I’ve been on a roll lately and have several updated projects and completed projects to share in the coming weeks. Today, I’m kicking things off with my Hike Passport, which I’ve updated to include my summer 2026 hikes.
Angel’s Rest; hiked July 2, 2025. My third time hiking this trail (one of the few trails I’ve hiked more than once), and my first hike in three-ish years, after mental illness kept me off the trail for way too long.
Tom Dick and Harry Mountain via Mirror Lake; hiked July 8, 2025. Gorgeous views, entirely too many mosquitoes. Prepare accordingly.
Twister Falls via Eagle Creek Trail; hiked July 16, 2025. First (and only!) hike this season that tested my OCD. Still a little surprised my brain didn’t turn against me during this one.
Oxbow Loop; hiked July 23, 2025. The best part of this hike (“hike”): a body of water that I can spend hours upon hours lying next to and floating in, almost completely undisturbed by other people.
Mount Defiance and Starvation Ridge; hiked July 28, 2025. Terrible. An absolute slog. Never again. Unless…
Ramona Falls; hiked August 8, 2025. Last proper hike of the season, and the last one I shared on the blog. Still can’t get over how big the falls are. Look how teeny tiny I am in that photo!!
Angel’s Rest; attempted September 24, 2025. First attempt at a sunrise hike. Did not finish.
Look. Listen. What happened was, I’d decided to end the season with my first-ever sunrise hike. What better local-ish spot to watch the sunrise than Angel’s Rest?
About 15 minutes in, I decided to try to capture in a photo for my kids how dark the trail was under the cover of trees. I turned on my phone’s flashlight to help illustrate this. As I began to lower my phone to turn off the flashlight and put it back in my pocket, the light caught a pair of glowing, yellow-ish eyes about 25 meters ahead of me, right in the middle of the trail. I froze immediately, staring back at the eyes, trying to figure out what to do.
I’ve said before that while I have experience hiking, I do not consider myself an experienced hiker. Partly because before this instance, I’ve never encountered wildlife on the trail before. Not knowingly, anyway. And certainly not in the dark, alone, in cougar country. I very quickly made the decision to calmly and slowly back away, then turned around and booked it back to my car. I was disappointed to not watch the sunrise from the summit, and I’m happy with the decision I made. Better safe than sorry. Especially when in the dark, alone, in cougar country, with a pair of glowing, yellow-ish eyes about 25 meters ahead of you, right in the middle of the trail, staring you down.
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I’m pleased to announce that this set of hikes corresponds exactly to the number of blank pages I had left in this Hike Passport and therefore completes this volume. I’m sad to announce (1) I have only one Hike Passport remaining, which, like my other two volumes, has space for 20 hikes, and (2) the company that used to make them no longer does. RIP.