September 24, 2016 Mile 2216.1-2241.8 25.7 Miles Strange howls and laughter wake me in the night. They don’t sound like the desert coyotes I’m used to, but the style is similar. There’s a richer timbre, a wider range of pitch. It takes me a minute to wake up enough to realize what I’m hearing. Wolves! Are there wolves in Washington? I wonder. There must be. They seem to be away down the mountain somewhere, no threat to us. Their music reminds me of a gypsy camp, tumbling and feasting and singing. It lasts for most of an hour, an exuberant party. I am delighted. I wake again at 5:30, well rested and ready to move. My sleeping bag has collected dew in the night, like the rest of my belongings, and puts a chill into my hands almost immediately when I begin to pack. Roadside takes a few minutes to wake up, but he’s still ready by the time I finish. Pushup sleeps on. I’ve spent a lot of time on this trip thinking about why I don’t make friends easily, and I think it’s this tendency more than any other that creates barriers: I don’t change plans for others. How many people have I left behind because I’ve chosen to wake early every day? How many times have I hiked too fast to keep up with? I avoid inviting people along because it might mean changing my plans. Roadside has stayed with me since Northern California because he’s been willing to stick with my early mornings and long miles. If he had asked to slow down a little, or to do a few extra miles each day, would I be willing? How much more (or less) would I have enjoyed my hike if I had been more willing to concede some ground to others? Perhaps I’d be headed southbound with Ed and Altitude right now. Or maybe I would have skipped the Mojave desert so I could keep hiking with Sprinkler. Should I have slept in and continued with Hoot and Chocolate Milk? We make our first stop at Trout Creek for breakfast. There’s an arch bridge over the water, and all the fallen logs and rocks are covered with green moss. The sun is out, and it falls in spotty patches on ferns and other leafy plants. I’d like to dry off some of my gear, but the patches of sun aren’t large enough. I notice a tent nearby, but it’s still early in the morning and no one comes out to greet us. I wonder if its another thru-hiker. On the way out, I decide to try one of the dark blue berries from a nearby bush. I’m not sure what they are, but I know there are supposed to be blueberries and huckleberries in Washington. Hopefully it is one of those. When I was a teenager reading about the PCT, one of the books talked about picking blueberries off the bushes as the two men hiked through Washington. It sounded so wild and free, and I’ve been looking forward to doing the same for decades. Roadside doesn’t know what the berries are, either. If I wait until I meet someone who knows, I could be waiting most of the state and end up missing out on days of living the life I want to live. On the other hand, I could end up sick. I hesitantly start with one. If that goes well, I can try a few more this evening. It is a little sour, but sweet too. “Good thing we’re close to a hospital,” I joke. I’m not even sure where the closest road is. We start a steep uphill, one of the steepest yet, where I pull away from Roadside. I’m surrounded by thick forest again, cedars and firs and spruces that block out the sun and remind me how cold it is. On the downhill, I come to a dirt road with a big trashcan. It’s a bear-proof can, and someone has taped a piece of paper to it that says “PCT Hikers”. Inside there are packs of goldfish crackers, applesauce, and lollipops. I have one of each. The applesauce is especially welcome, since all the fruit I carry with me is dried. There’s not a ton left, though, and I want to leave some for other hikers, so I supplement with several of my own snacks. It takes Roadside a little while to arrive, and I am clammy cold by the time he gets there. Then a young woman named hikes up to us. She must have been the tent we saw earlier, I think. Or not. Who knows how many tents we passed by and didn’t notice. She tells us her name is Sunshine. Pushup had asked if we had seen her yesterday, because he wasn’t sure if she was ahead or behind. Her trail name fits her—she is full of smiles and enthusiasm. She offers us a ride into town, and almost before she finishes talking her brother and sister show up in a van. They have an enthusiastic, noisy dog with them, and I pet him and find myself missing my own dog, Deuce. Sunshine introduces us all, though we’ve barely just met her, and I have an awkward moment with her sister where I can tell she’s expecting me to offer a hand to shake, but my hands are dirty and feel like they’re two degrees, so I don’t offer and just stare dumbly and say “nice to meet you. We continue on, leaving the excitement and trail magic behind us. Another big climb into sunnier, more open forest. The map tells us there is a spring, and we both need to get water, but the spring, though we can hear it, seems to be hidden down a dangerous and seriously overgrown slope. We beat our way through the bushes, trying to find a way to the water. This can’t be right, I think. There’s no longer any trail at all. I check my phone map again, and now the GPS has changed my location. I’m about a hundred yards too far to the west. I cut up the hill and over, and I’ve found it, a little creek buried under fallen logs and rocks. I call back up to Roadside, and tell him we turned off too soon, and he goes back up to the trail and comes around. When he gets to me he says “There’s hikers up there.” So I fill up the bucket and carry it back up to join them. The other hikers are Rainbow and Squarepants. Rainbow is a blond woman with an accent I can’t place. Squarepants is younger, with short-cut brown hair. They have their gear spread out all over the place, drying in the sun. I notice that the bushes that their tents and sleeping bags are on have the berries I’ve seen. “Hey, do you know what these berries are?” I ask. “Huckleberries!” Squarepants answers. “I’ve been eating them by the handful and putting them in my breakfast!” “Thanks, I’ve been wondering for days. Glad to know they’re safe.” I grab a handful and start chomping while I filter water. Roadside takes a few berries, too. I ask Rainbow and Squarepants all the regular questions: where they’re from, what they used to do for work, whether they’re worried about making it before winter hits. In the sun today, winter doesn’t seem like as much of a concern. It’s not warm, exactly, but it’s pleasant. Roadside and I press on. A little ways up the hill, someone has written 420 in sticks, and in the center of the ‘0’ is a bag of weed. Did someone leave this way out here as trail magic? Or maybe a hiker decided they didn’t want to carry it anymore? Roadside picks it up. “Leave no trace, right?” I joke. “Right.” Southbounders are coming through steadily. It seems like we see another one every twenty minutes or so. We’re climbing up toward Mt. Adams, a beautiful snow-capped volcano. The forest has been burned, but there are new trees growing between the husks of the old. After a while, I zone out and listen to a podcast. I make room on the trail for a couple of southbounders to pass when I hear “Zigzag!” cut through the podcast. I look up and pull out my headphones. It’s Whistler and Paramount! I camped with them way back at Donner Pass, and didn’t figure I would see them again. They were getting ready to flip up to Washington with Poundah. We stop to talk. “How’s it going?” I ask. “Are you still hiking with Poundah?” I glance up the trail, half expecting her to come around the turn. “No, she had to go home,” Whistler says. “Ran out of money.” “Oh, bummer.” I can’t imagine how hard it would be to give up on a dream because of money. It seems perverse the way that money controls our lives. I hope she is able to find her way back someday to finish the trail. Roadside catches up, and I introduce everyone. We try to have a conversation, but we all need to keep moving, so we can’t dive into a real conversation. Before we leave, Whistler offers us a piece of useful information. “Hey, there’s an amazing view just ahead. Adams, Rainier, and St. Helens are all spread out before you.” “Thanks! We’ll stop there for lunch.” Just ahead turns out to be a long ways. I can’t blame him, I lose track of how long I’ve been hiking all the time. Plus, he was headed downhill and I’m headed up. Thinking it’s just around the corner, I keep putting off lunch, corner after corner. I’m getting hungry. It’s pretty here, though. Wildflowers, views of imposing Mt. Adams and distant, anvil-like Mt. St. Helens, the husks of burned-out trees, huckleberry bushes, and blue skies. It’s after 2PM when we finally find the spot. I’m starving, but first I need to dry out my gear. I hang my tent on some bushes and lay out my sleeping bag in the grasses beside the trail. There’s a breeze here, so my longjohns and spare socks have to be held down with heavier objects like my hiking poles. Roadside makes a similar yard-sale presentation. About halfway through lunch, Squarepants comes by and asks if either of us lost our water filter when we last filled up. I check, and I’m surprised to find that I did! I didn’t even realize it was missing. That could have been a disaster. I thank her profusely for bringing it back to me. She joins us for a snack and the view, then leaves before us. Rainbow arrives right before we’re packed up, and the three of us continue hiking around Mt. Adams. Adams stands at 12,281ft, the second highest mountain in Washington (after Rainier). The western slope is covered in a massive glacier, and it is this glacier that we get to see as we pass around the western side of the mountain. It looks so distant, yet so overwhelmingly large. Every time I look at it, it seems like it’s a different color of blue. Something about it calls to me. I want to go explore it and climb its face. I add it to my list: this is a place to which I will return. The section hikers and overnight backpackers are starting to appear everywhere and many of them have already set up their tents in the campsites that are around.
“Should we try to camp early tonight?” I ask. “It might be tough to find a site if we wait to late.” “Yeah, that sounds good to me,” Roadside says. “Yes, that’s good.” Rainbow says. We find a place near a small waterfall running into a little creek. There are several impacted sites around, most of them with tents already set up. At first we try to find something a little apart from the others, but there’s nothing we can find, so we end up adding our three tents to the five or six others. It’s a chilly evening with a cold breeze, but the sound of running water and the nearness of people is relaxing and we have a nice dinner sitting in the dirt and talking.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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