Wild Country Found

Waugh Lake on the Rush Creek Alternate (which we’re taking to avoid the smoke from the Lion fire burning west of Mammoth Lakes, and is nearly identical length to the PCT) to Mammoth Lakes (mile 907)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1331

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.

I sleep fitfully all night. The combination of the smoke from the Lion Fire rolling through the valley and the bright moon like somebody shining a headlamp in your face means that when I wake at 6am I feel as though I’ve just fallen asleep for the 30th time. Oh well, what can ya do?

Last night we camped along the clear shores of Waugh Lake. The almost dry lakebed reflecting the peaks of Banner and Ritter on it’s smooth glassy surface. This morning the winds have changed and the smoke seeps thickly into the Rush Creek valley. Our plan was to take this unofficial alternate into Mammoth lakes, in part to see some new trail that Keith has been wanting to check out for years, and in part to avoid the dense smoke along the PCT that makes hiking uphill feel like suffocating. Well, at least we’ll see some new trail and some interesting history bits below the Gem Lake damn.

It’s an odd way to cross the halfway mark on our hike. Not at the official marker at 1,325. Not on the official trail or on an official alternate. Not surrounded by other hikers, no trail family, no fanfare. I realize that the only reason I’m upset about this turn of events is that I’m afraid other hikers, other strangers on the internet will judge me for my choices and confront me about it. But at this point I’m beyond caring which, until recently, I couldn’t honestly say.

When you’re a creative woman who puts your work and your travels out on the internet for others to read, you accept that you’re drawing attention to yourself and that not all of it will be positive. I’ve had folks proffer negative comments when I skipped a section in southern California when I ran short on food. I’ve had men call me an idiot and a neanderthal when I spoke honestly about sexism on the trail. I’ve been dismissed and overlooked in the outdoors for years and years as they turned to male friends and partners for expertise that I had. I don’t care if you don’t believe these things to be true, I don’t care if you think I’m overreacting. I have written here with honesty and integrity, and if that’s not enough then you can fuck right off. I am not searching for opinions or validation. This is my hike, after all, and I am not beholden to anyone.

This morning was quiet without the crunch and clack of other thru hikers. The smoke surrounded us like a veil, isolating fragments of the landscape in a way that made them all the more beautiful. The gentle bend of the shore along clear green waters, perfect without comparison to the mountains or rivers or trees. The world felt soft and special and purely ours, nobody else would have a mid point like this.

At some point in the morning we crossed the 1,325th mile of our hike, but did not stop to celebrate. We hiked on towards the road at the bottom of the valley. And when we crossed that road we waded into the cool waters of a lake, stripping off our sweaty clothes and washing away the dirt and effort of all that had been accomplished. On the horizon the smoke white sky met with dark blue waters and we stood for a long time looking at nothing and everything.

Tuolomne Meadows (mile 943) to campsite along Waugh Lake on the Rush Creek Alternate (which we’re taking to avoid the smoke from the Lion fire burning west of Mammoth Lakes, and is nearly identical length to the PCT)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1315

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.

Calories are a panacea. My legs are tired, but no longer leaden, my mood is elevated as we leave Tuolomne Meadows around mid morning. Hiking through a wide flat valley with the Lyell fork of the Tuolomne River cutting a lazy path through the center, it’s aquamarine waters and white sand bottom capture the morning light, capture my attention again and again. Though the sun is already high in the sky there is a gentle, buttery glow to the light, like a summer evening when everything is soft and warm. The sky above us is hazy as smoke from the Lion Fire wafts over from just west of Mammoth Lakes and the PCT, coloring the world orange yellow and nostalgic. The smoke pools at the cul-de-sac end of the valley, the trail taking us deeper into the haze and the world glows like sunset before noon. But never mind that, the trail simply hooks a right turn and begins to climb through the trees, up up away from the valley floor until it is nothing more than a meadow in the distance. Out of everything green and growing and up to the grey granite peaks that thrust into the sky like so many broken teeth, like a fist full of knives. The range of light. A landscape made to be rendered in black and white so as to allow the eye to linger over every shard and snow field. Ansel Adams had it right.

Water flings itself down drops and rocks, splattering to join it’s siblings in the form of creeks that turn to rivers that thunder through Yosemite valley and finally out onto the planes of the Central Valley and into the drinking faucets of San Francisco. An anticlimactic fate for water that melted from snow high in the alpine, flowed through America’s most famous national park only to end up in Mark Zuckerberg’s toilet bowl.

This is the high Sierra. Despite the fact that our maps call everything between Kennedy Meadows and South Lake Tahoe the Sierra, only a third of those miles are essential high Sierra. High alpine lakes that glimmer bright blue over clean white snow. Mountains that are almost too big to exists, all cliffs and dramatic plunges. Land so high and steep almost nothing grows here. There is nothing like it in the rest of California, the rest of the trail. Almost nothing like these mountains exist in the rest of this country.

As if to welcome me to the jagged dreamscape I spot a marmot at the top of Donahue Pass. I see another five in the next few miles – a quality welcoming committee. Let me just put this on record, I love marmots, they’re my favorite high alpine mammal. Looking like a wobbly beaver with a small bushy tail they waddle in an undulating fashion as they make their way across the tundra. It’s adorable. I cannot think of a better way to be welcomed into the most beautiful section of the PCT.

Note: this isn’t my picture, but I wanted to show everybody how cute marmots are, so I stole this pic from the internet.

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.

Kerrick Creek (mile 980) to Miller Lake (mile 960)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1278

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.

For one of the first times in my life it feels as though the seasons have actually changed with the solstice. Mother nature nodding in concession to the human delineation between summer and spring. It is suddenly, unforgivably hot. The air is thick with heat and a bright yellow pollen that drifts from the pine trees at the slightest touch or breeze. Today will be another day of walking up and over the great granite waves Yosemite is known for.

The days since leaving South Lake Tahoe have felt like some of the most challenging of the trail, as longer hiking days spawning from bigger milage and more elevation again at higher altitudes have begun to take their toll. Stacking up one against the other until sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel rested again. Of course, this means that I’ve walked myself into one of the valleys that lie between the person you were and the person you’re becoming. The problem is, when you’re crossing one of these valleys the effort feels so much greater than you’re capable of. Getting stronger and growing requires a decent amount of discomfort it would seem. And yet, I’m glad for it. The first two months of this hike passed with relative ease. It would seem that I’m late to the pushing my boundaries party, though I’m an exuberant guest now that I’m here. I need to remember that through this discomfort I’m getting stronger; certainly physically, but perhaps in other ways too? Change is like this great illusion to me, in which I can only see it in hindsight, never in the moment.

Despite the burdensome fatigue and the armpit chafe, there is something profoundly marvelous about this trip. Today I walked and snacked my way across a great ocean of granite made of waves so enormous that each wave can only be seen from the top of the previous one. The troughs being filled with damp thick forests with their swarming clouds of mosquitos. Through the miracle that is the modern smart phone, I was able to listen to a captivating book while I walked- The Name of the Wind which was recommended to me by Joyce when we saw her and Mike in Tahoe. Even tonight, as we ate dinner in the tent and listened to the symphonic whine of mosquitos trying to get in, I thought that there is nothing else I would rather be doing than walking across this amazing land while listening to a good book.

Campsite at mile 1003 to Kerrick Creek (mile 980)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1258

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.

The trail, with it’s unending beauty and the ample free time one can devote to thinking, is excellent environment for learning about oneself. I would argue that this typically comes in the form of self reflection, especially the sort that revolves around ones priories in life. Sometimes however, the trail simply comes out and bitch smacks the ever-living hell out of you. Forcing you to decide in the feet and miles of the day just how stubborn, just how tenacious you’re willing to be.

Today was most certainly the later.

In which I learned that we were too proud and too vain to schedule such a day-but we did it anyway. In short, too full of that special brand of PCT thru hiker hubris. Tandemly, I also learned that 23 Sierra miles is dauntingly harder than 23 miles at any other point on the trail. The kind of hard where I found myself pulling my reluctant body up the final climb of the day. Behind me is chasm of granite and pine trees. Water gushing across the rocks and across the trail as it starts it’s hundreds foot plummet to the valley floor. I am learning on my poles, using my entire back along with every muscle in my aching legs to groan up this last 1,000 foot climb. Even though it’s painful in that eleventh hour burn of muscle fatigue that all endurance athletes know, I’m going to haul my panting carcass up this climb and back down the other side. Because doing so gets me that much closer to Tuolomne Meadows, where there are burgers and generic soft serve ice cream. And today I learned that apparently I’m willing to struggle over mountain passes for 12 hours just to get a little closer to a burger and some ice cream.

Sonora Pass (mile 1017) to campsite at mile 1003

Total PCT miles hiked: 1235

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.

Sometimes it’s better not to know what’s coming. To dance joyful in the absolution of knowledge. As with many things in life, and many things on the PCT, knowing a little is being prepared while knowing a lot will freeze you in your tracks. Today I knew the climb up and over Sonora Pass would be challenging and snowy, and that is all I elected to know. The truth is, I can well and truly freak myself out on snow crossings, or talus fields, or lose rock. It is all too easy to let my mind run away with the thousands of what-ifs and maybes of fear. Or perhaps the real truth is that I am only now learning to cope with things that are out of my control.

The first snow crossing of note stretches long and low across the front face of a bowl. As we approach two hikers ease themselves onto the snow and begin the slow march towards us. We must cede right of way to them, which also provides a good moment to sit down and put on our snow cleats. Once it’s our turn to cross, the spikes of steel on our feet turn us into some sort of upright snow lizard, able to grip with ease to any angle of snow. Focusing on one foot after another I am surprised to see Keith a few hundred feet behind me. I’m never the fast one on snow crossings, but maybe I’m getting better, maybe this doesn’t have to be so hard. Across the first snow field we wash our cleats in a seasonal steam, discussing as we pack away our things how overblown hikers made this pass seem. We are cocky, we made it across the snow easily, we are also dead wrong. This is not the last, nor the longest snow crossing, but with a warm breeze blustering around us and a clear blue sky above we merrily hike on, unaware of what is to come.

We haven’t made it 100 meters before we cross onto another snow field, a short and easy stretch which we don’t bother to put our traction on. Beyond that there is another snow band cutting right across the trail and another – it’s becoming somewhat of a theme.

The afternoon passes with agonizing slowness. As often as not we arrive at a snow field to find a group of northbound hikers in the process of crossing, forcing us to wait. Some scamper across while others move more cautiously, while others still cross the snow so slowly that I start to think that the whole pass will have melted out by the time they get to us. Alas, I am not so lucky. But the slow hikers do give me something, undistracted time during which the only real thing to watch is the other hikers crossing the snow. This thing that I hate, that freaks me out more than almost any other aspect of this trip I am watching and doing all day long. Time and again until there is little fear left, until the emotional and physical exertion is simply too much to hold onto, and so I relinquish them. I cannot maintain the effort of getting worked up over every snow crossing. Somehow, mercifully the anxiety fades into a background hum, replaced by something that if nurtured might just grow into competence.

Campsite at mile 1030 to Sonora Pass (mile 1017)

Total PCT miles hiked: 1221

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.

Keith wakes me at 5:30am. He seems eager to go and ushers me to start eating breakfast. This is an irony that is not lost on my sleep-foggy brain; every time I try and wake us up at 5:30am Keith complains until I change it to 6am. Today however, Keith wants to get up early and into Kennedy Meadows North, so of course we’re doing it. This is one of those arguments that’s not worth having – I begin to get ready. Except here is the thing, I just don’t feel like it today. I don’t want to deal with an unknown snowy climb over a pass that’s been described to us as both no big deal, and kind of a scary mess. I don’t want to hike uphill on tired legs, or put on gross sunscreen, or don the same dirty shirt I’ve been wearing all week. But here is the other thing, the trail doesn’t care about how I feel or what I might want to do. The climb won’t be shorter or easier because I’m not in the mood, mother nature didn’t really consider my fragile human emotions when she ruptured the Sierra Nevada into the sky. So we hike out, there is nothing else for it.

Hours later we are sitting on top of the world. The climb being closer to no big deal than scary – not that I didn’t post hole up to my hip several times. From our spot on the ridge we can see the Eastern edge of the mountains as they slowly unfold into green foothills that give way to rolling valleys. Keith points out that we can see into Nevada from here. What to do with that information.

I stare towards the horizon, as though I might see a line marking this geographic border, as though by looking hard enough I’ll be able to read California and Nevada written across the land. But of course there is nothing to see besides an endless tract of land expanding down and away from me into what feels like forever. I suppose compared to my tiny human form and brief mammalian life it might as well be forever. Behind me, circling on three sides are a vast reaching mountain range. Dark brown soil that smells of water and life breaks apart at the edge of snow fields which smooth the sharp peaks into gargantuan bowls of white.

All at once it strikes me that I will never be able to see all of these mountains. Even if I made it my life’s mission I could never witness every skyward peak, every brook rumbling with winter melt, every meadow thrumming with life. A permission of sorts, that I need not try. That no matter how hard I strive I will always be so small in this great wide world. A feeling that is at once liberating and terrifying, to know your true place in the world. There is a deep chasm of smallness into which I’ve been tossed, and I don’t know if I really want to climb out.

Campsite at mile 1051 to campsite at mile 1030

Total PCT miles hiked: 1208

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.

In no particular order –

1 Day. Glorious and clear blue not a cloud in the sky. Not a single one. A strong, playful breeze to cool the day, almost as if to mark the day as the last of spring, not the first of summer.

21 Miles Hiked.

4200 Feet of Gain Climbed.

19 Creeks. Burbling out of notches in rock faces, sparkling leaping joyful in whitewater streams, seeping wide and low across neon green valley floors.

Four Water Collection Stops. Grateful for the few mosquitos at these higher elevations, and the corresponding decease in itchy legs.

One Each Breakfast. Lunch. Snack. Dinner.

2 Lakes. Reflecting the best blue crayon blue. You’d almost believe they were trying to out blue the sky.

39 White Dudes with Beards

9 Women

1 Million Wild Flowers. In shining yellows and pastel reds and every so often an iridescent purple.

Campsite at mile 1072 to campsite at mile 1051

Total PCT miles hiked: 1187

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.

Today we marched relentlessly towards a skyline like broken, blackened teeth that looked ready to snap shut and swallow the sky. Massive turrets of dark brown and grey volcanic rock towering over the landscape before crumbling apart into the valley floor, a burst of sunny green. Such an astonishingly novel section of trail, standing in stark contrast to the towering white granite laviathins which lurk south of Yosemite, as unlike the endless ridgelines of pine trees to the north. This is a land distinctly marked by it’s volcanic past. A complete, yet delightful, surprise from the trail; both Keith and myself unaware of what lay here. It’s one of the things I treasure about the trail, these delightful surprises, and something I think I’ll miss most when it’s over.

It’s baffling to think that this trip is nearing it’s half way mark. That this endless romping summer camp will one day come to an end. I’m not looking forward to the day when I turn away from this life of exquisite simplicity and return to the world of office furniture and morning commutes. Though it seems inevitable that I will, as the majority of people on the trail will. Few and far between are the hikers who spend a season multiple years in a row attempting long distance hikes. They do exist, and their disproportionate volume of time spent hiking and the corresponding social media they create can give a false sense that everyone who hikes the trail uses it as a means to flee society at large. Yet, the vast majority of hikers will complete their hike and then return to their lives, communities, and jobs.

Personally, the idea of returning to work at the end of this hike would not be terribly alarming were it not for the fact that I am almost entirely clueless as to what I will do. After leaving a less than coherent career path in LA, I’ve been set adrift in the vast world and have rather lost sight of shore in the intervening months. Beginning to think about how I want to live my life after this hike feels a bit like trying to row to shore, only to realize that you don’t know which way to go. This makes answering the question “what are you going to do for work,” which, is still a common question on trail, rather daunting. My whole life I’ve observed that people are a tad unsettled whenever you respond with: I don’t know. In the same way people are confused by children who don’t have a canned reply to being asked what they want to be when they grow up. I have often felt, and continue to feel that I am totally lost when it comes to a career path. It’s not something people want to hear. Humans very much like categories and boxes and when you’re not sure which box you want to go in, you tend to get a hollow reply of “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” After which the topic is changed. Beyond that, these people are relative strangers who I in no way expect to help me figure out the central pillar that Americans build our lives around: work.

However, this is part of a larger issue, one which quitting my job, leaving my life, and living on savings is forcing me to contemplate. It’s as though stepping away from the norm ever so slightly has allowed a little objective distance to creep in. It is very easy, or at least it was for me, to live life when there are clear expectations placed on you. A support structure and the privilege of adults who care of what comes of you. School, good grades, college, job. Between six and twenty-something there was a roadmap to which I could navigate my life without the need to spend a lot of time reflecting on what I wanted l from my life.

I once told an elementary school friend that maybe I’d drive a car with ads on the side, because every other job that I knew of at that age seemed like crap. She wanted to be an actress and a writer. In middle school graduation we did these skits where the teachers did a “where will they be in 20 years” sort of thing. Some of them were so accurate it was uncanny and I marveled at the way these adults had so perfectly assessed the talents and predispositions of my friends and classmates. When my turn came they predicted that I would be a veterinarian. I had never expressed the slightest interest in being a veterinarian; I was far too pragmatic a child and understood that being a vet would be sad and gross most of the time. I remember realizing that these people I’d spent three years with didn’t know me at all.

Hiking today I was thinking about how the very things we struggle with in our everyday lives are the same things we struggle with on the trail. Another truth in cliche; wherever you go, there you are. And beyond that, how this amazing section we walked through today feels reminiscent of my understanding of the world. Yes, I have a map, broadly detailed. But there are so many sections that are blank via the very nature of being a human with limitations. Those unavoidable, sometimes cruel feeling limitations that bind everything. Even thru hikes.

Hiking, climbing peaks, exploration, these things are not inherently life changing. They are nothing more or less than what we bring to them, the meaning we inscribe on them. It is a falacy to believe that taking a five month walking vacation will change your life without considerable effort on your part. That simply walking through the mountains will imbue you with some grand life knowledge. No, it is the time to think and ask the big scary questions that, in the absence of infinite distraction, might allow one to focus on all the unhatched dreams. Maybe what I really I need is to start really rowing towards something.

Echo Summit (mile 1090) to campsite at mile 1072

Total PCT miles hiked: 1166

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.

The climb from Lake Tahoe is unrelentingly steep. Meaning that the speed that I cultivated in northern California betrays me into going faster than I can sustain at this elevation. I am forced to stop often, allowing ample time to observe Lake Tahoe far below, receding little by little until it no longer dominates the landscape. This giant lake that wee have paralleled for days becomes nothing more than the bright blue bottom of a valley in the distance; from above the water appears calm, belyeing the infinite depth of the water.

The trail is granite stairs snaking through dense forest, steps cut right into the stone made by those with longer legs than myself. The rock, the dirt, the snow, all of it is taking us up up up through the trees until we are deposited without fanfare or ado onto the side of a sweeping verdant valley. Above rests a larger than life sky, pocked with cheery white clouds, floating on high like so many whimsical sky ships.

We have arrived, via this narrow strip of dirt into a land so picturesque that it forces one to stop walking in order to better observe the scene before you. Literally pulls you to a stop in order to fully look into the face of the land. Crescents of white spring snow give shape and form to the rolling green hills, while simultaneously being baked by the late afternoon sun into rivulets of water that pour into the valley. Creeks run high, bursting over their banks as though the water bubbling and rolling through the channels can barely be contained by simple soil and stone. We traverse through the depth of this valley on earth which is soft and damp below our feet, held in this special place by a nature that is kind and good and generous to her small, transient children. Looking further afield I am awed by the riot of color interjected by clumps of wildflowers into this landscape of green. As though they too wish to be seen and celebrated under the sky so blue.

These are the days and moments without compare. When the world cracks open around you and for a few glorious, fleeing moments you feel as though there is no place you would rather be. No place you could be, because surely, surely this landscape is where you’re meant to be. What a feeling to be suspended in time and space, left to simply walk through a land of immense beauty, embraced by the warm sun and caressed by the cool wind, while deep within your bones something thrums to life and whispers that things will be ok.