legendary cowboy spots and tragic boot tales...

these are the view from my bed one night... most nights it's pretty amazing, i've slept under the stars most nights on the hike so far and all but 3 nights in the sierras, by rivers, between mountains, overlooking lakes... i often get this surreal feeling - it feels so incredible and slightly unbelievable that i'm here...



sadly i have dust/lint inside my camera lens, which shows up to varying degrees in the photos...




and below is me in the morning, looking spectacular as always... i've gone with a fairly lightweight quilt/heavy mont down jacket combo, which has worked pretty well...



these are those amazing snow flowers again. someone told me they were quite rare, but i've seen a lot. possibly because it's such an extreme snow year there are more...



and below is possibly what happens to your boots if you lend them to a student who ignores your instructions not to dry them by the fire... leather should not dry rapidly...

neither sole has been attached to the front half of my boot for the majority of the sierras, and they eat snow to the point that the mouth is open like a crocodile cooling off, and i have a tennis ball sized wad of compacted snow in the opening... eventually the right sole broke off, making it pretty tricky to kick steps in the snow. and slowly frayed (actually it took a couple of miles), till it looked like one of those star nosed moles feeling out the snow...

i did the first 700 miles in trail runners, and here at 900 miles i will return to trail runners...