Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (40 page)

As luck would have it, however, a few weeks before in southern Washington I had run into a couple at a campsite and asked them what northern Washington was like.

“It gets so cold and barren up there,” the lady had told me, “the deer come running up when you urinate. The minute you unzip your tent, they head straight for you.”

“Why?” I had wondered.

“The salt,” she had answered.

Thank God, she was right. Two deer came right up to my tent and began lapping away at the salty urine as I lay there in amazement. Other than that, it was an uneventful evening!

“Skywalker,” a familiar voice called out.

My heart jumped, at the sound of a human voice.

“Five Dollar,” I responded. “What the hell?” We had had these spontaneous run-ins all along the way. But this time was different. He was now headed southbound.

“I applied for the entry permit to Canada” he replied unhesitatingly, “but I’ve got way too many things on my record. So I had to hike out the way I came in.”

“You’re going all the way back south to Stehekin?” I asked in amazement.

“No, my girlfriend is picking me back up at Hart’s Pass.”

“Cool,” I said. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

“Pink.”

Pink.

“Hey, congratulations,” I high-fived him. “I remember she was at the top of your list. What happened to Hollywood (her prior trail boyfriend)?”

“Well, you know how it goes,” he laughed. “All I can say is that the last two weeks have been great (Unlike most trail romances, this one is still going).”

“Where are you going from here?” I asked.

“I met a guy on the trail back on the trail in northern California that offered me a job at his medicinal marijuana farm. He’s paying me $100 a day with a free place to live. Heck, I’m in.”

We exchanged info on water and campsites in each direction.

I’m old-fashioned in one respect; I rarely hug other males. But as we readied to depart for the final time, I felt this sudden urge to embrace, which I initiated. Off we went.

Some people just take longer to figure out. In retrospect, the problem may have been that I just haven’t seen many quite like Five Dollar. Maybe that’s my loss. He was one of the most authentic and honest individuals I’ve ever met.

John Kennedy once said of Lyndon Johnson, “It’s not so much that he’s a liar, as he doesn’t know how to tell the truth.”

Five Dollar was just the opposite. He didn’t seem to know how to even nuance or hedge, much less lie. It wasn’t always pretty, to be sure. But he wasn’t the type guy to keep you awake at night. Come to think about it, that is a general characteristic of the hiking population.

The West had had me off balance from the beginning. There was clearly a harshness and unpredictability that I was simply unfamiliar with (Perhaps I should have read the history of the Westward Exploration a little more carefully!). Intermittent negative surprises had set me back from the very outset. At this late stage, I had only one mission—get the ship to port; avoid blunders.

My stomach had sunk when Five Dollar had told me, “There’s a steep snowfield you’ll hit in a couple miles. Don’t try anything fancy.”

The northern Cascades have their own brand of beauty and treachery. Quite a stirring way to finish, if you beat the snow.

“You haven’t got to worry about that,” I had told him. I was moving along fine when the PCT cleared a narrow crest. I looked straight down at a packed field of snow and ice. A gunshot wind dominated the bowl-shaped landscape.
Damn.
This could be the game here.

I rushed back below the ridge line and hit my knees. Quickly, I put on additional layers, gulped down some food and advil, and said a quick ritual prayer for faith.
Where does the trail go?

“There’s a trail off to the left,” Five Dollar had told me. “Don’t take it. Trust me.” I started down to the right.

The first few steps were the most treacherous since the worst parts of the High Sierra. Getting off balance could easily send a person careening down the steep snow banks. But there was no alternative, so I dug my legs in as deeply as possible, hewing close to the ground. Gales of wind blasted me. Twenty minutes later I was at the bottom of the snow bowl, and felt like I might have just cleared a major hurdle.

Another complication immediately presented itself. I had been following Blue Eyes’ footprints intently the last few days, and knew the size and shape of them by heart. However, when the trail came to an unmarked fork, his footprints appeared to go to the right. But that led to a narrow ledge which couldn’t possibly be the PCT ( I would later learn that Blue Eyes, who was a truly brilliant outdoorsman, had decided to traverse this ledge as one last challenge). I anxiously studied this fork for several minutes looking for footprints. Finally, I very tentatively decided to go left, and was soon ascending up another snowy mountain pass. The only footprints in the snow were going southbound—presumably those of Five Dollar. These would have to guide me through these nether regions.

When I look back on my two long hikes on the AT and then the PCT, one of the things most strongly engraved in my mind is the all-out efforts late in the day. For a person to do big miles, these late pushes were absolutely necessary. I cherish the memory of digging deep to make these twilight surges. This was the last climb on the PCT, and looked like one of the most important of all. If I could just get to the top, it would be all downhill to the Canadian border.

The trail kept winding and winding through the snow. I fervently hoped no more surprises lay ahead—unmarked forks, footprints giving out, steep snow fields, whatever. The PCT serpentined all over the place. I had long since given up trying to predict where it would go. Finally, however, it appeared the trail was going down. Soon I spotted the welcome sight of the lake mentioned in the guidebook and the trail zigged and zagged in that direction.
Home free.
A few miles later at dark I found a flat spot right in the middle of the PCT, just three miles from the Canadian border.

The walk down to the Canadian border the next morning was dominated by an ice-cold wind. I tried all manners of wrapping clothing around my fingers to get them functional; but none were successful. The frost felt like it extended almost up to my elbows. I could take pride in one thing, though. I had definitely made the right decision 90 miles back at Stehekin to hike out ahead of the big group, which had spent the last few days following my size 15 shoe prints. Tonight the temperature was going down to 11 degrees with a chill factor well below zero.

Suddenly, I turned a corner and there was the PCT monument, which any PCT hiker could recognize in an instant. In trail town after trail town along the way, there had been photos of hikers celebrating at this monument, with the narrow swath of tree cuts separating the two borders in the background. The first few trail towns I had gazed at these photographs enviously. But then I had disciplined myself to quit looking at them. I honestly hadn’t known if I would ever make it this far.

I had probably worked harder to get here than for anything else in my life. Yet, it ended up not being very memorable at all. Apparently there was a trail register in some compartment of the monument. But even if I had been aware of it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to sign it. The motor skills of my fingers were virtually non-existent at this point. The main thing I was worried about was the eight miles to get to civilization at Manning Park. So instead of the customary border celebration, replete with hugs, kisses, merriment, etc., I took the standard five-minute break to gird for the 1,200 foot climb that lay immediately ahead.

That probably says as much about me as a hiker as anything else. It wasn’t pretty . . . but I got there.

Epilogue

Those who dream by day are cognizant of things which escape those who only dream at night.

Edgar Allen Poe

I
distinctly remember descending Mount Katahdin after finishing the Appalachian Trail and thinking, “This trail is a perfect match for me.”

Now as I loped north from the Canadian border on October 9, 2009, towards civilization at Manning Park, my train of thought was different. I had never developed the level of comfort with the PCT that I had with the Appalachian Trail. My inadequacies in matters ranging from gear to maps to camping skills had frequently stuck out like a sore thumb. So often I had been afflicted with uncertainty about what lay next.

Then there was this stark fact. I had hiked every single step of the 2,175 mile-long Appalachian Trail in 2005. Then I had spent the next few years with one overriding goal—to do the exact same thing on the 2,663 mile-long Pacific Crest Trail. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to completely pull it off. Due to my foot injury in the desert, the fires in northern California, and the snowstorm in northern Washington, I had to skip a total of 435 miles. That means I hiked a total of 2,228 miles, which was 53 miles more than I did on the AT. I lost 43 pounds to 33 on the AT. So, it wasn’t perfect by any means.

Yet when I’m asked the question, “Which trail did you like better—the AT or the PCT?” my answer is always the same.

“It would be like asking a parent to choose between two children. They’re very different, but I could never decide between the two.” It is an honest answer.

The PCT experience offers the priceless experience of intense immersion in the West. The overwhelming feeling is one of liberation, starting with the wide-open vistas, vast spaces, and majestic scenery. Better yet, the geography seems inculcated in the the western people, from their unhurried cadences and strides, to their healthy appetite for the new.