Back in the dusty darkness, I lit some candles, hung my pack from a ceiling hook, and then sat down at the wooden table to sign and read the hut’s journal. A note from Crazy Legs caught my eye.
“Y’all better hurry up because it’s getting lonely up here. Stop reading and start walking.”
I missed those guys and wondered whether we’d ever catch up to them. One of the difficult aspects of being part of the thru-hiking community was that after you made friends, your footsteps usually dragged you apart, some going faster, others slower, until what seemed like an unbridgeable distance grew between you.
“Chiggy, come to bed.” Duffy was already nestled under our green sleeping bag and brown fleece blanket on a mildewed mattress upstairs. I barely slept a wink that night as scratching and scurrying noises emanated from every corner.
To math teachers across the nation, thirty is just another number. But to many of us trapped in the ethos of a youth-centric culture, thirty comes on like a death sentence. Rational minds recognize that not much changes between twenty-nine and thirty, but it’s a turning point nonetheless. No more excuses—when you hit thirty, it’s for real.
I’d been wary of thirty. I wasn’t sure that I was ready. Was I strong enough? Would the burden overwhelm me? How much of the journey would show in my face? Would a thirty’s-worth of sun, wind, sweat, and dirt age me?
But then again, thirty is an achievement. And no true achievement is made without a little pain. You can run from it, hide from it, or deny it, but really, as a thru-hiker as in “real life,” you haven’t reached maturity until you get there.
At the time, I was still four years away from turning thirty years old. But on the seventy-first day of our journey, I struggled with a similar milestone—the thirty-mile day—and let me tell you, it hurt like hell. But I became a stronger hiker for it, and all subsequent thirty-mile days, like birthdays, were a little less painful—and a little less celebrated as well.
We hadn’t planned on doing a thirty that day. Sierra City was thirty-four miles away and we figured we’d be there for breakfast the following day, perhaps after a ten-mile morning hike. But by noon we’d cranked out twelve miles and the thoughts of cold beer, a shower, and a bed lured us onward.
Our descent toward Sierra City was steep. I knew that every step we climbed down would be matched by a more arduous climb up the Sierra Buttes on the other side. Bulging out of the mass of deep green trees across the valley, the Sierra Buttes looked like the naked humps of camels.
Contrasting with the green horizon, the ground beneath my feet was brown, covered in pine needles and cones. Occasionally an oak sapling pierced through the deep duff as it struggled skyward. Soon the trail turned from dirt to jagged dark rocks, which sounded like chips of pottery as my feet skidded over them. Evening was approaching, but the ambient air remained hot—hot enough that the pine needles were baking, filling my nostrils with sweetness.
The thirty-miler, I learned, is not only a physical test but also a mind game. To keep thoughts of quitting, insecurities, and fears at bay for thirty exhausting miles takes mental stamina and somehow, when physical energy wanes, cerebral energy does, too. I’d recently heard (on my portable radio) that as survivors of the Holocaust get older, their ability to bury painful memories weakens to the point where many find themselves reliving events they’d hidden deep in their subconscious. I found it interesting that the physical changes of aging affect selective memory. I think that a thirty-mile day can do something similar to the mind, bringing to the fore things you’d rather not think about because you don’t have the energy to hold them back.
That evening, while Duffy strode a hundred yards ahead of me, my mind was besieged by worries big and small. I worried about my credit card bill. I worried whether the extra jar of peanut butter we purchased in South Lake Tahoe would be enough food to stave off Duffy’s starvation. I worried about whether I was making my parents sad. I worried about what I’d do with my life after the hike was over. I worried about whether Duffy and I could survive the trials of the trail ahead. I worried about whether I was a good person or not, and I worried about the forest around me and about the greater Western wilderness it represented. Would it still be here for the next generation? I worried so much my head ached as much as my feet.
From Jackson Meadows to Milton Creek, the PCT meanders across 2,880 acres owned by the largest private landowner in the state of California—the Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) timber company. Growing on this private land are the biggest and oldest Douglas fir trees in the Tahoe National Forest. Remnants of old growth forest, some of these trees are six hundred to eight hundred years old. Regardless, the Milton Creek area could be logged by SPI at any time. Still, I harbored hope that SPI would protect the old growth trees and the aesthetic continuity of the PCT because it was the “right” thing to do. But such protection isn’t guaranteed, especially given the fact that the language granting the PCT an easement through SPI property preserves the company’s right to grow and harvest future forest crops. No one, according to Tim Feller, a district manager for Anderson, California-based SPI, said it would be a pristine trail from Mexico to Canada. Indeed, logging near Milton Creek began in 2002.
As we hiked in SPI territory, we passed many old growth trees. They were drenched in lime-green wolf lichen. Adrenaline and peanut butter carried us down to a green bridge over the creek. At about 8:30 that evening we crossed over that bridge and into long-distance hiking adulthood. We’d done our first thirty-mile day, but we didn’t linger.
With Sierra City so close, we decided to push another four miles. During those last four miles, my feet throbbed like they did on our first day. My hamstrings tightened like rubber bands stretched near breaking point, and my hands grew cramped around my trekking poles. The sun went down as we passed through the Wild Plum Campground and then the surrounding residential neighborhood. Dogs barked when they heard me stumbling over broken pavement, and Duffy glanced back to make sure I was still standing.
Finally, at 9:30, we reached the center of town, which consisted of a post office, a general store, and a few motels. We didn’t have energy for bargain-hunting, so we stopped at the first motel we saw, the Sierra Buttes Inn. We celebrated our first thirty-miler with a beer, lukewarm showers, and a soft bed, where I elevated my swollen feet and rested my weary, worried head.
Kicking Buttes
BY THE END OF JULY 17, our seventy-first day on the PCT, Angela and I had ample reason to be bursting with pride. We’d just walked thirty-four miles in one day, an effort that would legitimize us in the eyes of even the most hard-core long-distance hikers. Thirty-four miles, with oversized packs and medium-light technique—that was legitimate, all right. Thirty-four legitimate miles.
We should have been swollen and engorged with self-worth. The only problem was that I was too tired to feel anything—too tired to tell if my feet were throbbing or my shoulders screaming. Lying on our saggy bed at the Sierra Buttes Inn, I was too exhausted at first to even care that the kids next door were being utterly obnoxious, as only prepubescent boys can be. First, there was the running and bouncing around the room as if they were playing a game of duck-duck-goose. Then came the fake farts—a lyrical series of dry farts, explosive farts, fat and juicy farts. It was too much. I was forced to mobilize the only muscles I had that weren’t shut down with fatigue—those in my throat.
“Stop farting!” I shouted. “Stop right now or I’ll come over there and fart in your little faces!” Sweet silence, but for the scattered “Shh!” “Be quiet,” and “Shut up!” from next door. I blissfully sank back into a near sensationless state.
The human body is not designed to walk thirty-something miles in a day with a forty-to-fifty pound load. Such activity induces exhaustion, pain, and injury. We saw it frequently, hikers driven by re-supply schedules and competitive spirit to go beyond their physical limits. The first thirty-miler was always the most exhausting. Ron “Fallingwater” Moak, who’d recovered from cance
r to hike the PCT, described his experience in this way:
“When I did my first 30-mile day I finished it in extreme pain with a body racked by waves of cramps. I didn’t boast of my accomplishments; I was too busy trying to keep from crying out and disturbing everyone else’s sleep. Nevertheless, I was indeed proud. I was proud I was still alive. I was proud my body had recovered from cancer enough to carry me that far. I was proud that I pushed when I felt like giving up. I was proud because I knew that only a few short years ago hiking a few short miles was a major accomplishment. And I’d covered 33 in a single day.”
Given my fatigue the night of our thirty-four-miler, I would have never guessed that thirty-plus-mile days would soon become unremarkable occurrences, each becoming just another piece in our walk-to-Canada puzzle, our bodies adapting and responding to the crazy demands our minds had concocted. But, eventually and inevitably, the question would arise: How much punishment could we absorb?
A day after covering thirty-four miles we hiked a leisurely fifteen into the spires of the Sierra Buttes. Ahead was Mount Lassen, the first in a string of fifteen volcanoes that marked the remainder of our trek to Canada. We hiked through diverse country, moving high above the Lakes Basin, and were tempted with views of abundant lakes—Upper and Lower Sardine Lake, Packer Lake, Salmon Lake, and Gold Lake.
Gold Lake, which sits a few miles east of the PCT, draws its name from one of the biggest hoaxes of the California Gold Rush. Back in 1849, long before the 49ers won their first five NFL titles, thousands flocked to the Sierra Nevada Mountains looking for super bowls of gold. In this frenzied, get-rich-quick environment, rumors swirled of a magnificent lake with banks of gold flecks, speckles, and nuggets. The rumors began with a mysterious man known as Stoddard, who claimed to have found a “golden” lake somewhere in the Feather River Canyon. He’d been scared off by Indians before he could cash in, but now he was organizing a return expedition out of Deer Creek Dry Diggins mining camp. He gathered a group of five hundred men, promising wealth, riches, and early retirement. All that he asked for in return was a guide fee.
The expedition meandered the mountains for days without striking gold. Finally, the frustrated ‘Niners gave Stoddard an ultimatum: show them Gold Lake in forty-eight hours or they would show him how to hang from a tree by a rope. But the miners were not the sharpest picks in the mountains; not only had they followed Stoddard into the hills, but then they let him escape quietly out of camp with their money, never to be heard from again.
Miles were flying by so fast that scenery became a blur, an amalgamation of volcanic ridges and viewless forest. Our evolution into thirty-mile-a-day hikers was progressing rapidly, spurred on by mile-eating ambition. Two days after our thirty-four mile day we put in thirty to Black Rock Creek Road and now were on our way to another thirty-miler.
Toward midafternoon, our grumbling stomachs demanded that we detour to Lakeshore Resort at Buck’s Lake for a restaurant meal. We humbly acquiesced and began a three and a half-mile road-walk into town. I initially hoped that we might catch a ride, but after two miles of walking, arm and thumb extended, with trucks blasting past, I gave up and put on my headphones to find a baseball game. Soon I was in a radio-entranced zone, far away at Pac Bell Park, the smell of Giants franks wafting through the air and the crack of the bat ringing in my ears—that is, until I caught a glimpse of something completely unexpected. Angela was waving at me from the passenger seat of a caramel Jeep while speeding past at forty miles an hour. I waved back, wondering if they planned on stopping for me.
“Well,” I thought, “there she goes, left me for good . . . always finding a way to ruin a perfectly good ball game.” As the Jeep finally pulled over a couple hundred yards up the road, I remembered how a high school friend of mine used to pull over in front of hitchhikers and then, once they started running toward the car, hit the gas and speed away. Thankfully, no such treachery was in the works, and I arrived at the Jeep to find Angela laughing and the driver, an older woman with startling hot-pink lipstick, smiling.
“I saw you two from my porch and said to my husband, ‘Hmpf. He’s not even walking with her. Maybe I should pick her up and teach that boy a lesson.’ And so I did. Then I said to Angela here, ‘Now, when we drive by, you just smile and wave.’ ”
“Very funny,” I admitted. I didn’t mind having a joke played on me if it meant we scored a ride to the restaurant. Safely in the car, we shared our story with the woman, Babs, who immediately offered us dinner and a place to stay for the night. Normally we’d have dropped our packs on the spot upon hearing such a hospitable offer, but an impending trip to Pasadena (596 road miles away) for a friend’s wedding had put us on a tight schedule. We needed to be in Burney, 149 trail miles to the north, by July 26 in order to catch a flight out of San Francisco on the morning of the 28th. We’d struggled for weeks with the decision of whether or not to attend the wedding, but finally, at Lake Tahoe, we’d purchased airline tickets. It’d be unfortunate if the wedding caused us to miss miles, but we figured that we could always make them up some other year. We’d never have another chance to attend Tom and Belinda’s wedding. To get to Pasadena in time, we’d have to average twenty-five miles a day over the next six days. There would be few opportunities to bail out. I already doubted whether we would be able to make our deadline, and we certainly couldn’t afford an evening of indulgence at Bucks Lake. So we thanked Babs profusely for her gracious offer and settled for a bacon double-cheeseburger dinner at the Lakeshore resort.
After we’d each devoured a burger and fries, our waiter came by to ask if we’d like dessert. Why, yes we would. How about a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of Snickers for the lady and me? After polishing off our calorie-rich second course, we were back on the road to Buck’s summit and then up the trail for eight energetic miles.
Our extra effort was rewarded the next morning with an easy fifteen-mile hike to Belden Town. It was nearly all downhill, with the last six miles dropping us 4,000 feet via dozens of Ponderosa-pine- and Douglas-fir-sheltered switchbacks. We wound our way down to the tracks of the Western Pacific railway and then on to Belden Town, a small remnant of a mining settlement that sits abreast the Feather River.
We’d planned on blowing in and out of Belden Town, but a mailing snafu forced us to modify the plan: Our re-supply box was missing. We replaced most of our provisions from the hiker box and added some from the Belden Town store but unfortunately couldn’t completely replace our missing guidebook section. We discovered some torn-out pages of Section M in the hiker box, but after Burney, at mile 1,410, we would be guideless until we picked up our next box at the Lake of the Woods in Southern Oregon (mile 1,775).
By the time we’d figured out our re-supply situation and taken a dip in the inviting emerald waters of the Feather River, a sizable group of hikers had gathered at the Belden Saloon. The Moaks were there and so was Luke, also known as Amigo, a red, scruffy-bearded prankster from the Chico area. We’d admired Amigo’s trail register cartoons lampooning ultralight gear, witnessed his antics on Naked Hiker Day, and heard of his admirable “You pack it in, I’ll pack it out” approach to toilet paper on the trail, but we hadn’t actually spent much time with the guy. With a round face that was a natural extension of his wide smile and eyes that laughed along with his mouth, Amigo sported a perfect visual complement to his collection of jokes and stories.
“What did Sushi A say to Sushi B? Wasabi!” Our table, including the Moaks and a bunch of newcomers from Washington, chuckled in appreciation.
Amigo continued, “So, there are these two trees growing in the woods, and this sapling grows up between them. The one tree asks the other, ‘Is that the son of a birch?’ ‘No, it’s the son of a beeeeech.’ These two trees are debating back and forth like crazy until this woodpecker shows up. They ask him to settle the debate. So the woodpecker rocks over to the sapling and flies back a few minutes later. He says, ‘You’re both wrong. That’s not the son of a birch or the son of a beeeec
h. That’s the finest piece of ash I’ve ever had my pecker in.’ ” More chuckles intermixed with a few groans.
Someone asked Amigo how he’d received his trail name, and he immediately launched into the story.
“Okay, so I am at the Mexican border and surging with adrenalin. Not the quick surge, but the dose that keeps you rocking like crazy for . . . minutes. I’m belting out Lionel Richie, ‘Oh, what a feeling . . . I’m dancing on the ceiling.’ The first few moments on the trail were dreamy. The sun, the birds, the earth. Wow! And then I’m slammed out of my warm fuzzy moment by a piece of trash—just a quarter of a mile from the border. I pick up an empty water jug and then a discarded bread bag. ‘How dare they trash my trail,’ I’m thinking. And then it occurs to me that this isn’t hiker trash, but illegal immigrant trash. But I pick it up nonetheless. Soon, I come across a greasy white tee shirt. It must have been dropped by an illegal who was either too hot or didn’t want to be seen with a white tee shirt. Anyway, I pick it up and it says, ‘YO SOY AMIGO DE LUCAS.’
“It means ‘I’m Lucas’ friend.’ I have no idea who Lucas is, but still, it’s a rockin’ shirt. So I wash it at the kickoff party, and it becomes a big hit. My pal Hawkeye, the dude who used to be a prison guard, well, he starts calling me ‘Amigo.’ It stuck.”
More trail name stories ensued, and as Angela and I emptied a series of tasty pints it became apparent that the climb out of Belden would have to wait until morning. Over the last eight days we’d covered 194 miles, in the order of 15, 28, 27, 34, 15, 30, 30, and 15, and we were due to let loose. We stumbled out of the saloon and threw down our mattresses on the first patch of ground we saw, not noticing the significant slant of our campsite or its proximity to the railroad tracks. Shortly after we fell asleep, the Western Pacific Railroad, which has been running trains through Belden Town since 1903, ran yet one more—right through our campsite. Well, at least that’s what my confused mind thought. I awoke in a panic and jumped, on all fours, over Angela, like Spiderman ready to spring. How I planned to protect her from a hundred-ton train, I’m not sure. It was well past us before I relaxed my crouch, realizing that ten feet had spared me the messiness of a lopsided confrontation. Angela giggled drunkenly. For the rest of the night trains rumbled by every few hours, nearly imploding our eardrums with their chooo-choooooo’s.
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