[pct-l] Oregonian PCT series

[Tamsin McMahon]

Someone asked how to find the Oregonian series written by this year's Trailfest keynote speaker Mark Larabee.

Here's a text version of the entire series, including an editorial and a follow-up piece done in October. 

This is reprinted without permission, so maybe just don't post it online. But I'm guessing the author won't mind if people re-read his series on this list. (I say this as a fellow newspaper reporter who occasionally sends my stories for free to interested parties when they ask.)


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
July 24, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL - BELOVED TRAIL LOSES FOOTING
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. A01
LENGTH: 2096 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Encroaching development, shrinking funds imperil the Pacific Crest Trail, a hiker's heaven spanning the West

Halfway up a trail leading to a snow-covered ridge, Joe Wirth carefully clips an overhanging branch with long-handled loppers, tossing it over the side of the cliff into a white mist rising from below.
It is just after first light on a drizzly morning in Northern California's Castle Crags Wilderness. Wirth and his wife, Michael, are part of a crew maintaining an overgrown section of the Pacific Crest Trail, the hiking and equestrian route that runs the length of California, Oregon and Washington.
Wirth, once a corporate vice president, now owns and operates a chocolate company with his wife. Their dedication is such that all proceeds go to the Pacific Crest Trail Association, a group that coordinates maintenance and lobbies for the trail.
"This," Michael says, "is heaven on earth."
The distance and the scenery of the Pacific Crest Trail create one of the most challenging and magical long-distance hikes in the country. Despite its daunting 2,650-mile length, the route draws people from nearby cities and faraway countries who plan and save for years for the adventure. The experience evokes the kind of emotion usually reserved for visits to such national icons as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or Yosemite.
But today more than at any time in its history, the iconic Western trail faces an uncertain future. Some 30 years of declining budgets for trail maintenance have taken a toll. Logging, mining and development press in on all sides, creating new threats to the wilderness experience that hikers seek. To examine the issues surrounding the trail, The Oregonian dispatched a reporter and a photographer to walk the route through Oregon and document its challenges.
The direct distance from Mexico to Canada is only 1,000 miles. But as Pacific Crest Trail hikers trudge across Southern California's deserts and up 13,000-foot mountain passes, skirt Oregon's sleeping volcanoes and climb Washington's rugged North Cascades, they travel a whopping 2,650 miles through some of the West's most pristine and remote country. The trek takes four to five months.
The trail scales 60 passes, descends into 19 major canyons and ambles past more than 1,000 lakes and tarns, gaining and losing 300,000 feet in elevation. It passes the nation's three deepest lakes -- Tahoe, Crater and Chelan; its lowest point is where it meets the Columbia River at Cascade Locks; its highest is 13,180 feet at Forester Pass, Calif.
In the Northwest, many of the most popular backpacking spots run along the route's well-groomed spine, from high ridges of Washington's Goat Rocks Wilderness to lakes scattered like shimmering coins between Oregon's Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson.
While iconic to the adventuresome, the trail can be nearly invisible to the public.
Except for the often-used sections near major urban areas, it can be hard to find without a map. The trail is within an hour's drive of more than 20 million people in the Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles areas, yet fewer than 300 hikers attempt the entire length each year. But day hikers in the three states use it constantly, often resulting in overuse.
As it passes through six of North America's seven ecozones, the trail binds 26 national forests, 47 designated wilderness areas and eight national parks.
Although the trail occasionally intersects towns, dives under freeways and disappears onto pavement, it mostly ambles as far away from humanity as one can get in the West, allowing people to root themselves in the landscape and the pioneer spirit that brought families in covered wagons across great mountain ranges to the richness of the frontier.
For those reasons, the Pacific Crest Trail is more than the sum of its parts.
History
The trail's beginning can be traced to 1926, when Catherine Montgomery, a retired teacher from Bellingham, Wash., had the idea for a contiguous hike along the crest of the Western mountains. The trail got more of a push in 1932, when Clinton C. Clarke of Pasadena, Calif., a successful oilman and an avid Boy Scout, began advocating for the trail, writing letter after letter to leaders around the country.
Clarke envisioned setting aside a 10-mile-wide swath for the trail, linking the John Muir Trail in California, the Skyline Trail in Oregon and the Cascade Crest Trail in Washington with new sections. In 1932, at age 58, he founded the Pacific Crest Trail System Conference. The group included the Boy Scouts, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Sierra Club and the Portland-based Mazamas.
They planned a route along the crest of the mountains, and during four summers -- from 1935 to 1938 -- 30 YMCA groups blazed and mapped the trail that would take Congress another three decades to formally recognize.
One of the trail guides was Warren Lee Rogers, an outdoorsman crippled by childhood polio, who, at 24, joined the group after reading about Clarke's efforts. The current trail largely follows the one cut by Rogers and the YMCA.
After Clarke's death in 1957 at age 84, the crest trail project languished, incomplete and without an advocate. Rogers stored the original trail diaries until the ecology movements of the 1960s fanned interest in the importance of the outdoors.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson called for development of a national system of hiking trails. The result was the National Trails Systems Act, which Johnson signed on Oct. 2, 1968. The act named the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail as the first national scenic trails. An amendment in 1978 allowed the Forest and Park services to purchase property for trails.
Rogers went on to found the Pacific Crest Club in 1972 and jump-started the Pacific Crest Trail Conference in 1977. The group raised money to complete the trail and printed quarterly newsletters that included maps and advice for travelers. Rogers died in 2003.
Issues
The legacy of Clarke and Rogers is that today, the Pacific Crest Trail is truly a trail born of volunteers. Even with federal oversight and annual maintenance grants, its upkeep and expansion is largely because of public stewardship.
Several years ago, the Wirths were hiking a section of the trail near Ashland when they came upon a large, fresh clear-cut. "We were astounded," said Joe Wirth, who lives in Mount Shasta City. "This is a national scenic trail and it could just be obliterated."
The episode proved to them the importance of being more than users of the trail. Since then, they have volunteered on trail crews and made chocolate bars to raise money for the Pacific Crest Trail Association.
The 5,000-member association is largely responsible for coordinating maintenance and reworking the trail's path. It raises money and lobbies Congress, publishes hiking guides and administers permits for the "through hikers" who will walk the entire distance.
In January, Joe Wirth joined other members on an annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. Although the association has been somewhat successful in getting money for key areas, overall congressional and White House financing for recreational trails has been cold.
Over the past three decades, budgets for trail maintenance have slowly declined. In some forests, full-time government maintenance crews were replaced by a single manager who coordinates summertime volunteers, often with barely enough money to feed and equip them.
Despite its national scenic trail designation, the trail offers no protection for the landscape near it. About 300 miles of trail are still privately owned. Logging, mining, housing developments, ski-area expansions and other private uses threaten to disrupt the trail or intrude on the hiking experience.
These problem areas along the trail epitomize Western states' ongoing struggle to reconcile the conflicts of resource extraction in and around national forests with the environmental consciousness of the 1964 Wilderness Act. The law describes wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor but does not remain."
In Snoqualmie Pass, east of Seattle, years of logging means hikers now walk through clear-cuts with views of a major freeway. Conservationists, the Forest Service and the Plum Creek Timber Company are working to get the land into public ownership through purchases and exchanges. But conservationists worry that their options to buy the land will expire before they can raise enough money.
In the Mount Hood National Forest, recent efforts to designate some of the last remaining roadless areas as new wilderness could preserve views and forestland along several sections of the trail. In the Columbia River Gorge, trail advocates and the Forest Service are working to preserve a section that the Port of Cascade Locks wants to develop into housing for workers at a proposed casino.
Around the mountains east of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, houses and shopping malls are being squeezed into places on or near the trail that 10 years ago were considered too far from jobs.
Some of these parcels are owned by supporters of the conservation efforts who are willing to sell. They're waiting for the government or a private conservation group to buy their land.
Federal conservation money comes from billions flowing into the U.S. treasury from offshore oil leases. In 1964, Congress authorized spending as much as $900 million a year to acquire land. But the Land and Water Conservation Fund rarely has been funded to that level. The Bush administration has dramatically cut such purchases. In the past two years, no lease money has been designated for the Pacific Crest Trail.
"It isn't just the Pacific Crest Trail that has suffered," said Tim Stone, the Forest Service's first full-time manager of the trail. "At the end of the day, what should the PCT be? A dirt path 4 feet wide? To me it's always represented something more."
Adventure
This summer, the Wirths plan to hike from Northern California's Castle Crags to Ashland, about 200 miles. In 30 years as a high-paid executive -- he was vice president of technology for GE Plastics before retirement -- Joe Wirth said he was lucky if he got out for a weekend.
Section hikers like the Wirths may knock off a couple of hundred miles of the trail a year, some with the longer goal to complete the entire route in pieces. Horses are allowed on the trail, and many sections are popular with equestrians, although only four parties on horseback are known to have completed the trail in a stretch.
Through hikers are the smallest but most adventurous group. They usually begin their trek in late April or early May at the Mexican border, reaching Canada in September. The trek is a logistical puzzle. Hikers have to decide how much gear and clothing to carry; how much food to pack in boxes and mail to post offices, ranger stations, resorts and private homes; and where to get water, take rest days or resupply.
Since the early 1970s, only about 800 people have completed the entire trail. It's unclear who was the first. The record is 83 days.
Last year Scott Williamson, 32, of Santa Cruz, Calif., was the first to complete a "yo-yo" of the trail -- Mexico to Canada to Mexico -- 5,300 miles in 197 days. This year, David Horton, 55, a physical education professor from Lynchburg, Va., is attempting to run the trail in a record 63 days.
Spirit
Tom Pelsor of Trail, Ore., wolfs down a pancake before picking up tools for another day of clearing trail. At 60, with short gray hair and sun-weathered features, there's no sign he's slowing down.
Pelsor is one of the coordinators for the Siskiyou Out and Back, a 50-kilometer race on the Pacific Crest Trail near Ashland. Hiking into the backcountry and nipping brush help keep him in shape.
"There's a mystique about the continuity of the thing," he said. "It's great running. You're never in the same environment all day. "
Pelsor said there's something important to having wilderness and being able to get in touch with it easily. It helps him appreciate life. That, he thinks, is why it's worth preserving.
"The civilized world is more than just mass merchandising, buying things and thinking canned thoughts," he said. "It's about using your body. There's something spiritual that we're linked to way back that you get from being tired. You don't get that running around the block in Los Angeles."
Mark Larabee: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
July 26, 2005 Tuesday 
Sunrise Edition
Sierra snowpack turns hikers' itineraries topsy-turvy
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 714 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
'Flip-floppers' reverse or alter their routes after winter creates hazardous conditions on the Pacific Crest Trail
Twisted Sister is a "flip-flopper."
Elizabeth Morton -- the trail name "Twisted Sister" comes from the party game mat she uses under her tent -- was on the Pacific Crest Trail a few miles from the Oregon-California border Sunday.
Morton, 32, had to "flip-flop" her four-month Mexico-to-Canada trek May 22 when unusually deep snow in the Sierra Nevada forced her off the trail at Walker Pass, Calif. She restarted in Canada and now averages 25 miles a day heading south.
Flip-flopping isn't an every-year occurrence. Typically snow melts last in the North Cascades, so most through hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail start in April at the Mexican border and head north. But this year the Northwest's winter went south, dumping massive snow in the Sierras while leaving little in the Cascades.
That so many of the estimated 300 through hikers changed their plans is testament to their grit; the snow could have been an excuse for them to quit.
Morton is a contract worker who supports scientific crews in Antarctica. She's taking a year off -- her belongings are in a storage unit in Kentucky -- to hike the 2,650-mile trail.
"Contract work is great," she said with a Zen-like smile. "I tend to backpack or travel or visit friends in my off time. I like the simplicity of the lifestyle. You've got everything you need on your back."
She hopes to make it to the southern Sierras, but she's not focused that far yet.
"I find I don't enjoy where I am in the moment if I look too far ahead," she said.
Morton's comments are a welcome perspective as we struggled through our third day on the trail, completing 22 miles in 12, sometimes painful, hours.
Twisted Sister wasn't the only flip-flopper Sunday near Ashland. Todd "Wild Hair" Lange and Tracy Grant were walking south after stopping in Kennedy Meadows, about 50 miles north of Walker Pass.
"There was no snow in Kennedy, but I knew that two days into the trail there was going to be snow for 450 miles," said Lange, 42, a food research and development consultant from Kleinfeltersville, Penn. "There's quite a few people behind me."
Grant, 52, of Auburn, Calif., said he and Lange met on their first day of hiking and have been together since.
"It's pretty cool," said the retired police officer whose trail name is "Dick Tracy."
John Paton, 61, of Bristol, England, might be the all-time flip-flopper.
When we met him in June, Paton was working on a trail crew on San Jacinto Peak, one of the large mountains east of Los Angeles.
Paton, who is from Scotland, began his south-to-north solo hike April 14. He missed a section of Southern California when he hit deep snow. He moved around to some of the trail's low-lying sections, but snow pushed him out of the Sierras, Mount Shasta, the Siskiyous, Mount Hood and Mount Adams.
Since then he has traveled by bus to every trailhead and has been rebuying food for his supply drops. "I've got food packages stashed all the way up the trail," he said.
Not everyone is skipping the Sierras. We've heard several stories, none firsthand, of people gutting out the snow with crampons and determination.
One of those is "The Runner," David Horton, whom we also met in June as he was running through Agua Dulce, Calif.
A physical education professor at Liberty University in Virginia, Horton is an "ultra" marathoner who is trying to set a record for fastest time on the Pacific Crest Trail. He's supported by a crew that brings him food and water. The day we met him he'd run 51.7 miles in 14 hours.
Horton, 55, attributes his success to four factors: physical toughness, bullheadedness, a good crew and discipline. He's consuming 4,000 to 6,000 calories a day and hopes to finish the trail run in 63 days. He started June 4. The record is 83 days, set in 2003 by Ray Greenlaw.
"Every day is a struggle; every day is tough," Horton said. "God willing, I'll make it. You never know. One germ, one fall, and I'm done."
We learned Sunday that Horton had passed Ashland on July 19. We'd missed meeting him again by less than a week.
You can e-mail reporter Mark Larabee or photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
July 28, 2005 Thursday 
Sunrise Edition
Trail winds through a rare wildlife link on private land
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. D01
LENGTH: 839 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Nonprofits aim to buy the site a couple restored, one of the "most biologically diverse places on the planet"
Nancy Ames Cole wades through waist-high sage to reach the edge of a ridge overlooking her 1,300 acres south of Ashland and points to where the Pacific Crest Trail winds through lowland grasses and mixed conifers.
"See the trail?" she says. "It's right there. And these are our babies."
Cole is referring to a stand of young, thriving fir trees she and her then-husband, Marshall Cole, planted after they purchased the land in 1991 from a timber company 
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that heavily logged the land and failed to replant it.
Although divorced, Nancy and Marshall Cole live on the property, in separate homes, and still share the dream of when they bought it and named it the Sky King Cole Ranch.
They wanted to return it to the place it once was, and for the most part, they have succeeded with the help of biologist friends, university professors and the Oregon Department of Forestry. The state waived fines that were overdue because the land wasn't replanted and helped the couple with a restoration plan.
Scientists say the property is a key link between the drier Siskiyou and wetter Cascades ranges, creating an important and rare link for plants and animals between the coast and the interior mountains.
The property includes four eco-regions, where different varieties and mixtures of plants and trees grow and provide habitat for wildlife. The ridge also is the split between two watersheds, the south-flowing Klamath and west-flowing Rogue river systems.
"The convergence of the eco-regions makes this one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet," according to a prospectus from the Pacific Crest Trail Association, which, along with the Trust for Public Lands, has a $1.2 million option through May 2008 to buy the property.
If they do, it will be added to dozens of privately owned parcels the nonprofit groups have bought along the Pacific Crest Trail, turning them over to the federal government and preserving the hiking experience from potential development or logging. About 300 miles of the congressionally designated National Scenic Trail runs on easements through private property.
Cole grew up next door to her ranch. Her father, a World War II veteran, hated city life. After the war, he worked as a hunting guide and sold sporting goods. In the 1950s he settled his family on a parcel just northeast of the one for sale. Cole is keeping that land.
All across the ranch, vegetation competes and thrives. Cole shows it off with pride in the work she and her ex-husband accomplished. She knows a great deal about the ecology of the differing landscapes, stopping the car with a sudden spray of gravel to point out white pine mingling with oaks and junipers or native grasses.
The property borders the 52,947-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, one of 11 monuments created or expanded by President Bill Clinton in the last months of his presidency.
Among other things, the monument is a bird haven, with more than 200 species identified, including the endangered northern spotted owl, the great gray owl, the peregrine falcon and the willow flycatcher. More than 100 species of butterflies also make their home there.
Dave Willis of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council calls the area one of the great reservoirs of biodiversity in North America.
The group is a advocate for the monument, watchdogging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is overseeing the writing of a management plan. The monument surrounds many private homes and ranches, but its land-use restrictions do not apply to them. A final management plan is due this fall, and Willis expects fights over cattle grazing to send the plan to court.
With views of Pilot Rock, Mount Shasta and California's Trinity Alps, the Pacific Crest Trail winds two miles through Cole's property to the proposed 23,000-acre Soda Mountain Wilderness area, all within the monument.
The talk of biological greatness thrills Cole and pushes her to make sure the land she loves goes for conservation.
"This whole area is essential to the health of the Pacific Northwest forest," she said. "It's a library of genetic material, and it should be preserved."
She goes through a list of nearly a dozen private, government and university studies taking place on her land, including ones on owl migration and habitat, butterflies, pond turtles, truffles and their relation to small mammals, and soil shifting.
Cole feels fortunate to live where she does and to work on the projects. She said her father taught her that the bounty of the land was a privilege, not a right, and that if you don't do right by the privilege, you'll lose it forever.
"Is this an accident of fate that put me here?" she asks as she winds back down the hill. "Or is it a way for me to stand up and be counted?"
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian by e-mail at onthepct at mac.com.
ILLUSTRATION: MAP BY THE OREGONIAN


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
July 31, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Agua Dulce: Where hikers meet the highway
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 1246 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 PART OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES)
SUMMARY: Officials want to reroute the Pacific Crest Trail where it comes uncomfortably close to civilization in Southern California
Pacific Crest Trail hikers descending the San Gabriel Mountains into Agua Dulce, a small but growing town northeast of Los Angeles, are greeted by a famous landmark: the slanted formation of Vasquez Rocks.
Segments of the "Lone Ranger" television show were filmed here when the place was nothing but a barren desert far from Hollywood.
In Agua Dulce, conflicts between the trail and civilization are evident, foreshadowing what could come in other parts of California and Oregon if conservation efforts fail.
One of the main problems is a lack of money to buy land for the trail, for which a large source of money has been significantly cut under the Bush administration. The other is the skyrocketing cost of real estate, which moves faster than the Forest Service's land acquisition system and the nonprofit conservation groups struggling to raise money.
The Santa Clarita Valley is sandwiched between two segments of the Angeles National Forest, where hikers no longer wrestle just with the heat, but with commuter traffic. They cross a Metrolink rail line where a plaque -- now vandalized -- marks the completion of the trail, before walking under a six-lane freeway through a drainage culvert. When leaving town, hikers take a dangerous S-curve that no longer is a country lane but a busy road commuters take to Los Angeles.
Agua Dulce is ground zero in the U.S. Forest Service's latest effort to move the trail east, to a safer, more suitable easement.
"This area is one of the fastest growing areas of California," said Cid Morgan, district ranger for the Santa Clara/Mojave Rivers Ranger District, who is in charge of this section of the forest and the trail. "Thirty years ago you couldn't give this land away. Unfortunately, most of the people who are building are putting in McMansions or starter castles."
Growth in northeast Los Angeles County is inevitable. The city of Santa Clarita was born in 1983, incorporating much of the Santa Clara River Valley and bringing development from busy Interstate 5 along California Highway 14.
New subdivisions are cropping up everywhere; the valley's population is projected to grow by two thirds to 428,000 by 2030. In nearby Acton, the median home price in May was $677,000, up 32.7 percent over last year, according to DataQuick.
In this climate, the Forest Service is trying to buy properties for trail relocation. But land prices are rising too fast, Morgan said, and the amount of money the agency has is now inadequate.
"If we moved any slower we'd be dead," she said. "It's too bad the Forest Service couldn't have done this 10 to 15 years ago because the options were much greater."
So far the government has bought seven parcels but needs 24 more to fulfill its plan.
The Bush administration has cut the agency's Land and Water Conservation funding from a high of $155 million in 2000 to slightly more than $60 million this year under the philosophy that the federal government should be tying up less land. The 2006 budget proposes $40 million for the Forest Service, and the trends are similar for the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife and the National Park Service.
The Land and Water Conservation money is derived from oil and gas exploration leases, which flows into the treasury.
Gary Werner, executive director of The Partnership for the National Trails System, a nonprofit organized to further the protection, completion, and stewardship of the National Trails System, said the aim of the fund when Congress created it in 1964 was to use as much as $900 million a year on conservation projects to offset damage caused by offshore drilling.
"Only once or twice over the last 40 years was it fully funded," Werner said. "Congress and the administration used the money to balance the budget but they don't balance the budget. They can't even trace it. We . . . can't find a good accounting of what it's being used for because it goes into the general treasury."
The fund also provides grants to state and local governments for conservation efforts. It has paid for major improvements along the trail, about $9 million worth since 2000. But according the Pacific Crest Trail Association, the need is more than $50 million. And no money went into land acquisition for the trail in 2004 or 2005.
On Thursday, the House approved the final 2006 appropriations bill, which includes $1 million for trail improvements and $500,000 for land acquisition. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. had sought $1.2 million for acquisition. In an e-mail, Walden's office said "Land acquisition funding was tough across the board. . ."
Walden, who has hiked 86 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, said in an interview that some of his Republican colleagues are starting to ask why he's pushing for more Forest Service money.
"I've never thought of it as being a partisan issue," Walden said. "I think it's something that most Americans are proud of. It's a benign use of our public land and money."
While advocacy groups appreciate the small allocation, they know much more is needed if the trail is to be protected.
"Certainly $1 million a year isn't going to cut it," Liz Bergeron, executive director of the Pacific Crest Trail Association. "But in this administration we've been told to be happy with a million because other conservation groups are getting nothing."
Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, whose state has a lot of the offshore oil exploration, said it's pure politics at play.
When he was a member of the Senate, he co-authored a bill that would have fully funded Land and Water Conservation at $900 million and would have set up a trust fund, so the money could not be diverted for other things.
"Everybody has supported the scenic trails at one time or another," he said in an interview this month. But he said Congress and the president don't want to lose their discretion in appropriating the money each year.
"It has to do with legislators' diluted power and influence," he said. "There was a lot of momentum or enthusiasm for the cause but a lot of opposition laying in the weeds to trip you up."
The trail association is beginning to seek private funding for the trail. The Trust for Public Lands, a conservation group focused on land for recreation, is raising private money and has options to buy properties for trail preservation. And others are doing the same.
That may not come quick enough for Morgan, the Angeles district ranger. She's also seeing her overall budget reduced for basics such as campground maintenance, law enforcement and recreation.
"We're going to have to do more with less until we do everything with nothing," she said.
About 85 percent of the money she oversees goes to fighting fires, so she's got firefighters emptying campground trash bins, creatively calling it physical fitness training. And this is a district within an hour's drive of 14 million people.
"It's an embarrassment that we can't put more effort into the management of the trail, the way it should be," Morgan said. "It's an internationally known trail and we just don't give it the time and attention it deserves."
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 2, 2005 Tuesday 
Sunrise Edition
'Not a lot of answers out here'
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Pg. B01
 
GRAPHIC: PICTURE CAPTION, On the Pacific Coast Trail - 12th part of a series. For people in transition, the Pacific Coast Trail can offer direction, but it doesn't dictate There's something about a 15- to 20-mile hike with a 40-pound pack, grinding uphill on a windless morning with the temperature climbing past 80, that makes you wonder why you're out here. The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail through Oregon, Washington and California is a relentless physical and logistical challenge that brings breathtaking views, natural gardens and, when you are quiet enough, wildlife. The through-hikers -- the estimated 300 who for five months wake each morning to hike again and again until the whole trail is done -- are the ones with purpose. Thousands of others are section hikers, taking a summer weekend or week to knock off 40 to 100 miles. For the most part, through-hikers are serious recreationists whose lives are in transition -- just finishing a job or college
 -- or who work seasonal jobs that allow time for personal adventures. Kevin Ragan, 49, of Seattle was walking out of Oregon's Sky Lakes Wilderness on Saturday, heading for California and, eventually, the Mexican border. A systems administrator, he quit his job to undertake the hike from Canada to Mexico, a southbounder going against the traditional grain to avoid late snow in the Sierra Nevada. "I was sick of work, I wanted to change jobs, and I had no financial obligations," Ragan said. "I was willing to say, 'Forget the job' and just walk off and do it." While he's at a crossroads of sorts, Ragan said doesn't think he will find a lot of answers on the trail. "I don't really expect to figure out what I want to do by going hiking," he said. "There are not a lot of answers out here. It's just a good experience." Tom "Little Tom" Dean, 28, of Hymera, Ind. walked the Appalachian Trail in 2003, and this year is hiking the Pacific Crest with his friend Tom
 "Big Tom" Howell. In June, they were resting with a large group of through-hikers at a home in Agua Dulce, Calif., about 450 trail miles from the Mexican border. Dean likes long hikes and had time, having just graduated from Indiana State University with a political science degree. "Everybody goes out with the great ulterior motive, and they lose it along the way and find something greater," Dean said. "I keep tricking myself into it. It was the next thing to do. I'm just taking a break. I just cap every new thing with a hike." When he finished the Appalachian Trail, he swore he would never hike again. "The hiking isn't the major thing," he said. "It's running into so many awesome people." Jessica and Kevin Hay, newlyweds from Palmer, Alaska, are hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on their honeymoon. Jessica Hay, 23, works in payroll for a road construction company. Kevin Hay, 26, is a small-airplane mechanic. Both jobs are seasonal, and their lifestyle
 allows for hiking or some other adventure. "We don't have that American dream," she said. "We're not tied down by it." But they both said it's hard to strike a balance. "You have to have money in order to do it," Kevin said. "Ideally, we like to work seasonally. It stinks to wear yourself out doing something you hate so that you can eventually do something you love." They're looking at buying some land in Alaska, which they could manage by working only part of the year. On the trail, Jessica misses good food, hot showers and clean clothes. But the job? "The more we're out here, the more I want the freedom to be able to do this more," she said. The Hays definitely know what they want and why they're out on the trail. "Big Tom" Howell, of Terre Haute, Ind., knows why he's there as well. It's because he doesn't know what he wants in life. "It's a little break from reality," he said. "When I go back, I get married and grow up, things like that." He and his
 girlfriend, Shannon, bought a house three years ago. They have a cat. He recently completed his degree in graphic design but felt like he was facing a treadmill. "I got into a chasm in life," he said. "There has to be more than this. This hike may be one of the greatest things I ever do in life, and I have the chance to do it." It's also giving him confidence to accept other challenges. "I think I'll have the power to change things," he said. "I'll have just walked 2,650 miles. I can do anything I want." You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com Photo and map On the Pacific Coast Trail - 12 part of a series

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 4, 2005 Thursday 
Sunrise Edition
Keeping step with the 'Trail Gorillas'
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. D01
LENGTH: 904 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Hundreds of volunteers shoulder the bulk of the effort of maintaining the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail
The whine of chainsaws reverberated across Grass Lake in the Sky Lakes Wilderness, shocking the senses. Normally, there is little else but the quiet sound of nature.
Three men from a U.S. Forest Service maintenance crew toiled three days at Grass Lake this week, cutting dead trees out of horse camps along the Pacific Crest Trail south of Crater Lake National Park to make the areas safe for livestock.
Jim Goode, Von Keinast and Chris Bishop felled dead snags. They had a special permit to use the power tools, which normally are banned in wilderness areas. Next year they'll come back and blow up the stumps to make them look more natural.
Without maintenance, Mother Nature would take back the trail and backcountry campsites in a matter of a few years.
Because of limited federal funding for maintenance -- $1.5 million each in 2005 and 2006 -- much of the work on the 2,650-mile trail these days is done by volunteer groups such as the Pacific Crest Trail Association, the Back Country Horsemen, the High Desert Trail Riders or the Oregon Hunters Association.
In 2004, for example, 1,300 trail volunteers did 34,100 hours of maintenance work. Although Goode and his crew are federal employees, this week's horsecamp project was paid for by Klamath County.
In June, we joined a trail volunteer crew in the mountains east of Los Angeles. Pete Fish and his crew of a dozen "Trail Gorillas" were camped at 8,000 feet on Fuller Ridge, the western-most buttress of 10,804-foot San Jacinto Peak.
Dirty, tired and happy, they had been living in the clouds for more than a week, reconstructing a long-neglected four-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail that runs within 90 minutes of 14 million people.
At 74, Fish is considered a legend in the small community of Pacific Crest Trail overseers, volunteers and benefactors. For the past 14 years he's organized hundreds of work parties to trim, chop, dig, saw, drill, blast, clear and care for 700 miles of trail from the Mexican border to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
He grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., and has been a hiker since he was a kid, tramping all over the Sierras. Between 1991 and 1994, he hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail in 500- to 600-mile sections.
Fish also is spearheading a tenuous relationship between hikers and horseback riders, realizing that getting tools to the most remote sections of the trail would be impossible on foot. He's received many awards for his work but is modest about the cumulative effect he has had on keeping the trail open for both user groups.
Satisfying hard work
Fish's crew, some on horseback, hit the trail just after 7 a.m. for the 45-minute hike up the ridge. Once there, Fish, Larry Stiles and photographer Ian Malkasian began to down a dead tree endangering hikers with a two-man saw. I went on ahead to meet David Foster, 45, higher on the south side of the ridge to finish off a stubborn boulder protruding into the trail, making it impassable for horses.
Foster and his wife, Arlene, are horseback riders. On this trip they rode up the trail with a pack horse carrying picks, pulaskis and loppers -- tools of the trail-making trade. Last summer, the Fosters became the fourth party to complete the 2,650-mile trail on horseback, a tougher challenge than hiking because of the logistics of feeding and watering pack animals.
In the company of sugar pines, large cones dripping with fresh clear sap, Foster and I used a Pionjar, a Swedish-made gas-powered drill, to bore holes in the granite boulder. We filled the holes with water and shotgun shell-sized explosives and set them off with a cartridge-fired contraption. The top of the boulder shattered with a loud boom, but most of it remained. The boulder's soft middle absorbed the shock rather than fragmenting.
Another three-member horse group, led by George Boone, joined our effort. The 52-year-old member of the U.S. Border Patrol lives in Campo, east of San Diego, where the trail begins. For years he rode along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants, drug dealers and immigrant smugglers. He's now a supervisor for the agency.
Boone drilled another hole, but the temperamental drill eventually sputtered dead. For two hours, Jerry Kapitzke and I attacked the rock with sledgehammers, pry bars and chisels, while Fish and Boone gave the drill an overhaul.
Eventually, the drill restarted and the primal noise of metal on rock was suddenly replaced by the whine of the two-stroke engine. Boone bobbed his head in satisfaction and made quick work of the hole. Two more explosions and the rock was rubble, its largest chunks used for a wall buttressing the trail.
Tired arms broke out sandwiches, cookies and chocolate. The volunteers sat on the trail admiring Diamond Lake to the southwest, which appears as a perfectly flat black reservoir on the valley floor. A party of three backpackers walk by, thanking the men for their work.
Smiles reflected the hard work and good fight put up by the boulder. Everyone felt good.
"I feel a sense of ownership of this trail," Foster said. "It's mine, at least for now, until I leave. Then it will be somebody else's."
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at onthepct at mac.com


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 7, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Trail angels ease hikers' burden
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. C01
LENGTH: 1142 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Trekkers on the Pacific Crest Trail learn about kindness from strangers
Crater Lake National Park ranger Mariah Mayfield knows the look of exhaustion.
And hikers of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail know her name and that of her roommates, Claire Chavez and Lauren Jones.
The three rangers work the park's entrances, visitor's centers and rim viewpoint, and have taken to hosting tired hikers, giving them a place to shower, do laundry, make a meal in a real kitchen and sleep off the fatigue of long-distance hiking.
Hikers call the rangers -- and dozens like them in Oregon, California and Washington -- "trail angels." The rangers' dormitory-style apartment is one of dozens used by PCT hikers wherever the trail nears civilization. Trail angels can be families opening their property for camping and home for laundry, a lodge that allows hikers to mail boxes of supplies to cache, or people who haul gallon jugs of water to the driest points on the trail.
Hikers say the kindness of strangers is one of the amazing discoveries of the long-distance trek -- a renewal of faith in the kindness of others.
"It makes me think, what more can I do to extend myself to other people," said Eliza Schissel, 25, of Ithaca, N.Y., a through-hiker who arrived at the Crater Lake respite Tuesday night with her boyfriend, Jeremy Foster, 26. "It would never occur to me to treat other people the way that I've been treated on this trip."
But the three rangers say they feel as if they gain as much from the hikers as they give.
"Each person we meet is so different and we love hearing their stories," said Mayfield, 20, of Ashland, a Willamette University junior studying biology. "We feel like this is something we can do."
The women say that talking to hikers, many of whom quit good jobs and sacrifice other material wealth to walk for five months, has opened their minds to other possibilities.
"I've learned not to get caught up in the day-to-day things that society tries to force on you," said Jones, 21, of Bakersfield, Calif., a senior at Northern Arizona University majoring in speech pathology. "Find out what you want to do."
Chavez, 20, of Ashland, a junior at the University of Oregon, wants to study medicine. But now she is thinking about hiking the PCT the summer after she graduates.
"Now I'm in no rush to finish things," she said. "I'm going to slow down and enjoy it."
We stayed two nights last week with the Crater Lake trail angels. After we left, supervisors told the rangers that National Park Service regulations prohibit overnight guests in the seasonal housing, so they've had to turn hikers away with a sign on their door.
Then there are trail angels such as Jerry "Trailbird" Smith, 52, of Corvallis. On Friday afternoon, he drove to a remote trailhead at Windigo Pass near the Deschutes-Klamath county line and set out water and two coolers stocked with cold drinks, sandwich fixings, fresh fruit, yogurt, cookies and chips.
Smith, a retired Navy man who works for the city of Corvallis, hiked the PCT in 1976 and 2001. It was at Windigo Pass in 2001 where a couple made Smith and a friend breakfast in their motor home. The following year and every one since, Smith drives up on weekends to offer tired hikers a little of what they miss.
"I think I get more out of it than they do," he said Friday night. "They share a little of their summer with me. When I was on the trail, the angles took good care of me. There's a lot of people who do this."
Accidental angel
Donna and Jeff Saufley of Agua Dulce, Calif., became trail angels by accident the night of May 31, 1997. By word of mouth and the Internet, their two-acre compound is known as "Hiker Heaven" for those descending the San Gorgornio Mountains northeast of Los Angeles. Here the Angeles National Forest changes from the cool of the mountains to the muscle-draining heat of the high desert.
When they reach the Saufley's compound, through-hikers are four weeks and 464 miles into their five-month journey, hot, dirty, tired and short of supplies.
Dirty clothes? Put them in a basket with your name on them. Donna Saufley does four to six loads a night during the peak of the hiking season in May and October. There are clean shorts and T-shirts to wear while yours are washing. Need a shower? Grab a clean towel and sign up on the board.
Beds in the singlewide manufactured home and the motor home are first-come, first-served. The Saufleys live in a ranch-style house next door. Your food drop is in the garage, but if you need to make a run to the store, sign out a car. There's a blue Volvo wagon and a red Chevy Blazer at your disposal.
In the singlewide, you can cook a meal, watch a video, use the phone or the Internet. There's a barbecue outside, and cots in the garage. Throw your sleeping bag down on the lawn if you want.
Hugs and handshakes
Donna Saufley works 45 miles away in Pasadena at the Fannie Mae Corp., but takes three weeks off in May and June to care for the hikers, greeting them with hugs and handshakes. Jeff Saufley is an electrical contractor.
"Anything you do that you love, it's not like work," she said. "We all have time, it's just what we choose to do with it."
Around a campfire in June, the Saufleys tell 20 hikers how they came to open their home every year to 200 to 300 strangers.
When they moved to Agua Dulce in 1996, they didn't know a thing about the Pacific Crest Trail or the people who used it.
"They used to sit outside the liquor store and open their boxes," Jeff Saufley said. "We really thought they were just bums in town -- until we heard about the trail."
The night of May 31, 1997, Donna Saufley bumped into a couple at the town's pizza parlor. The hikers, worn and dirty, asked if there was a motel or campground in town. No campground, she said, but there's a hotel seven miles up the highway. Their spirits melted.
"Little did I know I was about to launch into civic activism," she said. "I turned back and told them I did know where they could stay."
The next morning, Donna and Jeff Saufley came outside their home and saw the hikers boiling water on their little camp stove.
"I thought, 'Oh, my God, is that how they eat?' So Jeff whips up breakfast" Donna Saufley said.
"You could feel the something in the air," she said. "They said this is trail magic. And then they cinched the deal for all hikers -- they said, 'You guys are trail angels.' "
This year they figure they'll host 250 hikers, bringing her grand total to more than 1,700.
"This is what I am," Donna Saufley said. "It's really about giving hikers a rest in this miserably hot place. We just get our joy from knowing that they feel better when they leave, and they have a chance to make it."
You can e-mail reporter Mark Larabee or photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 9, 2005 Tuesday 
Sunrise Edition
Horse power helps maintain the trail
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 771 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Volunteers and government crews hoof in equipment, sharing the route with hikers
The Pacific Crest Trail is not just a hiking trail but an equestrian freeway spanning three states.
It's built to specifications that horses can handle, with more gentle descents than some hiking trails, one reason hikers find it so enjoyable. While about 300 hikers attempt the full 2,650-mile trail each year, only four parties on horseback are known to have completed it. Most equestrians use the trail for weekend or weeklong adventures.
And, similar to conflicts between cars and big rigs on the freeway, there is friction between hikers and horseback riders on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Hikers think frequent horse use damages the trail and that manure is a smelly mess. Equestrian groups say they do more than their share of maintenance on the national scenic trail because they can pack in equipment to remote areas.
The trail is a great resource for riders, say government horse packers, trail crew bosses and one couple who rode the entire trail last year.
"It's built for pack stock," said Carrie Wittmer, a seasonal ranger and packer who hauled a U.S. Forest Service work crew into Southern Oregon's Sky Lake Wilderness last week. Wittmer runs horse and mule trains for the Forest Service, one of only two permanent pack strings left in federal service in Oregon.
Trail crews haul in tools
Wittmer said budget cuts have diminished the number of horses the Forest Service uses to maintain wilderness trails and campsites. Money for horseback ranger patrols is also dwindling. Wittmer was the only backcountry ranger in the Sky Lakes wilderness last week. There used to be at least two per season, she said.
The government trail crews have slowly been replaced by volunteers from equestrian and hiking groups. The horses are important, especially in wilderness areas, because they can haul heavy tools where they're needed.
"I love it when people are out here using the wilderness and taking care of it," Wittmer said. "It means a lot, but I don't think it's appropriate to have volunteers doing all the work."
Volunteer riders keep up trail
John Lyons, 66, of Etna, Calif., is a horseman who has been organizing volunteer trail crews since retiring six years ago. A stocky man with short gray hair and a ball cap tipped back on his head, Lyons said for him, trail work is really about horseback riding.
Each year from May to November, he organizes and leads 25 trips to clear and maintain the trail under grants from the Pacific Crest Trail Association and the Backcountry Horsemen. Each year, they scour 200 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and its feeder trails for downed timber, overgrown brush and rocks blocking the path. The association's grant pays for supplies.
"I have animals, and I love to use the animals," he said. "I get great pride packing up five animals and getting to places that very few people get to see. The PCT is a world-class trail. It was built to a different standard."
Over the years, Lyons said he has made lasting friendships that started over the sweat of cutting and hefting trees or rocks off the trail.
"A lot of these guys, I see them once a year, and it's right here," Lyons said in May as he led a trail group in the Castle Crags Wilderness near Mount Shasta in Northern California. "It's pretty amazing."
Five months on horseback
Last summer, Lyons met David and Arlene Foster as the Owanga, Calif., couple rode their pack horses on the trail from Mexico to Canada -- only the fourth team to complete the entire trail on horseback. It took them five months, April 15 to Sept. 15.
"I talked to the people that had done it before," said Arlene Foster, 55, who planned the trip for a year. "We got their trail journals, which helped a lot. A lot of people jumped in and helped."
One of Arlene Foster's reasons for making the trip was to promote the association and the trail work it organizes. While on the trail, they talked to a lot of hikers about horses and maintenance issues. The couple began volunteer work with the Pacific Crest Trail Association in 2001.
Unlike hikers, it is tough for horse riders to leave the trail and hit towns because they have animals to care for. So for most of the way, they must stop for water when it is on or near the trail and camp near clear-cuts and meadows to get their horses suitable grass.
"They're the central focus of the trip," said David Foster, 45. "If they fail, then we fail."
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee or photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com
ILLUSTRATION: MAP BY THE OREGONIAN

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 11, 2005 Thursday 
Sunrise Edition
Hiking less, and maybe seeing more
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 593 words

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: People who walk shorter sections of the trail when they can are often in less of a rush, taking time to explore
Peter Sohriakoff examined the chew holes in the side of his backpack, the work of pesky chipmunks that have the run of the hiker camp at Fish Lake on the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon.
With a borrowed needle and dental floss, the 24-year-old Portland man sewed the holes in minutes, all part of taking care of his gear as he hikes north through Oregon this summer.
Sohriakoff is a typical "section" hiker, eyeing the longer distance but unable or unwilling to put in five months to complete the 2,650-mile PCT in one go.
Section hikers are the biggest users of the PCT, some taking years to trek the entire trail, if they ever do. They may hit the trail for a week at a time, knocking down 50 to 100 miles. Compared with a through hiker, who might cover the same distance in two to three days, section hikers are not as concerned with making long distances each day or adhering to a strict schedule.
They also may carry more weight and luxury items, take more time to enjoy the scenery or spend several days exploring one area. For section hikers it's more about the journey than the destination.
"I like the idea of movement on its own," said Sohriakoff, a social worker. "I'm moving myself and I'm getting there."
For Gary Johnson, anywhere he happens to be is "there." The 49-year-old from Presque Isle Harbor, Mich., is hiking from Ashland to the Canadian border, a 1,000-mile chunk of the trail. He spent five days at Fish Lake in Southern Oregon -- something a through hiker would never do -- and joked that he was never leaving.
"I'm going to be the mayor of Fish Lake," he said. "It's all about having fun. Trying to do 15 to 20 miles a day is worthless if you go two miles and see something cool. It's not about numbers."
For entertainment he carries a wind-up radio/flashlight, clicking it on to show it works. The music is just as repetitive in the back country as it is at home. A through hiker would never weigh down their pack with such an unnecessary luxury.
Johnson has a seasonal job delivering heating oil in winter and takes the summers off. He said he grew up hiking.
"If Michigan had mountains, I'd never leave the state," he said.
456 miles divided by 14 years
Oregon has 456 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Jerome Mannenbach, 54, of Portland has been hiking portions of it for 14 years, one section at a time.
Last week he was in the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area south of Crater Lake National Park. His brother Jim, 50, and nephewRobby, 15, of Eagle Point joined him for 50 miles of his 127-mile trip, which would finally take him to the Oregon-California border.
"I'm going to finish the state on this trip," he said with a smile.
Mannenbach started hiking sections with his children but said family responsibilities and work have dragged out his goal of hiking every mile of the PCT in Oregon.
"I have four children, and that's my first priority," he said. "I have been able to have my family and keep the job and have it all. You do it while you can."
Mannenbach said he admires through hikers who complete all three states in one summer, calling them a breed all their own. He said he's able to share the pleasure without that big a commitment.
"When you come out of the wilderness after a few days, you're calm. You've got good perspective," he said.
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com

The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 14, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Woman reaches the pinnacle of life
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. C02
LENGTH: 684 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Jacque Higgins-Rosebrook gives up a university job for a solitude that has given her a vision of life few attain
Read journals from the Pacific Crest Trail and you'll find many people hiking for a cause.
Gabe Shonerd, 22, of Medford began hiking in April to raise money and attention for the Reach Family Institute, a nonprofit that helps brain-injured children. His Internet trail journal is at www.reachquest.org.
Roger Binschus, 26, of Portland is hiking the trail to raise awareness for Cherryville Heartsongs, a counseling center specializing in marriage and family therapy and retreats. His Internet journal is at www.geocities.com/roger_pct.
Their efforts are part of what hikers call "trail magic."
Along the trail, there are many causes. Earlier this summer, we found an unlikely one on a mountaintop near Stampede Pass, Wash.
Jacque Higgins-Rosebrook lives there alone, six miles off the pavement in a small green house with a view of the North Cascades. For the past 11 years, she has lived year-round at the National Weather Service monitoring station in the mountains east of Seattle.
The Pacific Crest Trail runs right past the station, and Higgins-Rosebrook greets weary backpackers with water, a place to camp, and an occasional meal or shower. She has kept in touch with many hikers and counts them as friends.
That she lives alone on a mountain is rare.
That she is 60 years old and relishes the solitude, the 12 feet of winter snow that barricades doors and windows, the climbing out the attic hatch to check weather instruments in the dead of winter and the monthly drive by snowcat down the hill for supplies is amazing.
That she runs a nonprofit to help Russian orphans, setting aside $100 a month of her money to care for them, speaks to the possibility of what can be accomplished by one determined person.
As the second-oldest of 12 siblings, mother to three daughters and grandmother to eight, she knows the importance and power of family. But despite the crowd, "I've always tried to find a place to be alone, wherever we lived," she said.
Higgins-Rosebrook was born in Portland, and raised there and in the Yakima Valley. She spent 20 years in fiscal management at the University of Washington. After retiring, she fed her wanderlust by moving to Greece, teaching English and settling into a new life.
It lasted 1-1/2 years, coming home when she learned her daughter was having a baby. She found herself back at the university; her stomach grew sour, she got depressed.
"Working in an office can kill you," she said. "I woke up one morning and said, 'Today is the day. If somebody ticks me off, I'm out of here.' And somebody did."
She spent time gardening and enjoying that the pit in her stomach was gone. A friend who worked at the National Weather Service asked whether she knew anyone interested in living alone on a mountain. She was.
Higgins-Rosebrook learned of the Russian orphan problem in 1995, when she was on a panel of professional women speaking about responsible tourism. Another woman told about taking older Americans to Russia to work at an orphanage.
About 600,000 Russian children, many whose parents are alcoholics or drug addicts, in jail or dead, are in state-run orphanages. They are kicked out when they turn 16. Some go to boarding schools, some to technical schools. Many struggle with drugs and prostitution or are kidnapped into sex slavery.
After that conference, Higgins-Rosebrook decided to make her own trip to an orphanage, Svirstriseki Detsky Dom, where she fell in love with 125 kids.
"I couldn't see myself going home and forgetting about them," she said.
She visits twice a year, spends two weeks each year assessing whom to help and raises money for their futures from anyone she meets. You can learn more at her Web site: www.sosnovayakids.org.
Sure, it was just a trail that runs past a weather station on a mountaintop that brought us to Jacque Higgins-Rosebrook. Hikers call it "trail magic."
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com

The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 14, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Like flecks of gold on a dusty trail
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. C01
LENGTH: 912 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Pacific Crest Trail trekkers share a John Lennon sense of "Imagine"
SISTERS -- The hike is uphill for six miles, eating dust. Suddenly, a cold wind strikes my face and out jumps a full, majestic view of the South Sister.
Those surprises are cherished moments amid the mind- and body-breaking work of a day-in, day-out, long-distance hike of Oregon.
Walk. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Those four words describe what Pacific Crest Trail hikers do all day and what we've been doing for three weeks.
There are constantly changing degrees of difficulty to the three tasks, ones that make hiking very hard or a mellow walk or the picture of perfection. And the three can occur within minutes of each other.
Add that we are not hiking 456 miles in 30 days for fun, but working. Which means we're lugging a satellite telephone, a minicomputer and digital camera, and talking with editors a couple of times a day by phone and e-mail. Although the connectivity is contrary to what this experience should be, it's a good assignment.
Today, we are ending a 36-hour respite in Sisters and hitting the trail again. We'll have come off a break that included friends, real food, clean sheets and cold beer by the pool. It's not until you walk for nine or 10 days straight in the wilderness, eating freeze-dried food out of little foil bags, countless energy bars, nuts and berries that you appreciate the not-so-subtle benefits of the nearby grocery store.
But we have experienced several tastes of the good life.
For one, we're walking through some of Oregon's most pristine country. The mountain views are amazing. The forests are relentless, awe-inspiring and never-ending. Alpine lakes are cool and clean, the perfect end to a 20-mile day.
Secondly, at least once a week we walk into a haven of campgrounds or cabins, each with a little store selling cookies, hot dogs, sandwiches and cold beer. These places are always filled with kind people.
We met Angie and Mike Hammond of West Linn at the Shelter Cove Resort at Odell Lake last weekend. We were hot off a 20-mile day, legs black from trail dirt, drenched in sweat, smelling like a locker room without ventilation. They didn't mind. Angie made turkey sandwiches and gave us two of their last cold Heinekens. Gifts from heaven.
The third component is the wonderful hikers. There are people on the Pacific Crest Trail from everywhere. They are walking north from Mexico to Canada, south from Canada to Mexico, across Oregon, or rambling no more than 20 miles a week with their family. Each has a great story and each has a common love for the land that draws them outside again and again.
No politics, no religion
On the trail, there are no politics, religion or disagreements. People set those aside for one thing -- the trail and the hike. Conversations with total strangers are heartwarming and motivating. It makes you want to be a better person once you return home.
John and Dawn Cicanese found a rhythm in hiking. The couple from Punta Gorda, Fla., quit their jobs to hike the PCT from Canada to Mexico, true southbounders, known as "sobos." They started June 9; we met them July 29 in Southern Oregon.
"It's an adventure," said John Cicanese, 40. "You never know what the next day is going to bring."
Kind of like life itself. Dawn Cicanese, 35, said they decided to live their dream after her father was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2001.
"Just meeting all the cancer patients -- they told us to do it while you can," she said. "That's what did it for me."
Then there are the trail angels, who we've written about extensively both in the paper and on the Internet. Unselfish and giving folks, they open their homes so hikers can bathe and do laundry, or leave their homes and drive for miles to a dusty trailhead just to offer cold drinks or water. They restore faith in the goodness of people.
At times, the relentlessness of the hike can be too difficult to describe. In the first week of our monthlong trek, we were physically exhausted, emotionally drained and unable to fathom completing both the hike and the daily newspaper work.
Then, the change came
People told us we would change, and they were right. They sent encouraging e-mails that bolstered our spirits and our resolve. Now, after three weeks, our bodies have adapted so that 18 miles a day is tough but not that tough. Through-hikers doing 30 miles a day also have helped spur us.
One of those is Nick Morin, 26, originally from Michigan but now living in Lake Tahoe. He hikes from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., carries a 12-pound pack, plus food and water.
Morin hiked through California's Sierra Nevada range, 600 miles of it on snow, when others left those mountains and flip-flopped to Canada to give the snow time to melt.
"I like to push myself," he said. "I just couldn't see flip-flopping. I was going to hike the whole thing straight or get off."
We met Morin in Southern Oregon. When we reach the Columbia River next weekend, he should be in Washington's North Cascades.
We are seven days from the Columbia River. I'm looking forward to getting home, sleeping in my own bed and having a home-cooked meal. But still -- I never thought I'd say this, especially after that first week -- I'm sad to see the end on the horizon.
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 16, 2005 Tuesday 
Sunrise Edition
Three Sisters, plus a lot of family
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 742 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 PART OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES)
SUMMARY: Trail-worthy traditions are passed down by the mile among generations in the central Cascades
B rian Hanna hefted his bright orange metal-frame backpack, an old-school model with zipper pockets on the side, and used a towel to help with padding around his waist.
The pack weighed 55 pounds.
"I've got the stove, the tent, you know," he said. "I'm up camping with the family."
The lake country of Three Sisters Wilderness is familiar territory for the 36-year-old teacher from Newport. He's been coming here for 25 years, first as a boy with his father. Now, he's a father himself, and last week, he was in the wilderness with his wife, Jody, their 9-year-old son, Jacob, and 10 other family members.
The Hanna clan is among thousands of back-country campers this summer hiking the Pacific Crest Trail through the central Cascades, from south of the Three Sisters to Mount Jefferson. Because they are close to Oregon's population centers in the Willamette Valley, the big mountains and their accompanying wilderness areas offer easy weeklong and weekend getaways, whether it is for hiking, fishing in alpine lakes or climbing peaks.
The recreation is often a family affair.
Darrold Hanna, 67, of Payette, Idaho, Brian Hanna's father, joined his son for the week of lake hopping. On this trip, the father of eight biological and 17 adopted children had five grandchildren along.
"We do this every couple of years," Brian Hanna said. "My father gave this to me, and now I'm passing this down to my son."
Hanna said his four daughters, 6, 4 and 2-year-old twins, will also someday make the trip. Hanna said he wants to pass along the legacy that nature is to enjoy and that people should be good stewards.
"We'll do the vacations in Cancun, too," he said. "But there's something you get from this that you can't get anywhere else."
Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail offers time for such reflection. Many hikers say the long distances, wide vistas and seclusion help them find balance from the grind of city life. For others, it brings peace.
Tim Reich, 47, an associate pastor, and Bruce Ebling, 55, an Oregon Department of Transportation engineer, were walking past Middle Sister on Thursday on their way to climb South Sister on Friday.
The Eugene men were one short. Their friend Don McLane died of a heart attack in mid-June during one of their weekly training hikes on Mount Pisgah near Eugene. The trio had been planning the South Sister climb for months.
"We're thinking of him," Ebling said. "We're going to get to the top and say, 'Don, this one's for you.' "
While they miss their friend, the two were all smiles under the sunshine.
"We're just out here enjoying God's country and relaxing," Ebling said.
Jean Nelson, 32, of Eugene is taking a year off after teaching elementary school for five years. This summer, she's crossing Oregon on the Pacific Crest Trail, having friends and family join her for shorter sections.
Last week, Nelson was at Sisters Mirror Lake with her 14-year-old brother, Aaron Nelson, and college friend, Mariann Crooks of Spokane.
"I just wanted to enjoy the outdoors and get in shape," Jean Nelson said. "I wanted to feel like I could do it. It's a goal."
The Three Sisters Wilderness is new to Jean Nelson but not to her brother. Aaron Nelson regularly hikes 50-mile sections with his Boy Scout troop and will break off from his sister to hike with his Scouting buddies.
Crooks, 31, a former backcountry sea kayaker and canoeing guide in Alaska and now a mother of three, said raising children makes it hard to find time for wilderness adventure.
"I do what I can with them, but I've always wanted to do a long-distance hike," she said. "This trip is sort of the answer to a midlife crisis. What do I do with the next years of my life? I'm trying to sort it all out."
For Vince Mack, Paul Berg and their sons, there's no question about what their four-day backpacking trip is about.
Mack, 48, of Whidbey Island, Wash., and Berg, 50, of Corvallis, were college roommates. For the past 11 years, they've been camping mostly in the Central Oregon Cascades with their boys, ages 16 and 17.
"We started doing this once a summer when these guys were 5 and 6," Mack said. "It's been a great thing. Great for all of us."
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 18, 2005 Thursday 
Sunrise Edition
Mission: to protect and preserve
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. B01
LENGTH: 1010 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: Many who see logging's impact up close work to get areas off-limits
GOVERNMENT CAMP -- Jay Ward disappears into a head-high stand of firs in an old clearcut along the Pacific Crest Trail as it climbs north toward U.S. 26 through the Mount Hood National Forest.
Then his cell phone rings and he's gone for several minutes.
Ward, conservation director for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, is leading the group's campaign to get 265,000 acres of public forest land designated as wilderness, removing key recreation and roadless areas from potential timber harvests.
The 1.1 million-acre national forest includes 189,000 acres of designated wilderness, which makes it off limits to timber harvesting.
Logging on public and private land is a major problem for the Pacific Crest Trail as it winds 2,650 miles through California, Oregon and Washington. Its designation as a national scenic trail does nothing officially to protect the land around it. Some 300 miles of the trail go through private land, and government funds to purchase those properties or buy adjacent land have been severely cut since 2000.
Logging in Northern California, Southern Oregon and southern Washington has taken a toll on the trail, forcing advocacy groups and land managers to relocate or re-establish its path through clearcuts. In Washington's Snoqualmie Pass, decades of logging have left hikers walking through a checkerboard of clearcuts. But there, environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service and the Plum Creek Timber Co. are working together to get the remaining private land into public ownership.
Cosmetic changes
The Mount Hood National Forest clearcut that Ward toured in July was part of the Abbott and Salmon Curves sales, a mid-1990s project designed to improve the appearance of large clearcuts visible from Timberline Lodge and the trail.
The cuts are on a northwest facing slope that hangs over the Salmon River Meadows, a lush area surrounded by large stands of timber at the headwaters of the Salmon River. The Forest Service hoped to feather the edges of the clearcuts to make them appear less square to people looking south from Timberline Lodge.
"The solution to having clearcuts they were embarrassed about was to log more," Ward said.
Timber-cutting plans within the view area helped spur a movement to protect the trail south from its trailhead on U.S. 26 near Frog Lake.
Last year, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a plan to set aside an additional 160,000 acres of wilderness in the Mount Hood National Forest. The idea faced opposition from the Bush administration; Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.; and even some recreation groups who said the expanded wilderness could lead to unexpected consequences for timber harvesting, recreation and forest management plans.
Wyden's bill, different than ONRC's proposal, died in committee at the end of the 108th Congress. Ward believes the idea of adding to the wilderness eventually will take hold.
"Right now the delegation is trying to figure out how to work with each other to protect the mountain," he said. Today, Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., finish a four-day backpacking trip around Mount Hood in an effort to find common ground on protection and recreation issues.
Ward believes it's critical for those leaders to understand the importance of legacy.
"We've converted most of the landscape in the last 100 years," Ward said. "It's our time to do something for the people who come after us. They're going to thank us, if they thank us at all, because some of what was here was left to them."
Private-public partnership
In Snoqualmie Pass east of Seattle, Charlie Raines leads the effort to raise money for the Cascade Coalition Partnership, which over the past five years has used $16 million to purchase land from the Plum Creek Timber Co. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Plum Creek clear-cut much of its land in the Interstate 90 corridor, and the highly visible harvest helped spark a political battle that eventually slowed the cutting.
Now the Forest Service, conservationists and Plum Creek are working together to preserve the land in the area for recreation and wildlife protection. While many of the properties have been logged, Steve Johnson, a Forest Service lands manager, said setting them aside now will benefit wildlife and future generations who hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
"There are a lot of things going on biologically in the corridor" Johnson said. "It's the connection between the north and south Cascades."
So far, the Forest Service has acquired 97,000 acres through land exchanges and $92 million in public and private purchases. Raines said it will take several more years to buy all the important parcels, some to protect the trail, some to protect habitat.
"We look at what has the most value, what has the most threat," Raines said.
But money is scarce. Funding under the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, derived from offshore oil exploration leases, has been cut by the Bush administration and Congress from a high of $155 million in 2000 to $60 million this year. The fund traditionally is used to buy property for national forests, parks and wildlife refuges.
"The ultimate goal along the Pacific Crest Trail is to have a mile- or two-mile-wide corridor that is essentially road-free," Raines said. "Right now, it's not a very pleasant place to walk."
Conservation groups have options to buy more land from Plum Creek. Raines and Johnson said the company has been good about extending the options while the groups raise money.
As he stands at the edge of a clearcut at Windy Pass, an area recently purchased from Plum Creek, Johnson, 59, said the capstone of his 40-year Forest Service career would be preserving land along the trail and in the pass.
"Within 30 years you're going to have a big stand of timber in here," he said.
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 21, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Memories, insights fill trekkers as they approach end of trail
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. C03
LENGTH: 355 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: An Oregonian reporter and photographer finish a 31-day hike today, with beauty and kindness in mind
Thirty-one days after they started hiking the Pacific Crest Trail south of the Oregon border, Oregonianreporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian are expected to finish their trek about 1 p.m. today at the Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River at Cascade Locks.
During their 456-mile hike, they published stories and photos in 13 editions of The Oregonian, sent daily, illustrated electronic journals to OregonLive.com and received hundreds of e-mails of encouragement from readers -- all via a tiny computer and satellite telephone.
They used six food resupply points along the trail; at Hyatt Lake, Crater Lake, Odell Lake, Sisters, Olallie Lake and Government Camp. They had six "zero," or rest, days, including two unscheduled days in Southern Oregon to allow first-week blisters to heal. They estimate they took 1.3 million steps during the trip and burned 5,000 to 7,000 calories each hiking day.
The two hikers discovered that their bodies adjusted after the first week to the physical challenge of hiking 15 to 22 miles a day; that they rarely had to worry about water along the trail; and that there were many more stopping points at little campgrounds and resorts than anticipated.
"The long-distance hike is . . . more of a mental challenge," Larabee said in an e-mail. "You're dealing with wrapping your mind around such a long distance and time away from home. That's hard to grasp, especially at the beginning."
But the biggest revelation was the daily, up-close reminder of the beauty of Oregon and the kindness of other hikers or people who live and work along the PCT.
"Even after 10 years in Oregon, I had no grasp of the breadth of the central Cascades," Larabee said.
"People are more than willing to help perfect strangers, and talking to them was fun and revealing," Malkasian said. "Nobody turned us down when we needed help."

The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 21, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Civilization wants to creep up wild Pacific Crest Trail
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Local Stories; Pg. C01
LENGTH: 909 words

SERIES: ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (1 part of an occasional series)
SUMMARY: A housing shortage and plans for a casino have Cascade Locks looking for a place to grow with a land swap
CASCADE LOCKS -- As the Pacific Crest Trail descends into the Columbia River Gorge at Cascade Locks, hikers emerge from a beautiful forest to a city street, where they pick up a short dirt path under Interstate 84 that leads to the Bridge of the Gods.
They're allowed to walk the beautiful span toll free to continue their trek through Washington, but not before enjoying some of the bounty of civilization this small city has to offer. Many hikers rest or resupply here and are considered a welcome addition to the tourist trade.
But they are unaware of the pressure to expand civilization into the forest or the politely contentious negotiations taking place between city leaders and the U.S. Forest Service over potential development along the trail.
The Port of Cascade Locks, which owns 40 acres that include the Pacific Crest and Gorge 400 trails, wants the land to expand housing in the city. The area is already short on housing, forcing most people who work in Cascade Locks to commute from Hood River, from Portland or from the small towns on the Washington side of the river.
A plan to build a tribal casino has stepped up development pressure in Cascade Locks, said Mike Ferris, a spokesman for the Columbia River National Scenic Area. If ultimately approved, the casino could have as many as 1,200 employees working three shifts round the clock, he said.
"This community will be changed forever," Ferris said. "Where do you put all those people. Either they live here or they commute."
The city's urban growth boundary is set and the Columbia River Gorge Commission would have to decide on any expansion of it, Ferris said. But he noted the lay of the land also dictates where people can build, and Cascade Locks is pretty well nestled into a rare, flat and open spot in the gorge.
Port officials are hesitant to build houses along the trail. It could but would have to abide by the easement the Forest Service purchased in the 1980s, leaving hikers five feet on either side of the trail.
So the port offered a compromise -- a straight trade, 10 acres of the port's property along the trail for 10 Forest Service acres to the west that are within the city's urban growth boundary.
It sounds simple, but it's not.
Under federal rules, the Forest Service is required to get fair market value, within 25 percent, in any land trade. Timber value is included, and Pam Campbell, lands manager for the gorge, said it's clear that the Forest Service parcel is worth much more because it's more heavily timbered. What's more, the Forest Service parcel is better habitat for species such as the endangered spotted owl.
"Equal or better habitat is going to be difficult to overcome in regard to the Northwest Forest Plan," Campbell said.
Such land swaps are regular business for federal land managers trying to improve amenities such as trails or consolidate large areas for habitat preservation. Along the Pacific Crest Trail in California, Oregon and Washington, federal land trades such as the one proposed in Cascade Locks have been used to improve the walking path and the view from it or to protect it from potential ravages of development or logging. But the federal rules regarding such trades are stringent to avoid conflicts of interest and favoritism.
Chuck Daughtry, general manager of the port, said he's frustrated by the federal government's land swapping rules that don't place any value on amenities such as the Pacific Crest Trail. He thinks that should be worth something.
"This community has been committed to the trail for a long time," he said. "We think that the PCT is valuable. We are glad that it comes through our community and we'd like to have more use of it, frankly."
Other than tourism, there's very little in the way of business in Cascade Locks, Daughtry said. The port runs the Sternwheeler cruise ship, collects bridge tolls and holds several annual events.
Daughtry said that in 1960 there were 90 businesses, and today there are 12. "It's been slowly dying for decades," he said. Tourism and the casino is seen as a way to revive the town.
Both sides hold aces in the debate. The port's property along the trail is zoned for development and the port has a valid logging permit. But the Forest Service notes that there is some question as to the geology of the port's property and whether it can be fully developed. Geological testing is incomplete.
Another option being explored is the port would sweeten the pot with additional land or cash to equalize the value. That additional land could be in another forest, even in another state, Campbell said.
"We may do that," Daughtry said. "It's not a deal killer right now. But we're trying to figure out ways we can do land swaps without having to exchange cash."
Campbell notes the trail is dropping into an urban area and that despite the difficulties in making a trade, the Forest Service places importance on protecting the trail and minimizing conflicts between hikers and future homeowners if that land is ultimately developed.
"We all have the common goal to preserve the trail," Ferris said. "We're working on this openly. We have no secrets.
You can reach reporter Mark Larabee and photographer Ian Malkasian at: onthepct at mac.com


The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
August 23, 2005 Tuesday 
Sunrise Edition
Editorial: The ribbon along the ridgetops
SECTION: Editorials; Pg. B08
LENGTH: 360 words

SUMMARY: The Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail is a path through beauty, kindness and troubling signs of neglect
A long, long backpacking trip always is a lesson about life's essentials, about what must be carried on and what should be left behind.
Those who followed The Oregonian's Mark Larabee and Ian Malkasian on their monthlong trek along the Pacific Crest Trail learned from their words and images that there is something that Oregon and the rest of the West absolutely must carry forward -- the trail itself.
Only about 300 hikers a year attempt the entire length of the trail that winds 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada, and takes an entire summer to traverse. The rest of us are left to imagine the trail as a colorful, precious ribbon that unfurls the length of the West Coast.
Larabee and Malkasian described hundreds of miles of these soaring views, from the splendor of Crater Lake and Mount Thielsen to the towering Three Sisters, then around stunning Mount Jefferson to the waterfalls tumbling off the slopes of Mount Hood.
But they also found that this narrow ribbon of a trail is badly frayed in some places, pinched by development and clearcuts, poorly maintained and supported by public agencies. It turns out that walking the trail, like all backpacking trips, is about ups and downs, highs and lows, thrilling sights and deep disappointments.
Yet if you read Larabee's and Malkasian's daily blog entries from the trail, you could not help but be moved by the emotional pull of the Pacific Crest Trail. It is a place where people come to recharge their batteries, to summon the nerve to take big steps in new directions. It also is a place where the better natures of people emerge, from the "Trail Angels" who provide hot food and showers and soft places to sleep, to the volunteers who spend weeks every year clearing and maintaining the trail.
All this seems so obviously essential. But it is dismaying how little public money and effort goes into protecting the experience -- and the actual path -- of the Pacific Crest Trail. In the end, the future of this unique trail is a burden that all of us should gladly shoulder, and carry on.


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
September 18, 2005 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
Trek is reminder that we are stewards of the land
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Forum; Pg. E01
LENGTH: 821 words

It's been several weeks since I finished a monthlong hike across Oregon for a report on the Pacific Crest Trail. I've long since washed the dust from my legs and the grease from my hair.
As much as I'm enjoying being home, I miss reveling in the backcountry solitude day after day, alone with the immensity of the place, watching nature move in small, uninterrupted worlds.
My view of the world today is not from the grassy shore of an idyllic Alpine lake such as Scout Lake, a shining blue-green pool under the shadow of Mount Jefferson. It's from my cubicle, fluorescent lights overhead and air conditioning blowing down from a ceiling vent.
I was struck by something my first week back at work. On my editor's computer screen, as on mine and many others in the newsroom, are pictures of sun-baked cliffs, snowy mountains, sandy beaches and duff-covered hiking trails winding through green forests. These scenes pop up in front of us in our man-made world.
Whether we think a wilderness experience is a multiday hike to the top of a mountain or a 20-minute walk to a farmers market, many of us would rather be outside listening to the breeze than the hum of our computers.
After hiking about 480 miles from Northern California to Cascade Locks carrying a 35-to-40-pound backpack, I understand more than ever the importance of having wilderness, whether you actually use it or not. I'm not talking about the tangible benefits of preserving vast tracts of land for wildlife, clean air and drinking water -- though all those are reason enough.
I'm talking about how nature provides us with that place of balance. Being outside embraces us in a way that's immeasurable in terms of dollars, priceless in terms of afterglow.
But it's easy to take the wilderness for granted, especially for Oregonians. We see it every day. The Wallowa, Blue and Cascade mountains surround and envelop us. But those peaks are more than the calendar photos or screen savers we've become accustomed to.
Where the Pacific Crest Trial winds through the Sky Lakes Wilderness in Southern Oregon, I met Jim Mannenbach, 50, of Eagle Point, his 14-year-old son, Robby, and his brother, Jerome, 54, of Portland. They were out for a few days of hiking, and I asked them what they gain from the outdoors.
Jim put it best. Not only does it take you out of the bustle of everyday life, "It puts you in touch with God a little bit more."
Being outside in a place undisturbed by mankind's destructive nature helps me freely connect with a greater power, away from mediators who often lecture about how to think and act.
The relationship between humankind and nature is symbiotic. These places called wilderness need our stewardship, care and protection. On the hike I saw many places we've let slip away.
Lolo Pass in the Mount Hood National Forest is a tangle of clear-cuts and power lines that nearly spoil the awe-inspiring view of Mount Hood. Entering the Rogue River National Forest, we came across a battered gate designed to keep cattle out. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management property where the cows were allowed to graze looked like a hurricane went through. The fence line was noticeable in both directions; the cattle had stripped the underbrush clean.
Early in our reporting, photographer Ian Malkasian and I traveled to Southern California to meet with forest rangers, work with a trail-maintenance crew and talk with hikers a few hundred miles into their trips. Flying out of Los Angeles, I was stunned by how "civilization" was quickly pushing east and northeast, encroaching on the mountains.
It's no secret that spending on recreation in national parks and national forests is being cut. In the Angeles National Forest east of Los Angeles, that means land managers are closing campgrounds and failing to maintain trails and other places that give the 14 million people in the nearby urban area a refuge.
"Oregon is Southern California in 40 years," Tim Stone, the manager of the Pacific Crest Trail for the U.S. Forest Service, told me earlier this summer. "There are a lot of questions about what will happen in Southern Oregon. In the Mount Ashland area there are for-sale signs next to the trail."
Wilderness areas can be undone just as easily as they can be done, he warned me. Without a constituency to support them, they can go away.
Articles and Web logs from our trip ran in The Oregonian between July 24 and Aug. 21. They touched on the beauty of the trail and the wonderful people out hiking and supporting hikers. They also chronicled the threats of development, logging, mining and the shrinking amount of federal money being spent on maintenance and preservation.
I came away feeling we must do better. If we do nothing, we can't expect our children's children to ever experience the beauty of places far from freeways, telephones -- and cubicles.
Mark Larabee: 503-294-7664; marklarabee at news.oregonian.com


The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
October 5, 2008 Sunday 
Sunrise Edition
At risk: the Pacific Crest Trail The government needs to buy 250 miles of the trail corridor still held privately
BYLINE: MARK LARABEE, The Oregonian
SECTION: Commentary
LENGTH: 1116 words

MARK LARABEE
The Pacific Crest Trail that runs 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington was only a dream in 1926 when Catherine Montgomery, a retired teacher from Bellingham, Wash., first proposed the idea for a contiguous hike along the crest of the Western mountains.
By 1932, Clinton C. Clarke of Pasadena, Calif., a successful oilman, began a letter-writing campaign, asking the nation's leaders to support setting aside a 10-mile-wide swath linking the John Muir Trail in California, the Skyline Trail in Oregon and the Cascade Crest Trail in Washington. Clarke founded the Pacific Crest Trail System Conference that same year, including in the group representatives from the Boy Scouts of America, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Sierra Club and the Portland-based Mazamas.
So there was already a huge national trails movement afoot by the time President Johnson, in February 1965, called for the development and protection of trails systems in the nation's cities and countryside.
Perhaps Clarke's letter-writing efforts three decades earlier helped put the weight of the presidency behind the idea that there is value in trails, one that cannot be measured in dollars.
Regardless, more than three years after his original speech, on Oct. 2, 1968, Johnson signed into law the National Trails System Act establishing two national scenic trails --the Appalachian and the Pacific Crest.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the act. Today, there are eight national scenic trails in various stages of development as well as 18 national historic trails, including the Lewis and Clark, stretching from Missouri to the Pacific Northwest. That's a lot to celebrate. These trails help connect and preserve some of the most scenic wilderness tracts in the country.
But despite the efforts of many dedicated people who spend their lives preserving and maintaining these great hiking and horseback riding paths, federal funding for these national scenic treasures has been historically inadequate.
"Money for land acquisition has all but dried up," said Liz Bergeron, executive director of the Pacific Crest Trail Association. "The (Pacific Crest Trail) has received only $10.5 million in federal funds for buying land."
That wasn't always the case, she said. The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail's older cousin back east, has received about $190 million in federal funds.
The Pacific Crest Trail was officially "completed" 15 years ago with a ceremony in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California. But today, 250 miles of the trail corridor are still held by private landowners and many properties are in danger of logging, development and mining.
It's time that the government find the money to buy this land and preserve the trail.
Even while government land purchases have all but ended, the U.S. Forest Service has increased maintenance funding for the Pacific Crest Trail. The Forest Service funding for the Pacific Crest Trail Association has grown from $87,000 in 2004 to $668,000 this year.
Bergeron said the agency realized that instead of maintaining the trail itself, as it used to, it could stretch trail dollars by giving them to the nonprofit. That money helps pay a staff of 13 who advocate for the trail and coordinate the volunteers who in turn gave almost 60,000 hours to trail maintenance projects last year.
But even that funding is tenuous, Bergeron said. That's because the Forest Service has primary responsibility for fighting fires on much of the land the trail runs through. In a typical year, the agency spends about half its annual budget fighting fires.
"Every time there's a huge fire season, like we've had every year over the last several years, funding for (other) programs is affected," Bergeron said. "Congress needs to take firefighting out of the regular budget."
Bergeron's group is left to buy land by soliciting public donations.
There's a mile of trail in southern Oregon that needs protecting right now. The 153-acre Keene Creek property will go on the market in February unless the Pacific Crest Trail Association (www.pcta.org) can come up with $300,000 to buy a conservation easement from the sympathetic landowner.
The property is inside the boundary of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and includes large meadows and stands of pine, fir and cedar. It is home to deer, elk, coyote and black bear. And its proximity to Highway 66 allows access for both day and long-distance hikers.
Unless it can be purchased by the conservation group, new owners could log and develop the property while leaving only a 10-foot-wide easement for the trail.
I don't believe that's what Congress and President Johnson had in mind when they created this National Scenic Trail four decades ago. To me, it's a national shame that we are still fighting to save these properties.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has introduced a resolution recognizing the 40th anniversary of the National Trails Systems Act. While the document singles out the Pacific Crest Trail, it acknowledges the more than 60,000 miles of national trails. It also takes a bold step in calling on Congress to reaffirm its support and to provide funding for the trails.
The Pacific Crest Trail connects three states, three national monuments, seven national parks, 25 national forests and 33 federal wilderness areas. Hikers and horseback riders are witness to the stark symmetry of the desert, the awesome power of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada Range, and the poignant beauty of the Cascades.
The Pacific Crest Trail embodies the idea that recreational trails may be our best link to our country's vast "diversity of landscapes," as DeFazio's resolution describes it. Congress should adopt DeFazio's resolution and back it up with more money for trails.
For me, places like the Pacific Crest Trail allow me to become part of the land and get away from a life connected to computers, telephones and freeways. My wife, Carol, and I spent a week in August wandering the Ansel Adams Wilderness in the Sierras, and we hoofed many dusty miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. These experiences help us rejuvenate our minds and bodies. It's our collective responsibility, whether we'll ever go out into the wilderness, to ensure that it is preserved for those who will follow us.
Conservationist John Muir, an early advocate of preserving wilderness, understood the value of going into the wild.
"In every walk with nature," Muir said, "one receives far more than he seeks."
In 2005, Oregonian staff reporter Mark Larabee hiked 488 miles across Oregon for a series of articles titled "On the Pacific Crest Trail." You can reach him at 503-294-7664 or marklarabee at news.oregonian.com