Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (5 page)

“Where is it?” Ralph sounded uncommonly agitated.

“Hell if I know.” Finally, after surveying the ground a few minutes, Ralph decided to try to bolt past
wherever
it was. Just as he started, I saw it.

“There it is,” I shouted. “Under the rock.”

“Sounds like he’s over there,” Ralph pointed at a rock

“Yeah, he’s going down a hole,” I reported. Ralph started high-stepping to minimize any potential contact.

“I think he’s under that rock,” Ralph yelled.

“No, no, I’m looking at him,” I said excitedly. “Look, look.” Soon, the snake had fully slid down the hole.

“I don’t hear him anymore,” Ralph said confused.

“He went down a hole under a rock,” I said relieved.

“Which rock do you think?” he asked.

“No, no, I actually saw him! That rock.”

“You saw the rattler?”

“Yeah, definitely a rattler.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you saw it.”

“No worries,” I said, in a worried tone.

We were seeing everything from blue jeans, to sweaters, to jackets thrown into bushes on the side of the trail.

“Why would somebody get rid of their clothes this early?” I wondered, as we kept seeing garments strewn off to the side of the trail.

“For good reason,” Ralph said knowingly.

“Oh, yeah,” I caught on. Illegals were stripping them off. This not only helped them cool off, but confuse the border patrol as well.

A person could credibly argue that these people were the best hikers on the trail, given their lack of top notch gear, as well as obstacles faced. But this desperate act of border running shouldn’t be glorified one bit. In most cases they risk their lives (approximately 500 illegals per year die in the act of crossing) to get here for one simple reason—economic desperation.

To grow up in Mexico is to have
size envy.
All their lives Mexicans hear tales about the fantastically rich colossus to the north. Specifically, what they hear is about the imperial power stealing one-third of their country in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). It is historically more complicated than that for the simple reason that Mexico had just obtained these lands itself, upon gaining independence from imperial Spain. They were thinly populated with Mexicans. But Mexican schoolchildren aren’t taught that.

There is a common saying in Mexico:

“There is water down at the bottom of this hill,” Ralph said.

“Maybe,” I cautioned. Here in the desert, it seemed especially important to be conservative.

At the bottom, we found several thirsty hikers, but not even a trickle. The creek bed was dry as a bone.

“Is this the water source?” Ralph asked, incredulously.

“Are you completely out?” asked one hiker.

“No,” I responded. “We both have a little.”

“Good,” he responded with a tone of irony. “We don’t need any more drama.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Did you guys see that helicopter come in here earlier?” Ralph and I looked at each other confused.

He then related the tale of two brothers who had gotten here earlier in the day without any water. In fact, they were already badly dehydrated upon arrival. The older brother was apparently in such bad shape that the younger brother (19 years-old) had gone running and calling all over the place trying to find somebody with water. But in the thinly populated desert he couldn’t find a soul. So he ran back to his prostrated older brother.

“The older brother hit his SPOT button.”

“What’s a SPOT button?” I asked.

“You pay about $20 a month for it,” he said. “When you hit it, they have your exact location and come get you in a helicopter.” The older brother would pick up the trail name,
Chopper
due to this incident, while the younger brother garnered the name,
Savior
for his gallant effort to save his older brother. This was just the beginning. We were to hear much more about their exploits and blunders, all along the way.

“These SPOT buttons sound like James Bond stuff,” I laughed. In fact, a few female hikers later told me their parents had made them carry one as a condition of hiking the PCT. But they could be controversial. The previous year a hiker named Lady Bug had come across a rattlesnake in the desert, and leapt onto a boulder for safe haven. There she hit her SPOT button; when the helicopter rescue crew had arrived, they were apoplectic. But then Lady Bug had hit the button again a couple months later, when she broke her leg in northern California.

“Whaddya’ think?” Ralph asked.

“Do you think there’s time to make it to the
Kickoff
tonight?” I asked in a suggestive manner.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “but if we make it tonight there is bound to be some hot food.” That right there should have set off a red flag. How many times had I seen hikers make reckless decisions because they thought it gave them an angle on some hot food?

“We should be able to make it if we go now.” We headed off on our first serious climb, as other hikers looked at us curiously from the comfort of their sleeping bags.

Nowhere does the bottom drop out of the temperature like in the desert.

“Hey Ralph,” I called ahead as we hurried climbing up the mountain, “I’m stopping to bundle up.”

“Me too.” A half-hour later, darkness had descended, and we were leaning into a cold, stiff breeze. Worse yet, we were climbing a bare, rocky mountain that offered nowhere feasible to camp.

“My fault,” I yelled up to Ralph. “It’s unbelievable how quick it got dark.”

“No problem,” he said, “but I’ve got to add another jacket.” I quickly threw on long-johns and practically everything else. Our breaths were now completely visible. We both put on headlamps and tried to find out where we were on the maps, but it was useless in such a barren area.

“If we keep going we might hear the noise from the
Kickoff,”

Ralph suggested.

That became our strategy. But another half-hour later, and we were still climbing, as it got colder and windier. I had hiked 171 days and 0 nights on the Appalachian Trail. Now, here I was my first night on the PCT, hiking practically petrified in the black as pitch night.

“Looks like we’re off the trail,” Ralph said.

“We could go back down the mountain,” I faintly suggested.

But the nighttime adrenaline kept us humping. “Hey,” Ralph suddenly said. “Is that a light down there to the left?”

“I see it,” I said hopefully. “And that looks like a lake too.”

We found ourselves stumbling over rocks and running into various obstacles over the next half-mile. But we finally made it to the Kickoff party. Things were wrapping up for the evening except for some people shivering around a campfire. We had gotten our miles, but not our hot food.

Chapter 5

The Kickoff Party

H
ow am I going to get out and take a leak with frozen shoes?

I lay shivering inside my tent, amidst a sea of other tents. As usual, I had awoken in the middle of the night heeding nature’s call. The mountain cold settling into this lake valley had plunged the temperature all the way down into the twenties. When I had opened my tent flap and begun clawing around, everything was frozen—the exterior of the tent, the backpack, water bottles, even my shoes. For once, however, I was prepared.

My ever-industrious mother had ordered a light, plastic urine jar from Home Health Care. It’s strange how, even in the anonymity of a tent on a freezing cold night, one still can be self-conscious. Nonetheless, this midnight urination came off as planned and saved me an unpleasant midnight rendezvous with the freezing cold. Call it a small confidence-builder, if you will.

Another hiker here in Tent City (we were all later to learn) had awoken with a similar problem. Actually, this woman in her mid-twenties had a bigger dilemma. She needed to have a bowel movement. There was probably a bathroom somewhere in this park, but it was likely a good ways away. And, of course, it was freezing cold. Serendipitously (or so she thought!) though, she had a plastic bag in her tent. I doubt I need to enlighten you as to what brilliant solution she conceived. What the average person may not be aware of, however, is just how difficult such a
crapshoot
can actually be. Here, I must force myself to admit that a month later in a freezing hovel in the Mojave desert, I would consider the exact same course of action as this woman attempted. Quickly, I was to realize the physics of such an act were much more complicated than I had ever fathomed. Plus, I had knowledge of this woman’s ill-fated effort at the Kickoff.

Surely, I don’t need to tell you the anti-climactic final result of her crapshot. She missed. Needless to say, that led to emergency cleanup action that exposed her to the cold more than if she had just gone outside her tent to begin with.

Missing this once-in-a-lifetime crapshot, however, may not have been her biggest mistake. If you ask me, she made an even bigger blunder the following morning. That’s when she told another hiker (“Hey, don’t tell anybody, but guess what happened...”). Of course, that hiker did what almost anybody would. She commiserated with the woman before slinking off to tell somebody else. The poor girl who suffered the mishap was soon saddled with the trail name
Shit Bag
for the next 2,600 miles.