Wild Country Found

Little Jimmy Camp (mile 384) to campsite at mile 404)

All day feels familiar. Not in the similar but unique way, but in the literal sense of having been someplace before. I have hiked or run the trail from Vincent Gap to Three Points at least half a dozen times in various combinations and segments. While much of the southern California section of the PCT has been near or part of hikes I’ve taken during eight years in LA, none has been so visited as the segment we’ve covered yesterday and today.

The trail here is so well traveled that I cannot muster the appropriate enthusiasm for the remarkable band of mountains which sits squarely between two deserts. I take two pictures all day, though not for want of beauty. Only due to my very human tendency to take things for granted, in the way we do not tell those who mean the most to us how much we truly love them. Assuming they’ll be there tomorrow and the next day, because the knowledge of impermanence is too painful to consider often. But my relationship to these mountains is actively ending, each step takes me further towards the end of the map of familiarity. After the Sierra I’ll fall off the edge of my map completely. Of course, I can find excitement in the unknown in a way I’ve never been able to with the familiar.

The trail so far has felt like waking across a puzzle of a map that’s only partially completed. One ridge known while the next is someplace I’ve never been. It’s fun to fill in the missing pieces via the intimate mode of walking. Knitting together the seams into not quite a quilt, but a scarf: a long thin band just a little wider than the PCT itself. To me, thru hiking is not about knowing one place intimately, but many places in a surface level way. The land rising up and melting away around you while the pressure of seasons keeps you moving north, unable to explore every lovely campground or cascading canyon. This mode of travel is both sad and deeply appealing to me.

So what of these remarkable mountains that I’ve failed to remark on. The mountains of Angeles National Forrest are steep, all plunging valleys and thin ridges that slice into the peaks. Like you could juice an orange on the top of every single one. Covered in rocky crags and equal parts pine and chaparral, they’re not friendly mountains, containing too many sharp edges and not enough soft meadows. Their foothills roll away in ever dropping layers of tan and gold until they flatten completely and merge into the desert. While I know these mountains better than any of the terrain we’ve walked through thus far, and yet I only know, only will ever know, a fraction of their breadth.

Yesterday we were high in a pine forest, surrounded by peaks that almost but not quite break tree line. Today we started in that same forest, but spent the day dropping back down into the desert. Slowly at first, and then all at once in the last mile of the day we slid from forest into scrub and sand. All day I knew the desert was coming, where yesterday the wind was cool, today it held the warmth of lower dryer climes. The wind bringing the promise of newness, where perhaps in the throes of novelty I will take more pictures.

Highway 2 (mile 369) to Little Jimmy Camp (mile 384)

I have three hours between waking up and leaving town. In that time I need to figure out an entire new hiking outfit. The shorts I loved pre-trail now have a massive hole in the inseam after less than 400 miles. The shirt I agonized over is rubbing my back raw. I hate online shopping and I hate buying new clothes, but the trail is all about being adaptable, so here we are. Thank goodness Keith is a champion shopper and is willing to help me find a sun protective shirt that won’t rub my skin off.

However, Keith has never bought women’s clothing and so doesn’t understand that size 8 is only marginally relevant, that a size small in one brand is a large in another. A point that is reinforced when the shorts that I’ve ordered into town prove to be too small for me to even pull up over my thighs (even though I’m wearing the same size shirt from the same company that fits great). In the end I buy a few sizes of a few different things and silently thank the stars for whoever invented free returns.

After the shopping debacle I’m emotionally drained, stuck wearing the same clothes for another 85 miles and it’s time to hike. Ah trail life, so sexy. Because this is my blog and I can say whatever I want I want to take a moment and tell women’s clothing manufacturers to get their shit together. Get all your poop in a group and start designing clothes for women with boobs and asses. You’d think that body parts that are fetishised in this country the way boobs and butts are would lead to clothes built to accommodate those assets, but no. According to clothing manufacturers women are just short men with waists who wear pink.

My only solice is to cry a little bit to Keith, text my mom, and then plaster a smile on my face and hitchhike out of town. After a few warm up miles we begin the climb up Baden Powell. 3,000 feet in less than four miles. My brain is super soakered in endorphins at the summit and I sit mindlessly eating cookies dipped in Nutella surrounded by massive rolling peaks. To the north the desert stretches into nothingness and I feel like we’re standing on the edge of a video game, the flat tan whatever is just a segment that hasn’t been rendered yet. Above us the moon hangs half full in the sky, seeming somehow closer than Canada. I push this all from my mind and watch the sun lower and warm the land around us. Distant miles are for future Kara to worry about.

Campsite at mile 358 to highway 2 (mile 369 + hitch into Wrightwood)

It’s only ten miles to Wrightwood, ten rolling hilltop miles on a ridge between two deserts. During the last miles of our approach to Wrightwood we take an unofficial alternate along a forest service road, adding half a mile but providing better views into the valley where I lived for close to eight years. It feels infinitely far away, and yet so close.

I can see downtown Los Angeles in the distance, just below the familiar ridge of Mount Wilson. A small paper cut out of a city rising above the clouds and smog that fill the valley. Further out into the flat white I can see Palos Verdes and Catalina island. I’m suddenly struck by an odd melancholy, not in the way of missing a place, but in the sense of feeling removed from an entire population.

Well not an entire population, because Mac is coming to visit today! Yay Mac! Yay friend who drives all the way from Los Angeles to come and see me, listen to confusing inside jokes from strange dirty hikers, and drink beer. Thank you for coming to visit Mac, it was so nice to talk about something other than the trail for a while, to be reminded that a vibrant world exists beyond the dirt strip that is my current home.

Hanging out with only hikers is filled with the sort of rapid bonding that comes from intense shared experiences. However, the breadth of conversation thus far has largely centered around hiking. It’s nice to be able to talk about something else. Jobs, dogs, and adventures beyond my own. A whole world!

Mac departs this evening, and tomorrow we’ll hike out of town. For the next few days we’ll parallel the Los Angeles and then begin our turn north, away from the desert, away from the city, moving further and further from a place that I never loved, but might just find a way to miss.

Best Western near McDonald’s (mile 342 + 1mi road walk each way) to Campsite at mile 358

I wanted, desperately, to feel refreshed when I woke up this morning, but that just wasn’t in the cards. When Keith wakes me up at 6 I’m deep in the middle of a dream in which I’ve just been ejected from the top of a sky scraper inside a rocket propelled elevator booth a la Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and am presumably about to fall to my death. For some reason in the dream I’m very accepting of my fate and choose to spend my remaining seconds trapped in this box with a middle aged man marveling at how beautiful the city is, and wishing I had gotten off on the second floor with the woman in the blue pant suit. Sadly, awake me is not nearly as serene and I mope around the room feeling tired and frustrated, bothered by little things like damp waistbands on shorts that haven’t fully dried. Ah hormones. At least there is free hot breakfast aka free coffee aka free life fuel.

In the lobby with three other hikers the conversation du jour is the 27 mile exposed waterless stretch that climbs over 8,000 feet between Cajon Pass and the next resupply town, Wrightwood. The general consensus is to pack out as much water as you can, dry camp one night and then have a short day into town the next day. I should say, this is the consensus between the majority of us, however one woman plans to do this stretch in three days despite not being able to carry enough water for three days. This immediately enrages me and I tell her it’s a foolish thing to do – not that this will impact her choice in the slightest.

Her cavalier attitude is one I’ve seen a lot on the trail. People who won’t carry an ice axe through the Sierra, not because they’ve seen the snow reports, but because they don’t know how to use one, so why bother. People without enough water heading into the desert relying on maybe stocked water caches. People without enough food because maybe there will be trail magic. Only thru hikers would refuse to carry the weight of the two most important things keeping us alive: food and water.

While the mentality that everything will work out is certainly a pleasant one, when hiking in remote areas without cell service this sort of attitude is what tends to get people hurt or killed. The frustrating reality is that many PCT hikers feel they are immune from easily preventable accidents. This hubris stands in direct contrast to the two rescues (both PCT hikers without enough water) and the one death (heart attack) that have already occurred in the short time since the season started. And those are just the ones we’ve heard about!

I grumble this all over in my head during the massive climb towards Wrightwood. Wondering if people really are as under prepared as it seems, or if I’m being a grumpy hormonal jerk. Probably both. But also, mother nature deserves real respect. Respect of the knowledge that she’ll wipe you off the face of the planet and not even notice.

Cleghorn Picnic Area (mile 328) to McDonald’s (mile 342)

The only topic of discussion today is McDonald’s. I don’t even like McDonald’s, I haven’t eaten there in years and years and yet I find myself pondering my order as we hike our 14 miles towards I-15 and the promised golden arches. All American Austin says he’s aiming to eat at least six or seven McGriddles – the news of the all day breakfast menu has him grinning ear to ear. Keith and I both want ice cream and I want red meat something fierce. My period is due (although who knows, on the JMT it was really late and that was only two as a half weeks of hiking) and my body is telling me it wants iron. Each decision is based on McDonald’s. Should I rest now or just push on to McDonald’s? Do I need a snack or can I wait for McDonald’s? Should I pee here or can it wait for McDonald’s?

When we arrive it’s literally just like any McDonald’s you’ve ever been to. I guess that’s the point of the chain, they’re the same regardless of where you are. Keith, myself, All American Austin, McKayla, The Australians (Bean Dip and Moonshine), Norway, and AJ cram ourselves into a both and table and then proceed to order an alarming amount of food. Keith complains that McDonald’s has gotten really expensive. Bean Dip points out that the last time he ate here he probably only ordered one meal, not two. Good point.

While I wait to refill my water bottle a kindly older Latina woman asks me where I’ve hiked from. She’s the first person I get to tell “from the Mexican border!” I’m very excited about this while she is flabbergasted and relays my answers in rapid Spanish to her friend. As we work through the standard litany of questions her friend looks increasingly worried. Finally they both cross themselves and tell me that God will bless me on my journey. I’m not a person of faith, but the gesture is nice and so I tell the rest of our table that we’ve all been blessed. Why not.

Everybody hikes out and Keith and I head to the Best Western to do laundry and attempt to heal the chafe from my pack that’s rubbing the skin on either side of my spine raw. Tomorrow we’ll start the two day waterless stretch to Wrightwood. A two day water carry. What will that even feel like? I guess we’ll find out.

Campsite at mile 306 to Cleghorn Picnic Area (mile 328)

All afternoon we walk in and out of the accordion folds of the hillside. We’re hiking late in the afternoon, hours delayed by a morning spent soaking in Deep Creek hot springs. I am hypnotized by the repetition of the day; side hill up a knoll to a small saddle, then follow the hill back into the fold of the drainage. Two near U-turns connected by a straight line cut across the hill side. This continues for hours and somewhere in that space I lose my thought process completely. I’m just waking, sometimes simply starting at Keith’s feet in front of me. I watch his patient little stride, the occasional hitch step to adjust the sit of his shorts. How long do I watch this? I have no idea. I unintentionally study his walk, stride, pattern, noticing the slight sunburn behind his knees, the roll of his blue shoes when he’s waking up particularly steep sections, the way he tucks his poles under his arm and his pace slows while he checks our mileage on his phone. When was the last time I allowed my brain to slow like this, drift into low power mode.

When I do pull my head up it’s to find a low wide valley oozing out to the north. A flat green expanse cut through by a flat blue river dotted irregularly by low slung homes. It feels like anywhere rural America, forgotten by modernity, aged in nostalgia and a reluctance to change. It’s Norman Rockwells wet dream, bathed as it is in yellow evening light and textured by shadows cast from puffy grey clouds that have threatened rain all day but have yet to deliver.

How kind the PCT is to us today. Holding us in this special place within the vastness of everything, the world around us singing in that good way. Even the recovering burned areas are Technicolor lovely, shot through with grass and flowers as they are. I find myself marveling at this day, the perfect nature of everything and I attempt to envelope the streams of warming light, the smell of warm lavender and earth, the funny erratic breeze. I try and hold them inside of me for another day, not exactly. More like another me, I try and hold this day inside me for a future version of me who will cast her mind back for something delightful and stumble upon the memory of this day.

Campsite at mile 287 to campsite at mile 306

My dream of hiking the PCT started at mile 290 two years ago. I was halfway throug my first attempt at a light weight, big mileage backpacking weekend. 44 miles in two days along the PCT above Big Bear; it seemed an impossible distance, thrilling in that reckless way imbibed with uncertainty. That first evening I found myself camped next to four real deal PCT hikers. They invited me to eat dinner with them and taught me about ways to lighten my pack by ditching my Nalgene bottles for SmartWater bottles, told me stories about resuppling with only candy, and about hiking 20 miles a day, every day. I’d read Wild, I’d read Thru Hiking Will Break Your Heart and neither of those books made me want to hike the PCT. But meeting those people on that day in late April made me not only want to hike the PCT, it made me think someone like me could do it. After all, these amazing people were just people, bike messengers and software engineers and grocery store clerks, daughters and grandmothers and husbands. So then, why not me?

No reason, it turns out. We hiked past that same campground this morning, just a flat patch of dirt on top of a hill surrounded by stunted manzanita. Nothing fateful seeming about it.

All day the trail brought back memories, paired with the gentle rock of nostalgia. This area is resplendent with it’s white granite mashing into pink sandstone, pines and oaks and manzanita all rolled together from one hill to another, with Deep Creek plunging through the center – all cool green waters and swallowing pools. Today familiar and surprising, in the way that that a well worn path can sometimes shake you from your habitual revery and show you a new slice of the world that’s been tucked neatly inside the old.

Big Bear city (mile 266) to campsite at mile 287

Car after car rolls into the pull out at mile 266 of the PCT, where the trail crosses the road heading out of Big Bear. The bad weather from the day previous has resulted in a balloon of hikers getting back on the trail today. We follow the ranging group around a small fire closure alternate, bunching up again at lunch, nine miles into the day and our first water source.

But after lunch it’s just Keith and I again. The terrain gently rolling and largely wooded, pine needles littering the ground in that soft crunchy way. Big Bear lake strewn out below us bright blue as it reflects the clear cool sky, the whitecaps from the day before smoothed and soothed. It’s the kind of hiking that’s perfect for a wandering mind and I let mine off leash to meander where it will.

I think of the trail name I’ve recently adopted and still occasionally feel bashful about. Not when I’m with fellow hikers, where comical or bizarre trail names are not only accepted but vehimently encouraged. I think about having written about this trail name on my blog, where anybody can read about it. The whole thing feels suddenly childish, laced with impropriety.

But, why?

Where did I get the idea that adulthood was supposed to be droll, responsible, leached of fun and immodesty and spackled back over with closely guarded emotions, sterilized under florescent office lights? When did I embrace these ideas and make them my own? What else could there be; where does one buy an alternative blueprint for the intervening years between adolescence and the grave?

I think back to a woman I used to work with; raucaus, laughing, ineffably cheerful. Incomprehensible in her ballooning good humor. Silly. Is that what adulthood is? Could be? She was unlike anyone I’d ever met; in and out of my life in a flash that left me standing like the lone witness of a brief summer squal – all wind tousled, and yet bathed in sunlight.

What part of my life is this, I think, right now, will I remember this day when I’m 90? Perhaps looking back on the worries of youth from the safely of old age and laughing at myself for thinking I could daydream my life into something remarkable. In that way I’m hesitant to place too much gravitas on this hike. I don’t want to frame the PCT as some means of change. Going out into nature to find oneself – barely on and already the cliche feels worn to thread. But this trip, the simmering down of life into relatively simple tasks provides a contrast of sorts to how I’ve seen other adults managing their lives. Those self same people who told me “hike the PCT now, when else will you have the chance.” A phrase that feels both warning and trap.

We arrive at camp, a gentle flat within a stand of trees that’s nestled in a crook of the trail. My mind whirring back into the here and now, drawn into the immediate by the few tasks that I’m responsible for: feed self, set up tent, water, bathroom. Easy enough. But without any questions answered. But maybe that’s being an adult too; accepting that you don’t know, might never know, will spend the rest of your life being thrown from the nest again and again until you learn to find happiness in the falling. Or maybe it’s nothing like that, but rather finding enjoyment in the here and now. A syrupy yellow sunset, splashed through old trees. A kind man with a playful mind. A meal, a warm place to sleep, comfort. A solomn owl in the distance, and a tomorrow that promises something new.

Zero in Big Bear – no hiking

We’re taking another zero day in Big Bear. The weather today is supposed to be near freezing all day and well below that at night with 40-60 mph winds, which paired with the arrival of Gently Used, Breaker, and Shades has persuaded us to stay. I know it’s practically the right choice, but that doesn’t keep me from also feeling frustrated at sitting around another day. The boredom is starting to tingle up my arms and legs, my brain chanting go go go, time to go! Today feels like money, time, and food I’d rather have spent hiking. It’s an unnecessary frustration, that I’m forcing myself to live through. The product of the brain of a chronically bored, restless person; I’ve always struggled with this. Though, perhaps this feeling is instead the symptoms of a slow weaning from the endorphins I’ve been bathing myself in daily. The reward for hours spent on the move. The impetus to wake early each morning and begin moving down the trail on sensitive bloated feet and tightwire tendons.

But time spent at the Big Bear Hostel with the other hikers is it’s own kind of PCT experience. One that I am grateful to have. Yet another situation where socializing is involved, I’m forced/cajoled into participating, and then I enjoy myself. I swear to god I’m than I am self perceptive.

Anyway.

This additional down day will be a good opportunity to take a suggestion Mihai left on a previous post, and talk about some of the people I’ve met on the trail who have left an impressive on me. Today I’m going to tell you about Kristine.

I met Kristine on my first day on the trail. Her and her husband came into the campground at Hauser Creek towards dusk. They caught my attention because her husband, Randy, had one of those collapsible camp chairs – one hell of a heavy luxury item, especially when paired with their ultralight tent. But this wasn’t a couples adventure, it was Kristina’s adventure with Randy tagging along for support until Lake Morena. Parents to five kids between them, together nine years, married only four, and both in their late 60’s when Kristina decides to hike the PCT. It’s a huge leap for both of them.

During lunch at the Lake Morena malt shop the next day Randy tells me their first grandchild has just been born. Kristina is in the bathroom and Randy takes this moment to tell me that she’s a wonderful grandmother, a complete natural, he’s never seen anything like it, beaming as he says this. Going on, he says it’s so hard for her to be away from the kids for this extended trip, it’s probably the hardest part of the trail. That’s saying something, because Kristina wasn’t a hiker until about two years ago. Randy and Kristina hiked half dome in a day in 2016, and that set the ball in motion for her. 2017 they hiked part of the Tahoe Rim Trail, and later that year she decided she’d thru hike the PCT. Planned everything out, bought the gear, and now she’s out here. She’s really doing it.

I saw Kristina again in Julian, all smiles and warm glow. Then, most recently on the hike out of Idyllwild, a bright spot even on a sunny day, surrounded by eight or more hikers, her rolling gang. She said she’s been loving the trail, found a great group to hike with. She looked like an absolute all star and I am so happy for her. I can’t wait to see her further down the trail.

Zero in Big Bear – no hiking

In the last week Keith and I have been given, and more importantly accepted, trail names. As you may recall I was previously ambivalent about taking on a trail name, if you’d like to read more about that, check out day 5 of my PCT blog. However, that was also before I was given a trail name that felt fitting to who I am, and is frankly, just damn funny.

Keith becomes Starman –

This name stems from his time spent working at SpaceX, and his involvement with the launch of Dragon Heavy. If you’re unfamiliar, that was when SpaceX launched a car with a dummy inside instead of the traditional test payload for new rockets, which is usually just a giant block of concrete. The dummy in the car is also named Starman.

Runners up for Keith’s trail name include: Op-ed, Solver, Teacher, Gas Leak, Star Lord, and Professor.

Kara becomes Sporty Bastard –

This name is a combination of two separate instances. The first part being from a luncheon chat with Enigma – because apparently skiing, snowboarding, trail running, hiking, weight training, playing both soccer and ultimate Frisbee, and running triathlons makes you a bit of an oddity. Initially he suggested Sporty Spice, but I had little desire to be associated with a 90’s British pop band, and thus it was shorted to Sporty. The second part of my trail name came later that same day during a particularly brutal hill climb. The group was discussing the merits of marriage without children (as ya do) and I mention that my parents only got married once they knew there were having kids and I was conceived – something I feel has influenced my own relaxed take on marriage – Enigma cries out “you’re a bastard!” which I think is hilarious and so I adopt the trail name Sporty Bastard, Sporty for short. I’m sorry Mom and Dad if that offends you 😀

Runners up for my trail name included: Second Shoe, Tracker, The Hair, and a handful of others that were just lame. People on the PCT reaaaally want to give out trail names.

So why did I change my tune on trail names? First, because I think Sporty Bastard is fitting, and it’s something I never would have thought of on my own. I abhor the task of describing myself and cringe every time I’m asked for a bio. But it’s fun to hear what other people see in you. Second, I’ve always needed an outlet for my excess energy and tendency to grow bored quickly, and physical activity has often filled that need. Being active is a deeply ingrained part of who I am. Third, I’m a fan of the fact that it’s a gender neutral name, and the fact that it makes me and others laugh every time I say it. I also like that people don’t mispronounce it unlike with my real name. And finally, I am a bit of a bastard, not just by birth (because I was only conceived out of wedlock, not born out of it), but also by my contrarian nature and general disregard for arbitrary/unearned authority.