Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail

by Bill Walker

  PCT hikers had been amazed back in the desert when we passed through thousands and thousands of wind turbines. “Hey, at least we’re trying something,” several people had remarked. Also, I had at first been confused in trail towns coming upon so many unflushed toilets (various signs overhanging the toilet recommended one flush every four urinations). My attempt to replicate this back home at my mother’s house was met with great ridicule from my mother! In any event, hiking the PCT fits right in with California’s next great revolution—energy independence. After all, who has a lower carbon footprint than a long-distance hiker?

  I had had a California deficit when I arrived in the state to hike the PCT, having spent a mere three days in my life in the Golden State. I had learned on the Appalachian Trail that the best way to erase a geographical deficit on your resume is to cover the place on foot.

  Now it was time to erase my geographical deficits in Oregon and Washington – neither of which I’d ever been to. There would be a great opportunity to do so, as 1,000 miles of traveling by foot lay ahead of me. Like all hikers, I greatly looked forward to it. The big question was whether I had enough time.

  Chapter 34

  An Eastern Man of the West

  No man can really understand our country

  unless he has the fullest and closest sympathy

  with the ideals and aspirations of the West.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  “Go West, young man. Go West!”

  Such was the spirit of the age in the latter half of the 19th century. Some of the most unlikely young men took this sentiment to heart.

  One of them was a sickly little boy from an aristocratic family in New York City. His name was Theodore Roosevelt. Young Teddy chafed at the restrictions of city life. He even attempted to self-educate himself about zoology on the streets of Manhattan, and resolved to learn the songs of every bird in Central Park. In middle-American terms, he could easily have been called a nerd.

  Roosevelt’s father spent a small fortune taking his family all over Europe to meet royalty and see the great cathedrals, castles, and museum. These were privileges most people could only dream of. But young Theodore became bored by it all. He wanted to prove his manhood. Deep down he thought his best chance to do this was in the West.

  What followed was a lifelong affair with the entire region.

  The more one studies Theodore Roosevelt, it becomes apparent that more than perhaps any other person, he embodies the American character, in both its strengths and weaknesses.

  For many people, both inside and outside the United States, the westward expansion is the most compelling part of the entire American epic. Behind it all lay Manifest Destiny—the idea that God willed that all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans belong to the United States. No one was a greater believer in this than Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt loved war, and actually thought the United States had not seized enough land in the Mexican-American War of 18461848. He even believed that parts that of the Canadian provinces were rightfully American.

  Roosevelt was a staunch advocate of the so-called strenuous life, and its cult of action, rough individualism, and adventurous romance. He worried greatly that with the frontier coming to an end, the American male would lose his virility. In its place would follow an “overcivilized man who has lost the great fighting virtues.”

  Roosevelt’s first trip to the West in 1883 occurred amid a backdrop of stunning devastation. The buffalo population had dwindled from 40,000,000 in 1800 to just 2,000 by 1883. The population of white tailed deer was similarly decimated, falling from 24,000,000 to 500,000. Nonetheless, Roosevelt gained a great sense of triumph by hunting and killing both.

  When Roosevelt became President in 1901 upon McKinley’s assassination, a few giant corporations (Standard Oil, railroad magnates) controlled huge chunks of the national economy. Worse yet, the nation’s wilderness was under unrelenting assault—woodlands being heavily logged, wetlands being drained, streams being fished out—especially in the West. The new western-loving president immediately decided to sharply change course.

  “A people without children would face a hopeless future,” he said. “A country without trees is almost as hopeless.”

  To Roosevelt the West—particularly the dry mountain air of the Rockies and the warm climate of California and the Southwest—was a cure for America’s industrial ills. He even predicted that someday the population of the West would equal that of the east of the Mississippi River (a stunning, but eventually true prediction).

  The federal government had to play the key role. Roosevelt decided it should take over ownership and management of public lands. His U.S. Forest Service director, the famed Gifford Pinchot, became the most powerful member of his cabinet.

  “The only time I ever see the President,” his Secretary of State Elihu Root lamented, “is when he comes rushing past me to get to Pinchot.”

  In Douglass Brinkley’s magnificent groundbreaking biography of Roosevelt, Wilderness Warrior, Brinkley colorfully shows how Roosevelt and Pinchot warred with all manner of special interests on behalf of wilderness.

  “Gifford Pinchot, the U.S. Forester, has done more to retard the growth and development of the Northwest than any other man,” fumed the Governor of Washington.

  In 1907 Congress, finally was on the verge of folding from the pressure of irate corporations and land developers. Just minutes before the congressional session began, however, Roosevelt signed an executive order setting aside 16,000,000 acres for the U.S. Forest Service.

  “The opponents of the Forest Service turned handsprings in their wrath,” Roosevelt chortled. Timber companies immediately sued and two cases went to the Supreme Court. The Court decided in Roosevelt’s favor in both cases.

  Roosevelt and Pinchot ultimately quadrupled the nation’s forest reserves. Altogether, 234 million acres of American wilderness were saved. Five national parks, including the scenically wondrous Crater Lake and Grand Canyon National Parks were established during the Roosevelt administration. For that reason, some have rhetorically referred to him as our first western President. His motivation was at least partly a competitive attitude towards our European rivals. In Roosevelt’s mind, our natural wonders offered greater national prestige than such European citadels of culture as the Louvre or Westminister Abbey.

  Historians have traditionally awarded its highest echelons to winners of wars (Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt) and practicioners of power politics (Jefferson, Reagan). For that reason, history probably hasn’t caught up yet with the drastic, long-lasting changes that Theodore Roosevelt’s administration wrought right here at home in our nation’s very geography.

  From a personal standpoint, I probably would not have the opportunity, along with many other Americans, to attempt a linear thru-hike through such breathtaking scenery all the way from Mexico to Canada, without the decisive actions taken a century ago by this eastern patrician, who so fell in love with the West.

  Chapter 35

  Uber Bitch

  Just remember this. Anybody’s personal quota of height-related question is three. So when the waitress at the lunch counter in Ashland, Oregon had violated that by at least double, I had a bit of an attitude. Then she asked me about bears.

  “The only thing you really need to know,” I spouted out “is that 83% of hikers are males, but 83% of hikers that get eaten by bears are females.”

  “Where do you get this bologna from?” a voice from behind me had immediately asked. I turned around and looked into the sunburned, freckly face of a dark-haired, middle-aged woman of indeterminate ethnic origin. The Long Island accent was unmistakable. So was her I-don’t-suffer-fools gladly attitude.

  After a bit of towel-snapping style back and forth between us, she introduced herself.

  “I’m Uber Bitch by the way,” she said. I noticed she looked directly into my eye when she made the introduction. Undoubtedly, she got some enjoyment out of studying the reactions of her fellow hikers u
pon making this introduction. My grade was probably about average.

  I waited a couple minutes before non-chalantly asking, “So, did you pick up your trail name at the Kickoff?”

  “No,” she replied matter-of-factly. “My husband gave it to me.”

  I didn’t have many complaints about the PCT. My biggest one was a bit counter-intuitive, in fact. There just weren’t enough crappy hikers out here. Actually, there weren’t any of these left at all. The PCT is no more difficult than the Appalachian Trail. But, it is more intimidating. Many had met their fate in the broiling desert. It’s too bad. Like bad students, bad employees, bad golfers, bad you-name-it, bad hikers are often the ones with the best senses of humor. A bigger concern than the lack of cripples, was that there weren’t enough average hikers out here.

  I kept running into this group—the famously libidinous, Dog Pack. There was nothing average about them, whether it be their hiking mileage, drinking and eating habits, sexual prowess (or so they claimed!), or hiking schedules. Actually, I saw them every day—sometimes several times. When they were actually hiking I couldn’t keep up with them. But they were prone to several hours of breaks per day, followed by night-hiking that often left them sprawled out on the middle of the trail where I would step over them the next morning. It worked for them, and they sure were colorful. But it never would have worked for me.

  At the big hiker hostel in the famous counter-culture mecca of Ashland, Das Boots cooked a fabulous meal for everyone. Miraculously, it was also healthy and, unlike hiker food which is almost all brown, all colors were represented. Das Boots showed his good humor by wearing a yellow-blazer, fessing up to the fact that he had hitchhiked (on the yellow blaze of the highway) most of northern California. Then he announced he was quitting right there in Ashland.

  I got to chatting with Uber Bitch again. She even dropped her ‘fess-up wiseguy’ attitude and leveled a bit with me.

  “I was hiking with my husband and stepdaughter every step of the way the first 1,600 miles,” she said. “But they both had to get off.”

  “Bummer,” I said.

  “Yeah, well he’s 70 years old, and kills himself out here,” she said.

  “Who’ve you been hiking with since?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” she quickly said. “Absolutely nobody. And I swear to God, within 200 yards of saying goodbye to my husband and leaving Seiad Valley, what happens? I run into a bear. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but you know how it is. When you camp alone, the phobias start to set in.”

  “Well, I know all the Dog Pack will find an excuse to stay in town another day,” I said. “But I’m headed out in the morning. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Alright,” she said.

  “How many miles a day do you hike?” I asked. In this case, it was not an egocentric question—just logical.

  “Twenty-five,” she stoutly said. She was fifty years old and barely over five-feet tall. I was almost 49, 6’11”, and sported a wasting away frame.

  “Yeah,” I replied, “that’s what I’m trying for too.”

  This conversation was to prove momentous for both of us. She later told me just how close she had come to throwing in the towel in right here in Ashland. And given that it was now August, and an early Canadian winter loomed, she would turn out to be just the right influence for me.

  If the sedentary lifestyle is your cup of tea, the Duck State is just not the kind of place you’d choose. The state’s outdoor culture is vibrant. Eugene, Oregon, in fact, may be the physical fitness capital of the world. Hood River on the other side of the state revolves almost entirely around water sports. And Oregonians like to hike. I liked that. By my lights, we got plenty of solitude in this continent-long quest, and it was good to see some fresh new faces.

  The mountain range is the Cascades. Most of these mountains are, in fact, volcanoes. Often you find yourself walking on the flotsam and jetsam of volcanoes that exploded millions of years back, and it has created a relatively level landscape. This was a PCT hiker’s chance to make up for lost time, or at least that’s what we’d been telling ourselves all the way through California.

  “I think it’s right up here,” I pointed to the driver chauffeuring us back up to the trailhead.

  “No, no, don’t listen to a word he says,” Uber Bitch jumped in with her saucy style. “Just keep going.”

  Oh boy, what’s this gonna’ be like.

  Uber Bitch and I set out together and hiked until dark. Again, the only place we could find to camp was a dirt road. You’ve got givers and takers in this world. Fortunately, it quickly became apparent she was the former.

  “Here go, that spot looks best for your long tent,” she said, offering me the only flat spot on the dirt road. I then introduced Uber Bitch to the routine of hauling logs out to cordon off the road, and she gamely took to that.

  “I’ll be off by 6:30,” she told me before getting into our tents.

  A lot of hikers say this at night (including, occasionally me), but 49% or less actually do it. Uber Bitch consistently did it. She wasn’t fast. She made up for it by an early starting time, cutting her breaks shorter than everybody else’s, and hiking until almost dark. It was an impressive effort to watch.

  In her favor, she did have some considerable outdoor experience to call on. Just a couple years back, she and her husband had ridden their bicycles around the world. She was also quite adept in map reading, and more than just in the conventional sense of not getting lost. There were long waterless stretches on the PCT in Oregon. But there were also many different trails to accommodate the denizens of this outdoor-mad state.

  “Hey,” she would point out. “We could take..” Next thing you know we’d be following some trail that often looked as much like a rabbit trail, as a hiking trail.

  “Are you sure this is right?’ I would ask.

  “Yes, look,” and she would show me the route.

  Very few of us were virgins at this point, and some of the PCT guidebooks even recommended these side trails as more scenic and less waterless than the PCT. Often these routes wound along lakes, which had me skittish. They were our water sources. But then I ran into a hydrologist on the trail.

  “I was a hydrologist for the state of California for thirty-six years,” he said. “I can assure you that lake water is a better bet than water out of any stream.”

  “Gosh, I had always just assumed running water was better,” I said.

  “No, all the animal excrement in the lake sinks to the bottom,” he answered. “but it can float along the top of running water.

  “Just make sure you filter it,” he added.

  Soon I became comfortable enough drinking out of these lakes.

  “Who is that?’ I yelled out of my tent.

  It had to be at least 3:00 a.m. in the morning. My tent was lying about a foot off the PCT (Uber Bitch was a few yards back) right where we had wound up at dark the previous evening.

  “Is that you Backtrack?” I questioned the person.

  “Yeah,” Backtrack answered. “Who is that? Skywalker?”

  “Yeah.”

  I heard others with him.

  “What the hell are ya’ll doing?” I asked.

  “Fifty-eight miles,” came another familiar-sounding voice.

  It was Hollywood, and I also heard Pink’s familiar cadences in the background. Pink and Hollywood had met early on in the desert, and hit it off immediately. For a basic reason. They both fit the right profile.

  Hollywood was in his late twenties, had studied acting in university, and aspired to greatness. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand why it had eluded him so far, given his matinee-idol looks and dry wit. Pink (always wore pink colors) sure hadn’t eluded him. She was in her early twenties and may have been the sexiest thing that ever walked on two legs. She practically worshipped the ground Hollywood walked on. Good for them. But, as was so often the case with trail romances, not so good for a couple folks back home.

  “I saw he
r making out with a different guy,” Uber Bitch had told me one day, after Pink and Hollywood walked by.

  “Must have been before she met Hollywood,” I said, confused.

  “No,” she said firmly. “Just recently. He was sitting right there watching.”

  Then someone had revealed the truth to us. This third person was Pink’s boyfriend back home. Hollywood had employed the same subterfuge. A couple weeks after Pink’s boyfriend had visited, Hollywood’s long-time girlfriend from San Francisco had arrived for a few days of hiking with her long-time mate. Pink, of course, became the supernumerary this time. On both occasions, Hollywood and Pink had introduced the other to their respective lovers, as a mere hiking partner.

  Not shocking news, of course, that this would all happen. The PCT is like Las Vegas, except more so. What happens out here, stays out here.

  “What time is it?” I asked Backtrack, Hollywood, and Pink, as I lay there in my tent.

  “4:00,” Backtrack asked.

  As I lay there groggily trying to hold up my end of the conversation, one thing was more than obvious. All three of their voices were soaked with adrenalin. Hollywood and Pink’s previous longest day was 24 miles. They had started hiking about 21 hours ago, and wouldn’t be finished for another 7 or hours; so technically, it wouldn’t be a 58 mile day.

  It was one heckuva’ effort, to be sure. But big mile days were the Great Talisman. For starters, hikers couldn’t resist bragging about them. Worse though, it took days to recover from the adrenaline hangover. The day-to-day grind became more of an uphill battle. Unfortunately, two of these three would become virtually disabled by this 58 mile Herculean effort. They would never be the same again.