In Which I Don't Actually Miss the Trail

I’m pretty sure that Zach and I are the only thru-hikers who are actually happy to be back in real life. 

Zach, his sister Ivy, and I rolled into St. Charles, Missouri last Wednesday after an intense three-day road trip from Portland (I visited two states I’d never seen before: Montana and South Dakota!). Since then, we’ve been trying to spend time with everyone we haven’t seen in six months. There are still a lot of people left, but I’m trying not to burn myself out. Zach had his first day back at Walmart today and I’m about to start teaching classes online again. We’re crashing at my parents’ house until we figure out what we’re going to do about housing.

And the weird thing is, I don’t miss the PCT at all.

This may seem like a contradiction to the previous post. However, even though I miss certain aspects about the trail, I don't miss the experience itself. Sure, it was incredible. But I hold that the trail is more incredible, more beautiful, and more interesting in retrospect. 

Actually, at this point, the trail feels like a novel that I’ve revised a hundred times. I’m weary of it. I’m weary of talking about it. I want to talk about container gardening, and sourdough bread-making, and house-buying, and breast-feeding, and that awesome cold-syrup recipe I’ve been dying to make since last winter. I’m excited about life ahead, and what it might look like now that we have our jobs back and can see our friends and family again. For the first time in almost three years, our entire life doesn’t revolve around the trail. Sure, we’re broke and don’t really know what our next step is, but at least the next part of our life can begin!

The PCT was more than a trip— it was a phase of life. But unlike other phases of my life, I’m happy to let it go. I feel like we hiked the trail well, and hiked it according to our principles, and accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, which was to discover if we were really up to such a challenge. Don’t get me wrong: I’m really glad we hiked the trail.

But, in the end, I’m glad it’s over.

~~~

10 Things I Miss about the PCT

Although I’m really happy to be back in civilization and around family again, there is a lot that I miss about the trail. Namely…

1. The constant influx of endorphins. Once your body realizes that you’re just going to keep walking no matter how much your muscles complain, it releases a flood of feel-good chemicals. Sort of like drugs, but without side effects.

2. Pure, cold, mineral-rich water. You just can’t beat drinking water filtered straight from mountain streams, icy and fresh-tasting. Even in the desert, when we were taking water from a trough filled with tadpoles, the water tasted better than tap water anywhere I’ve been.

3. Feeling in awe of what my body could do. After we’d tackled a steep climb, I’d be sweating from every pore, and my leg muscles bulged from exertion. I’d feel like my body was made from iron, and it felt good.

4. Having a more natural sleep schedule. Artificial light is a strange thing. It was much more natural to wake up and go to sleep with the sun.

5. Feeling small. When I was out hiking up mountains and through forests, I felt comfortably small, not self-conscious about my (ridiculously tall) height. When we returned to civilization, I kept on running into pieces of furniture and feeling an uncomfortable sense that, while under a roof, I just take up too much space!

6. Sleeping under the stars. On a clear night, we could see the Milky Way even through the mesh of our tent.

7. Transcendent eating experiences. After a hard day on trail, a bowl of hot mashed potatoes drowned in olive oil would give me a rush of euphoria. Towns were even better, when we could eat things like yogurt and Oreos— the tastes were so sharp and new and pleasant that I found myself blinking back tears. More than once, I sobbed because I was so happy to have toast or soda or pancakes. Since we returned to civilization and we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, that sense of awe and gratefulness has disappeared.

8. Pikas. Seriously, I miss pikas. Also, all the cool birds we saw, like gray jays, ravens, hummingbirds, Steller’s jays, and countless beautiful warblers.

9. Being self-sufficient. It was an incredible feeling to be in the middle of the wilderness, three days from the nearest town, and realize that we had everything we needed: water, shelter, food, and love!

10. The trail community. The people who hike the PCT are some of the coolest, strangest, most interesting, trustworthy human beings you’ll ever meet. This extends also to the trail angels and to the locals in town who pick up hitchhikers. Everyone looks out for each other. Everyone has a sense of personal property but incredible generosity. We share resources and help each other out. We give each other a liter of water in the desert, or ask if anyone has a spare aspirin, or see who wants to take some of these tuna packets we found in the free box. We come from all walks of life, but the trail is an equalizer, and people of all personalities mingle together and find that they are friends. I would say that I had never seen such a beautiful community before, but I’m very blessed to say that I have— my church. Still, I miss being part of the PCT community, and honestly, the camaraderie and friendship is one of the best parts of hiking the trail.

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Seven Tips for Inexperienced Backpackers

As I said in yesterday’s blog post, Zach and I had no backpacking experience before we tackled our 2,668-mile trail… but it turned out all right anyway. If you’re thinking of hiking a long-distance trail but you have no experience, there’s hope for you too! Here are seven things we did that really helped us prepare.

1. Read everything you can about backpacking. We read about safety and first aid, hiking techniques, snow-walking, making camp, leaving no trace, using a compass and maps, packing dehydrated food, digging a cat-hole, and so on. The PCTA website has a ton of great articles and resources. So does your local library. There is no excuse for anyone to go into the wilderness unprepared. In fact, let me tangent here for a second: It is not cool or romantic for someone to venture into the wilderness with no preparation. That person will be a danger to himself and will be a burden on other people (hikers who help him, Search and Rescue teams who have to mobilize to save some idiot who doesn’t take the wilderness seriously). The Internet is a wonderful resource that makes it so we don’t have to put ourselves and other people at unnecessary risk! (Okay, rant over.)

2. Walk. Go for 20-mile walks whenever possible, and try to walk 10 miles at least a few times a week. This will help strengthen all those muscles that you’re going to be taxing so heavily. Don’t worry if you don’t live in a place with good hiking trails— I’m from Missouri and only had access to tiny hills and a perfectly-flat bike trail. Your body will become stronger as you backpack; you just need to give it a good head start by being in good shape.

3. Research the specific trail you want to hike. This seems like a no-brainer, but it seems like a lot of people miss this. Don’t just read about backpacking in general— read about the PCT. It’s baffling how many people begin this trail and back out on day one because they didn’t realize it starts with 700 miles of desert! Also, specific trails might have specific requirements: for the PCT we had to apply for a thru-hiking permit, a California fire permit, and an entry into Canada permit.

4. Choose your gear carefully. Again, the Internet is your friend. (And the library. I highly, highly recommend “Lighten Up!” by Don Ladigan.) Everyone has different opinions about gear, so try to cross-reference gear reviews with your own personal preferences. For instance, it was very important to Zach and me that we had a comfortable bed, so we bought air pads, while most other people laid on Z-rest pads. The air pads were a pain to inflate every night, but they were super comfy! It’s even more helpful to talk to someone who’s done the trail. At REI, the little pamphlets about backpacks say that you need an 85+ liter backpack in order to do a long-distance hike. I got nervous about my 65-liter pack. An employee there who’d hiked the PCT assured me that would be fine. In fact, my pack was one of the largest ones I saw on trail. Which leads me to my next point…

5. Don’t use outdated information. On the PCT, it was easy to spot the weekend and short-distance hikers: they had heavy leather boots, heavy wool socks, and massive external-frame backpacks with miscellaneous items clanging on the sides. They often insisted on making fires every night, or sleeping on a cot, and bringing every item they could possibly use, “just in case.” They are casualties of outdated backpacking techniques. Read up (and talk to) people who have backpacked a lot in recent years. Study modern lightweight backpacking technique. The most experienced hikers are the ones with the smallest backpacks.

6. Invest in a good set of maps and a GPS track if possible. We obtained both of these for the PCT from Halfmile, who posts his maps and GPS tracks online for free. (He even hiked the trail this year, so the maps are going to become even more accurate!) These helped us out so much: they told us where the next water and camping were, what elevation we were at, and so on. Whenever we’d get confused at an intersection, we could check the map or GPS track and know exactly where we were going. More experienced hikers don’t necessarily need these aids, but for beginners, they were awesome!

7. Plan to hike your own hike. Only you can decide what kind of hike you want to have. Some people will meticulously chart every mile; others will skip around. You will feel insecure because other people say they’re going much further than you planned today, or they are stopping here and think you’re pushing yourself too hard. You will not have the perfect gear. You will have to readjust. Almost everyone on the PCT changed up their gear at some point. You’ll feel like everyone else has it together while you’re struggling to stay alive. Don’t let that get you down! In the end, if you hike the hike you set out to accomplish, you win. And it’s a pretty amazing feeling.

~~~

PCT Questions: When a Thru-Hike Is Your First Hike

Reader question: Your Facebook page said you had never backpacked before. Is that true? If so, what inspired you to start by thru-hiking?

Yes, it’s true. Before the PCT, Zach and I had only “backpacked” once, and that consisted of hiking three miles into the Buford Mountain Conservation Area the first night, then climbing to the top of the third-highest peak in Missouri (oh, the bragging rights!) and going home the next day. Other than that, we’d only been car camping.

We knew, from pretty early on in our relationship, that we wanted to hike the PCT together. We talked about trying to do some backpacking before then— a week on the Appalachian Trail, perhaps, or at least a few days on the Ozark Trail. But we quickly ran into a problem: we do not make much money. My husband works at Walmart; I have a tutoring job that is roughly half his salary. And we were trying to save up enough money to take six months off work— not to mention all the expensive gear we had to buy! 

In the end, we didn’t even have all our gear until a couple weeks before the trail, and we never had a good opportunity to take time off work. We were trapped in the harshest winter I had ever seen, and by the time the weather thawed, it was practically time to leave for the trip. It was “Hike the PCT without experience” or “Don’t hike at all.” There was nothing in between.

I’d like to emphasize that although we were inexperienced, we were not unprepared. We had researched and studied as much as we could in books and on the web. (Tomorrow, I’ll talk about some steps we took to prepare that really helped us.) Everything turned out all right. We were unsure of ourselves at first, but we soon realized that we were reasonably well-prepared, and we learned everything we needed along the way. In the end, we got to Canada in one piece!

2012, Buford Mountain, Missouri.

2014, Goat Rocks, Washington.

PCT Weekly Photo: Mirror, Campo, California

Self-portrait of me and my sister walking toward the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail.

50 Little Things I Hope I Never Take for Granted Again

Head cold + desert = unhappy camper.

In no particular order...

1. A kitchen sink.

2. Almost instantaneous hot water.

3. A mirror and a light so I can look at myself when I brush my teeth (and see how much toothpaste I’m squirting on my toothbrush!).

4. Cotton.

5. Sitting in a chair, as opposed to sitting on the ground.

6. Being able to just stand up and walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night, rather than having to squirm out of a sleeping bag, unzip two zippers, squeeze on some shoes, and grab the toilet paper.

7. Couches.

8. Yogurt.

9. Any sort of food that requires refrigeration.

10. Sandwiches.

11. Climate control.

12. Not having to wonder if those mysterious footsteps in the night are a deer or a bear.

13. Having more than one choice of clothing.

14. Running water.

25. Showers that occur more frequently than once a month.

16. Dresses and skirts.

17. Having a clean dish rag when I’m washing dishes instead of a snotty bandana.

18. The ability to be comfortable most of the time.

19. Bulky, heavy clothing to wear when it’s cold.

20. Coming inside out of the rain.

21. Free time.

22. Not having to set up and tear down my bed every day.

23. Vegetables and fruit.

24. Shopping at a grocery store instead of a gas station.

25. Waking up from a nightmare about being mauled by a bear to realize that I am in a place where there’s not any actual danger of being mauled by a bear.

26. Having jobs so we can make money.

27. Toast.

28. Walking in areas where one false step won’t sent me hurtling off the edge of a cliff.

29. Not worrying about how much everything weighs. 

30. Having trash service readily available (instead of having to carry all our trash for days at a time).

31. Walking without a 30-pound pack strapped to my back.

32. Having time to read.

33. Having a table to sit at for meals.

34. Snacks other than Snickers and Fritos.

35. Leaving food unguarded without worrying about it being stolen by a chipmunk, Steller’s jay, or rat.

36. Washers and dryers.

37. Consistent cell phone reception.

38. Being able to call people when I miss them.

On the trail, salad had never tasted so amazing.

39. Enjoying meals with more than one course.

40. Not having to climb mountains when I feel sick or weak.

41. Not having to ration food.

42. Shelves, counters, and other places to set stuff down without setting them in the dirt.

43. Food variety.

44. Towels.

45. Toilets!

46. Being able to see friends and family on a regular basis.

47. Typing on a real keyboard instead of a smartphone.

48. Surfing the web.

49. Going to church.

50. Civilization in general.

~~~

FAQ about the PCT, After the Fact (Part Two)

Q: What was your best day?

A: Honestly, I can’t pick out a best day on trail. One of the best, though, was the day we got into Carson Pass near the end of the Sierra. We were starved and malnourished and trying to find cell reception to see if we could go to Sacramento for the week to recover a bit at Zach’s grandparents’ house. That was where we ran into some of the most beautiful wildflowers yet. We crossed a road, and a lady at the visitor center at Carson Pass had made a huge batch of sandwiches and cookies for hikers. We sat there and ate and ate, then hiked up into a gorgeous field of wildflowers… and found cell reception for the first time in weeks. We called our friends and family, and at the end of the day, we hiked to another highway and got picked up by Grandpa Ray and whisked off to Sacramento for a week of relaxation, showers, and copious amounts of food. That was a pretty awesome day.

It wasn't as breathtakingly gorgeous as the high Sierra, but we were deliriously happy that day.

Q: What was your worst day?

A: It’s a toss-up between two days: 

1. The time we walked across the incredibly boring California aqueduct in blazing heat. We hiked into a wind farm that nearly blew us off our feet. I got sand stuck in my eye and it took half an hour to get it out. Then we hiked another seven miles in 60mph gusts of wind (if not stronger), into a pitch black night, hoping to get out of the wind to camp. We never got out of the wind, and could barely sleep that night because of our tent flapping like a sail.

2. The day in the high Sierra when we crossed our first pass, a 13,000-foot notch in the mountains called Forester Pass. It was a long, hard, post-holing snow-walk to get there, followed by a set of dizzying switchbacks up to a narrow pass. We started down the other side. I kept on post-holing and bashing my ankle into rocks. I was afraid we were going to break our ankles and be stranded. We ended up scrambling down a nearly-sheer cliff and inching our way around a frozen lake, with me in hysterics nearly the entire time.

Yeah, neither of those days lives very fondly in my memory.

Q: What was your favorite town?

A: That’s a really tough one— I loved so many of the towns that we passed through! In the end, the unlikely winner goes to Sierra City, California, a tiny old mining village tucked into a deep mountain valley. All the buildings have tin roofs, and a brooding sense of history lies over the town. It was quiet and a bit mysterious and beautiful. Many hikers think it’s creepy, but I loved it. The Methodist church there let us camp on their lawn for free, a fellow thru-hiker bought me ice cream at the general store for my birthday, and a local took us out for breakfast before we hit the trail again in the morning.

A very close second place goes to Stehekin, Washington, a remote community on the banks of Lake Chelan. It was gorgeous, the town let us stay in a boathouse to keep out of the rain, and their bakery had the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever eaten.

Q: Would you do it again?

A: No, I don’t think we would ever thru-hike the PCT again— we feel like we conquered the trail, and had the full experience. We’ve kicked around the idea of tackling the Appalachian Trail, or perhaps the eastern third of the American Discovery Trail, but not in the near future. Right now, I’m pretty excited to settle down and try to start a family. However, everyone says thru-hiking is addictive. I didn’t believe them at first, but now that I’m feeling so nostalgic about the trail, I’m beginning to see what they mean…

When I see photos like this, it's easy to remember a rosy-colored version of the events
 and forget how starving, malnourished, exhausted and afraid I was at this point.

Do you have any questions about the PCT? Your questions will help me figure out how to start blogging about our trip. Thanks!

~~~

FAQ about the PCT, After the Fact (Part One)

John Muir Trail
hikers gave the
best leftovers!

These are the questions I got asked most while we were hiking the PCT. 

Q: What is your trail name and how did you get it?

A: My name is Leftovers and this is my husband, Tabasco. I got my name because I was eating everybody’s leftover food at Lake Morena. He got his because he carried a bottle of habenero Tabasco for most of the trail.

Q: Where are you from?

A: St. Louis, Missouri. (Actually, I’m from St. Charles, but nobody knows where that is.) This would often lead to a discussion about the city, in which the people who had actually visited seemed positive about it (“The Ozarks are beautiful.” “City Museum is awesome!”) and the people who hadn’t visited were negative (“Don’t they have a lot of crime?” “Isn’t the weather terrible?” “Isn’t that the place where all the white people shoot all the black people all the time for no reason?”).

Q: What was the highlight of the trail?

A: The parts where we weren’t hiking! (Cue laugh track.) But I’m actually serious. Hanging out with other hikers and going to trail angel’s houses and finding caches of soda by the side of the road— that was honestly my favorite part.

Q: I mean, what was your favorite section?

A: Oh, that! Well, that’s a different story. For most of the trail, I told people that the Lake Tahoe area, including the incredible lakes in the Desolation Wilderness, was my favorite part because of the sweeping views and the wildflowers. However, in the end, this section was beat out by the North Cascades in Washington, which was the most beautiful scenery I could imagine. Wide views, jagged peaks, shreds of mist, blazing blue skies, larch trees turning golden, acres of huckleberry bushes blushing red— it was the most incredible thing I had ever seen, or probably ever will see. (Also, by the end of the trail I was feeling better emotionally, which made it easier for me to appreciate the beauty.)

This is pretty much what all of northern Washington looked like.

Q: What was your least favorite section?

A: Northern California. By the time we left the Desolation Wilderness, I found myself very disheartened that we’d been in California for two and a half months, and we still had a month left before we’d hit Oregon. The weather was horribly hot and humid, we ran into the creepiest town I’d ever seen (Belden Town, if you’re curious), a crop of forest fires erupted which turned the sky red and rained ash down on us, and we woke up one morning to find a dead bear in a pool of blood on a road twenty feet from our campsite. It was pretty much awful.

Q: Did you see any cool animals?

A: Yes! We saw several black bears (not all of them were dead), which was thrilling. We also saw a lynx and a gray fox in southern California. In the Goat Rocks of Washington we spotted some shaggy white-furred mountain goats. And of course we saw some cool rattlesnakes in the desert.

See that tiny black speck near the edge of the river? That's a bear!
(Also, see the nice misty scenery? That's smoke from a forest fire.)

Coming tomorrow… part two! 

~~~

We Finished.

It has now been nine days since we completed our thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Words are hard to find. Once again I find myself with a string of questions instead of a blog post— the biggest one being, how do you begin to talk about the hardest, most amazing trip you’ve ever taken?

I’m still working on that one.

April 25th, 2014: border of Mexico and United States

September 29th, border of United States and Canada

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