The Giant Sand Dunes south of Cape Reinga are a monumental wonder. Blown high by roaring winds whipping off the Tasman Sea they march inland like the shoulders of so many hulking soldiers in formation. As I watch Keith scurry towards the top of the tallest dune all I can think is: I really don’t give a fuck. To which I then immediately feel guilty because shouldn’t I like, give a fuck? To be here, in this moment, near this geographic anomaly. Isn’t this worthy of fuck giving? But the guilt fails to overpower my detached boredom and so I turn my back on the dunes and return to the car. Forgoing a sandy scramble for a snack and a nap.
I’m burning out. And the speed at which we’ve been moving across the North Island has become unsustainable.
We’ve been staying in more places for less time and packing in more social engagements so we can be sure to visit with everybody we want to see. And while it has been amazing, it’s hard to maintain the #stoke when you’re not getting enough rest. The small things, once easy to laugh off become an annoyance. It’s no longer cute finding a stranger’s hair in your underwear after using yet another poorly-maintained hostel dryer. Or having to carry around one muddy sock because it somehow didn’t make it into the wash. Or being confusingly misgendered for the thousandth time by a stranger with a lilting accent. As a result, the things that I really would like to give a fuck about lose some of their sparkle when viewed through tired eyes. Not only am I tried, I worry that I’m failing to travel the at the impeccable standard of constant engagement I feel I owe myself.
And here is where another lesson from my thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail comes in. When you’re burning out on something, especially long-term travel, you have to acknowledge your desires even if they feel lame or embarrassing. And then you have to change what you’re doing in the sake of self and trip preservation. On the PCT that meant changing when we started hiking each morning, taking more rest days, and spending more time hiking alone so we could really decompress. And it worked, we finished the trail by finding ways to make wading through the bullshit and exhaustion more enjoyable so that we’d have more energy to enjoy the reasons we were on that trip in the first place.
Our time in New Zealand is almost over, and as we drive south to Auckland the plan is not to finish the trip with a bang but rather a bed in a nice hotel. We’re hitting the reset and reset button to avoid burnout after so much time on the road. Because while our time in New Zealand is over, the trip isn’t yet at an end. Next up: Australia.
“You’ll want to move your foot off that first hold as quickly as possible,” I say down to Keith from my perch atop the muddy chimney, “it’s going to want to collapse from underneath you.”
“Gotcha,” comes his ever-stoic response as he begins to climb the near-vertical mud wall. Hauling himself up hand over hand, moving from root to rock before each perilous hold can slide from beneath him. I scoot aside so we can both share the small rocky bench above the first 10 foot pitch. With more than 700 feet left to climb to our hut I feel suddenly overwhelmed at how long this is going to take. The rest of the day had been on well groomed and even better maintained trail, courtesy of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. The first 2000 feet of climbing passing in, if not easy, at least manageable grades. But this, a slippery, muddy, barely consolidated mess that could only be approached in a bear crawl of sorts, fingers reaching for every sturdy rock or well-planted rock, this too felt like something DOC would call a trail. In fact, over the course of this trip Keith and I had spent several days on designated trails that were only slightly less ridiculous than this.
I turn my face to the next pitch, huck my trekking poles up and into a bush so they won’t get in the way and begin to climb. Another 15 feet up on hands and feet gets me to another flat spot to rest, Keith coming up shortly behind me. This new perch reveals something else, another hiker walking, no, strolling along in jeans and a cheap school backpack. At first my brain has trouble comprehending what I am seeing. But Keith gets it, letting out a low “I am so sorry” before I bark a cackling laugh of absurdity and amusement. Our mud-covered micro expedition has been on the old trail, on the barely-there trail, on the this is a muddy disaster so let’s reroute trail. Our casual fellow hikers glance confusedly at us as I retrieve my poles from the bush. I might feel like an idiot were I not so relieved that we wouldn’t be scrambling up a vertical mud wall the rest of the way to the hut. Bemused and a little abashed we make our way the last mile, tired legs forgotten and grateful for the trail beneath our feet.
The SDTCT runs close to the US-Mexico border. As such it seemed only right to raise money for an organization doing humane social justice work in this area. Border Angels, a non-profit organization that works to reduce the number of deaths on the US-Mexico. If you have the means to donate I strongly encourage you to do so.If you appreciate my writing on this blog, consider it a favor to me to donate to this fundraiser.
Sometime between waking up and making my way to the campground’s vault toilet I realize that my left foot is going to be a problem. Perhaps it is unsurprising that going from solely strength training with almost no cardio to walking nearly 20 miles a day will fuck you up. What is less surprising, to those of you who know me, is that I totally knew this and then did it anyway. Ah well. I made this mess and now it’s my special pleasure to get myself out of it.
As the camp packs up around me I pop some Tylenol and attempt to stretch. Though at some point under the warming sun I concede hope for a painless day and hike out at the back of the pack. In a former life I was an ultramarathoner who messed up their foot in exactly the same way. Which, while embarrassing, means I don’t have to worry that this is a stress fracture or something that will do anything but hurt until I stop, rest, and stretch in copious amounts. But for today I take careful steps, even though I can’t walk with my heel on the ground, in an effort to keep my gait as even as possible so I don’t end up with two messed up feet.
As I hobble behind the group I wonder at the idea of grit, of tenacity and resilience. In my life I have been told by a fair few people that I have a lot of all those things. But it occurs to me now that those kinds of traits only come from getting yourself in a dumb situation and then being forced to get yourself out again. Take hiking, of any variety, you don’t simply get to stop when you’re bored or tired the way you might in a gym. No, you have to walk your ass back to the car. Or, in my situation, to the ocean. Minimum I’ve got to make it to Julian before I have any chance of hitching anywhere. So then it’s walking for me.
The pain in my foot gnaws at me, making it’s presence known in every step. I am a fool, I think to myself. I am damaging my body, I think to myself. I am embarrassed for getting injured on the first day with all these impressive hikers around me, I think to myself. But I am also in the middle of nowhere with very little recourse and so I walk. I attempt to distract myself but this is the sort of discomfort that will only go away on it’s own terms. So I resolve myself to hurting, to walking through it and accept that things might not be okay, but they’ll be fine in the end.
In keeping with the theme from yesterday the track leads through old jeep roads and dry washes and one very cool, albeit small, section of winding slot canyon. I play leapfrog with Riley, Kelly, and Muffy throughout the morning as they stop for frequent breaks. Meanwhile, my foot finally allows me to take almost normal steps and I am reluctant to stop lest it start behaving worse than it already is. And in this way the hiking day passes. As it so often does during thru hiking. Something hurts, another chafes, the scenery is pretty and at times there are interesting people to talk to.
At the end of the day we drop from the hills into a low flat valley, cross into a small town where, according to Muffy there is an incredible taco shop. And even though none of us possess that infinite hiker hunger we eat copious amounts of food and then post up in a park to charge our phones and wait for the heat to pass.
Finally, in the growing dark we leave town and begin our climb up the other side of the wide, flat valley. The group sets up camp at a bend in the road knowing that tomorrow we must begin our climb into the mountains. I fall asleep under the clear cold sky of the desert and wait for the morning light.
The SDTCT runs close to the US-Mexico border. As such it seemed only right to raise money for an organization doing humane social justice work in this area. Border Angels, a non-profit organization that works to reduce the number of deaths on the US-Mexico. If you have the means to donate I strongly encourage you to do so.
Sasha’s father is driving us to the eastern terminus of the San Diego Trans County Trail. In the early morning light the road drops away below us and I can see the Salton Sea where it meets the horizon as an expense of flat white nothing. As though the earth fades away at the intersection of sky and brackish water. Even in the early morning, the desert here is brutal. Mountains like curtains thrown over furniture drop onto painfully flat valley floors shot through with pink sand washes. And it is these self same washes that we’ll be walking today. Gaining just under 1,000 feet in 19 miles the hiking should feel nearly flat. Meanwhile the sun makes will make its presence known in every minute of its arc across the sky. Even the flora here is suffused with it, twisting branches as much warm brown as green.
11 hikers clamber out of three cars and we all assemble dutifully to take a picture on the edge of this great, man-made inland sea. My body feels pale and soft after a winter spent in Seattle and my dysphoric brain is whispering unpleasant nothings to me. So I hide behind my camera and refuse offers to take it so that I might be in the picture. I cannot handle being in a picture today but I can handle taking pictures.
Finally it is time to walk and like a gangly field trip we head off across the sand. Veering this way and that as we make our way through the brush and into the wash that we will follow for the rest of the day. Annoyingly, the ebouliant mood of the previous three days is gone and I feel overwhelmed and edgy around this many people. Like I need to perform joviality, gain popularity, be chatty and pleasant. At the first opportunity I drop back under the guise of going to the bathroom and back here I can walk alone and talk to myself, wondering at the desert I spent so many years living near and yet never learned to love.
The group takes their first rest stop at mile four and I pause only long enough to tell them I’m going on. I have long since recognized that my hiking style is not the way most people hike. Which isn’t to say my style is the best, I think the average hikes would prefer to take more than two stops in nearly 20 miles, but I don’t. Soon Kelly catches up to me and though I only met her yesterday we fall into easy conversation. One person I can handle. One person at a time doesn’t send my panicked brain reeling.
Throughout the day I hike with Kelly then Riley, Hadley, and Muffy. As the day wears on and I wear myself out I find I can sit and chat with the group as a whole without feeling like all of their voices are clanging through my head like so many cow bells. For not the first time I notice how there are two ways that hikers typically react when faced with the inevitable discomfort of hiking. The first kind seem to only understand hiking through pain, and they talk about it constantly. As though by witnessing their own discomfort they can better understand the experience they have put themselves in. To the outside observer it seems as though this type of hiker is perpetually surprised by the discomfort that is hiking 20 miles day after day. They want to talk about their feet, how they are sore, how thirsty they are. I wonder if in their minds an ideal hike would be entirely pleasant. For in contrast to the first type of hiker, stands the second. Those who know that pain is a part of thru hiking the same way filtering water or peeing outside is. Pain is inevitable and therefore not worth commenting on. Pain need not be discussed or compared or dissected because in the end it is irrelevant—you just accept it and move on.
I have always fallen in the second group of hikers, preferring to tuck my pain away from the world. I know it is an inevitable part of life and so why would I mention it. But I wonder if this is for the best. As Pilar said today, “there is a kind of camaraderie that comes from cataloging your pain.” And I wonder if I might be better, if we all might be better if we understood pain as inevitable, yes, but also worth discussing. If for no other reason than to gain a fuller understanding of what our fellow humans are going through.
My skis glide uphill across the icy, granular snow. Each sliding footfall accompanied by a sound almost like a toy laser gun. Slowly, my mind is schussed into silence as I descend the hill into darkness. Lights blare in the distance, floating orbs in the night sky that belie the presence of grinding, mechanical ski lifts. Bundled forms slide past spouting fragments of conversation, laughter. Meanwhile, warm breath sibilates between my teeth to form a cloud before it’s gobbled up by the greedy cold.
For an indeterminable minute, hush.
A slackening of the thoughts that ricochet around the echoing gymnasium that is my mind and I am lost in the effortful movement of my body.
This is why I do it. Walk, or ski, or run alone in the wild places that are the very furthest away from civilization that my body can carry me.
For the unconscious moments of mental stillness that I am afforded when my entire being is consumed in a driving blitz of burning movement. Moments that I can only recognize once something has pulled me from deep below the water and I am deposited, spluttering against the shores of cognizant thought. Sometimes, I can find these moments in efforts of muscles screaming so loud that it drowns out my entire interior world. Others, like tonight, when the repetition of movement sneaks into my mind and lulls it to quiet. Like falling asleep on a rolling tide.
There is a distinct kind of pleasure I’ve found in these moments of complete abandon. One which is so compelling that I am coming to build an entire life around it. I push my body deep into the wilderness for the stillness it bestows on my recalcitrant mind, yes. Undeniably. But also, for the time spent unwatched by a single one of my fellows on this billions-populated speck of careening space rock. The opportunity to shed the wet blanket of gaze that I carry with me daily. Though some of the days are easier than others. I have found that no matter how comfortable that wet blanket becomes it’s presence it’s still noticeable. I am still wearing the wet blanket.
But not out here among the darkness and the trees. Here I am joyously invisible, able to take whichever form I choose.
This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my latest JMT post about what food we’re bringing you can read that here. And to learn more about our plan and the trail in general you can check out my first post here.
It’s less than two weeks before our JMT hike and I’m considering buying a new backpack. Not seriously, but like, kind of seriously. The realization that lead me down the new backpack buying rabbit hole was the discovery that my base weight for the JMT would be 13 lbs, add to that my bear canister and I’m looking at a whopping 15.5 lbs before food, water, or stove fuel. This weight, 13 lbs runs around and around my head and I start to look at where I can shave weight from my pack to get it down from 13 lbs to 12 lbs, because clearly one pound is going to be the difference between having fun on the JMT and having a terrible time. Panicked trip logic am-i-right?
Intellectually I know that most people carry much more weight on the JMT, that the average is closer to 18-20 lbs before fuel and water and that my pack weight still puts me in the “light weight backpacking” category. But deep down, I covet the idea of being called an ultralight backpacker, with a sleek 10-12 lb base weight, dancing up mountains like a majestic goat. Intellectually I know that people have been hiking the JMT, PCT, and AT with much heavier bags, wool pants, and leather boots and that they made out just fine. Finally my intellectual brain wins out of my terrified gram-counting brain and I stop looking at new backpacks. For now.
The fancy gear layout!
What’s In a Bag: My backpacking style would best be described as ‘comfort ultralight,’ since at 13 lbs for a standard trip (a bear canister is not required for the majority of the trips I take, but on the JMT and sections of the PCT it’s mandatory*), I fall just outside of the ultralight classification which is generally sub 12lbs. This means that I have chosen to minimize my gear, remove duplicate items, and buy or make lighter gear where time and/or money permit, but I still have all the comforts of a standard backpacking set up. I still have a stove, a freestanding tent, a pillow, and an inflatable sleeping pad – all items which true ultralight backpackers eschew, but I have chosen to bring for my own sanity and comfort. Click this link for a detailed breakdown of my gear:lighterpack.com.
*Why is a bear canister mandatory? Because people are garbage. Or rather, people have a lot of garbage, and food, and items that smell like food, which they bring into the backcountry and then don’t know how to store properly – which in this case means out of the reach of bears. Years of people leaving their food in places where the bears and other critters can get it it has taught these animals that people mean food, food that is much more delicious and easier to get than foraging for berries or hunting. As a result bears and humans have had an increasing number of interactions. So in areas where these interactions are most common the Forest Service and several National Parks – the most notable being Yosemite – have decided that a bear canister is a mandatory piece of equipment to be carried any time you’ll be out overnight.
What Isn’t In a Bag: The observant among you may have noticed that my bag is conspicuously absent of several items. One of the great joys in hiking with a partner, is that ability to share gear. While I carry a larger portion of the tent weight, my hiking buddy and boyfriend will be carrying our stove, pot, and fuel canister. Where I will be carrying a rechargeable battery for our various electronic items, he will be carrying a small solar panel from which we can recharge the rechargeable battery. Cool, eh?
Other things I don’t carry, and I frankly don’t recomend for those looking to keep their back weigh down are – Physical books (use the Kindle app on your phone instead), camp chairs (use a square of foam and a rock), complex cooking set up (spoon + bowl = all you need), stuff sacks for everything (your bag is a stuff sack), deodorant, makeup, hairbrush etc (just be ferral)
What’s On A Body: When calculating one’s base weight, there are a few things that you can leave out – namely everything that’s either going to be worn on your body (clothes, shoes, etc), or carried in your hands (really, this is just trekking poles). When selecting clothing for a thru hike or even just a weekend backpacking trip, functionality, fit, and look should be considered in that order with style coming in last. For me I’ll be wearing the following:
Nike Pro 5″ Women’s Compression Shorts – Synthetic compressions shorts are great because they’re quick to dry, don’t ride up or down, and greatly reduce the likelihood of painful chafe. They also accentuate your sexy hiker legs. True story. Old Navy Go-Dry Mesh Running Tee – T-shirts over tank tops reduce the chance of pack rub and sunburn on your shoulders, and a nice light color won’t absorb heat from the sun. I also don’t feel the need to break the bank buying a fancy trekking shirt from a company like Patagonia since they’re typically made of the same material as cheaper shirts. Personal fit and synthetic material are the biggest concerns. Exoficcio Give-N-Go Bikini Brief – Under-doodles are actually a big consideration. Again personal fit and synthetic are the biggest concerns. You really don’t want to be dealing with a wedgie all day when you’re trying to hike 15 miles over rough terrain. Bra – I bought just a cheap Target yoga bra that’s cute, fast drying, and fits. Again, I don’t really see the need to shell out $60 for a bra from an outdoor retailer when I can find something that works just as well for $14 and has lasted me years. Altra Lone Peak 3.5’s– I love these shoes, and they’re incredibly popular with the trail running and thru hiking community. Even if they look weirdly like clown shoes. However, your shoes are probably the most important piece of gear you’ll buy. Blisters, crammed toes, and poor fit can ruin or possibly end your hike. It’s worth finding what works for you. Injinji Run Midweight Mini-Crew Socks – Look, toe socks are pretty universally ugly. They just are. BUT! They prevent blisters like a dream, and come in a variety of thicknesses – I opt for the mini-crew in midweight because they’re not too thick (which leads to blisters) and they are tall enough that I don’t have to worry about them slipping into my shoes. Black Diamond Distance Cork Z-Poles – Sadly, BD stopped making these (lame, I know because the cord was awesome). But they have similar models. These are great because they fold up small, and unlike the carbon fiber models, I’m not afraid of snapping them. Oiselle Runner Trucker Hat– Light weight, folds up, covers well, good ventilation, has a cool pic from a female artist on it. What else could you need? Polarized Sunglasses– Cheap, ship from amazon so they’re easy to replace, polarized, come in lots of different colors. Cheap (this one is worth mentioning twice since mine always get destroyed after a season).
If you have specific questions about gear (or just want to say ‘hi’) feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try and get back to you before we head out on our trip.
This post is part two of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my first JMT post about our plan and the trail in general you can read that here.
The Terrifying Crisis That is Backpacking Food:
Have you ever tried to plan out 10 days of food, with the knowledge that once you’re on the trail there will be no opportunities to change it? Have you ever tried to do this three weeks in advance, knowing that you’ll be drastically increasing your daily caloric expenditure? What about doing it with no access to refrigeration, with weight being a massive concern, and the only kind of cooking available to you will be to add boiled water to things?
10 days of food – minus motivation cookies – is this enough, too much? Who knows? Certainly not me.
Have you? Because I have, and it’s crazy stressful!
Picture this: I am standing in my kitchen surrounded by a multiple scales, innumerable plastic bags, and piles of the most calorically dense food that I can find. I’m portioning, weighing, and bagging my food before I dump it into one of two bags. The first bag will go on my back and will (hopefully) get me through the first 10 days of our trip. The second bag will be mailed to Vermillion Valley Resort, our one and only resupply point for our hike and should (again, hopefully) contain enough food for the remaining seven days of our hike.
The ten day bag looks massive sitting in front of my washing machine. I hoist it up using the food scale and it reads 15.5 lbs. “Fuck! How is it still so light?!” I exclaim to Keith who is in the process of portioning trail mix into little baggies and counting ounces out loud like some sort of M&M drug dealer. I do some quick mental math to add in the food I’ll have to cook right before we leave, and come up to just shy of 17 lbs of food for 10 days. The general rule of thumb is 2 lbs of food per person per day. I’m short almost 3 lbs and at this point I just say “fuck it.” My well-fed American body can do with a few less calories. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine. But then again, everything about this trip is new to me so maybe I’m 100% wrong. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
There are few hard and fast rules when it comes to backpacking, and a large portion of the advice out there is “see what works for you” which, I think we can all agree, isn’t really advice at all. But the general thought is that you should pick food that doesn’t spoil, has at least 100 calories/oz, requires minimal to no cooking, isn’t heavy, and is full of fat and carbs, with protein being a secondary concern.
So what does that actually mean I’ll be eating.
Well we can break it down into three categories: breakfasts, snacks, and dinners.
Breakfast: Simplicity is key when packing for days and days on the trail, so I stuck with a three meals for breakfast that I know I like, and can rotate between.
– Mountain House Breakfast Scramble – this is one of the best freeze-dried foods I’ve ever had, so Keith and I bought it in bulk online and repackaged it into two-person servings.
– KIND Chocolate granola, freeze-dried strawberries, and powdered milk aka trail cereal!
– Luna Bars and whatever snacks I feel like eating that morning
– * Most breakfasts will be accompanied by coffee or hot chocolate
Snacks: I rarely stop for a real lunch on the trail, preferring to snack 2-3 times during the day at convenient rest stops. Snacks also make up the biggest diversity and calories in my food.
– Potato Chips or Trader Joe’s baked Cheetos knock offs – chips have between 130 and 160 calories per ounce, are full of fats, sodium, and carbs, and are delicious. They’re a backpacker superfood.
– Home made beef jerky – because we’re classy like that. Get on our level!
– Trail mix – and by trail mix I mean 80% chocolate items with a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit in there to give it the illusion of “mix.”
– Rice Krispies – because duh, they’re delicious
– More chocolate – because you can never have too much
– Motivation cookies – these look similar to regular cookies, except I save them for when I’m having a low moment.
– Various bars that I’ll admittedly save until the last 2-3 days before our resupply when I’ve eaten all the good food from my bag.
Dinner: Dinners are where we really put some effort in. We dehydrated veggies (a lot of which went moldy in our first batch – live and learn eh?), bough bulk freeze-dried meat to supplement our lacking protein sources, and developed/made up eight unique-ish recipes. The store WinCo Foods aka “prepper heaven” proved to be invaluable for buying bulk foods. Do you need pounds and pounds of fake mac and cheese sauce powder? If so, Winco Foods is the store for you! Here is what we’ll be eating:
– Green Chili Chicken chili – Recipe Courtesy of Anna and Derrick, thanks kids!
– Mac and Cheese with sausage
– Bean and Cheese Burritos
– Chicken Teriyaki
– Chicken Fajitas
– Pasta with ground beef
– Cheesy potatoes with sausage
– Chicken tortilla soup
– Something else I can’t remember that probably has potatoes or something
7 days of food…. I hope! Minus the four dinners that Keith will be carrying. Sorry babe, I gave you more food to carry than me.
You’ll probably have noticed a pattern in that list, which is to say most meals start with a carb (either rice, potatoes, or refried beans), add in some flavoring (cheese powder, taco seasoning, teriyaki seasoning) and finish with whatever protein sounds like it fits the best (we bought freeze-dried chicken crumbles, sausage, and ground beef in bulk).
This bag has seven days of food. The bear canister next to that bag is supposed to hold all that food, clearly that’s a lie.
Resupplying – Or How I paid $50 just to mail myself food: The final step of this entire process will be getting ourselves our food on the trail. The JMT goes through a very remote portion of the Sierra Nevada range so the only two options for a mid-point resupply are Muir Trail Ranch (generally thought to be for uppity jerks who can pay an exorbitant amount just to avoid hiking a few extra miles), or Vermillion Valley Resort commonly known as VVR (for the less wealthy among us who are totally willing to save $80 by hiking a few extra miles).
The plan will be to start the hike with 10 days of food each, resupply once at VVR, and then hike the remaining seven days into Yosemite Valley without starving, killing each other, or being eaten by bears. This is why I’m packing lots of chocolate people, chocolate solves all issues, except for being eaten by bears.
Look for part 3 on the blog in the next few days where we’ll be discussing gear!
This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear.
As some of you know, Keith and I will be hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT) this year, and for those of you who didn’t know, now you do. Lucky you. While I’ve been speaking to people about this a handful of similar questions have been coming up mostly regarding our schedule and planning process, our gear, and what our food and resupply strategy is. So I’ll be posting three articles in the weeks before our trip in an attempt to answer your questions and just generally clarify what is required to spend three weeks in the middle of nowhere.
The first thing you need to know, dear reader is that the John Muir Trail is a 211 mile hiking and equestrian trail that runs from the summit of Mount Whitney to Yosemite Valley (plus 9ish miles to get to/from the top of Whitney). The typical season for hiking the JMT is late June through mid September, and people usually complete the trail in about two to four weeks.
The second thing you need to know is that getting a permit for the JMT (especially if you want to do the entire trail and aren’t psyched about skipping sections) is really a pain in the ass. This is largely because of the trail’s increasing popularity. This year a record-breaking snow year compounded the problem by reducing the JMT window even further as Yosemite valley wasn’t even open until late June.
The permit system for the JMT opens 24 weeks or 168 days in advance of when you actually want to go. So while everybody was thinking about cute scarfs, and wearing knee-high boots and all the other fun stuff you do in January, Keith and I were frantically trying to get permits for a trail we wouldn’t even hike for close to half a year!
A rough map of the JMT.
Some people wait years to get the right permit for the JMT, only content to hike it south bound from the northern terminus at Happy Isles in the heart of Yosemite. Other people who don’t have time for that kind of shit, rig together a crazy permit like some sort of Frankenstien’s monster of trail systems and just say fuck it.
I’m going to let you guess what group Keith and I fall into.
Lots of ups and downs on this trail.
Yep, we’re the second group. So we’ll be departing from Horseshoe Meadows and heading over Cottonwood Pass, adding 17 miles and two days to our JMT hike because ain’t nobody got time to wait until the fates of the Eastern Sierra Permit System or the Yosemite nordic gods to shine down upon us in 1 to a billion years time. The plan is to cover roughly 237 miles in 17 days, with one zero (no hiking day) at Vermillion Valley Resort where we’ll pick up our resupply of food and bug spray and sunscreen, because the JMT is actually so remote that there are only a few options to get more food on the trail, and all of them involve mailing yourself a box of snacks. We’ll finish in Yosemite Valley on September 9th or 10th.
So why, you might ask, would a reasonably sane person such as yourself want to deal with the headaches of the permit system just to get the chance to hike for more than 200 miles in the middle of nowhere, where you can’t even stop into a CVS to pick up snacks?!?! To which I would say: clearly you don’t know me, because if you did you would never use the phrase ‘reasonably sane’ and my name in the same sentence, especially not where hiking and snacks are concerned. Also, because the JMT is known to traverse some of the most beautiful terrain in the Sierra Nevada range – which some people (mostly Keith) argue is the best mountain range in the lower 48. If you need more evidence, take a peek at these images that I blatantly stole from the internet:
It’s gosh darn majestic y’all!
Keep an eye out for my next two posts on the JMT where I’ll be talking about gear, and our food.
It’s almost 6pm and I’m totally fucking over it. I’m over this hike, I’m over the thigh chafe that’s forced me to hike in my thermal tights, and I’m certainly over the fact that this last climb to Chantry Flats is easily three times longer than I remembered it being.
And now, with everything that I’m over, I’ve suddenly entered into some sort of race with a dad and his crew of chubby children. “Push, push, push” he tells his brood as they miserably huff and puff their way to towards the parking lot, on what I can only assume is some sort of twisted family-bonding-bootcamp-fiesta which I do not understand. As he glances back at his winded family I can see the smugness in his eyes as they start to pull away from me. It’s a perverse sort of smugness that every female runner, hiker, cyclist, athlete of literally any persuasion has seen and instantly recognizes. It’s the smug look of a man who is deeply insecure about his masculinity, and desperately needs to demonstrate this by refusing to let you pass him.
For the male readers out there, it goes something like this. You (the lady) are running along, minding your own business when you start to overtake the runner in front of you, for the purposes of this post, we’ll call him Trent. Suddenly, upon realizing that you’re in fact, the host to lady-parts, Trent has to suddenly pick up the pace for 100 yards until he becomes fatigued and then slows down. Fuckin’ Trent. This whole charade – you approach, he accelerates, he then slows to a near walk, – will repeat itself, sometimes for miles! Trent the Insecure Runner Bro will continue to do his little insecurity dance until you either stop and let him get far enough ahead that you don’t have to deal with him, or pull the trigger and pass him like the god damn champion that you are.
I stop.
This weekend I have done enough. I have tried enough. And I do not need to prove it to anybody outside of myself. Certainly not a Trent.
In fact everything I’ve ever done outside is completely irrelevant to everybody, except me. I’ve never had to sprint for first place, I’ve never held a record, an FKT, or a first ascent. Everything I’ve ever done outdoors has likely been done before, done faster, done in better style, done with substantially less swearing – by some pro athlete, or some spectacular weekend warrior. And beyond that, my weekend long distance hiking and running pursuits are almost completely at odds with my day-job self. Very few people I interact with on a daily basis understand the what of my weekend adventures, and I’d venture to guess that almost none of them can begin to understand the why of any of this insane garbage I voluntarily – no – willingly put my body through. They say that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. But the truth is that if it doesn’t kill you, it just makes you that much crazier the next time, and that much harder to relate to.
Most of my weekend adventures start with me sitting alone in a parking lot full of strangers, and end in roughly the same manner, except now those same strangers are giving me some crazy side-eye because I probably look vaguely homeless. Lord knows I’m certainly dirty and smelly enough to raise some concerns.
And this is exactly what awaits me as I finally, finally crest the hill into the Chantry Flats parking lot. Dude-bro-dad Trent is standing there with his miserable looking family, dozens of other clean LA locals are standing around with their small bottles of water and even smaller dogs, and a church group of Korean hikers has just loaded up and pulled out of the parking lot. And me? I don’t do anything. No one is there to congratulate me on one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Most people don’t even want to make eye contact with the dirty sunburned woman looking for her friends car. I simply load my gear into the back of Mac’s too-nice feeling BMW and send up a silent prayer that hiker stink comes out of a leather car interior.
Because this crazy idea that started more than a year ago with a line on a map, and ended in a friends car. The idea to hike 53 miles over an entire mountain range in just two days, climbing more than 10,000 feet of vertical, descending more than 14,000 feet into the deepest and most tree-chocked canyons of the San Gabriel Wilderness, the idea to cover an entire trail from start to finish as fast as I could, just to see if I could. The idea that stopped being really fun around mile 46, became really painful around mile 48 when I was running down the trail as black flies swarmed my legs, and then became some sort of transcendent type 2 style of suffer-fest joy around mile 50. That stupid idea that I managed to wrangle one other crazy person into (hi Mac, you’re a bad ass!) might just be the highlight of 2017.
And for all of that, none of this matters. I love that in crazy made-up outdoor adventures there is no real way to win, or to succeed (beyond the obvious one: getting home safe), and because you cannot win, you also cannot really fail. Literally, nobody gives a fuck. No one is watching. Everybody is too busy gazing at their own navels to give a fuck about yours. So why not try to do something amazing, just for you?
But what do I know? I’m just some crazy girl who hikes through the wilderness.
I’m walking by myself in the desert. Walk walk walk. The trail in front of me climbs gently, but relentlessly and I wait to rest until I reach the top of the climb. Around another corner, that must be the top I think, but it not. It’s not the top this time, nor the next time, nor the next. After a while I forget that I’m climbing. Maybe I’ll climb this hill forever I think. Maybe this is what hell is like, I think. Climbing an endless, unrelenting hill in the desert sun.
But it’s not so bad.
The sand is soft beneath my feet, and it’s not too hot yet. Maybe not hell, I think, maybe more like purgatory. It’s not so bad, out here all alone. Alone, but not lonely.
I look at the footsteps of those who have come before me. This trail is rarely traveled and so I can distinctly make out the two people who were here before me. Their footprints overlap, but it’s obvious to me that these people were as much strangers to each other as they are to me. You learn to pick up on these things when you spend lots of time hiking alone in the desert, or the mountains, or anywhere really.
A man in hiking boots, a woman in running shoes, Hoka’s I think. The woman was wearing Hoka’s. I fixate on her footprints as I climb and climb and climb up the hill. I wonder who this woman is, this trail runner, long distance hiker, invisible woman. She feels like a sister to me, this woman I’ll never meet. And now I don’t feel so alone out here, in this endless desert, under the biggest sky I’ve ever seen. Alone, but not lonely.
Unwanted, thoughts of my real life creep into my head and my mind spirals to everything that was left unfinished on my desk. All the people who want some little piece of my time, my energy, some little piece of me. I push the thoughts away, deep down where they can’t bother me anymore and I focus on the footprints of my desert sister.
Suddenly, I’m at a road crossing and a man in a white SUV driving too fast on the dirt road shoots past me. He has on big black Oakley sunglasses and looks angry in his big white car. I scurry away into the desert, further away from the road and the trailhead and the people. I didn’t come out here to be near other people.
For the next two days I’ll only see one other person on this trail. A man, covered in dust, with too big of a backpack going in the opposite direction of me. We smile, but neither of us slow down, we don’t stop to talk, that’s not why we’re out here.
I follow my desert sister’s footprints out onto a big plane that stretches out in every direction and falls away into the enormous blue sky. Out here I can only hear the wind, and the dry brush. The sun overhead is brilliant white and so powerful. But it’s not too hot today. And in between the breaths of wind it’s so so quiet. I’m all alone out here, just me and the desert wind, and my sister’s footprints. Alone, but not lonely, for the quiet is my home.
