Sierra Nevada Mountains/PCT

I put different pictures on here than on Facebook so that you would visit each and see more. You don't have to sign up for anything, just go to this website (tobb kepet latni, legyenek szivesek clickoljanak erre a cimre, es ha nem, akkor masoljak be a cimet, koszonjuk!):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33479&id=1069755482&l=3bd7d62fb5

We had a perfect summer out in the woods, and feel that the Sierra Nevadas are the most gorgeous mountains in the world, definitely the prettiest place we've seen in the US. The high Sierras especially! The trail starts at Tehachapi Pass near Bakersfield, and the Mojave desert is just as hot as you'd imagine and full of flowering cacti & Joshua Trees. Four snakes, an animal that looked like a dragon and tons of lizards everywhere.
This is at Guitar Lake, when we at the last moment decided to detour (16 miles) to summit Mt. Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states at 14,560feet!
This picture is on our way up Whitney, as the sun was coming up. We got used to 3 and 4 am start times for special trips like this one and for desert hiking where it was just too hot in the day and we needed to get the bulk of our miles hiked before noon. We were hiking 25 mile days, with 32 being our longest day, although it did take a while for our feet to "break in" to the weight and the mileage. We lightened our packs significantly after the first week.
Lunch spot in Kings Canyon National Park, which was just one of the gorgeous NP's that we got to traverse (Sequoia, Kings Canyon & Yosemite). Below is my favorite picture of the trip:

I guess they were right, we did look pretty clean for long distance hikers. This picture was at Belden Town. This was breakfast and a celebration as at that point, we were done with 700 miles and only had 50 left in the South. We ate 3 meals in a very short span that morning.
I was posing after returning to the trail down south after my two weeks in Texas. We hiked a section from Walker Pass to Kennedy Meadows as we had missed that 50 miles on our way through due to a water filter break. It was DRY and beautiful! We got to hike with 2 gallons of water each and set up a water cache for ourselves with 3 more gallons. The desert sunrises during those days were certainly worth every bit of effort! Stunning!!
The little person in the picture is me. Dave is an amazing photographer! This was another early, sunrise morning to summit Sonora Pass. It felt like being on the moon.
One of hundreds and hundreds of river crossings, this one by Mt. Lyell, the tallest mountain with a gorgeous glacier on it, in Yosemite National Park. Reticent at first, we got really quick at river crossings, as well as changing into and out of our river shoes before and after.
The PCT hugged ridges and so we had what seemed like millions of these breath taking views of snow covered jagged granite mountains with bright blue glacial lakes in the foreground. Sierra means serrated or jagged and Nevadas have to do with nieve (snow) and so translates to mean snowy, jagged mountains. The skies were almost always bright blue, except for one day that it barely rained on us and one day that it hailed so hard that it left marks all over our skin. I could write a thousand more paragraphs and still not be able to adequately describe the mountains' grandeur, the thousand colors of wildflowers that blanketed the valleys, the bird song at sunrise, the silhouette of a Joshua Tree, and the way in which foxtail pine look like mythical creatures, nor the way that every day, at least ten times I would round a corner or summit a pass and take in a view that would sock the air right of me. 755 miles, 2 months, and the best days of my life! More pictures with wildflowers are at the website mentioned above. :)

More fun in Reno & Fort Wayne

Isn't this a wonderful picture?  She had a coyote run towards her at the Hot Springs in Markleeville.  We went for the weekend, spending the night at a small place in town.  A great hike to the waterfalls, a long soak and a delicious dinner.

This was at Tahoe on the way home the next day.

We had a great visit in Fort Wayne Indiana again, and even had a chance to do some sightseeing.  The Cord Deusenberg Auto Museum was a blast, I want all the cars, and the botanic gardens downtown were great too.

We were lucky to spend so much fun time with Grandma Koehlinger as well as Dave's parents.

This was downtown Reno after watching a movie by the truckee river, and our walk in the city afterward.
We also had a beautiful day at Donner Lake in California with a nice long hike, barbecue and scenic drive.  Lots of sun!

We are currently finishing up our packing and gearing up for our hike.  We start this Sunday!!! We're going by train to Bakersfield, then by bus to Tehachapi and hitching to the trail head. We've been running and hope that we are in shape.  Dad's going to have us weigh in before and after the trail. :)  And I'm hoping that our poison ivy from gardening goes away enough by then. 

This is going to be EPIC, and I'm going to capture as much as possible on video and pictures.  We might get messages when we're in cell phone range if the battery doesn't die completely.  Our cell is 208.315.1939.  We'll send you postcards and you'll definitely hear from me August 8th, because I have training in Texas then and will be out of the forest.  Big hugs and always our best wishes to you!!!

Epic Roadtrip or Jobless, Homeless & Carless

Our amazing road trip started with a visit to dear Stacie (you saw pics from Palmer, Easter Island and Palmyra) in Seaside, Oregon.  We had a blast, ate like kings and had wonderfully relaxing beach time!  I think our next reunion should be in the Pacific again, some small island. 
N. Head lighthouse is close to the Columbia River and looks perfect.
Beautiful hike between lighthouses.
This is my favorite lighthouse pic, at Cape Disappointment. 
Classic beach time, with goat cheese, apples and wine.  

Feeding the birds in style.

More fun on Cannon beach, and searching for puffins.  This is one of the only places in the lower states that they visit.  

It was just awesome to catch up!
And this here is the loveliest of lovely camp spots.  After saying adieu to our dear friend, we drove north on 101 toward Olympic National Park.  This campground (Klaloch) is actually in the park, as the park has a portion along the beach and another large amount of land in the forest and mountains.    
Our beach stash includes the first sand dollars we've ever found.  It was a great 2 hour walk along the beach too, one of the longest beaches I've ever seen.  We were so lucky, perfect weather for days.

Dave trying to find the perfect stone.

The last hero picture of the Suzuki.  Notice the lack of spare tire, which happened during a flat in Hells Canyon in Idaho with Dave's parents.  Such a sexy beast (both Dave and the Suzuki).
Most of the trees were old growth cedars, but there were maples too in the rain forest as well as sitka spruce.
Classic Pacific coast shot.  

My favorite part of the park was this rain forest, which was unlike any place in the world that I've seen.  That and I had no idea we had forests like this in the States. 
Do you see mini Dave in this photo?  That's how huge the trees are and the mosses, lichen and ferns totally cover every branch of every tree.  
Scenic lunch spot in the middle of the river.
Still hiking along the Hoh river in the rain forest.  We saw tons of elk and even had a northern spotted owl fly by way close to our faces.  Magic!

And this would be the second prettiest camp site that we've had, with a perfect river view.
Another awesome hike, this one called lovers' lane, wound through a lot of snow covered ferns, as odd as that pairing is.
Skunk cabbage rocks!  Looks like water lilies, smells like bologna and photographs beautifully.
The Olympic range was breath taking.  The mountains seemed to encircle us.

This is Port Angeles, where I think we all should move.  It's on the Strait of Juan del Fuca, so it is a quiet port town, but it also has two entries to the National Park and a stunning view.  Also, the best darn Thai dinner we've ever had.  It's not pretentious, and is a 10 minute ferry from Victoria, Canada as well as a longer but scenic ferry to Seattle (and it has 10 fewer inches of rain per year than the Seattle area).

Dave's fern photo is so pretty.
Trilliums and skunk cabbage, on our third day's hike.  Lost my hat, took this picture, and am now over losing my hat because for some reason, I'm in love with this picture.
And here she is in the car shop, after we emptied our belongings.  Doesn't look like $5K of damage, but then again I'm not a car mechanic or a crooked insurance company.  It totally sucked, and it's a hard image to get out of mind, but we thank the heavens that we're safe.