Blistered Kind Of Love (6 page)

We finally touched down at the San Diego International Airport on May 7. We had made arrangements, using a Pacific Crest Trail email forum, for an ex-Navy commander named Bob to pick us up. He was to be our first “trail angel.” Trail angels are sometimes said to be the “unsung heroes” of the PCT, helping hikers with food, water, rides, laundry, showers, and much more. During the dark times, when hikers waver between continuing on and giving up, the support, encouragement, and “magic” provided by a trail angel can make all the difference.

Often anonymous, trail angels help thru-hikers for no other reason than, in the words of one angel, “the satisfaction of helping another human being . . . making their journey better and in the process becoming woven into that journey.” Frequently, trail angels find spots where hikers are liable to run into trouble and then, like magic, solve the problem—for instance, by providing water in the desert. In this way they seem like guardian angels, appearing just when they are needed most.

In Bob's case, this meant picking up hikers at the airport, giving them a place to stay, and then driving them to the trail's southern terminus, near Campo.

We rescued our packs from the strap-eating conveyor belts at baggage claim and, exhausted from the previous day's preparations as well as the cross-country flight, staggered outside into the bright southern California sunshine. Bob was already parked at the curb, his minivan sporting a
Pacific Crest Trail
placard.

“Welcome to paradise!” Bob exclaimed when he spotted our bulging packs, trekking poles, and Duffy's
Lawrence of Arabia
-like sun hat. Beckoning us, he grinned and shouted, opening his thick arms out wide to reveal sweaty armpits and a sumo wrestler tummy.

At Bob's bungalow we made ourselves comfortable on the patio, spread our gear around us, and began to meticulously weigh the pros and cons of each item one last time. Pieces of gear deemed worth their weight were carefully positioned in our packs. Discarded stuff went into Bob's “hiker box.” Hiker boxes, we learned, could be found at popular re-supply locations up and down the trail. Although they were always called “boxes,” they often weren't boxes at all but rather barrels, bags, or buckets. Though their shape and size varied, their contents quickly became predictable—discarded hiker junk. Heavy, tasteless, and mysterious grains, socks, old shoes, used paperbacks, multi-vitamins, and leaky sandwich bags filled with more anonymous grains. Bob's hiker box contained all of the above as well as shampoo, candles, and
corn pasta
.

“I couldn't find this stuff anywhere!” I exclaimed. “And they're throwing it away?”

“Must taste terrible, ‘cause everybody leaves it. Do me a favor and get it outta here,” said Bob.

Duffy gave me a look that said, “Don't you dare.” He'd never been very enthusiastic about corn pasta, and he'd seen me cry over the weight of my pack more than once. Sitting in the hot tub with his pony-size golden retriever, Nugget, Bob watched our preparations.

“Don't be scared of illegals,” he said suddenly. “If ya run into any, just grab your camera, pretend it's a cell phone. They believe three things about America,” Bob gestured to the southern horizon. “The cops are always around the corner, everyone has a cell phone, and that those phones always work. If they think you're calling the border patrol on ‘em, they'll skedaddle.

“Also, you should know that there's been some talk of killer bees coming up from South America.” Bob was stroking Nugget's big wet head and seemed to be talking more to him than us. “But no hikers have been stung yet, so you should be okay. Watch out for the rattlers, though; there's a lot of them out this year. I've always wanted to kill one and eat it myself; heard it tastes like chicken. By the way, what would you like for dinner tonight? Last real meal for a while. . . .”

We decided to head to our favorite fast-food establishment, Jack in the Box, and piled into the car. Over burgers, fries, and strawberry shakes, Bob told us about a hiker he'd dropped off just a few days earlier, Ricky Rose. Ricky carried a sixty-pound pack containing a cell phone and global positioning system (GPS), as well as a bulletproof, rubberized laptop. I'd worked hard to get my pack down to thirty-five pounds and still winced under its weight.

“You'll catch up to Ricky in no time,” said Bob. “Can't miss him. Skinny, bushy beard, big pack.” I wasn't sure that such a description was going to be much help. It seemed like that's what all male thru-hikers might end up looking like.

During dessert, Bob advised us to also keep a lookout for Bruce, a middle-aged gentleman who suffered from Parkinson's disease. Bruce's goal was to hike the length of the California Pacific Crest Trail, a distance of more than seventeen hundred miles. This despite the fact that he'd been suffering from Parkinson's for fifteen years and was receiving progressively less relief from his medicine. To prolong the pills' benefits over the long-term, Bruce took them only twice a day. On the trail, this meant he'd have an hour and a half in the morning to break camp, put on his pack, and get going before the onset of incapacitating tremors, slowness, and clumsiness. After his evening dose,
he'd have another symptom-limited hour and a half to set up camp, cook, and get into bed. In between, he would lack the dexterity to perform simple maneuvers such as adjusting his pack straps, unwrapping a Power Bar, or tying his shoes. By comparison, my worries seemed minuscule.

Following dinner we returned to Bob's house for an early night. Lying on a twin bed in Bob's teenage son's room, I listened to Duffy's rhythmic breathing. Our last few days at home had been hectic and I knew I had to sleep, but my mind was racing. Had I packed enough dried milk for the three or four days it would take us to reach Mount Laguna, the first town along the trail? What if the seasonal creeks dried up? When would we see our first rattler? How did illegal immigrants survive out there without maps and gear? What were my parents doing? Tears welled in my eyes, as they often did when I thought about my mom and dad. Guilt weighed on me heavier than a freshly loaded pack. “Soon,” I thought, as I drifted into a tumultuous, shallow sleep, “just a few more hours and then I'll disappear into the wilderness.”

I'VE BEEN TOLD
that when breaking in a pair of leather hiking boots, it's best to proceed with caution. Wear them around the house a couple of times, then maybe wear them for a day in the office, and finally take them out for a series of three- to five-mile hikes. In theory, the leather should slowly soften and mold to your feet for the perfect fit. Sure sounds comfortable, but I've never met or heard of anyone who has successfully bent the will of a pair of new leather boots. On the contrary, boots typically bend the will of feet by inflicting torturous hot spots and blisters. Perhaps it's this fortitude of spirit that warrants their status as expensive retail items.

Similarly, the southern PCT doesn't break thru-hikers in easily; instead, it begins with fifteen dry, waterless miles through high desert. But heat and lack of water aren't hikers' only concerns—there are also rattlesnakes, mountain lions, killer bees, and illegal immigrants to worry about. Thirst, fear, and pain will greet you on the PCT, and like a good ol' pair of leather boots stuffed with callused, hoof-like feet, they'll stay with you until you've been thoroughly broken in.

On the morning of May 8, we traveled east toward the small California border town of Campo. For weeks I'd been preoccupied with trail worries, but on this morning fear took a backseat to grogginess. It was 4:45 in the morning and we were whipping along the dark curves of Highway 94 in Bob's Dodge
van, feeling slightly ill from breakfast sandwiches and frequent stomach-revolving shifts in direction. We'd had a short, fitful night of sleep; excitement, nerves, and strange surroundings made us fidgety, so much so in Angela's case that she sat bolt upright in bed at about 12:30 in the morning and chirped at me to get moving. She chirped and chirped, despite my pleas for her to consult her watch. At last, after a dozen or so chirpies, she checked the time and reluctantly lay back down.

Angela and I weren't the only ones on the groggy side. Bob was making the pre-dawn trip to Campo for the twenty-second time that spring (we were his thirtieth and thirty-first hikers), and the cumulative effects had made him a little sleepy—sleepy enough to disregard a sharp curve in the road and take the Dodge screeching into the oncoming lane. Luckily, Campo to San Diego isn't a big commuter route, and there wasn't any westbound traffic to collide with. Our only fatality was Bob's mug of coffee.

Fifteen minutes later, Bob pulled the van up next to the wooden PCT monument, which stands twenty feet from a corrugated steel fence marking the Mexican border. Running alongside the fence is a well-maintained dirt road used nightly by Border Patrol officers to scout for footprints. The monument itself was a cluster of five rectangular pillars of varying height with a series of inscriptions that read, “Southern Terminus Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail,” “Established by Act of Congress on Oct. 2, 1968,” “Mexico to Canada 2627 Miles 1988
A.D
.,” and “Elevation 2915 ft.”

It was cold and windy and we were anxious to get started, so we snapped a couple of photos, said our good-byes to Bob, and then were off toward Canada—a mere 2,655 miles away (the trail has grown by twenty-eight miles since 1988). As we set out from the border, I wore a pack containing our tent and ThermaRests, five days' worth of food, a gallon of water, and an assortment of personal items. It had weighed in at fifty-three pounds that morning on Bob's scale. Fifty-three pounds of pressure on my shoulders and hips wasn't so comfortable—about as comfortable as sitting next to an eight-hundred-pound dairy cow for a twelve-hour Greyhound ride. But for the time being, the discomfort of a heavy pack was superseded by the excitement of starting our great adventure.

We moved at a steady pace over undulating trail in the face of blustery winds, which stirred up clouds of caramel-colored dust. My nose caught an occasional whiff of sweet sagebrush. Every so often, I glimpsed suspicious pieces of litter—juice cans and candy bar wrappers with Spanish lettering, ragged blue jeans, an Oakland Raiders baseball hat. There were no signs of those who had discarded these treasures, but I assumed they weren't fellow hikers. I'd done enough research to know that very few long-distance hikers wear blue jeans or Raiders paraphernalia.

A week before our departure from Philadelphia, I'd read an account of a hiker who, while walking at night, was chased by a gang of men. He avoided capture by locking himself in a small shed. The assailants didn't give up, however, and spent an hour attempting to break in while the frightened hiker (who happened to be an ex-marine) braced himself against the door. As morning broke, he burst from the shed, brandishing a knife whittled from wood and raced away from his tormentors. Despite the fact that this assault occurred in Chariot Canyon, some sixty miles north and a three-day hike away, I was fearful of a similar confrontation. Bob had asserted that the Chariot Canyon attack had been perpetrated by local “yahoos” rather than illegal immigrants, whom he thought were “much more interested in avoiding hikers than in stealing their stuff.” That didn't help much. Illegals and yahoos? I didn't want to try my luck with either of them.