Tag: PCT 2018

Double zero at Stevens Pass (mile 2464) for a wedding, no hiking.

The border is open! I repeat, the border is open! There is a PCTA approved alternate to the Canadian border and it is again legal to walk into Canada. This is big news. Very big. For the previous two weeks we have been closing in on the final miles of this hike, down to under 200 left. Which at this point in the hike feels undeniably achievable. I have walked so many miles and days and through pairs of shoes and packets of oatmeal that I don’t even enjoy eating, past innumerable trees and lakes and some very nice mountains. At this point, I would crawl myself to Canada with my face. I would, no doubt.

But as we have talked to the many day hikers out enjoying the last throws of summer, there has been a tinge of frustration on our part. People are eager to congratulate us on being so close to completing our goal not knowing that the final miles were closed to due to fire. And that we were planning a massive logistical u-turn through Vancouver in order to be able to snap that finishers photo at the northern terminus. It always felt too cumbersome to explain the long-winded details of both the closure and our plans. So for the last weeks we have been simply accepting these strangers praise all the while knowing that the act of walking into Canada was to be denied to us. That of the three border crossing on this entire 2,650 mile trail, we would miss two due to forest fire closures.

That is until Friday.

But of course it’s not that simple.

As convoluted and absurd as our previous plan to touch the monument was. The changing of facts so close to the end is now another thing to contend with. On trail, Starman and I represent a continuously moving target of gear, food, and now paperwork needs. Needs that must be often be fulfilled in adherence to the hours of the United States Postal Service. Which is to say it can be a bit of a craps shoot.

When the border reopened on September 1, it put into motion a series of emails, phone calls, and text messages as we arrange for packages to be shipped to the tiny village of Stehekin which sits nestled along the shores of Lake Chalan, accessible by only foot, water plane, or boat. Thank goodness for understanding friends and family. This trail which can seem so solitary in nature would in fact be incomprehensibly more challenging without helpful people who are willing to make last minute trips to the post office on your behalf, and store your stuff, and kindly send or bring you gluten free snacks.

After having changed shipping addresses and food boxes, after rescheduling job start dates, comparing rental car prices, we’re all going back to plan A. Except now plan A is to be done on a tight timeline because you can’t have things be too easy. Where would be in the fun in that?

Campsite at mile 2443 to Stevens Pass (mile 2464)

I wake to low, heavy skies and the patter of light mist coating the tent. Fall in the Pacific Northwest is making another appearance. The weather has been like those whirling picture toys from childhood with a bird on one side and a cage on another which, when spun very fast trick the eye into combining the two images in to one. A bird and a cage becomes a bird in a cage. The days in Washington flash one against the other, combining into a single yet disperate image in my mind. One day the weather is cool drizzling fall, cloudy forests with rain clinging to leaves like tiny beads of glass. The next, warm with glorious sun and shimmering blue skies.

Today the weather has spun and landed on fall. We pack the tent away wet and set out in rain jackets thrown on against the cold more than the actual wet. I delight in how the world looks in this light. A light grey sky sits right down in the trees, obscuring the tops of ridges and rock faces, sending a gentle diffuse light towards the forest floor. Shadows are softened, their sharp edges all smoothed out in order to wrap sweetly around every rock, tree and drooping moss. With a sky of almost grey white the greens of the earth are all the more vibrant as though screaming we are alive! A last hurrah from the growing season perhaps.

The cool drizzle and chill wind follows us into town and into the night. Though the forecast for tomorrow calls for sun, summer is locked in a losing annual battle against the coming cold and darkness. Every step north is a step into the arms of autumn. We have migrated north, from days of unrelenting heat into days of a copycat sun who cannot completely mask the power of the breeze that pulls my body heat away during every break. Rain flies and down jackets are making their first appearances in weeks and on evenings like this one I am grateful to have a hotel around me instead of only nylon and down.

Campsite at mile 2425 to campsite at mile 2443

Something yellow catches my eye and I slow to a stop in the middle of the trail. My eyes, now so accustomed to the natural world can immediately pick out anything unnatural. Usually this is small bits of trash accidentally left by a hiker, or occasionally forgotten gear. Today, it’s a yellow gummy bear. Stooping to pick it up I show the gummy to Starman, asking if I should eat it. This is not the first forlorn gummy bear that I’ve jokingly proposed that I eat; the previous one being found bobbing along the sandy bottom of our last water source. However, in both situations Starman has vehemently vetoed my proposed found snackage. Laughing I lob the gummy into the woods whereupon it’s vibrant yellow is lost in a sea of green. This prompts a discussion about what we are most looking forward to eating in town.

I am always amazed by how quickly the energy provided by town food fades from my system, leaving legs straining on the steep climbs of Washington. Only three days from town and already both Starman and myself have begun to fantasize about getting to town. Starman says “no more pizza, it’s been nothing but disappointing lately.” I agree, adding “and nothing that qualifies as ‘American’ food. I think I’ve had enough burgers to last a lifetime.” In this way we banter back and forth up the biggest climb of the day. Good sticky rice. Crisp vegetables. Peanut sauce. Cucumber and watermelon! BBQ. Orange chicken – Starman is ever true to his Midwestern roots.

When we arrive at the top of the pass, Cathedral Peak rises above us and down below in the valley sits an entirely new world. One that has a blustering cool breeze running through the long valley, whisking away the smoke and returning the color and detail to the earth. What a difference. What an incomparable difference to be granted the views for which this tail is known. Hiking through smoke and trees for days on end with barely a nice rocky pile to look at, it is demoralizing. There is no other word for it. The hiker phrase “I do it for the views” has never felt so accurate as I look down into the valley below our perch. In front of me stretches an vast skyline of unknown peaks, rivers, and woods. What would I see if I wandered away from this trail and into these lands. I’ll save it for another day, after the trail. I know that for once there is little urgency with which I need to explore these mountains. Washington, as it has said with some arguable validity, is the state in which I am now a resident. Being home never looked so inviting.

Campsite at mile 2408 to campsite at mile 2425

I wake disappointed to find the tent walls beginning to lighten with the first signs of dawn and my bladder demanding the first pee of the day. Feeling as though I’ve been asleep for only a few hours I begrudgingly pull myself from the tent to answer the call of nature. It is outside that I discover what I had mistaken for an early morning sun is actually the moon and it is still the middle of the night. Hallelujah! I relieve myself and dive back into my sleeping bag, pulling my hat down low over my eyes and drifting back to sleep.

When I finally pull my hat from my eyes it is fully light outside the tent. My phone reads 6:58am and Starman is still deeply asleep. I attempt to rouse him, cajole him into moving until finally I am so sick of sounding like a frustrated mother pleading with her adolescent child that I relent and we spend the next few hours packing in slow motion. Finally beginning to walk at 11am, by body already telling me it’s almost lunch time, that we should have done 10 miles by now. But no. I have repeatedly said that Starman’s laxidasical morning pace is an argument that is not worth having. Yet, as we get on the trail late for the umpteenth time with a minimum hour and a half to pack up now the norm, I wonder if perhaps it was an argument worth having. After more than five months on trail the fateful day where we could get on the trail with any amount of expediency has never arrived. Nor, it would seem, have I been able to adjust to Starman’s schedule. But what is there to be done about it now.

The day passes in a series of tree lined climbs and breathtaking views. Massive grey faces of rock soar into the sky, cut through with wide glacial swaths. Raging waterfalls made minuscule through the wonders of distance and space zipper towards the valley floor where they blossom into fathomless lakes and tumbling rivers. The weekend rains have given up their tenuous grasp on the sky and already smoke from wildfires is blowing into the valleys. Smearing and smudging the faces of these exquisite peaks and bringing with it the white skies and artificially warm light to which we have become accustomed.

However today the passage of the sun overhead grates on me. Each time I look at my maps we are not as close to camp as I hoped. My body is out of synch with this late start and I cannot conceal my frustration. I know that once we have arrived in camp and performed the daily litany of chores we will retire to the tent where Starman will have an hour to relax by watching television on his phone. Meanwhile I will have an hour or two of work writing and editing photos. Knowing that if I don’t keep on top of this daily workload it will expand to consume any down time I may get next time we’re in town.

Today it all seems too much and I find myself crying into my evening mac and cheese, feeling all the dumber knowing that this is a self imposed chore. Feeling all the more frustrated as I think about our remaining days, yes just days now, on the trail and wondering if this infernal blog will ever be good for anything besides reducing the amount of sleep I get. Then trying frantically to come up with something else to write, because who wants to read a blog in which the writer does nothing but complain. Finally, I abandon the whole thing as a lost cause and hope that upon proofreading this post later I don’t resent myself for not putting more effort in, for not writing something more beautiful.

Snoqualmie Pass (mile 2393) to campsite at mile 2408

The thing about days like today is that you don’t get many of them. Even on a trip of this length – or perhaps especially on a trip of this length where one walks many miles of terrain that weekend hikers won’t bother with – you’ll only have a handful of truly spectacular days.

Today was truly spectacular.

We left Snoqualmie pass under drizzling grey skies. Too warm to wear a rain jacket, but too chilly without one so we compromise by hiking really fast. It’s 10am and there was no reason to be on the trail earlier. Why get up early to hike in the rain when you could just as easily not. Actually it is substantially easier to not get up early and hike in the rain. Furthermore, Starman and I are on a schedule of forced leisure. With a wedding on September 1st and only 71 miles between us and where we’ll need to get off to hitch to the venue, there is no need to rush and no advantage to getting there early. So you see, it would have been irresponsible to get up early and hike in the rain, wasteful of a perfect lazy morning.

The first four miles of the day feel like the opening scene to an episode of The X Files. All trees shrouded in mist, with a weak silver sun slicing through like a landing UFO. This is the sort of weather people get anally probed in. Luckily, no alien life forms come for us and soon we can see the clouds breaking apart overhead. Sharp rays of sunshine blast into the understory vaporizing the dew into swirling motes of fog.

Then the entire world explodes.

The sky is a riotously cheerful blue, chock full of the sorts of puffy white clouds Bob Ross would be proud of. An undulating breeze ruffles the tall grass and wild flowers throw their hands in the air as though celebrating the first day of spring. The world is a good natured snow globe of sunshine and warmth shaken by some small child to send hikers and runners streaming past us on the regular. As though everyone has recognized the gift that today is and rushed into the open arms of the mountains to celebrate.

All day we walk and stop, walk and stop as just around the bend another breathtaking vista slides into view. I am strong and the air is cool enough that I don’t sweat as the trail climbs 5,600 feet straight up into the open sky with her bright open face shining down on us. Below the trail pika chirp hypnotic and big wooly marmots whistle to one another. The marmots in this area are larger, with big manes of thick fur around their necks, so different from their California cousins. These northern marmots seem to say to us: enjoy the sun now you furless humans, for winter is on its way bringing snow and cold and dark to these lands. But not today. For today we scamper through the most perfect of days.

Though the marmots warning of coming winter can be felt in other ways. By four in the afternoon we are rounding the bend into camp and already the sun is growing long and warm. Remember when it was light until 10pm? I ask myself, what happened to those endless days? Without the warm haze of smoke the late afternoon sun is all the more apparent, the warmth of evening all the less artificial. And for the first time in a long while we throw the rain fly on the tent as we make camp. Fall is coming says the wind. Winter is coming says the marmot. And so we listen.

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.