Blistered Kind Of Love (28 page)

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 cancer 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
beeeech
. 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
.