kristoHIKES.com
Sunday, April 16, 2017
2017
This is certainly shaping up to be another epic year, as I have spent pretty much all of my time traveling since being laid off from logging for the winter season in late November. Since the second week of December I have traveled from Placerville California, North along the Oregon and Washington coast , to visit my mom and aunt around Christmas, near the Olympic National Park. Then returned to Northern California shortly for the holidays before heading south, via the Pacific Coast Highway down to spend time in Southern California during the winter doing whatever I wanted.
So.....
• I was able to find some side work seasonally that was fun and educational, helping set up awesome Tipis for a company called Under Canvas.
• I hiked the San Diego Trans County Trail for the 4th time. 160 miles from the shores of the Salton Sea to the surf of the Pacific Ocean at Torrey Pines.
• Spent lots of time in the Anza-Borrego Desert and State Park with lots of camping and sharing good times with friends old and new.
• I got to experience NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) in Anaheim which was a couple days of being in musical heaven. I was able to get my hands on way too many guitars and instruments that I have no business with holding and playing. It was a pretty surreal experience for me.
• I traveled back to Washington to help my mother move back to Nor Cal.
• did yoga for the first time
• summited the 5 peaks of Mission Hills San Diego in one day (not that special, but a fun and tiring day)
• Celebrated my little brother turning 30 years old
• Traveled north on hw 395 to spend some time with hiker trash at The Hostel California and Bishop California.
• camp for a few days in Death Valley at Saline Valley Hot Springs. One of the coolest Hot Springs I found to date.
• returned to Lake Tahoe to surprise one of my best friend's for his 30th birthday
• headed back south to San Diego to hang out with some friends before flying to Cabo to help a friend sail his catamaran back to Los Angeles...
So I am currently in Cabo about to get on a catamaran and spend a couple weeks sailing back to the United States. When I'm finished there I plan on getting in my truck and driving to Alaska where I will work until late July then head back to Washington, where I will start my southbound attempt of the Pacific Crest Trail. I am hoping to finish sometime in early November....
So that's a quick rundown on how my year has went so far, and future plans. I hope to keep updating this all year, and that you guys keep following along....
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Looking forward...
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misty morning. Cool, California |
I'm pretty sure I am the worst blogger ever. I think about this site almost daily. I think about the stuff I should be writing, and the ideas, and goals I have. But it is so tough for me to actually start writing sometimes, because I don't take myself seriously as a writer. I started this blog not because I have always wanted to be a journalist, author, or poet. I started this site because I have always loved creating in some way.
Actually, I have never taken myself serious in any of my creative outlets. I play music, but I'm not a musician. I paint, draw, take pictures, create blogs. I can build things out of wood, everything I do is through some creative lens, but still, I'm not an artist or a photographer. Not in the professional sense. I know artists, I know authors, musicians and photographers. I see their talents and I struggle to compare my own to theirs. This mentality can be crippling. It prevents me from striving to get better, because I have already accepted that I am inferior. It is hard for me to sit down and write anything of depth or meaning, because I read amazingly well thought out articles, tweets, blogs, updates on a daily basis, by real people that are professional writers, and I know I can't provoke those emotions from people by my writing because I don't have the skills, the training, the degree, the whatever that those writers who can take themselves seriously possess. I don't have an audience expecting anything. No one asked me or told me I needed to start this blog. I did it hoping to have a creative outlet for talking about and showing pictures of my adventures on this planet. I didn't start it because I am a writer and this is the best way to promote my talents. I am winging it. I'm what I like to call a hack-artist. An emulator. I have never taken any type of instructions or lessons for most of what I do. I am primarily inspired and get my ideas from watching how others do things. Most of my paintings look similar to the artist who I was able to watch complete painting after painting. I emulate that process, with a few of my own ideas thrown in the mix. The same goes for how I play music, design my website, write my updates, or draw the drawings that I do.
I'm trying my best to shed these mindsets and just go for it. I am feeling more creative than ever. I have more ideas for content here on this website. I have half-done art projects and new ones running through my mind constantly that I want to see through... I want to start a podcast, I want to hike 1000 more miles, there are a lot of WANTS for this coming new year.
So keep coming around and hopefully this hack-artist of a website will have more frequent updates, hike and trail re-caps, and possibly another hikertrash type podcast for ya'll to listen to...
kristoOUT
Monday, September 8, 2014
all finished!!!!!
Thank You all so much for following and all the support!! I could not have done this without you!
Well, it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I successfully completed my thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. I’ve had a little bit of time to try and reflect, and to possibly find some sort of deeper meaning for the last five months worth of efforts, struggles and victories. How will I use the lessons I learned going forward? What did Ieven learn? What WERE those lessons? Maybe I am thinking too hard. Maybe once thrust back into a lifestyle that is so very different than that of life on the trail, the burdens of the societal expectations start to weigh on your psyche with a pressure that feels similar to slow and helpless sinking. Lots of guilt has always followed my thru hike. Guilty for being absent from the memories and life-changes amongst my family and friends.Guilt for missing the birthdays, mothers and fathers days, trips to Disneyland and t-ball games, tail-gates, weddings and births, deaths. Guilt for not having a 9-5 job that I mildly to passionately hate going to just to make ends meet.
I have goals. I do. Maybe they are out of whack. But now all I really want to do is hike the Continental Divide Trail. I knew this about a month after I finished my first thru hike on the PCTthat I wanted to hike more long trails. See, the problem with thru hiking is that you’ll probably get the addiction. Once you get the addiction, you sort of just want to hike forever, on every trail that has a beginning and end. The trend and ultimate goal for thru-hiking in the United States is known as the ‘Triple Crown’ and consist of completing the three major long distance trails: Appalachian Trail (2185miles), Pacific Crest Trail (2665miles), and the Continental Divide Trail (2700+miles). If you have hiked all three of these trails, you’ve hiked nearly 8000 miles, through 22 states, and seen the majority of the most beautiful places this part of the planet has to offer. I am 2/3 of the way there now, I have hiked nearly 5500 miles since I began long distance hiking in 2012.