UltraPedestrian

Redefining endurance - Building new paradigms of mammal locomotion - Moving through the natural world under my own power - Fully animal and fully human - In my natural habitat - Trail running - Ultrarunning - Backpacking - Fastpacking - Supported - Unsupported - Self-supported - All of the Above - Give Thanks for Life!

[ultrapedestrian]

A RUGGED HOME FOR DELICATE CREATURES. Kathy and I have been living in Arizona for almost three months as we make our way from the Mexico border to the Utah border and then forward again to the Mexico border. Despite our love of Arizona all this time to acclimate, we are still essentially tourists just passing thru. It's amazing to see the ways in which small, delicate creatures have adapted to not only survive but thrive in these harsh environs. The intricate nest nestled amongst the brutal spines of this cactus impresses not only with its craftsmanship but with its logistical brilliance. What a clever way to protect one's home. What a Blessing to be Alive! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎team7hills‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬

[ultrapedestrian]

EIGHT YEARS AGO ALMOST HALF OF KATHY'S PANCREAS WAS SURGICALLY REMOVED due to a growth encapsulating it. This makes her especially susceptible to dehydration in addition to the effects it has on her ability to metabolize fats, which is greatly limited. And surviving pancreatic disease didn't slow her down; if anything it drives her to attempt more, push harder, and challenge her boundaries even more, even though adventuring is more difficult, more complicated, and more dangerous for her than for others. Those are just a few of the reasons she is so valuable to me, such an inspiration to me and others, and why I call her OBAL: because she is One BadAss Lady. What a Blessing to be Alive! #OneBadAssLady ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎team7hills‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬

[ultrapedestrian]

TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH TWO BADASS LADIES, we make our way out of Superior and forward to the AZT at the same point where we left it earlier this afternoon. We racked up 12 miles round trip picking up our resupply package in Superior and had a great time enjoying a light brush with civilization; but we got ourselves back out onto the trail. We have been adhering to a "feet on the ground" ethic and hiked all our off-trail mileage, not hitchhiking or accepting rides. Kathy's Adventure Bestie, Lisa, is joining us for 100 miles or so. What a Blessing to be Alive! #AZTyoyo #team7hills #HShive #BeTrailReady #ZeroLimits

[ultrapedestrian]

KATHY WEPT TEARS OF JOY AND THANKFULNESS when we happened upon this cache of vegan Thanksgiving foodstuffs left along the trail for us by our friends Ed and Benedict. What an incredible mental and physical boost to receive such kindness! Vegan cornbread stuffing? For realz?! Good golly! What a Blessing to be a Hominid! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

THERE'S A SUPER-SIMPLE SECRET TO BEING THANKFUL. It's simply deciding to be thankful and then looking at your life to see what you have to be thankful for. We live under the illusion of an arrow of time, wherein cause precedes effect. But if you wait around for something to cause you to be thankful, you can end up chasing something which may not be attainable. But the Human Mind is amazingly powerful and reshapes reality to correspond to our perception of it. So by deciding that the "effect" you observe in your life will be thankfulness, the Universe is reverse-engineered into a place in which there are "causes" for the very thankfulness you have chosen. So go forth into the World in Peace, bending space and time, and making your reality into a place in which you have an abundance of things for which to be Thankful, by the shear force of your Thanksgiving itself. Give Thanks for Life! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS: 760 quick calories of nut-buttery energy and a couple cups of instant coffee 🍵 make up my morning pre-trail regimen. #AZTyoyo #BeTrailReady

[ultrapedestrian]

UNABLE TO SOURCE STOVE FUEL FOR ALMOST 400 miles, we had to resort to the next best thing: making a stove that would work with the available fuel. I had made a soda can stove at home once just out of curiosity, and, fortunately, I remembered the basics well enough to fabricate a working stove on the trail with just a knife. I know my technique can use some refinement, but the two versions pictured were good enough to extend the life of our remaining fuel canister and keep us in hot food and drink until we could reach Flagstaff. What a Blessing to be a modern tool-making Hominid! Give Thanks for Life! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

UNABLE TO SOURCE STOVE FUEL FOR ALMOST 400 miles, we had to resort to the next best thing: making a stove that would work with the available fuel. I had made a soda can stove at home once just out of curiosity, and, fortunately, I remembered the basics well enough to fabricate a working stove on the trail with just a knife. I know my technique can use some refinement, but the two versions pictured were good enough to extend the life of our remaining fuel canister and keep us in hot food and drink until we could reach Flagstaff. What a Blessing to be a modern tool-making Hominid! Give Thanks for Life! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION, asked, in this instance, by our friend and legendary thru-hiker Lint Bunting. When the person who puts together a resupply box for you is one of only three people ever to complete the Triple Crown 👑 👑 👑 of Thru-hiking, you know he knows what he's doing. Thanks for the treats, Lint! We'll put the calories to good use! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

I WAS PONDERING JUST WHAT MAKES A TRAILRUNNER yesterday as Kathy and I were having a sit-down break near the Horse Lake Trailhead south of Flagstaff. A car pulled up hurriedly and screached to a halt and a desperate looking woman hopped out the passenger's door. She jogged a little bit up the trail, apparently without noticing us, and began to squat and pull her tights down. Something spooked her and she suddenly stood up and ran further into the woods out of sight of us. A few moments later she reemerged, jogged back to the car, hopped in, and was gone. After considering what I had witnessed I realised she was a trailrunner by default because she had participated in the two most fundamental activities involved in trailrunning: she had run on a trail and she had peed in the woods. Really, what more is there? Human Beings are such fascinating animals! Give Thanks for Life! Beauty! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪#‎HShive‬ ‪#‎BeTrailReady‬ ‪#‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪#‎Team7hills‬

[ultrapedestrian]

WALKING IN BEAUTY is a Navajo concept that describes living Ones life in balance and harmony. To my bilagáana mind the literal meaning of the words is just as poignant. And it shows a vital love, appreciation of, and connection to the land on the part of the Diné that they could live and walk in such beauty every day and still recognize it as beautiful. What a Blessing to be a Hominid and to walk in Beauty! #AZTyoyo #HShive #BeTrailReady #ZeroLimits #Team7hills

[ultrapedestrian]

THRU-HIKING AND ULTRARUNNING HAVE COMPLETELY ALTERED MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD. For most of my life food was a source of enjoyment and entertainment and was available in abundance. This led to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle that lacked both Life and Style and which in the long run, as it were, would have killed me. It wasn't until I began living in such a way as to rack up big calorie deficits that I learned to see food as FUEL ⛽. Now whenever I eat I look at the number of calories in terms of how far it will propel me. As I was enjoying some regionally available boutique chips and salsa at the Pine Trailhead I was puzzling over the disparity between my needs and my desires calorically. On the trail we've been eating mostly dehydrated food and nut butters and such; calorie dense foods that still failed to keep up with our caloric demands. In town, I wanted fresh things, like salsa, bell peppers, cabbage ... foods with that live, fresh taste. But a 16oz container of salsa only has enough calories to power me for two miles. A bell pepper will only fuel me for a single mile. An entire tub of hummus only contains 800 calories, enough to cover 8 miles. This puts me in the unusual position, for a citizen of a modern first world nation, of struggling to take in enough food to fuel my energy expenditures. But it's a conundrum I'll gladly face over my old pattern of eating myself to death! What a Blessing to be a Modern Hominid with an almost infinite number of fueling options! Give Thanks for Life! #AZTyoyo #BeTrailReady #ZeroLimits #HShive #Team7hills

[ultrapedestrian]

WELL, IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE ZEROING IN PINE, AZ. A cascading series of minor setbacks and amateurish mistakes have us arriving at a resupply point on a Saturday, so we will have to chill out and eat all day Sunday so that we can pick up our packages at the post office on Monday. But that will be no hardship since we have been on something like 1\4 rations for the last few days. One problem with falling (way) off target pace is that it forces you to stretch your food well beyond what you intended when you put the cache together in the first place. But the challenges are exactly what I love. Running big calorie and sleep deficits with 45 miles to go to resupply makes my nerves sing with a sense of being truly and completely alive. What a Blessing to be a Hominid! Give Thanks for Life! Give thanks for life! ‪#‎AZTyoyo‬ ‪ #‎ZeroLimits‬ ‪ #‎Team7hills‬ #‎HShive‬ ‪ #‎BeTrailReady

[ultrapedestrian]

SOAK-EAZE: STOVE FREE COOKING MADE EASY. Tons of weight, money, packaging, and time can be saved on dehydrated food by putting together your own meals and soaking them. We season and dehydrate our own soy strips and buy dehydrated refried beans, rice, and mashed potatoes in bulk and carry them in one quart freezer bags. An hour or two before mealtime we add them in whatever combination we desire to our containers, add water, and let them do their thing. By mealtime we have a rich, savory, brothy bowl of yummy energy ready to go without having to carry pots or pans or fuel or a giant bundle of empty packaging from a week's worth of packaged meals. What a Blessing to be a Hominid! #AZTyoyo #ZeroLimits #Team7hills #HShive #BeTrailReady

[ultrapedestrian]

O.B.A.L. - ONE BADASS LADY. With a breeze after dark, we had nice temperatures last night for moving through the night. Immediately after a break Kathy was rocking atm warmers and a buff, all of which she shed after a few minutes of hiking warmed her up. In the night we saw an Arizona Black Rattlesnake, three tarantulas, and a family of kit foxes, who were very curious about us. What a Blessing to be Alive! #AZTyoyo #ZeroLimits #Team7hills #BeTrailReady #HShive

[ultrapedestrian]

THE BLESSING OF CLOUDS IN THE DESERT. Water in the desert is of inestimable value, whether it's in pools on the ground or masses of vapor in the air. Either way it's cooling and refreshing and revivifying. Give Thanks for Water! Give Thanks for Life! #AZTyoyo #ZeroLimits #Team7hills #HShive #BeTrailReady

[ultrapedestrian]

COME IN SHE SAID I'LL GIVE YOU SHELTER FROM THE STORM. Kathy hunkering down to weather a brief morning sprinkle as I break camp. Barnett Camp, Arizona National Scenic Trail. AZTyoyo