Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

It's the weekend, and time for more eye candy! Back at the very end of August I joined my brother-in-law and his nephew in a 4-night, 5-day backpack on the Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood in Oregon. At about 42 miles, with around 10,000' of up and down (if you think a trail that draws a circle around a mountain stays at the same elevation, think again!), we chose to take our time. We met a startling number of people with a different approach: trail runners doing the whole thing in one day. I admire them and envy them, but my days of imagining I can emulate them are definitely over. Since we started with a four-hour drive down from Seattle, we didn't hit the trail until 2 p.m. the first day. That meant hiking until dinner time to get to a particularly scenic campsite in Paradise Park. The first photo is by my brother-in-law, photographer Tom Dempsey, whose amazing work can be found at Photoseek.com . At the risk of making you lose all interest in my post, his take on the tr

  Back in August, I spent 12 days walking an 80-mile segment of the Washington PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). So far I've featured the 1st three days and a bit, from our start near Crystal Mountain Ski Area to Chinook Pass, and a couple of days continuing south into the William O. Douglas wilderness. Today we're on across White Pass and approaching the Goat Rocks--the scenic highlight of the trip. The fog that settled on my camp in the late afternoon turned overnight to a wet mizzle, maybe even a drizzle. I wasn't keen to get up, but it has to be done, and breakfast cooked and eaten, regardless of the weather. Happily, it wasn't really that wet, though the trees dripped on my tent something fierce. Starting out on a misty hike, but the sun is making a valiant effort/ The day began with a 1400' descent to cross the Bumping River, at this point little more than a creek and easily spanned by a log. This was a 7-mile day, with modest climbing and descending, but limited