Lindsey and I hoist our packs and look down the packed and eroded dirt slope towards what looks like the trail. My pack sits heavy on my hips: two large platypus bladders and a bottle hold five liters of water in the side pockets, and the main pack is filled with gear and 10 days of food. It’s only about 35 pounds altogether, but it feels like I’ve doubled my weight. We take one more look at the rusted Mexican border wall and the PCT monument, then step off. We walk down the dirt, which narrows toward a dirt road, and wave to my mom and my adopted little brother and sister as they bounce off in their Ford Bronco, kicking up dirt. A few seconds later we cross the dirt road, and we seem to have lost the trail. “Oh no, are we lost already?” Lindsey laughs. After scanning the area a few times, I see the small dirt track cleave the brush between two faded orange road cones. And we set off. This is Lindsey’s first real backpacking trip. We’ve done a couple other trips, but they’ve always involved porters that carry your tent and food (Inca trail in Macchu Picchu) or established huts and hostels (2 treks in New Zealand, one in the French Pyrenees). She’s planning to hike the first ten days with me, 142 miles to the Paradise Valley Cafe near Idyllwild. She’s always been a good hiking companion, even if she’s a little slower than me. I’m just hoping she enjoys the all-inclusive experience of backpacking. Those other experiences included a layer of “protection”—a safe space to go at night, other experienced guides to help out if something goes wrong—that true backpacking doesn’t provide. The trail follows roads for the first couple miles, sometimes beside them, sometimes spilling straight on to them. Eventually it turns out and away, and for the first time, I feel like we are touching the wild. And it’s beautiful. This year is a superbloom, and yellow and purple flowers are springing from the ground, spilling from bushes, coating the hillsides. It feels like wilderness despite the sounds of helicopters, which churn the air every fifteen minutes or so. The air is cool, but we can already feel it’s going to be a hot day. We cross another road, and then railroad tracks. We meet Tim, a young hiker from the Netherlands who is on a gap year trip and is dressed for northern European weather: black jeans, wool cap, long sleeves. It’s already over 80 degrees and I’m uncomfortably warm in my light, quick-dry hiking clothes. Tim’s face is flushed and his pack looks heavy. The three of us stop for a snack on a broad rock next to the trail. Lindsey offers Tim a granola bar, and he asks to check the ingredients. “Do you have allergies?” Lindsey asks him. “Yah, penis.” It’s his accent. He said peanuts, but I laugh anyway. I’m in a great mood and everything seems funny and exciting and buzzing with aliveness. The granola bar doesn’t have any peanuts, so Tim eats it. We hike on together, down into a small shaded canyon. Tim stops to rest, but it’s only been 15 minutes so Lindsey and I continue on without him. We won’t see him again. I wonder whether he’ll be one of the many hikers who quits early on. Then I wonder if I will. I don’t think so, but I can’t be certain. About an hour later, we pass two girls resting in the shade, lying on their sleeping pads. There isn’t much shade here, and we’re on our first long uphill climb. Lindsey and I find some shade beside a droopy flowering bush a little later, and soon the girls have passed us. They mention that their bandanas, teal and green, are the same colors as ours. I joke about good taste. We’ll hopscotch with them for the rest of the day. We hike up an exposed hill. It feels like wild desert now, and the heat is oppressive. As we reach the top, I can see the border wall to the south. Strange that the trail is headed south right now; it’ll take a long time to get to Canada at this rate. At the same time, I can’t believe how far we’ve already come. A raven perches on a long-dead and bare tree aside the trail, the only wildlife we’ve seen so far. Lindsey is suffering from a headache, and there’s no shade in sight, so we rest beneath my Chrome Dome umbrella and she tries, unsuccessfully, to nap while I look at a tangle of grasses and flowers and think about the immensity of this trip. When I first made my decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, I was 14 years old. I had a lot of dreams then. Over the years, many of those dreams have given way in the face of reality and other interests, but my desire to hike the PCT has only deepened.
The plan is to do it over two summers and as many smaller trips as I can. Today is March 24th, the first day of my spring break (I teach high school band). Lindsey is joining me for this 10-day trip, and my friend Brian will join me for a couple weekend trips, but the bulk of the trip will be done solo. I’m hoping to get 300-400 miles of the desert done before I start summer break, so that I can avoid some of the heat. I’m not thrilled to break it up this way, but I don’t see a way that I can do a true through-hike at this point in my life, and I don’t want to wait until I retire before I complete this dream. Fulfilled dreams become treasured memories that you can enjoy for the rest of your life. Even if the stars someday align and every condition is perfect to follow your dream, how many years of enjoyment will you have lost? What lessons have you delayed? What opportunities will you have missed? If I get 300 miles done before summer, I can do another 700 or so this summer and make it to Sonora Pass in the Sierras. Then a few trips this fall before the snows come, and a few more in the spring, and I might be able to get through more than half the trail before next summer. Then it gets tricky. The further North I get, the more likely there will still be snow when I start. That will slow my progress and make it difficult to finish by the end of next summer. While Lindsey tries to sleep in the small patch of shade we’re sharing, I try to work out how I can squeeze in more miles and more trips so that I can finish in time. I start to get restless. Lindsey asks for water, and then we stand and stretch. My butt is sore and half-asleep from the hard ground. We hike on in the heat, groggy and quiet. We’re headed north again, and coming downhill. The brush thickens and forms walls on both sides of the trail. It’s getting close to evening. As we cross a dirt road, we see the two girls from earlier setting up camp in a small turnout downhill from the trail. The trail flattens out and turns left as we approach Hauser Canyon. We find a small site overlooking the canyon and set up camp. Helicopters continue to fly overhead all night.
3 Comments
rich peters
11/29/2019 11:25:03 am
Good writing, Thanks. I am curious on what type of tent/weight you are packing? I am going to try and do sections soon at PCT my 1.5 REI is 4.8 by far the heaviest thing I will carry other than h2o..
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Nick
11/30/2019 08:48:11 am
Thanks Rich, so glad you’re enjoying it. I used a Big Agnes Fly Creek UL2 for the first 800 miles or so, but the poles broke twice in that time and I wasn’t super happy with it anyway. I splurged on the ZPacks Duomid and I’ve never been happier with a tent. It’s spacious, lightweight, has dual entry, and has held up and kept me dry in wind, pouring rain, snow, and freezing rain. Not to mention their customer service is top notch.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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