The original plan for my trip was to start in the west and to end in the east. Instead i find myself soaking up all the antihistamines from the olympic hot springs, Wa., then I find myself chilling in the snows of jasper, AB, literally thousands of miles out of the way. From the dry dry desert of cedar mountain, wyoming to the cold and wild bighorn forest in wyoming for days without end until the snow came. Then I found myself squeezed between the tall red hallways of moab, utah sweating in the shade. I'm Back in portland, Or. for the second time of my trip. Back to the sea. Back to my home.
I look back at my footsteps and i don't see a line, i see circles, and squares, and triangles all crossing over eachother in chaos. My needle couldn't exactly find north, but my head knew, yet I ignored it, and just kept walking. Because I didn't care which way was north, or south, or east, or west.
I documented my trip through videos, 2500+ pictures and 120+ pages of journals say most of it, but my memories have all of it. Documenting this online for others to see is the challenge, though. Literally 100's of hours sitting writing, and editing pictures and posting it all would be quite an experience just to read. Although, (as of now), i am going to be selfish and just give you the highlights of my trip. Writing the FULL experience would take years and maybe one day, I'll decide to devote my time to doing that.
First goes first. Frequently Asked Questions!! When I tell people what i did, they always have questions, who wouldn't? A lot of them tend to be repeated by different people.
Besides a bus ride from Salt Lake City to Portland, Yes i did hitch-hike the whole way.
"Dispersed Camping" is when you camp for free on any National forest or BLM land. It came in handy, and most of my nights, I was sleeping out here, or on the beach.
I did infact meet people who let me stay with them, do laundry, shower, get fed. I did not beg nor ask for anything, or recieve any money for the sake of getting money
Because I wanted to... =]
Yes, i did see wild animals..... 8)
I met many amazing people from literally all over the world that I keep in contact with
For food, I ate dried foods, Pb+J's, and everything i was offered, which was a lot actually.
No, i was not picked up by any creepers
I went alone
From the many different places I saw, I randomly picked out 10 events/places and chose to write about them.
The first is Lost Rocks
I find myself at Flint ridge overlooking the Pacific ocean just south of Klamath, ca. I hike down the thick jungle until I jump down into the sand. And I look up and see acres and acres of gray sand and pebbles and sticks and twigs and empty crab shells and birds flying. I was at Lost Rocks. Lost rocks is partly considered the Redwood NP, but it's a beach. You can literally see for miles up and down the coast. I spent two nights sleeping right under the stars right in the sand. There are big boulders right on the beach which you can climb. Climbing is fun. My first night here, there was a red tide in the waves and the sand. Me and my new friends combed through the sand and see the bright bright green glowing algae. The stars are just as bright. The sound of constant waves is a beautiful sound. It is easy to see and listen and observe because everything is quiet. Yet everything is moving. Around two months after this visit, I return and spend a day here. The sand level rose about 6 feet, which made everything so different. I got lost at the lost coast in a cloud. The moods i received from Lost Rocks were mystic and very positive. This showed me that nature physically affects out minds. Our minds can physical affect, modify, and change the chemistry of nature...
_______________________________________________________The Second is meeting Kane
I got a ride from a man named Tony Smith just north of Brookings, Or. He took me to Gold Beach, oregon. After an intense conversation about evolution, god, genesis, etc. he lets me out just south of the town. So I walk through and check out the little coastal town. It's a neat place, but I decide to throw my thumb back out. Almost immediately, a black Ford Explorer pulls over in front of me. As I'm running over, I see a little white dog, then the driver, a man in his mid-forties literally throw the dog in the back. That was when i met Kane, and, by the end of my trip, he ended up becoming one of my best friends. Kane is 47 years old, but has the spirit of a 19-year old. He offered me a ride just up the coast a bit, but we hit it off so quick, he offered me to stay for a couple days so i accept. We spend days up and down the oregon coasts and rivers. He showed me his hometown and just a little bit of what it had to offer. We spent time later north in Portland, oregon. He fed me, let me sleep at his house/hotel room, gave me a handmade flute, a book, lots of food, company, and most importantly, his friendship. Kane is a free spirit and has spent a lot of time traveling, working, living, all around the world (except for south america). Kane is very smart and unlike most people, uses his mind. I like Kane because he always wanted to share. At the end of days we spent together, he would always say, "hey michael, thanks for spending the day with me"...
_______________________________________________________The Third is The Tillamook Forest
I find myself leaving the odd, yet beautiful city of Portland, Or. heading west back to the sea. A minivan pulls over with two women in their 30's and offer me a ride. We hit it off very quickly. I could tell when they asked me to drive. One girl recalls the story of her father's murder. He was stabbed by a hitch-hiker right in front of her. After, the hitch-hiker tried stabbing her, but he decided to spare her and kick her out of the car and left. I find it strange, yet kind how trustworthy and forgiving people can be. Anyway, they invite me to go camping with them in the tillamook forest. I learned that the forest has 6 burns all 6 years from each other, and after the last, and worst, one, the forest was almost hopeless. But communities grew together and HAND-planted over 70,000 trees. They also dropped seeds via helicopters. And after a few rains, the forest was back on it's way. Regular logging is done to prevent fires from destroying this beautiful forest. It's beautiful what people can do. 70 years later, I'm sleeping outside in the forest. I walk through the creek and explore the natural dynamics changing over each hillside over each smooth rock the water flows over. I see green moss drooping 3 feet down from each of the fir branches. I see billions of stars peeking through the dark silhouettes of 70 year old trees. I hear the beating of the creek running and returning to the sea just as I always do...
_______________________________________________________The Fourth is The Columbia Icefields
I was standing on the train going to downtown Vancouver while I met a man named Marty. I told him I was traveling, and he suggested I take the drive through the Columbia Icefields. Icefields parkway was 650 miles out of my way, but I did it anyway. So I went north a couple hundred more miles until I made it to Jasper, AB. I spent the night on the mountain, enjoyed the cold snow, got a ride down the mountain to the highway, then started walking south with my thumb out. After my deltoid started twitching, I got a ride from a local who makes the Icefield Parkway drive on a regular basis. The drive itself was unlike any other drive I've ever sat through. I turn my head to the right to look out the window, and I swear, right then, my heart skipped a beat. Going up, I see a big blue clean river getting tangled in the canyon, tall and healthy snow-covered green pines and firs, random yellow deciduous trees poke through the steep meadows, stairs of hundreds foot tall crags, each one reminding me of crayon boxes from all the different algae cover, then deep dark black cliffs jetting up and up and up thousands of feet until I have to readjust my seat to see further. Then I see renewed miles widespread white glaciers and icefields hundreds feet tall covering the tops of the peaks as well as pouring from the adjacent canyons. I see gray and white clouds blocking the upper and further peaks. And when I look straight up: A calm blue sky. My eyes were as wide as a boy visiting downtown, Big City for the first time in his life. I did not know there was such a place on this earth, or anywhere for that matter...
_______________________________________________________The Fifth is The Plateau
I was hitch-hiking just north of Jackson Hole, Wyoming one afternoon when three girls in their 20's pull over and offer me a ride. They are from the east coast, but spend their summers working on a ranch just outside of Grand Teton NP. They showed me cool areas of Jenny Lake, then they recommend this place right next to the ranch that they call, "The Plateau". So we took a steep windy dirt road up to a hill, and then... The Plateau. This place has the best view and the chance I had to experience it with my own eyes is an honor. I had a perfect view of the 3 teton peaks, mount moran, the snake river, the beautiful foliage and fields and fields of grassland. I sat on a rock and watched the sun go down and the scenery get dimmer and dimmer until billions of stars shine brightly. Bright to to the point where i had no motivation to start a fire nor get my flashlight out. The stars were all twinkling at me as if they were all shouting saying, "hello little man!". I felt SO small and that humbled me. I was just a spec of dust dropping my jaw at a couple pebbles and a few twigs. I really loved feeling that way, and I was pretty satisfied with my little pebbles...
_______________________________________________________The Sixth is Yellowstone
I find myself sitting on the highway just south of Yellowstone National Park when a car of 3 girls pulls over. Natasha and Jenny worked at the Old Faithful Inn. Megan was visiting from Texas. The girls were going to take the next couple days off to show Megan the Park. After hitting it off with the girls pretty well, they invite me to join with them for the next couple days. Since Natasha and Jenny had been working at YNP for 3 years, they knew how to get to the tallest waterfalls, or the most peaceful creeksides, or the most inspirational viewpoints. So we went swimming in river rapids, saw geysers and mudpools and thermal features, made fires, saw waterfalls, saw canyons, all as we walked through the giant volcano. Thermal features would scream or roar or steam or spew hot water hundreds of feet into the air. Hot mud bubbles would spew into the air. Hundreds of bison gather together. I had the opportunity to watch "Old faithful" go off in the night as the bright moonlight lit up the steam and the water like a spotlight. Yellowstone could be easily mistaken for another planet. The end of the world begins here...
_______________________________________________________The Seventh is Ten Sleep
I feel rain soaking through my water-resistant hood. Expected, being that it's been raining all day. I'm just east of a little Wyoming town called, Ten Sleep. I'd been walking for about 6 miles, when the sun was just going down. Only 1 car would drive by each hour or so. And if i had set my things down to pee, six or seven cars would zoom on by. Then it would quiet down again as I would run back towards the road. Eventually, I find the National Forest campground. I spent my first day climbing with a couple I met there. The climbing here is literally the best climbing I've ever done in my life. So I decide to stay and enjoy the beautiful bullet limestone. The canyon is like hallway. Steep limestone crags on each side, everything was green and yellow due to the blue creek running through the middle of it all. I fell asleep out under the stars with the constant sound of flowing water massaging my tender ears. I enjoyed living off the land. Besides the strangers I met, I talked to no one. I started fires from downed wood and cooked my meals from them. I slept through days of rain, inches of snow, only looking forward to tomorrow and what I will decide to do. It would seem as if I needed nothing, but I was still yet a parasite soaking in all the nutrients from the earth and receiving all the many blessings from God. I stayed at Ten Sleep until the base of the cliffs were covered in snow. Then i kept moving...
_______________________________________________________The Eighth is Cape Sebastian
I'm speeding through a steep forest road. I can see it open up ahead. Sure enough, it flattened out, and I was at Cape Sebastian. Kane introduced me to Cape Sebastian. I saw the sun rise here; I saw the sun set here; I felt the clean strong winds blow away my fears as I stopped and gazed miles and miles into the silver sea. I walk through the dense, dark, green, mystical forest until I am overlooking cliffs. Seconds to the sea. Salt Water crashes on the distant rocks hazing visible vapor through the air. It tingled my nose as I grew closer. It smells so good. It smells familiar and homely. Birds, airborne before they dive into the water hit or miss, gather and feed. I drag my feet on the desolate beach sand. I must have been the first one to walk the beach in days because every time I looked back, I saw my mark. A mark saying, "I have been here". Michael Womack was here...
_______________________________________________________The Ninth is The Redwood forest
I find myself standing under giants. Scared just in case one of them decided to lift their trunk and squash me. I was in the big city. The big apple of trees. I decide to hike along a couple miles through the forest seeing "Giant Tree" on the way. It was unreal to be in the presence of such large and powerful creatures. Some were isolated; some were conjoined together. Some were young and shorter than me. Some were old; some were over 2500 years old. These trees have been standing tall through all the world wars, through the birth of "america", through the magna carta signing, and some even older than when christ walked the earth. I Walked through the legs of beasts. I left the forest with a tweak in my neck from looking up so much. The redwoods remain a mystery to me...
_______________________________________________________The Tenth is Big Sur
I stand on a plateau of green in big sur. Big Sur, Big sur, Big sur. Either you've been here or you havn't. Big sur is truly unlike anything else and Is one of the most epic, beautiful, surreal, mind-boggling, spiritual places in the world. Steep cliffs pour into the ocean as water tries to escape onto the land. I am still standing on a plateau of green. I hear water booming and crashing through every frequency in and out. I hear the roars of elephant seals satisfied from the beaming sun as the same sun brings me to sigh in disbelief and joy. I hear the wind flowing through every grain of sand, every jetting rock of the sea, every blade of long wild grass, and I feel it flowing through me restoring my orientation. I see miles up and down the steep coastline. It is Undisturbed and ignorant. Blissful. I see the water in waves and droplets; One fluid sea moving to and fro moving me. The ocean smells so good. I am also blissful. Kane and I spent time at the esalen institute. We laughed with old and new friends, we ate, we watched the sun set while laying in hot pools over the sea. I witness the sun and the sky and the shadows on everything around me, all moving in one accord, twinkling, flowing, throbbing in grace...
_______________________________________________________Everyday on my adventure, I felt God's presence, love, and even humor towards me so much. I lived through miracles whether they were "everyday miracles" or "in the newspapers miracles". After going what I went through, It would be impossible to come home and not be religious. I can personally testify of the truthfulness of prayer and scripture study as it saved my life multiple times...
More of my stories will come up through random conversations or maybe other writings. My life on the road is quite literally another life. It cannot be written down. It cannot be explained. My pictures cannot tell the story. Some of it may be felt through me. But I don't think anyone will ever truly know what I went through. I do not think my experiences can be shared, but I will try...
Well there you have it. 1 trip, 62 days, 90 rides, 7300 miles, millions of epic experiences . How the west was won, I don't know, but I'm sure glad it was.
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