A couple of longtime hiking friends of mine from up the road a piece in Bath are out west as we speak attempting to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.

As best I can tell from the last entry on Trail Journals, Bruce and Cheryl (and stuffed animal "Nose") Pooler (hence the trail name "Pooler Bears") should have set off from the border at Campo, California just about a week ago.

It should be a hoot to follow along on their adventure. Because if history is any guide--the Poolers' hikes are always a crazy adventure of one sort or another--this should be a good one.

I first met them during a 1995 thru-hike of the Long Trail in Vermont, and we became fast friends. It may have been the cribbage board and deck of cards, hard to say. But it never took much for them to take a rest stop, and break out the board and start dealing the cards. And furiously pegging for points! Maybe that's why their trail name then was the "15-2's". Go figure.

Later on, I had the pleasure of sharing a number of very remote week-long trips down into the bowels of the Grand Canyon, scaling near-vertical canyon walls, tiptoeing across narrow ledges above impossible drop-offs and wading through dark slot canyon pools, pack held high overhead. Oh, those halcyon days on the desert trail in the fine company of the Poolers!

The "Pooler Bears" from Bath, Maine are attempting to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada this summer.
Photo courtesy Bruce and Cheryl Pooler

And now, possibly, they've gone completely mad...

The PCT is 2,700 miles long and snakes north through California, Oregon and Washington, following the spine of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain ranges through some of the wildest and lonely country in the lower 48. And undoubtedly some of the most beautiful.

(And it's on the "list" of course!)

Good luck Pooler Bears! We're mighty envious here. And waiting for your tales of (mis)adventure! We'll be checking in...

FYI: There's lots of good reading to be found at Trail Journals, adventures by people hiking trails all over the world. Good stuff to digest and maybe plan a big hike or two yourself. Eh??