and was especially reminded of my time in the country when I saw the latest newsletter from the Friends of Burkina Faso.

I wrote about my CDT trip for the newsletter…and the act of sitting down to reflect on my hike helped me remember how my backpacking journey all started with those long dusty days in Burkina Faso.

2015-2-burkina-connection 9

In my attempt to narrow down the thousands of photos I took into more digestible portions, I have put together some photo galleries for each state along the CDT this summer.

It was hard to choose sometimes.

New Mexico

Colorado

Wyoming

Idaho/Montana

Montana

But so fun to look back.