Out There

by Chris Townsend

  In Europe there are long distance paths known as E routes, made by connecting shorter trails, such as the 4960 km E1 from Sweden to Italy and the 10,000-plus km E4 from Spain to Greece. These routes sound interesting; the names are not. More attractive and romantic names would make these routes far more appealing. Britain has no waymarked or official ultra-long distance paths but Land’s End to John O’Groats can be seen in the same light, especially now there are guidebooks to suggested routes and it’s possible to link shorter paths almost the whole way.

  The most ambitious long distance path of all is the International Appalachian Trail, which is intended to run through all the landscapes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean that were once part of the Caledonian Mountain range that split apart as the Atlantic formed. This means a trail running from the south-east USA through Canada, Greenland, Norway and the Scottish Highlands to finish in Spain. As an international endeavour the IAT cuts across governments and nation states and speaks to the shared values of all walkers.

  The considerable length of a long distance path means protecting or creating a continuous corridor over a great distance, rather than just an isolated spot. Official government involvement can mean something other than signposts too. Officially designated long distance paths are not necessarily superior in any way to unofficial ones. In fact, they may involve compromises. Because of landowner objections, the Pennine Way follows the South Tyne Valley rather than the northernmost summits of the Pennines. In Scotland the finest long distance path is undoubtedly the unofficial Cape Wrath Trail. But once government has made a path official its agencies are then meant to conserve and promote it, agencies which can be pressured if necessary, for the benefit of us all.

  In my view the main value of long distance paths is to open up nature and wild places so people can enjoy them. For many, the human side of long distance paths is as or even more important though: meetings along the way, the sharing of experiences, new friendships and reunions. Today, descriptions of walks along the 4,160km (2,600-mile) Pacific Crest Trail (arguably the finest of all the ultra-long distance paths) can sound like a party on the move. When I hiked the PCT in 1982 there were only a few parties and not many people at them!

  Away from the trail long distance paths can act as a shorthand amongst walkers. Establish you have both hiked the same long distance paths and new acquaintances suddenly have much to discuss. Long distance paths are a wonderful resource for dreaming and planning and poring over maps as well as for actual walking, but I think they also have a greater value and significance that reaches far beyond those who walk them. By revealing the beauty and glory of the natural world and the wild land they run through, they create a body of people to defend and protect that land. A named path gives identity and meaning to a landscape, a focus that makes it easier to argue against despoliation and for preservation and restoration. People who love that particular long distance path are motivated to fight for its continued existence, which means protecting the landscape through which it passes.

  The Pacific Crest Trail

  Some trails linger in the mind. For years afterwards memories of them surface, bringing delight and sometimes intense reflection. Lessons and rewards can still be coming through years later. Such trails can become benchmarks against which other journeys are measured and, for me, the Pacific Crest Trail is one. Running for 4,160km (2,600 miles) from Mexico to Canada through the states of California, Oregon and Washington it traverses the Mohave Desert, the High Sierra, Yosemite National Park and the strato-volcanoes of the southern Cascade Mountains before finishing in the spectacular alpine landscapes of the North Cascades.

  For the backpacker who loves wilderness and pristine landscapes it is arguably the ultimate trail, the trail that sums up everything backpacking is about – freedom, adventure, self-reliance, inspiration, beauty and wild nature.

  Hiking the PCT is an ambitious and challenging undertaking but not an overwhelming one. It may be rough in places and steep in others but there is an actual footpath the whole way. The trail reaches over 4,000 metres in the High Sierra and remains above 3,000 metres for many miles. Temperatures can range from well below freezing at night to over 40°C. Snow may be lying in the mountains at the start and fall again at the finish. Thunderstorms can crash round the peaks and rain lash down. Mostly though, the weather is benign with warm sunny days, light winds and little rain. The window for hiking the trail is six months at most however, unless you want to deal with winter conditions. Take four to five months and there’s less chance of encountering snow at all.

  My PCT journey lasted from early April to late September, a walk that took me from a desert spring back into winter in the mountains and then spring again and summer in the forests before finishing in the colours of autumn and the first storms of winter. En route I would watch a vast wilderness unfold and see black bears and rattlesnakes, moose and coyotes, strange Joshua trees in the desert, giant firs and pines in the mountains, smoking volcanoes and bubbling mud pots. I would experience searing heat, deep snow, tremendous thunderstorms and dangerous fords. I would learn to carry a gallon and more of water in the desert, the hassle of hanging my food to protect it from bears and the need for snowshoes or skis when hiking through deep, soft snow. My pack would be heavy, my feet often sore and my skin burnt and frozen but at no point would I wish to be anywhere else. The beauty, tranquillity, power and magnificence of the landscape would overwhelm all difficulties and discomforts.

  With all this still ahead I shouldered my new pack at the Mexican border and walked into the dusty desert scrub. Tense with anticipation and excitement, in the first few days I learnt two quick lessons. Deserts are hot and dry even in April and just half a litre of water was inadequate for a day’s hike. Drinking deeply at every water source and carrying several litres was essential. The second lesson was that my hot and heavy mountain boots were more comfortable in my pack than on my feet and that my light, cool running shoes, brought as camp and town wear, were much better for hiking.

  I did need the boots eventually though, as it was a late snow year. The snowfall pattern is something that prospective PCT hikers watch with trepidation in the months building up to their hike. In many years most of the snow in the High Sierra is gone by late May, when hikers starting in early April usually reach the mountains. In 1982, though, heavy snow fell late in the spring and lasted well into June.

  There was snow lying in the Transverse Ranges that the PCT crosses in southern California too and I had my first taste of the laborious and slow activity of postholing in the San Bernardino and San Gabriel ranges. I was clearly not going to make it through hundreds of miles of snowbound High Sierra like this so I bought some snowshoes and also teamed up with three other hikers for safety. Even with snowshoes and skis it took us 22 days to traverse the highest section.

  With 23 days food plus snow and ice gear my pack weighed over 100lbs (45kg) when we set off. It must have been horrendous to carry yet I have no such memory. Instead, thinking of the High Sierra conjures up images of spectacular and beautiful mountains with lovely pristine natural conifer forests round their flanks and frozen lakes nestling below rocky ridges and jagged peaks. I remember wonderful camps on the edge of the forests and in remote corries with nothing but the wilderness all around. I remember climbing with crampons and ice axe up hard steep snow and staring down at more lakes, more forest, more mountains. On snowshoes I crossed dazzling white meadows and even forded open streams. Day after day this glory continued, the wild beauty seemingly endless and perfect. The wonder and adventure, the gloriousness of being in this snowy wilderness, has remained. Any pain I felt from the heavy pack is long forgotten and was well worth suffering.

  Crossing the snow was arduous but not difficult or particularly risky until the thaw began and for six days in the backcountry of Yosemite the going was extremely tough and hazardous. Those days are probably the most dangerous backpacking I have ever done. Every creek was a deafening mass of white water. Some we crossed on
precariously balanced logjams, others we forded roped together, struggling to keep our feet in the freezing, sometimes chest-deep waters. Surviving was enough, and my memories of this section are all of fear and relief. I can recall little of the landscape and my photographs of the mountains don’t stir any thoughts.

  After this excitement the snow-free walking in the gentler more rolling hills and dense forests of Northern California and Oregon was welcome. After 2,400 kilometres the PCT left California for Oregon, where the walking is perhaps the easiest of the whole route, with many level forest trails. The volcanic landscape was still impressive though: the pristine blue waters of Crater Lake; the spiky rock fangs of Mount Washington, Mount Thielsen and Three-Fingered Jack; the rippled peaks of the Three Sisters; and the bigger volcanoes of Mounts Jefferson and Hood, the former set in beautiful timberline meadows. Oregon ended with a descent to the Columbia River via spectacular Tunnel Falls where the trail is cut into the side of a gorge and passes behind a tremendous waterfall.

  From the Columbia River the PCT enters Washington, the last and most rugged state. Fine grey dust coating the trail in southern Washington came from Mount St Helens, which had erupted two years previously. This is not a stable landscape. Beautiful Crater Lake lies in the caldera of a once-massive volcano that long ago blew itself away. One day Mounts Adam and Rainier will erupt again.

  The PCT finishes with a flourish in the alpine North Cascades where it dives and swoops over steep ridges below a tangle of savage glacier-clad rock peaks. The climate is less dry than further south and I endured many rainy days and the first snow of winter. There were also glorious days in bright sunshine with open slopes red with autumn colours and the larches in the forests glowing gold. Rain and mist accompanied me on the final day and I reached Monument 78 marking the border with Canada in a storm.

  I didn’t mind. I’d been privileged to spend nearly six months backpacking through some of the most magnificent landscapes imaginable. I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend the time. I still can’t. Since the PCT I’ve hiked many trails in many places from Arctic Norway to the Himalaya, from the Yukon to Corsica, and all have been worthwhile in different ways, but none compare with the PCT for sheer magnificence over such a long distance. It really is the backpacker’s ultimate trail.

  The Continental Divide Trail

  Watersheds have always fascinated me, whether little ones with the water running away into two different valleys or big ones dividing mountain ranges and countries. I really love the idea that two little rivulets starting close together can end up in different oceans. When I followed the watershed of the USA, the Continental Divide, from Canada to Mexico I was fascinated to discover that, for a short section, the trail followed a little creek along the watershed in the Teton Wilderness to a spot called the Parting of the Water. Here North Two Ocean Creek splits into Pacific Creek, which runs 2,177 kilometres to the Pacific Ocean, and Atlantic Creek, which runs 5,613 km to the Atlantic Ocean. Standing by the creek high in this remote wilderness I watched the water divide, the place symbolising the complexity and structure of the landscape.

  On the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) I also discovered that watersheds are nothing like straight lines. At one point in the Never Summer Wilderness in Northern Colorado I was walking north while following the watershed south as it makes a double hairpin bend here. That watersheds stay high and follow the crest of the land is a main reason they appeal to me. That they writhe and wriggle and don’t follow obvious lines also appeals.

  For 4,800 kilometres the CDT follows the watershed of the USA, down the Rocky Mountains from Canada to Mexico. The idea for a trail on or close to the Divide was developed in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily by a hiker called Jim Wolf, who founded the Continental Divide Trail Society and wrote the first guide books. Even today the trail is not complete, but when I hiked the trail in 1985 it was in its infancy. Guide books only existed for the northern half and even these gave only a suggested route. For the southern half I just had some sketchy ideas from Jim. With just four parties completing the Trail in the five years before my hike, it was a challenging venture. Much of the route I planned from maps, but adapted on the ground.

  The Rocky Mountains are an overlapping series of different ranges rather than a single continuous whole. Indeed, in central Wyoming they fade away altogether, leaving a hot dusty desert basin to be crossed. The beauty of the mountains means that much of the route is in national parks and wilderness areas where the landscape is unspoiled. In the north, in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, there are few people and the CDT runs through some of the remotest country in the lower 48 states. Colorado is more populous but people disappear again in the southernmost state on the route, New Mexico.

  I first heard about the CDT when hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and the idea of spending many months on another long trail in spectacular wilderness country immediately appealed, as did the idea of walking the watershed of the USA. As I’d walked from Mexico to Canada on the PCT walking back to Mexico on the CDT seemed the obvious thing to do. The length of the route and the height of the mountains meant snow would be encountered somewhere along the way. By starting in the north in late spring I hoped to have a snow free trip after the first month or so, even though I would encounter the highest terrain in the Colorado Rockies in autumn when it might be falling again, as indeed it did.

  A companion from the PCT, Scott Steiner, accompanied me for the first 350 miles after which I hiked alone, meeting few others, sometimes no-one for many days at a time. Scott’s company was welcome at the start as we tackled the snow and steep terrain of Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. High avalanche danger and several fords of deep rivers made this a dangerous beginning and I was grateful to reach the stony slopes of the arid Scapegoat Wilderness. There are grizzly bears in these mountains and for half a day we followed fresh tracks in the snow, tracks that had started just a few hundred yards from our camp.

  The trail through the Northern Rockies is a glorious procession of pristine forests and magnificent alpine mountains. The remote, little-known Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, where I often hiked cross country, still hang in my memory as tremendously wild and exciting. Completely different is the Yellowstone backcountry, away from the popular tourist spots, where quiet forest is punctuated by thermal basins with bubbling mud pots and splashing geysers.

  The Northern Rockies terminate in the glorious Wind River Range, and here I abandoned the suggested route for a higher one that stayed above timberline, a wonderful walk below the dramatic summits past a series of beautiful alpine lakes.

  The Great Divide Basin, which separates the Northern Rockies from the Colorado Rockies, is curious because water that runs into it does not run out again but disappears into the arid heart of this semi-desert. The Continental Divide splits and runs down each side of the basin.

  For nine days I followed the eastern edge, a hot, dusty walk in flat sagebrush country that made me glad to reach the cool forests and the mountains of southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. Not many days back into the mountains and the snow began however, making the walk through the southern Rockies difficult and slow, especially as initially I was hiking in running shoes without ice axe, boots or gaiters. Even so the hike was spectacular, especially in the Front Range where I followed the Divide over the summits of many 12,000 and 13,000 foot (3,650-4,000m) mountains.

  Blizzards and a ford of the Rio Grande saw me out of Colorado and into the lower, drier country of New Mexico. Here the Rockies dwindle away and the Divide makes its way across rocky mesas and stony deserts. Just north of the Mexican border I climbed into the frozen, icy Mogollon Mountains to stand on rocky summits and camp in high pine forests for the last time. My very last night, though, was spent under the stars on the desert floor, a peaceful camp where an owl watched me from a yucca plant. At the border I remember touching the fence and pausing, sad that my adventure was over. I’d been in the wilds for 179 glorious days, my longest ever walk and a
n experience I have savoured ever since.

  Walking the Munros and Tops

  The Munros and Tops (separate 3,000 foot (914 metre) mountains and subsidiary summits as listed in Munro’s Tables) have been part of my life since I climbed my first one in 1977. Quickly hooked I then undertook my first round of the Munros, which took five years and involved several long backpacking trips including two 800 km ones and the first two cross-Scotland TGO Challenge walks. Fifteen years after completing that round I set out on a continuous round of the Munros and Tops.

  My inspiration for these walks came from Hamish’s Mountain Walk, the story of Hamish Brown’s 1974 continuous walk over all the Munros, the first time this had been done. I’d always intended following Hamish over the Munros, though not by his exact route as I wanted my walk to have some degree of uniqueness to make it interesting and unpredictable. Then I read in Andrew Dempster’s 1995 book The Munro Phenomenon (it’s really time for a revised edition) that although a dozen or so people had done continuous rounds of the Munros no-one had included the Tops as well. I had a goal and a challenge.

  When I set out on this venture as well as the long Munros walks I had done six backpacking trips of over 1,000 miles (1,600km) so I was quite an experienced long distance walker. Even so I hadn’t really grasped just what linking 517 summits in one walk would involve. My other 1,600 km plus walks had been linear , didn’t include many summits and the routes could be varied to allow for stormy weather. The most Munros I’d climbed in one walk was 92 on an 800km 35 day trip from Corrour station in the Central Highlands to Ullapool in the Northern Highlands. That June walk was tough with clouds down on the tops on 23 days, though it rained only on eleven, but it was barely over a month long. With over four and a half times as many summits to climb, the Munros and Tops walk would be much longer. Including the Tops was to have more of an effect than I realised as they are often a fair distance from the parent Munro and many require out and back trips. Including them increased the interest and intensity of the walk along with the difficulty.