Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (36 page)

“I’m gonna’ hike all the way through Washington without spending a dime,” Pretty Boy Joe immediately announced.

“What, are you gonna’ re-enact the Donner’s Pass episode?” I responded. But, of course, he was serious, as we would soon see.

The rest of us mortals, though, had a critical planning calculation to make. We had to buy all the food we would need for the next 500 miles here in Cascade Locks. Adding to the complication was the fact that the grocery store here in Cascade Locks wasn’t very large. Actually, I had always found that wandering through grocery stores in trail towns was a bit of an unnerving experience. Decisions you make in there will have direct tangible effects on your physical persona and morale a few days hence. The first 2,000 miles had worked out pretty well. I had cut it close plenty of times, but never completely run out of food.

On second thought, however, maybe it hadn’t worked out so well. I was down 45 pounds from my initial starting weight of 213.
How big of a problem is this?

“When you start smelling something like ammonia, you know you’re burning muscle,” one hiker had told me back in California. That had sounded just too strange to be convincing. However, a few hundred miles back, I had indeed begun emitting an
ammonia-like odor
that, even in my most narcissistic state, wasn’t very fond of myself.

Now, I joined other hikers scurrying around fretting over just how much food to send. The grocery store didn’t have everything I wanted, which meant improvising. Eventually, I spent $300 on just about the most boilerplate food you could imagine, including 28 packs of Idahoan potatoes.

A matter of hot debate amongst hikers was which post offices to send food shipments to in Washington State. After much agonizing, I sent out food drops to four places: White Pass, and to the post offices at Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and Stehekin (If you don’t think the Indians have any grievances, take another look at those names!).

Valhalla, however, harbored the general European prejudice against American over-consumption, especially overeating. He was betting that food would appear somewhere in this food-crazy country.

“I’m not sending any food drops,” he declared. “I refuse to believe there is anywhere in America where there is not a lot of food.” He later ended up having to “borrow” some food from me.

Valhalla, Pretty Boy Joe, and I then dodged traffic in both directions as we crossed the densely-girdered
Bridge of the Gods
that led over the Columbia River and into Washington State.

Oregon’s speedway quickly gave way to steeper, more jagged terrain. Autumn offered brilliant hues and bracing air. Our food bags were full and I had good hiking partners, as the northern cascade range loomed ahead. It was all perfect.
Pleeeeez hold off, old man winter.

Within three days we had gone from 150 feet sea level to back up over 7,000 feet at Goat Rocks Wilderness. The sharply angular mountains and bleak landscape immediately brought to mind the White Mountains in New Hampshire. At turns, I found myself ecstatic and horrified. On the way up to the crest we came upon yet another glacier that required tortuously slow walking. It seemed so simple, yet was so icy. It didn’t take a great imagination to envision sliding helplessly hundreds of yards before careening into a backstop of rocks.

Fortunately, CanaDoug was a day behind. He always got this gleeful Canadian joy out of demonstrating his alpine prowess, and then lighting up a cigar and watching me flail awkwardly through snow and ice. Again I managed to make it through another glacier field, although my technique (deep crouch and claw for a grip) wasn’t getting any more aesthetically pleasing.

We wound and wound around to the top and beheld one of the great views on the Pacific Crest Trail. To me, singular views are somewhat overrated. The more profound experience is to walk through nature and subconsciously embrace its holistic majesty. But the view from the crest of Goats Rock Wilderness, with its sharp spine running along for miles between deep canyons and snow-capped peaks in the distance, was one for the ages.

Luna, my tormentor, but ultimately my inspiration, on Mount Whitney was on hand to enjoy it. She now had a new hiking
partner.
Like a lot of the girls I’ve seen on hiking trails, Luna was a pretty good
picker.
She had traveled long distances with two older guys who had practically maimed themselves struggling to keep up with her. Both had been on their best behavior, but 500 miles seemed to be about the shelf life of her tolerance for these followers. At that point they helplessly became
personas non-grata.

What had happened was pretty simple and, if you think about it, forgivable. In Oregon, Luna had gotten what movie director, Spike Lee, might call
jungle fever.
She had sprung for what was probably the most impressive physical specimen of male out here. That was 21 year-old Waffles from rural Tennessee—he of the long hair and ripped physique. Luna was a handful, to be sure. But Waffles had the confidence to fill the vacuum. However, other hikers suddenly began blowing a lot of flak his way. Unfortunately, he occasionally used the
n-word,
which opened him up for all kinds of condemnation. As a southerner, I’m always sensitive when a fellow southerner exposes his horns this way.

“Just because you’re a southerner,” Backtrack lectured him one day, “doesn’t mean you have to be a racist.”

Regrettably, I also had used this nefarious word on occasion while growing up. So I was in no position to lecture him, and actually got along with him pretty well. In reality, I thought there was a more basic reason Waffles was drawing fire from his colleagues.

He had scored with Luna and they hadn’t.

Valhalla and I came to a bluff described in our guidebook as
bleak alpine campsites.
They couldn’t have described it more appropriately.

“I think I’ll camp here and walk around taking photographs,” the sophisticated aesthete announced.

“I’d never be able to stay warm here,” I said. “Plus I need to make more miles.” With that, I headed off as fast as I could.

The best thing to do when alone is to hike. With the mindset I was in, it was inevitable I was going to hike until dark almost any day. A half-hour before dark, I would start actively looking for places to camp. But then I would get
mileage greedy.
Whenever I spotted a decent camp spot in the next twenty minutes, I would briefly hesitate before saying to myself,
five more minutes.
Hikers frequently lamented, “Every morning after I turn the first corner, I come right on a spot that would have been perfect.” The moral of the story, according to thru-hikers anyway, was to eke out every last minute of daylight until the perfect spot presented itself. But the law of averages also says you’re going to get caught in some awful places to camp with this mentality.

As dark descended here, I knew I was in an unfortunate area. After dropping sharply from Goats Rock Pass, the trail had then ascended 1,600 feet. Now I was stuck on top of a narrow ridge without tree cover or any possibility of a flat spot. I was also bone-tired, not having seen a trail town for almost a hundred miles. The only thing to do, though, was get back below tree line. Fast.

It became spooky dark, but I finally got back below tree line. I was very aware that this is the type situation that one is likely to have a surprise encounter with a wild animal. I kept banging my ski pole loudly on trees, and singing an atonal version of Otis Redding’s Sittin’ on the
Dock of the Bay.
Finally, after going my maximum speed in the pitch black dark for about an hour, the trail came to the bottom of an undulation. There wasn’t anywhere wide enough to throw down a tent. So I just lay down on my sleeping bag and pad in the middle of the trail.

But that’s where some animals often prefer to take nighttime excursions. That keen awareness marred my night’s sleep. Valhalla, meanwhile, had enjoyed a blissful alpine afternoon, gotten a good night’s sleep, and soon caught up with my dragging
keisters
on the trail the next day. In this instance, at least, his less frantic European style had proven more adept than my more grasping American attitude.

“Man, what’s happened to you?” Dirk said.

“What do you mean?” I laughed.

“Where did the rest of you go?”

We had by chance run into each other at the country store at White Pass, where everybody was inhaling containers of ice cream and bartering parts of our food packages we had all picked up here.

These impromptu observations were standard trail fare. You would see somebody you hadn’t seen in a couple weeks—in some cases just a few days—and immediately notice part of them had wasted away. Unfortunately, I seemed to be on the receiving end of a disproportionate number of these remarks.

I honestly didn’t feel like this large-scale weight loss had affected my actual hiking, except for late in the afternoon when a persistent fatigue would set in. Its major effect lay in loss of insulation and ability to stay warm. My arm muscles had atrophied, and any chest, stomach, and shoulder mass had wasted away.

“That’s scary,” Poet had unhesitatingly said when she saw me changing shirts at a campsite way back in northern California. And the problem had only gotten more acute since then. In fact, it was reaching the stage where I was finally ready to play a
wild card.

All along the Appalachian Trail, and now on the PCT, concerned fellow hikers had suggested in low voices, “Have you ever tried olive oil? It’s absolutely packed with calories.”

It sounded awful. Nonetheless, I had filed it away mentally as a last resort when nothing else worked. Now that time had come with a vengeance. At Cascade Locks, I had sent a container of olive oil here to White Pass. Despite weighing just a few ounces, it contained almost 4,000 calories. I threw it into my backpack.

I tried to view it like taking an asthma shot—something unpleasant I had to do. From here on out, I didn’t take a bite out of anything without lathering it with olive oil. I was pleasantly surprised. I had expected it to be absolutely horrible, but it was merely bad. Better yet, I could actually feel it working. It had a rich body to it that average hiker food lacks, and I immediately felt like I was gaining strength (and flatulence!).

The first thing I did at the end of the journey was weigh myself; I had lost 43 pounds, which meant I had actually
gained
two pounds in Washington State. Miraculous.

Chapter 40

The Northern Cascades