PCT Day 42 – 18 miles

Campsite at mile 575 to Campsite at mile 593

Already the mountains are changing, giving us little tastes of what is to come. We’re in the last section of the desert. Up next, snow, mountain passes, the promise land, the Sierra Nevada. I’m excited, but I’m also tired. It feels like we pushed past our ability during the last section and the accumulated fatigue is bleeding into this section. A fatigue that follows us out of town and down the trail, up the baking desert climbs, and through the quaint verdant meadows with their waving grasses and scrub oak. The extra food, the extra water, the sun, it feels like too much, but so does admitting that. Like somehow only going 18 miles today is a failure. Like only 18 miles is a rational thing to say.

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Before each section Keith and I sit down and plan out how many days it’s going to take us to complete the given miles to the next town. A more accurate description would be I look at the number of miles in a section, divide it by the number of miles I’m likely to walk each day and get the number of days it will take us. Meanwhile, Keith, with his unending need to plan out details and look at maps likes to schedule how far we should go each day, where we should camp, where we’ll get water, and if he can, what time we’ll arrive in the next town. In so many ways this is a great trait, one that has served us well in the desert where water carries can be 20 miles or more in this dry spring. However, when we fall off this plan it can make it feel like we’re playing catch-up the entire section. Like stopping early to take advantage of a beautiful campsite is cutting yourself short. Like missing your miles is messing up. It’s less like you’re doing something wrong, and more like you’re not doing something right. A small distinction, but vital.

I’m further aware that someone will be tempted to comment “it’s not about the miles, it’s about the smiles.” But don’t, just don’t. Because at some point it is about the miles. The miles until you’re out of water, the miles until you run out of food, the miles that you need to cover every single day regardless of how you feel because that’s how you make it to Canada. That’s how you accomplish a goal, by doing the work even when you don’t want to.

But it can also feel frustrating, to feel like you’re always rushing rushing rushing towards something. Because no matter how many miles you hike today you’ll still have only done a very small percentage of the distance to Canada. It’s both a lot and never enough.

So this evening when we come down a hill into an idyllic valley we decide to cut the day short. We won’t make up the miles from an easy day yesterday. We won’t make it to Walker Pass early enough to get to the post office in three days time. But we also don’t have to do this big climb and four more miles tonight, so fuck it. Fuck the schedule and the timelines, fuck the seasons and the post office hours. It’s too beautiful not to stop right here and now.