Twig Adventures

Tag: thru-hiking

Florida Keys Yo-Yo, Part 1: Kayaking Key Largo To Key West. Days 3-4.

Short Hikes

Day 3: Saturday January 24, 2026. Distance: 20 miles to near Duck key. Stops: Anne’s Beach-toilet/shower/replenish water, Long Key–lunch/replenish water, paddle through interior canals of Duck Key. I got on the water much earlier this day (7 am), as I knew I had a long way to paddle. After just a bit, I stopped at Anne’s beach to replenish my drinking water. I also enjoyed a luke-warm beach shower and bathroom break. Thankfully there are numerous beach parks with these nice amenities throughout the keys, making logistics easy. I paddled on along the causeway for a bit, then made the crossing to Long Key. I stopped to check out some remote beaches and was sad to see just how much[…]

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Florida Keys Yo-Yo, Part 1: Kayaking Key Largo To Key West. Intro and Days 1-2.

Arizona Trail, Short Hikes

In early January 2026, I was recapping my 2025 adventures, longing once again for the outdoors. For the past 5 years, I’d begun my hiking season earlier and earlier, to the extent that I started my Desert Winter Thru Hike at the end of January, nearly 1 year prior. While I didn’t really want to repeat a 1500 mile winter thru-hike again this year, a mini staycation / thru-hike seemed like the perfect way to satisfy my immediate wanderlust. So I began studying the logistics of hiking the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail, which lies conveniently in my backyard. Pretty quickly, I added more ambitious plans to also paddle my sea kayak to Key West, making it a paddling /[…]

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2025 Summer/Fall Summary & Stats, Year In Review

Desert Winter Thru Hike, Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail, San Diego Trans County Trail, Sierra High Route, Yosemite High Route

(Scroll to the bottom for a listing of links to all my posts) I respect those that can summarize their yearly recaps into beautiful and tidy video reels on social media, but I’m unfortunately not one of them. I can just barely manage static images, words and numbers…in essence, boring old Luddite stuff. That’s just me, I guess. Even still, I was overwhelmed trying to fit this year into a blog post, but here goes… I’ll start with the figures from my Garmin watch, which says I took a F*#!-ton of steps! My 4,471.8 estimated miles were based on these step counts, thus include every day life movements, not just hiking. But in totaling my hiking miles for the year[…]

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2025 Sierra High Route Days 17-22: Bishop Pass to Mammoth

Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route

Day 17: Bishop Pass Again, Friday, Sep 19th, 2025, 1530-1920. 10 mi to Bishop Pass trail, elevation 9690′. 2320\2450. I woke feeling very ready to get back on trail. The zero was good, especially since the mountains got hammered with rain during this time. The weather forecast still had flood warnings in effect for Yosemite through the end of the day. What a change from the week before, when the warnings were due to the fire, smoke and bad air quality. Some new hikers checked into the hostel mid-morning, telling very soggy, cold stories about their mis-adventures in the high country the past 2 days. Mt Whitney even got several inches of snow. There was a chance of rain for[…]

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2025 Sierra High Route Days 10-16: Bishop Pass to South Kennedy Meadows

Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route

Day 10: Back in the swing of things over Bishop Pass, Thursday, Sep 11th, 2025, 1400-1700. 7 mi over Bishop Pass and into Dusy Basin, elevation 11,320′. It was a slow start to the day, as I was dragging my feet in town. I planned to hitch to the Bishop Pass trailhead, then hike south following parts of the SHR, the PCT and Southern Sierra High Route, eventually ending in Kennedy Meadows South. On a positive note, the smoke did diminish overnight, so it seemed like I could proceed. But the forecast called for some more thunderstorms over the next few days…always a worry when I’m hiking almost entirely above treeline. I busied myself with chores all morning, as I’d[…]

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2025 Sierra High Route Days 7-9: Past the Ritter Range to Reds Meadow / Bishop

Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route

Day 7: Back on the SHR, Sunday, Sep 7th, 2025, 0700-1800.15.5 mi to Bench Canyon, elevation 9,670′. It was a really slow start this morning, given my huge day before, plus 2 late nights of hiking in a row. The first thing I noticed was the smell of smoke, then was pretty astonished to see the sky, or rather the lack there of. A heavy layer of smoke filled the valley overnight. When planning this next leg in Tuolumne Meadows 2 days prior, I’d contemplated saving Half Dome for this morning. Thank goodness I pushed hard and made it to the top the day before! I did get some cool pictures of the eerie red sunrise over Merced lake in[…]

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2025 Sierra High Route Day 6: A Side Trip To Half Dome

Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route

Saturday, Sep 6th, 2025, 0640-2030.28.5 mi to top of Half Dome, then backtrack to Echo Creek, elevation 7,040′. I had a lot of miles and goals planned for this day, so I got cracking at it early and as fast as I could. Basically, this entire day was a side trip to Half Dome, planned spur of the moment and having nothing to do with the SHR. But it was a hoot and well worth the 26 extra miles. I woke to my coldest morning yet, with a thermometer reading of 32 F. As soon as I entered some meadows, the temperature dropped even more and frost coated the grass. I warmed up going over Tuolumne Pass after just a[…]

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2025 Sierra High Route Days 0-5: Sonora Pass to Tuolumne Meadows

Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route, Yosemite High Route

Days 0, August 25-31st: I skipped the PCT NoCal section since I already hiked most of it a 2nd time in 2023 (along with the Oregon Coast Trail, part of the Bigfoot Trail, and entire Tahoe Rim Trail). I spent nearly a week with trail friends Scott and Alan, both of whom helped me out tremendously on past hikes of the Pacific Coast Bigfoot Crest Rim Trail and Desert Winter Thru-hike. I stayed with Alan in Sacramento for about 4 days. He was so kind to host me, let me borrow his bear canister for the Sierra and provide his address for a box of supplies I shipped from home. I received paper maps of the high routes, new Salomon[…]

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2025 SOBO PCT Days 35-42: Willamette Pass to Ashland

Pacific Crest Trail

Day 35, Sunday, Aug 17th, 2025, 1730-1900. Bend.5.5 mi from HWY 58 / Lake Odell to Hidden Lake, mm 752, 1100’up\380’down, elevation 5840′. Jill and Robert graciously treated us to their specialty pancakes in the morning, then drove us into town to do some grocery shopping at Trader Joes and Costco. I didn’t really need much but it was fun hanging out. The other hiker (sorry I can’t remember her name now) and I bought Costco shakes and a large pizza to share with our hosts, a small token of our appreciation. They dropped us off at REI, where we were to meet our respective rides back to trail. After a miscommunication with the Trail Angel that had offered to[…]

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2025 Pacific Crest Trail Days: Back to Cascade Locks

Pacific Crest Trail

PCT Days, Thursday-Saturday, Aug 14th-16th, Cascade Locks OR. Day 1, Thursday Aug 14th: Trail Angel and friend Otzi (Randy), who I stayed with while I was hiking the San Diego Trans County Trail, reached out to say he could give me a ride to Trail Days this year. He was driving all the way from San Diego, and even offered to pick me up at Shelter Cove. But I figured I could easily hitch to Eugene instead, saving him a 3 hour side trip. So in the morning, 2 other hikers and I posted up at the highway, thumbs pointed west. It took a surprising hour and a half to catch a ride, but I was in no hurry since[…]

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