"My camp 5/2/24"

'I didn't sleep very well last night due to the cold.' Pete's journal entries for the next few days all begin with some variation of that line. After crossing into Colorado on May 1, he travels cross county for the better part of a week. Even he must have found it monotonous as he stops taking photographs for a while. As you can see in our reconstructed map of his route, he notes passing through Antonito, Alamosa, Monte Vista, and Buena Vista. We'll pick up his story again on May 8 as he heads towards Denver.

We know from his journals and previous research that Parsons came to America from Sweden. In 1909, Parsons and his friend Otto Witt got work on a four-masted freighter sailing from Germany to Oregon. As Barney Mann wrote in an article on Parsons for Backpacker magazine, "Parsons and Witt were both 20 years old and fleeing dismal prospects in Sweden and Germany. Witt had aroused the ire of the freighter's violent captain and the pair jumped ship in Portland, Oregon, rather than completing their contracted journey back to Europe."

Pete Parsons and Otto Witt, undated

Parsons and Witt made their way to Mill City and the Hammond Lumber mill. "The two soon fell into a pattern," Mann wrote, "Parsons would work in the lumber mill for a few months at a time and give the money to Witt, who served as his personal bank. Then Parsons would take off, exploring the Oregon Cascades and beyond."

Four-masted sailing ship

Parsons journals, photographs, and other records are now part of the Mazama Library and Historical Collections. His journals and photographs document his many adventures, including a previous hike in 1923 from Mill City to Kernville, California. That 1200 mile hike may have lit the spark that led him to hike from Mexico to Canada the following year.