[at-l] Signfield (AT98) aka Kinch is finished the PCT

["FannyPack - David Atkinson" <at_l96@hotmail.com>]

Signfield (AT98) aka Kinch is finished the PCT

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install Yahoo Msgr so we can chat. http://messenger.yahoo.com/ - my Yahoo id 
is: fannypack96
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"Beware of all endeavors that require new clothes." --Henry Thoreau
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-FannyPack - mailto:fp@hikercafe.com / http://hikercafe.com

-----Original Message-----
From: John c Kincheloe [mailto:kinch.hiker@lycos.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 2:09 PM
Subject: Last entry.


Word to your mother, brother, sister, and fat uncle George.
Kincheloe is done.  2658 miles from Mexico to Canada and my feet do not want 
to walk anymore. For that matter they don't have to.

Well the last time I wrote I had received around 3 days of rain. The next 
day I returned to the trail and walked along the amazing glacier covered 
slopes of the three sisters, or at least I was told that is what I was doing 
for my trail wound through lava fields in 15ft visibility .For the next 4 
days. The only way I knew that I was on the trail instead of strolling upon 
the surface of another planet was the fact that it probably does not snow 
and hail like that elsewhere. On the 4th day out I climbed through a 
downpour and the area called Jefferson Park There I fell to my knees in 
admiration of a glacially covered behemoth called Mt. Jefferson. This is an 
uncontrollable reaction I would be continuing as I followed the mighty peaks 
of the Cascade crest to the North.  Mt Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Rainer, 
Glacier, Baker, and many smaller but no less powerful peaks held me in a 
trance of amazement during the last 700mi. of this glorious odyssey which I 
have only recently emerged from. Of all my experiences that first day as 
Jefferson emerged and hid itself behind the ever-changing cloud cover 
remains as the most powerful of my trip. Its glacial walls cascading down 
the side of the gorging the land beneath it as it went, allowed me to once 
again have respect for this thing we call water. We take for granted so much 
of it yet it has the power to make, destroy and perpetuate life.

The next several days as I made my way in and out of storms along my trek to 
the Columbia River I learned to love and hate the h2o that descended upon me 
form above. I also treasured the brief moments of clarity I had for they 
revealed my first glimpses of the amazing land people refer to as the 
Pacific Northwest.

I suggest very little must do events to those I know, but if you are ever in 
the Columbia River Gorge the Eagle Creek Trail is something you must do. If 
for no other reason just to be able to say that you walked underneath a 
waterfall along a leisurely day hike from the Rd. 500mi.left to go as I 
perched myself along north bank of the River. WA was all that was left. 
Feelings persisted of not wanting to finish followed by feelings of wanting 
to stop walking. A number of days out as I was pondering my life in the 
woods I came face to face with a herd of mountain goats to which I managed 
to sneak within a close watching distance. Needless to say they hurried away 
from me with a watchful eye, I also had the feeling that they accept my 
presence as a mt. wanderer light and quite in the step at home as can be in 
the great outdoors. They did not snort and shuffle away as they had done 
countlessly to the many weekend hikers panting and wheezing from the many 
miles of uphill I had become so accustomed. I camped that very night on the 
edge of a glacier high above tree line and most of the sane people who were 
out hiking during this weekend. I perched myself near a small ledge in a 
cloudbank. That night the Great Spirit decided to shine don on me with an 
experience unlike any that I could have hoped. Around 3 in the morning the 
clouds settled into the valleys around the full moon and me raised high 
overhead and awoke me with its brilliance. I crawled from me tube like 
shelter and got my first look at the area I had wondered into. My ledge was 
perched upon a shear wall that dropped on 3 sides to the joining of 2 
separate glaciers that flowed together 150 feet below. To my left rose Mt 
Adams. To my front the crater blown top of MT. St Helens and covering the 
entire skyline to my north rising directly from the thick cloud cover which 
laid 200 ft below at 5000 ft was Mt Rainier shining brilliantly in the rays 
of this glorious moon hanging above me. To describe simply does no justice 
to the sight that made me drop to the ground and praise the good lord for 
allowing me to live this life and appear at this time in this place of 
magical intensity.

One would think that after witnessing this that I could not find a place in 
this world to which I would rather be, at the time this is what I thought. 
The truth however is very different. After a couple of days of walking 
through patches of lush old growth forest surrounded and being overrun by 
the clear-cut. The huge powerful and politically connected logging 
corporations, I reentered Eden.

For the last several weeks I walked along ridges and dropped in and out of 
the north cascades. I was amazed by the jagged nature of the high sierras; I 
have been in long awe by the green lush valleys of my second home in the 
great Colorado Rockies. . Never have I imagined the Cascades to have the 
glorious benefits of both in such an extremely remote area. I gorged myself 
on huckleberry, to feed my stomach and simply looked around to feed my soul. 
I find myself at a loss of words to describe the simplistic beauty of high 
peaks rising up and along slopes of green pastures and mighty forest that 
have stood there longer than most people can trace their ancestral. Glaciers 
flowed down the sides of almost every peak, which slid across my flank.

Washington was and incredible experience, which ranks among the top of any 
areas I have visited in my short life. For I am now still a pup and there 
are many more places to see. I thank you all for your support during my trip 
and I hope that my updates may have brought some limited amount of pleasure 
to all of you. I leave you with a quote from a friend and fellow hiker that 
sum up my feelings at this time.
---I used to leave home to go to the woods now I go to the woods to return 
home.
Please feel free to write me if you want to know anything else.
I will be returning to CO in a couple days and then on to Visit VA. So I 
will see most of you soon.

Congrats to The arrival of Josh Welland, and Liz and Steve new bundle of 
joy.
John

ps. again thank you for your understanding of my gramatical errors.

Kinch
Pacific Crest Trail
Campo, CA---->Manning Park, BC
Keep the Love!


..

---
Kinch

   Pacific Crest Trail
Campo, CA---->Manning Park, BC
      Keep the Love!


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http://comm.lycos.com

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