Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Timothy. I’m an avid hiker and trying my best to start backpacking. I’ll be reviewing trails in Oregon for now, but I have plans to visit Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and California. My interest in hiking started as a young boy growing up in Douglas County, Oregon. My great grandmother owned property in Canyonville, and I had access to an entire mountain behind her house. My cousin and I explored every inch of it, including caves, waterfalls, and tranquil scenery. Overnight trips were the norm, backpacking in and camping all weekend. My first real backpacking trip was at the age of 17. Although I had just bought a really nice pack from Cabela’s, I really had no idea what I was getting into; my cousin and I decided to hike the Maidu Lake segment of the North Umpqua Trail, and we didn’t exactly have the right gear. Our pack weight was extremely overboard at 80 pounds 😂. It was July in the high country, and I’m sure you could probably guess what we had to deal with: swarms of mosquitoes 🦟 😤 😒 😑!!! July is not the time for that area, and with way overloaded packs, it was a disaster. We never made it to the lake and turned back, unfortunately. After that trip, life kind of got in the way, and I rarely made it into the woods, but my dream of packing into an epic landscape never eluded me. I bought numerous guidebooks and read everything I could to teach myself the correct way to journey into the wilderness. still have some of those early books I bought years ago. Over the years, I did go hike a little bit, but life happens, and I never went backpacking again until I met my future wife. The trip I chose was an easy 8-mile round trip into the Rogue/Umpqua Divide Wilderness. We hiked to Fish Lake and were supposed to stay two nights but only stayed one. That was in 2002, ten years after my first trip I described earlier. The next 20 years went by, and here I am still wanting to go backpacking. I’ve probably read and dreamed of all the trails in the states I’ve described previously a hundred times over, always wanting to go but never being able. I’ve acquired all the necessary gear and refined it over and over, honing my skills. I’m 51 now, and I think I’m finally ready to see my dreams come true and visit the epic views, tranquil forests, and mountains.
STWadventure 