Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (22 page)

CanaDoug didn’t seem to harbor the anti-American resentments or chip-on-the-shoulder syndrome we so often see in our northern cousins. But, at the end of the day, he was a Canadian to the core.

“Do you want to share a room?” he had asked me back in Independence.

I had hesitated before finally answering, “Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to this night for eight days. I’m gonna’ stay alone.” A rare trace of un-pleasantry had flashed across his face. Deciding to get a single room had seemed like just one more decision, amongst the countless decisions you face as a long-distance hiker. But my impression was that to CanaDoug, this was a breach of faith. Canadians are more communitarian than Americans. Perhaps I had violated some cultural taboo. Whatever the case, he hadn’t been treating me the same way since.

Now, we were approaching Mather Pass together. As was our custom, he led and I followed. Since “the incident” in Independence he had instituted a new custom of blasting fart after fart right up at me. We were outdoors and they were harmless, to be sure. But it was done in a disrespectful way, as opposed to the usually playful hiker flatulence (Yes, I know this all sounds a bit esoteric!). He also had newly established his ‘500 foot rule’. For each increase of 500 feet in elevation he would stop, lay down, and take a cigar and food break. Of course, this was all completely his prerogative. But it only made sense to have a hiking partner getting through these snowy mountain passes in the Sierras. He knew this, and seemed like he was enjoying throwing me off balance a little bit.

“Wow.” I said looking at the steep granite wall over to our left as we zeroed in on Mather Pass. “That had better not be it.”

“We’ll see,” CanaDoug said.

The day before we had debriefed several southbounders coming off Mather Pass about what lay ahead for us.

“It’s a bit
gnarly,”
a couple of them had reported. The way they furrowed their brows worried me. I would soon come to hate this word, gnarly, even more than the word sketchy.

The trail turned right and I breathed a minor sigh of relief. But then to my consternation, the trail bent sharply left and we were headed straight at the granite wall. Mather Pass was on a shelf a few hundred feet above us. Between here and there were nothing but
rock scree
and snow.

“So this is what those assholes meant by gnarly, huh?” I angrily bitched. It was impossible to find the actual PCT. It was buried in the snow somewhere, but who knew where.

“We’re gonna’ have to go up,” CanaDoug said.

“Where?” I asked anxiously. “That’s much steeper than anything we’ve ever climbed.”

“You’ve gotta’ grab the scree and pull up using it.”

“Man, this is dangerous as hell,” I said anxiously.

“Just watch me,” he said.

CanaDoug started grabbing rocks and hauling himself slowly up. I followed. It was steep and got steeper. It also was a lot longer climb than it had appeared from the bottom.

“Watch out, Skywalker,” he said. “These rocks are loose.”

Just like on Forrester’s Pass, my anxiety got the best of me, and I kept hurrying right up to CanaDoug’s heels.

“Watch it Skywalker, these rocks could fall. Get back.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I’d pull back, but not for long. It was impossible to stay calm on a hill this steep. The rock scree we were using as stepping stones weren’t firm. It didn’t take much imagination to conjure up a catastrophe scenario. Finally, CanaDoug got to the top. The very last ten feet were the most difficult for me.

“No, no, this way, Skywalker,” he said.

I was plenty lucky right here. Since it was the last step I was able to take off my backpack and lob it up to the shelf, and then haul myself over.

“Good job,” CanaDoug said.

“What do you reckon was the angle on that slope?” I asked. “Honestly?”

“Maybe 50 degrees,” he answered.

Lauren came up last in an agonizingly slow ascent. Lauren was only 17 years-old with a Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm innocence about her. Unlike me, though, she was calm enough to take it slow and take breaks. Finally, after almost a half-hour of holding us in suspense, she pulled herself up. We had all gained Mather’s Pass, where we looked down on another heavily snow-laden field laced with hiker footprints.

I sure was glad my Canadian hiking partner had put on his benevolent leader hat again. The high snows of the High Sierra had this lanky Georgia boy psyched out.

Chapter 23

Just a Survivor

L
auren and I (see
first chapter
) stood halfway down the north slope of snowy Muir Pass, trying to figure out how in the world to get out of here. It was the third of July.

“I’d give it a 60% chance the trail continues down through those lakes to the valley, a 30% chance it goes straight up these mountains, and a 10% chance it does neither,” I told Lauren. Silence.

We had essentially narrowed our options down to two choices—climb the steep mountain ahead or descend through the lakes to the valley. The great problem is that at least one of these two options was drastically wrong and would lead to completely unforeseen consequences.

The high snows (summertime included) of the High Sierras were at turns laborious, exhilarating, terrifying.

“I doubt it goes up that mountain,” she finally said.

“I tend to agree,” I said. “But it did go over something just like that two days ago at Mather Pass.”

I’ve been involved in the stock market most of my adult life. The cardinal rule is that when everybody agrees on something, they are almost always wrong. Hopefully, decision-making in the mountains would be different!

“Why don’t we head down through the two lakes,” I suggested.

“I think it might be on the left,” she said.

“But remember back at Pinchot Pass,” I countered. “The descent
slooked
through all those lakes.”

“Yeah,” Lauren said skeptically. “I think it might run to the left of the lakes.”

“I don’t see where,” I said.

“I think I see it,” she said evenly.

“Where?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, look down where the snow runs out,” she said. “Isn’t that the PCT?” Sure enough a footpath that looked like the PCT ran along the bank of the left lake.

I had been gravely worried for the last several hours that we were seriously lost; so I was going to be the last person to realize we actually weren’t lost. I hurriedly stumbled over rocks to get to the trail. “Yeah, this looks like it,” I yelled back to Lauren, and rushed ahead. “And there’s Pat.”

“Who?” she yelled forward, jokingly.

“This way, this way,” Pat started directing the two of us over yet another stream. “That rock, there, there.” He was being unusually attentive. It had been about eight hours since he’d last seen his
mapless
hiking partner, Lauren. Perhaps, he was feeling guilty. If he was, he knew just the way to make it up.

The three of us hiked together to the banks of yet another gorgeous alpine lake. There Pat pulled out a fishing line he had been carrying in his monstrous backpack. Fifteen minutes later, he was back.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“Heck, yeah,” he chortled. “I caught seven fish. Your line drops the minute you throw it in.” We all went scavenging for wood and soon had us a roaring fire. Pat cooked the fish, wrapped them in tinfoil, and said, “Skywalker, you’re first.” He handed me two steaming fish.

“Oh, come on, I didn’t do anything,” I said.

Needless to say, it was just a pro-forma protest. I hadn’t eaten anything hot in several days and was running low on food again. In comparison with hiker food, this tasted like the ambrosia of the gods.

I had never even been on an overnight hike until I was 44 years-old. It showed in my often erratic emotions. By contrast, I had started playing golf at age six. I instinctively knew that adversity was part of the game, and usually kept my cool no matter how I played. Maybe days like this would help me grow up as a hiker.

“Two cannibals are having lunch together,” I said to HWAP. “One is complaining about the food. What does the other person respond?”

“Beats me,” HWAP said.

“‘Well then’, he advises ‘just push your ex-girlfriend over to the side of the plate and eat your vegetables’.”

HWAP gave the obligatory laugh which encouraged me to continue.

“Why don’t cannibals eat divorcees?”

“Got me again,” HWAP said.

“Because they taste so bitter.”

Yeah, I know. But give me a break. Over the course of more than 2,600 miles anybody is bound to go cold for awhile. At least these lame, but morbid, jokes had a context. We were all running severely low on food.

Nobody had enough to get to the next town, Mammoth. So everybody was hoping to get to a resort called Vermillon Valley Resort (VVR). However, this required taking a side trail for two miles off the PCT, and then a catching the twice-a-day ferry to the resort. VVR offered a free first beer to hikers, before ripping us off on whatever items we needed for re-supply.

I had broken camp early and was hiking full speed, hoping to make the afternoon ferry. Surprisingly, I had run into HWAP. Surely the reader has already figured out that HWAP stands for Hooker With a Penis. It was obvious. Right? But in case it wasn’t, you’ve got company. Honest to God, I must have asked him four times how the heck he ended up with that trail name. He patiently explained it every time, but I never really understood the derivation. All I know is that Das Boots (whose trail name derived from the German-looking jackboots he wore) gave it to him, and it stuck. Remember, we’re out here a helluva’ long time.

HWAP was in his mid-twenties and ex-military. Actually, he was such a strong hiker that I had never expected to see again. But he had come down with a severe case of
Giardia
(an intestinal disease from drinking contaminated water). Water treatment is always a bit of a roll of the dice. I had been so mesmerized by the rushing white-capped streams at the high elevations that I had just been sticking my bottle in and drinking up, without treating it with chemicals or filtering. So far, I had gotten away with it. However, HWAP had done the same and been laid low.

Because of the extra couple days it took him to get through the Sierras, his food supply was running dangerously low—some peanuts and raisins. I needed to make it to VVR today. He had to make it. We were moving pretty good, and as was usually the case when you haven’t seen somebody you know for awhile, we were vigorously gossiping about what our colleagues were up to.

“I didn’t think we had a climb here,” I said surprised.

“Yeah, there’s a climb,” he said calmly.

It was a heckuva’ climb. Next thing you know, we were scaling rock walls and jumping streams.

“Man, I’ve got doubts this is it.”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t,” he said.

Unfortunately, I ended up being correct and we had to retrace the steep terrain we had just ascended. Now we were at risk of missing the ferry.

“Man, I’m really sorry,” HWAP said.

And—even more impressive—he would later take responsibility for it in conversations in front of others.