PCT Day 91 – SoBo Flip – Three Months and Another 10 Lessons

Miller Lake (mile 960) to Tuolomne Meadows (mile 943)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1295

Due to our early start Keith (Starman) and I arrived at the Sierras when there was still a lot of snow, and decided it wasn’t safe to attempt a crossing given my skill level. We elected to flip up to northern California and hike southbound (SoBo) back to where we left off near Lone Pine – giving the snow a chance to melt out. During this flip the PCT milage will be counting down, but I’ll include a tally of our total milage hiked so that you can keep aprised of our progress in a linear fashion.

We are camped just thirty miles from our personal halfway point. 90 days for almost half way is a little slower then we’d like to be, but not irreparably so. Besides, Keith has exactly five months and twenty days before he needs to be in Seattle for work – we can afford a long thru hike. From an emotional perspective, I’m glad there is no halfway marker for us. The small grey post that marks the real half way point of the PCT is a tad underwhelming to commemorate walking 1,325 miles. Getting a few days to think over the first half of this trip is a lovely thing to have.

1. Thru hikers have a very distinct, very noticeable smell. The smell seems to fully set in around month two, and can be smelled by your fellow thru hikers as you approach, – which makes me assume that regular folk can most certainly smell us, too. The odor is an interesting blend; balogna at it’s heart, with wavering overtones of candy, body odor, and onions, all blended with the unmistakable scent of cat piss.

2. Never itch a mosquito bite. Never ever. Don’t do it. If you never touch the bite, not even just a little bit, the bite will go away in a day, maybe two. However, if you so much as scratch that itch once, you are doomed to be itchy for a week.

3. The body wants what it wants. I once ate a pound of both baby carrots and potato salad for dinner, it was incredible. Never in my life has there been such an exhulation around food. I crave food in these gutteral feral ways, often in ways that I cannot satisfy in the immediate due to the fact that I made my food choices for today the better part of a week ago. Sometimes months ago. Or, sometimes I find myself in a rural grocery store or general mart, and a combination of their supplies and the amount I’m willing to spend means that I simply can not have what I want. When you get what you want to eat, what you’ve truly been craving for weeks, it can feel purely pleasurable. Never, never has food tasted like this.

4. However this powerful draw to food is paired with days of wanting. There are days where nothing in your food bag is enough and you can have even less than that because this food has to last two more days. I’m learning to deal with and accept being hungry in a way that I doubt many folks ever do, certainly I have never had to set aside hunger like this. It’s an engaging feeling, at once both powerful and a reminder of how much care and comfort I desire.

5. I have grown accustomed to any and all gross things my hiking partner does. All the stuff that makes five year olds laugh – farting, burping, picking your nose, clipping your nails, eating with abandon while staring into space, snoring, peeing, pooping, menstruation, and smelling like a trash panda – it’s all okay now, nothing is off limits from discussion, nothing is gross. We will do any and everything in front of each other and feel no embarrassment.

6. Diversity is really lacking on the trail. I’ve spoken about this before, but traveling southbound through the main bubble of NoBo hikers has put this into perspective. The largest percentage of hikers are young white men, followed closely by middle aged and older white men; combined they make up easily 60% of the field. Following in a distant second would be young white women. The least represented group is people of color, though there are certainly more than only white faces on the trail. Of course by sight alone I can’t guess at sexuality or be sure of gender identity. However, I can confidently say that the hiking community could definitely branch out a little.

7. There are a few people on the trail who will give you a lot of hope for the future. The other night we camped near two young women who from their appearance looked to be in their young twenties or late teens, their gear marked them as quintessential thru hikers. One was black, the other white, both totally confident as they set up camp. And I thought, if that is the future of young women, these confident and strong people who are capable of thru hiking just barely out of high school, then that is a future I am excited for.

8. 18 miles with 2,000 feet of gain has become an easier day, one you can be done with by early afternoon.

9. Other thru hikers are loud! No wonder we never see any wildlife! I can hear another hiker approaching from 1/8th mile out, I’m sure the animals hear us when we come into their valley. Except for deer who are in fact the stupidest woodland creature with no fear response to anything. It’s obvious why they are prey.

10. There are a lot of days that feel impossibly hard, but you’ll do them anyway.