Wild Country Found

Zero at Snoqualmie Pass (mile 2393), no hiking

I am posted up at one of the four Starbucks in Snoqualmie trying to decide if it would look weird to put in earplugs. Or, if all Starbucks baristas are as desensitized as the ones I’ve come across in Los Angeles, in which case me sitting quietly with earplugs in is the least of their worries. I decide upon the later and am shortly entombed in blissful silence as I poke away at my phone. Proofreading and scheduling blog posts, attempting to write engaging captions for Instagram, and deciding if I have time to start on the article I’ve promised the bag manufacturer Osprey for their blog. Because I chose to give myself yesterday completely off, I only have a handful of hours until Starman arrives from Portland and we head back to the trail. I decide to push out the Osprey article to another day.

This all leads me to offer some unsolicited advice to aspiring thru hikers: commit to less.

Commit to less documentation, fewer blog posts, Instagram stories, fewer off trail obligations, events and timelines. Doing so will allow you to commit more fully to the trail.

One thing I failed to consider when planning to write daily blog posts from the trail, is that every minute spent documenting your hike is one you could spend witnessing your experiences. While every plan you make to attend an event or meet with family off trail will put you on a deadline that might force you to sacrifice miles or on trail happiness to accommodate.

It’s a tough balancing act. On the one hand I think in the coming years I will look back on these images and the stories I’ve written in my blog and be happy they are there. Memory is more fleeting than we know, and I have never possessed the hubris to believe mine is anything but subject. On the other hand, I find myself drifting from situations, pulling back from the present moment, wondering if what I’m experiencing will make a good story for the blog. And of course, seeing friends and family is important. Next week one of Starman’s best friends will get married and I wouldn’t want to miss that. I may only get one chance to hike the PCT, but I’ll only get one chance to attend this wedding. This trail, these people, they’re impermanent. Every choice is also a sacrifice. But if you can, if you at all can, choose to do this trail with as much intention as you can muster.

Zero at Snoqualmie Pass (mile 2393), no hiking

Holy banana pants, five months! It’s been a wild and wonderful experience and there is still a bit to come as we make our way towards the Canadian border. But I’ve yet again learned so much during the last month and I’m excited to share these ten lessons with everybody.

1. Hiking is fine, standing is torture. Seriously, I can hike all day every day. Wanna do 20 miles? No biggie! But standing still for 15 minutes while hitching is torture for my feet.

2. Oregon is the worst state for dinging a cathole in. The combination of small volcanic rocks under thin soil, and the dense root systems of so many trees and plants means that digging a 6-8 inch hole to poo in can take an unfortunately uncomfortably long time when you really need to go.

3. The trail actually made my period more regular. Weird. I have no explanation for this. But I can say that even after five months on trail I still don’t like dealing with my menstrual cup in the wilderness.

4. One day a gnat is going to fly into the back of your mouth and because it’s too much effort to cough it back out, you’ll just swallow it. This will be both a low and high point of the hike. On the one hand, you’ve transcended personal comfort to the point of pure functionality. On the other hand, you’ll have just swallowed a bug.

5. People who have the ULA circuit really like to talk to other Circuit owners about their packs. Between two thru hikes and countless weekend trips I have hiked 2,500+ miles with my Circuit and people still stop me to talk about the bag that we’re both wearing. This strikes me as especially weird because it’s literally one of the most popular packs on the trail, and yet people would consistently stop me to talk about the bag as if we shared some great secret of backpack selection. Nobody walks up to fellow Honda minivan owners and wants to talk excitedly about this super ubiquitous car, so what’s the big deal with wanting to discuss the thru hiking equivalent of a Honda minivan?! I think these are the same people who believe they invented oatmeal for breakfast (read: clueless about how unhelpful they are, but eager all the same). Picture this, I’m standing in the supermarket cereal aisle trying to decide if I want to try something besides cheese sandwiches for breakfast. When someone slides up to me and asks what I’m doing. Once I explain my situation and the fact that I’ve never in my life been known as someone who likes breakfast foods (just ask my mom), this cereal aisle stranger will lean in conspiratorially and say “you know what I like for breakfast, oatmeal.” As though they were the first person to come up with the idea that oatmeal—the quinticential American breakfast food that is sold in the breakfast aisle across the country—is in fact a breakfast food. Quite original there, Janet! Oatmeal for breakfast?! You don’t say! By chance do you hike with the ULA Circuit? Wanna talk backpacks?

6. At some point on the trail you’ll get your own pee and poo on your hands. Turns out living in a situation with limited toilet paper supplies where you dig a hole to poop in, isn’t super hugenic. Hand sanitizer for the win, and try not to think too much about it.

7. Hiking the PCT has made me want to put more effort into my appearance, not less. I’m not sure if this is in reaction to wearing the same outfit day in and day out for months. Or if it has something to do with turning 30. Or if being in nature for this long has made the artificial way in which we judge each other’s appearance all the more obvious to me. But I find myself thinking about building a wardrobe that is distinctly me, and moving away from the “whatever is easiest business casual” aesthetic I’ve been rocking since leaving the film industry. Putting actual effort into the way I look each day so that people will take me more seriously. I know that taller people get hired and promoted more often than short people, that women who wear makeup to the office are seen as more professional than those who don’t, that men are still paid and praised more than women, trans, and nonbinary folks. And some of those things I can’t change, but I can play the game I’m given instead of uselessly rebelling against it to nobody’s downfall but my own.

8. Somewhere around central Oregon a good number of hikers will be well and truly over this hike and begin accelerating their daily miles in an effort to get the whole thing over with sooner. This will happen to another wave of hikers upon entering Washington. Conversely, there will be a substantial number of hikers who will begin to slow their pace in Oregon/Washington because they too have realized that this hike is going to end one day. Instead of trying to rush to the end this second group of hikers is looking to extend their hike. It is important to note that only hikers who enter Washington in mid-August or before will have the luxury of slowing down because at some point it’s going to start snowing and everybody wants to be off trail before that.

9. After this hike I’ll be 1,000% ready to take a break from backpacking, but never ready to go inside. As the summer begins its slide into fall I’ve begun to think about all the ways I love playing in the outdoors that aren’t backpacking. I’m looking forward to trail running, rock climbing, skiing and maybe even getting into ski touring. Heck at this point I’m even excited to go on day hikes where I don’t have to carry a tent and sleeping bag with me! I hear other hikers talk about how after the trail they’re looking forward to chilling inside and catching up on TV they missed. And that does sound nice, for a weekend, but after that it’s back outside for me!

10. I miss creative challenges that aren’t blogging. More than that I miss being around other creative folks with the same relentless “yes, and” energy that I possess. I need both extensive outdoor outlets for my energy, and challenging creative ones for my brain. Spending too much time exclusively in one pursuit or the other is stifling and frustrating. I’ve begun to draft plans for creative projects I’d like to do after the trail, and am looking forward to reducing my blogging efforts to once a week, and writing about things that aren’t the trail. I am so grateful for everyone who has followed along on this journey with me, and thrilled that I was able to share it with so many people. I promise this site won’t go totally radio silence after the trail, but there will be a reduction in content and I very much hope you’ll stick around to see what’s next.

Campsite at mile 2377 to Snoqualmie Pass (mile 2393)

When I wake it is to find a thin layer of condensation on my sleeping bag and trees shrouded in mist. Not smoke by golly, but genuine mist. This is the Washington I love, all brooding forests draped in cool fog and soft light. This sudden change in weather reminds me that summer is almost over, that this hike is almost over. And surprisingly, I don’t feel sad about that. Not in the way I did in Oregon, when the thought of the northern terminus clenched my chest tight with emotion and sparked tears in my eyes. With the time and miles of Washington I have begun the slow process of moving beyond this hike, a process I’m not sure will ever fully end. But for now I can begin to reflect on everything I have done this year, on everything Starman and I have done together over the course of all these months and miles we’ve spent working in tandem towards this goal. I feel not just content, but proud of what we’ve done. And even though the adventure is not over yet I feel at ease with our journey, imperfections and all.

We roll 16 miles to Snoqualmie Pass, stopping along the banks of a lake where there is miraculously service and poking at our phones for an hour. Letting the world beyond the trail intrude for a little while as Starman coordinates rides and hotels for a bachelor party he’s attending this weekend. Only it doesn’t feel like an intrusion anymore, not really. In the way that I’ve stopped referring to life away from the trail as the real world, as though the life of cars and jobs is more valid, more real than this simplified life outdoors. I know that the coming transition from wandering hiker to driven worker will be eased by my continued desire to play outside. That the end of the trail will leave room for new adventures to begin, and for that I am giddy with excitement.

Campsite at mile 2352 to campsite at mile 2377

When we walked across the Bridge of the Gods into Washington I thought of what my friend Sarah texted me: “Welcome to Washington, where up is the new normal.” Damn, did she know what she was talking about. Half way through the state and I still can’t get over how much elevation gain there is. For example, today we’ll hike 25 miles with over 5,000 feet of gain AND LOSS! Each! This means the trail ascends 1,000 feet, and descends 1,000 feet for every five miles. If you’re not a hiker, just know that’s a lot. A lot. And I’m feeling it today.

We stop for lunch in the shade next to a shockingly cold spring which bubbles up from nothing before rolling down and away into the trees. I urge Starman to hike ahead of me, he’s cruising today and I don’t want to slow him down, I don’t want to try and keep up, I just want to plod along until camp. Plus, if Starman is far ahead of me then I can’t complain about how tired I am until we cut the day short. I don’t want to hike 13 more miles, but I know I’ll be more disappointed in myself if we shortchange our milage today. Sometimes I think that we do our best work, push ourselves the hardest, when there is simply no other choice. Thru hiking is good for that. Eventually Starman relents and I watch his back recede into the trees until he’s gone. I’ll come to find out later that he’ll get to camp two hours before I will. Neato.

But I don’t know that now so I dig into my food bag and use the ice cold spring water to make myself a trail iced coffee. In which I throw a few packets of instant coffee mix into a bottle and shake until most of the granules are gone. It’s certainly not the best, but I’m running short on food this section, hoping I can make up for that fact with a hearty dose of afternoon caffeine. I pair this with a Harry Potter audiobook and head off into the afternoon sun.

I climb relentlessly up, only to turn a corner and follow the trail back down. It’s fine, it really is. Even as I sit in the middle of the trail in the early evening with not a soul around and my legs too tired to make it up this climb without a break, I know it’s fine. I think about the food I’ll eat in town, reimagining it again and again, swapping bits around, making it better each time. Weirdly this is helpful when I’m really hungry. Maybe it’s knowing that I’ll have ample access to food in the future. Knowing that I live in a world of abundance and access. That this discomfort is finite, temporary in the extreme and that I chose to be here. I chose this. So I rise and make my way up the rest of the climb towards camp. It’s fine, it really is.

Bear Gap Trail Junction (2329) to campsite at mile 2352

In the afternoon the lush green northwestern forest gives way to yet another desolate burn area. Any livable ecosystem has been scorched away, taking with it all animals and their corresponding calls. What is left is the creaking of dead trees, sharp snaps of falling branches ricochet through the air undisturbed by anything living. A single stream makes a valiant effort at life, florescent green leaves spring from along the bank. Their inherent liveliness standing in stark contrast to the black earth.

In the silence I think back to something another hiker told me at Trail Days. How they were frustrated by the number of burns they’d walked through in Oregon, calling them pointless, and wasteful. They believed like so many do, that fires are purely distructive and lack any benefit. This hiker, like myself, had likely been raised on Smokey Bear telling them that the only way to protect the forest was to eliminate any wild fires. But they, like myself and perhaps you too dear reader, have largely been misinformed, and are only now coming to recognize how foolish our understanding of fires have historically been.

For those of you who were raised in the west, this is likely a familiar story. If that’s you, then feel free to skip ahead a paragraph. Otherwise read on, you might just learn something. The current dictum of aggressive fire suppression which the National Forest Service so vehemently upholds is largely a reaction to The Big Burn, the largest fire in American history which in 1910 burned 3,000,000 achers of land in the Rockey Mountains in Colorado, Montana, and Idaho. The fire killed 86 people. In response the Forest Service adopted a policy which sought to extinguish wildfires as quickly as possible. Smokey Bear was introduced to the world as the friendly face of wildfire suppression, telling the American people that a healthy forest was one that never burned. Unfortunately, Smokey was wrong, the USFS was wrong, and only in recent years have people come to accept that forest fires are in integral part of forest health—that seeking to control every wild burn is perhaps the worst thing we could have done for the health of our forests.

This new understanding of the necessity of forest fires for the health of the forest ecosystem is representative of a larger shift in human awareness, albeit one that has been slow to catch on. The realization that nature does not exist for human domination. That the frustration one might feel while hiking through their twentieth burn of the trail is so minuscule when viewed in comparison to the health of the natural world around us as to be laughable. In the crudest sense, it’s simply not about you, about us. This world is not ours for the taking or making, but rather if we are to survive as a species we must learn to live in symbiosis with the world around us. As humans we are overly skilled at placing ourselves at the center of the universe, but it’s a tendency that we’ll have to overcome.

In the final miles of the day I hike through a sick forest. Blowdowns and deadfalls clutter the understory, competing for room with saplings and dense bushes, all shaded by the bigger trees looming overhead, blocking much of the sunlight from reaching the ground. My pathway is only clear due to the countless hours of volunteer trail crews. I wonder when the last time this area saw a fire, and how massive and destructive the next one might be, with every square inch of ground cluttered with drying kindling. Like an old body that can no longer fight off an illness, so too will the next ember to find this land be fatally consuming. But then again, all things die. And only when compared to our brief human lives is the lifespan of a forest a tragedy.