“Wait, I think I heard something. It kind of sounded like a bear!”, I interrupt my friend
and hiking partner in mid-sentence as we hike riverside through berry patches.
Trying to convince myself it was probably just a very loud fart (though it sounded roar-like), I notice large, deep, high, fresh cut in a tree trunk. “Renee, are those bear claw marks?” I ask, already knowing
the answer. The markings may as well have come from a textbook.
My first reaction is to get the %$#& out of there, but
fortunately for my readers , Renee's is to take a photo.
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| Photo credits to Renee B. Davis |
We fast-walk through wooded brush, nervously laughing
and recalling song lyrics so as to make noise. “They” (Whoever "they" are) say
singing prevents you from giving the bear a startle. It is also a good stress management tool for humans fleeing bear country. Because, come
on… It is kind of funny to breathily sing terrible wilderness karaoke while
fleeing from a possible (but potentially nonexistent) bear.
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| Photo Credits to Renee B. Davis |
Once we attain position away
from obvious bear food and water sources, my fight-or-flight response eases a bit. I am amazed at how relaxed and energized I feel having already re-balanced to an equilibrium state. "So this is what the human stress response was designed for", I think to myself. It works so well in the context of the
thing it evolved to accomplish. Unlike when stress is triggered by missing the bus, being late for work, getting cut off in traffic, or navigating a tenuous social situation, the
stress response actually feels GOOD when applied to a real fight-or-flight
situation. (Or at least a perceived one, since we don’t know for sure how close
the bear really was).
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| Photo Credits to Renee B. Davis |
As I mentioned, Renee thinks that an appropriate response to a possible bear situation is to whip out her
camera and I think that running away is the right thing to do. So it is
around this time that we earn our “trail names”. She will hereby be referred to
as Photoshoot, and I have earned the name Footloose. You see, the Pacific Crest
Trail (PCT) is a 2,650 mile route from Mexico to Canada which takes about 4 to 5
months to complete on foot. It has a culture and convention of its own which
includes trail nicknames for those who choose to spend months of their lives on the trail. Photoshoot and I are only hiking a 75 mile section of the
trail from Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass in Washington. But we deem ourselves
to be nickname worthy nonetheless.
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| Photo Credits to Renee B. Davis |
We thoroughly enjoy meeting the “SOBO”
through-hikers who have already been on the trail for several weeks by now. SOBO
refers to “south-bound” as opposed to those who begin at the Mexican border,
hiking NOBO (north-bound). The SOBOs have their own subculture within the PCT
ecosystem. SOBO is supposedly more difficult with more snow travel toward the
Canadian border. One has to hike faster to get through the California Sierras
before it is too late. SOBOs tend to be more the Lone Ranger type, while NOBOs are supposedly more like party hikers. This effect is expected to intensify next year when the Reese Witherspoon
movie, Wild comes out. Wild is based on a book written by a completely inexperienced solo
female NOBO hiker who details mostly preventable trials and tribulations resultant from her complete lack of preparation and knowledge. The
hardcore SOBOs complain about how stupid the book was and lament the upcoming movie release in anticipation that it
will cause the trail to become overcrowded. I was irritated a little when I read Wild, too. But I
secretly wonder if I would have been more forgiving if the protagonist had been
an over-confident male instead of a clueless female. I conclude that I too am
probably guilty of double-standards and hypocritical thinking.
Setting the stage for the intensity
of the SOBOs to come, we first meet a yet-to-be-nicknamed solo guy who said he was behind
schedule. He recounted falling down a snowfield close to the Canadian border where he busted open his knee and subsequently super-glued it together. I file away the information that superglue is a substitute for stitches.
The knee, he said, swelled up and was infected so he had to exit the PCT to go to the
ER. After that, he returned to the trail but started over. Restarting at
the same place he left off was apparently not good enough for that guy.
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| Photo Credits to Renee B. Davis |
Next, we meet Suzanne, a solo
female SOBOer from San Francisco. We initially had taken bets on how many though-hikers we would see. We bet 12 and saw 15. Renee had bet that we would see one solo female hiker, and I was pleased to be proved wrong on my bet that we wouldn't see one. Suzanne seemed calm and even-keeled. Almost all
the PCT through-hikers have an aura of calm and peace about them as if they have been in
the wilderness for so long that nothing can faze them. They appear to already be perfectly adapted
to the trail such that there is nothing left for them to worry about.
Metric and Sticks are a couple
from Australia and Saint Louis, respectively. They met two years ago on the AT.
(That’s the Appalachian Trail in ultra-distance hiking speak, by the way. The
AT is the East Coast’s PCT counterpart). They hooked up on the AT and have been
together ever since. They are an adorable, if quiet couple. Oh, trail romance. I guess that is a thing, too.
Shortly thereafter, we meet the (apparently) notorious
Sideshow, so named because of all his crazy side hobbies such as unicycling and
beer brewing among other things. He went from being a computer programmer to
working construction… Or at least that is what I gather; he is kind of in a
hurry. Not so much on the trail as in life. He has somewhere to be and I suspect this to be his usual state of affairs. We later learn from speaking with other hikers that Sideshow has a reputation as
being a little crazy. At first, he set out to complete 40 miles per day on the
trail!
This is one of the fun things about the PCT—talking to hikers about
other hikers. Often, they want to know how far ahead or behind they are
relative to someone else. It is fun to see who knows who. This is how the PCT
community is built; through word of mouth.
After a mosquito-ridden stream-side lunch, we meet Mud and Bug, another
couple. They nearly catch me "using the trowel” (my new euphemism for “using the
toilet”). Fortunately, Photoshoot diverts them with questions and (in her usual manner) genuine interest in them. They had found a
lone sock on the trail and are trying to track down its sad owner. If one
were to lose a sock on a 2,650 mile journey, it would be sad, indeed. They
ask about Metric and Sticks and Sideshow.
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| My sexy bug net. Photo Credits to Renee B. Davis |
We attempt to give a Danish guy
the trail name “Smiles” because supposedly Denmark is the happiest country on earth.
I’m not sure if that will stick. We meet Bat Country (a reference to Hunter S.
Thompson). But the further north we travel, the less likely it is that hikers have yet earned their trail names, because they haven't been at it long enough.
We find it easy to differentiate SOBO through-hikers from loop or
section hikers like ourselves; by the time a through-hiker sees another person, they generally
want to talk because they have been alone for so long. Whereas section and loop hikers maintain the element of
non-trail societal norms of ignoring other people. Furthermore, shorter-distance hikers carry a
lot more crap than those who bare the burden of a pack for a ridiculously long
time.
There are few people under 25 on the trail and few over 50. But it is easy to spot which
generation a person belongs to by their shoes (but not necessarily by their body, since everyone out here is fit and young-looking). People 45 and over almost
exclusively wear big, heavy, sweaty, blister-inducing overkill high-top hiking
boots. The younger crowd wears lightweight trail runners or other low-top shoes. I
guess my generation thinks the risk of ankle-rolling is not enough to warrant
the weight and discomfort of boots. The PCT is so well graded and is such a
nice walking surface that boots hardly seem necessary. Plus, wet clonkers are a
detriment to the feet after a river crossing….
…Oh, the river crossing. For a
few days, we have been hearing about “The River Crossing”. Big, tall guys have indicated that they had been up to the waist in fast moving waters. They perform strong-arm motions with their trekking poles, indicating that it had taken all
their strength to anchor themselves for the crossing. Both of us have hiked
in New Zealand where there is a river crossing approximately every kilometer. So we sort of dismiss these alerts. People like to over-dramatize and over-warn.
Especially to two giggly, outgoing women who are probably more experienced and
intrepid than our wide doe eyes reveal…After a very long 15 mile day
when I was already hangry (hungry-angry), exhausted, and shaky, we reach The
River Crossing. I suspect that through most of the year, the river is tame. But this time of year with the freshly melted snow, it looks straight up intimidating. It is more of a waterfall crossing than a river crossing. Now I see what all those guys were saying!
Renee
plunges ahead, gallantly trying to appear calm and in control for my benefit.
She starts to step out from the protection of a boulder into what looks like
relatively clear waters. But it is deceivingly swift and deep. I might have been chest-deep and
crashing down-river in a moment if she had let go of the rock and pushed on. We make a
split-second decision to return to shore. In this situation, you
don’t have a lot of time to make a choice. If you stand around thinking, you could freeze in the glacial waters. If you fail to think at all, you could be
swept to certain injury and possible death. We reroute to a
whitewater section which looks even worse but is actually much calmer.
White water means air bubbles and air bubbles mean that the water is hitting
something; either the bottom or debris on the river floor. We find our
footing braced against a downed tree hidden invisibly beneath the rush of water. It can be touchy to brace the feet against debris due to the risk of getting them stuck, exposing one's self to a possible ankle break if the current hits in just the wrong way. In the end, I am only thigh deep and the current is not that bad. Sometimes it pays to be female without strength and size to
burn. Women just have to make good decisions, and that is that. We feel so excited,
high fiving on the other side. Our blood still churning from adrenaline. After hiking alone so much earlier this year, I can appreciate having someone
to share moments like this with—both to dissipate the fear response and to celebrate the excitement of
accomplishment.
That night, we are so hungry
that we eat a four year expired pack of freeze dried beef stroganoff. It is foul, but we are tired enough to eat it and not do anything about it after
discovering how disgustingly old it is. It takes an hour to hang
the bear bags with our food at night. We laugh our way through it,
motivated by our earlier bear encounter. Hanging the bear bags by
rope over a tree branch is one of those things where you will either laugh or cry. Because at that point in the day, we are too tired to have any other reaction
to something so frustrating. For example, there was that time
when we had to hang the stupid rope in the rain. We probably ended up getting
it onto a branch that was precisely at bear-nose level, but we decided it was good enough. Do through hikers deal with this every night? I bet they just say "screw it" and hope for the best.
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| Photo credits to Renee B. Davis |
On what turns out to be the last of four and a half days on the trail, we meet a father-daughter Duo, Dwight and Sally. They are unusually
friendly section hikers, doing the opposite north-to-south section as us. If
Renee has not already earned her trail name, Photoshoot by taking approximately
750 photos in 4.5 days (Which by the way works out to 10 photos per mile, or
one photo every 582 feet or one photo over 3.75 minutes if you assume 10 hours
of hiking per day…. Yes, I had plenty of time to calculate these facts), she
earns her nickname with these two. Upon learning that Dwight and Sally have forgotten the memory card to their camera, Photoshoot is so upset by the
prospect that these perfect strangers are unable to take photos that she pulls out a baggy containing 5 memory cards and 3 extra camera batteries. She
insists that they take not one, but two sixteen gigabyte memory cards. They
promise to mail the memory cards back (with photos!) and they donate a beer
to us which they had carried up the mountain pass. Photoshoot is thrilled, and I am once again amazed at her generosity and ability to connect with and trust random strangers (which says a lot of her people skills coming from me. I usually pride myself on my ability to talk to strangers, but I've got nothing on Photoshoot in this regard).
Offhandedly, I
ask how many hours they had hiked since they left (since they were doing the
opposite of us, I innocently wanted to know how far we had left to go). Only
6.5-7 hours to go, we learn. It is only 11:30 am. We become stupidly over-inspired to finish the hike that day! Never mind that we have already hiked 5 hours in the morning as we make this decision.
Never mind that finishing means a 25 mile day over four mountain passes
with packs that still contain 2 days of food weight leftover. But folks, this
is exactly what we do.
For a few hours, epic-tastic alpine lake/mountain pass/wildflower/snow-capped peaks/greenery inspires me along. Somehow, Photoshoot manages to continue snapping shots while keeping up with my brisk pace, albeit in a yo-yo pattern. As my feet deteriorate further from the stress of the descents (I've only been backpacking for six months, after all), I find another stash of persistence tucked away in the form of a great music playlist, using my remaining phone battery. We enter a slightly smokey area from the Leavenworth wildfire, but luckily it is raining lightly, which helps to clean the air.
In the last five miles, all hell breaks loose in my body and I feel stupid for pushing myself so hard. I've run out of places inside myself from which to dig deep. There is nowhere good to camp and we are so close to the end. My feet
are in horrendous pain so that I am literally sobbing and shuffling my
feet in baby steps. This is all I can manage. Somehow, we do it, though! We
basically hike a marathon distance with heavy packs over a significant
elevation gain and loss. I am a stinky, hot mess, but we do it. When we reach the car, I collapse into a puddle on
the ground and bawl my eyes out for a minute. It was just too hard for me.
Eventually, physical pain conquers positive thinking and, I have crossed
that threshold and then some. But you know, crying is a little like emotional sweating
and sweating is supposed to be good for people, right? The relief at taking my shoes off is unbelievable. Photoshoot later admits to having been tired, but I am unable to detect visible signs of this. I am fairly convinced it is impossible to tire her out through hiking.
Soon thereafter, Photoshoot’s eternally positive outlook combined with a cheeseburger and milkshake win me over and we laugh about how stupid we had been to think we could hike so
far in one day. before this trip, the longest I'd ever done in a day was about 15 miles.
The
next morning we awake to reports that there had been thunder, lightning, and
suspected mudslides in the mountains. We feel less stupid about our over-zealous mileage day, as we melt into the couch in warm, dry pajamas with hot
coffee and scrambled eggs at my parents house.
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| My token "behind the waterfall" picture. |
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| Photoshoot's photo of me taking my token "behind the waterfall" picture |
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| This is not "THE" River crossing. Just a smaller, cold crossing where an old bridge once stood |
