September 3, 2016 Mile 1716.7-1737.4 20.7 Miles For the past year before I started this trail, I read trail journals. Other hikers often took zeroes. Some even took double zeroes. Never, in any of the journals I read, did I ever see a triple zero. And this morning, I understand why. I feel like I’ve been confined inside for the past two days, or like my senses have been stifled. I need to be outside, moving and breathing clean air, rocks and roots under my feet, smelling dirt and pine tree. Being inside this motel room makes me want to retch. Roadside joins me for breakfast at Morning Glory again, then it’s time to pack up and go. Packing takes about 5 times as long as it should, because I can’t remember how everything fits in my pack. Finally I make it work, and join Roadside outside. We walk a mile or so out to the freeway and try to hitchhike. Someone has left a cardboard sign lying near the onramp. It says “Hiker to Pacific Crest Trail.” We decide to use it and see if it helps. Twenty minutes later, nobody has stopped. That’s not unusual, hitchhiking sometimes takes a while, but Roadside is impatient this morning. “Let’s just get a cab,” he says. “I’ll pay for it.” While we wait we take turns getting junk food from the gas station while the other person stays with the backpacks. When the cab arrives I’m relieved that we don’t to have to wait for a hitch, but I feel like a bit of a fraud. Isn’t hitching part of the adventure? I’ve already hitched a bunch of times, but after two days in a town, and having to skip a section, I don’t feel like a great adventurer anymore. I’m just faking my way through this trail. We get back to the trail about noon. We hike together for a little bit, but before long I’m way ahead of him. I was afraid of that. Another temporary hiking friend. It was fun while it lasted. Coffee is a magical hiking drug. It doesn’t matter that I’ve started the day late, I know I’m going to make at least twenty miles. I have to be doing three and a half or even four miles an hour. And the terrain is so easy! The slopes are gentle, even the trail seems smooth, absent of the rocks and roots that I usually need to navigate. The mountains are gently sloped, but I’m up fairly high. At one point I can see southeast to Shasta, and all the land in between. At another I can see southwest to the fire above Seiad valley. Smoke hemorrhages into the sky like blood in water. It’s painful to watch. After ten miles or so, I decide to take a small side trail to a lookout. I decide to leave Roadside a note in the trail so he doesn’t pass me, just in the hope that he’s not too far behind. I scrawl a quick message, tear the page from my notebook, and weigh it down with a rock in the middle of the trail. It’s not much of a lookout, really just a broad sunny patch with bushes that block the view all around. There’s a dayhiker here. He’s carrying a daypack and a mandolin, and says he brought some beers out for thruhikers. Lucky me. He hands me one and breaks out his mandolin to play a song without words. Roadside arrives at the end of the first song. He saw my note, and I can tell he’s grateful that I didn’t just take off without thinking of him. I’m glad to see him, even if it seems clear we won’t be able to hike together over the long run. We drink our beers through two more songs, but then we have to keep moving. The dayhiker seems a little sad, but I’m sure there will be more thruhikers coming through here In the afternoon Roadside and I hike together for an hour. Then he has to stop for water at a lake. I still have plenty, so I head on. I don’t see him again all afternoon or evening.
Coffee is a magical hiking drug, but everything has its cost. The price of coffee seems to be an inability to pay attention to the larger picture. I’m so focused on my goal and making mileage that I stop looking around and my vision constricts to the path in front of my feet. Hours go by this way and I’m hardly aware that it’s happening. I come out of my stupor and start looking for a place to camp as it’s getting dark. There are a few cars pulled off to the side of dirt roads, nestled in between trees. I find a tent that doesn’t have a car and set up nearby. A white honda pulls up and the driver gets out. Suddenly self-conscious, I ask him if he’s okay with me camping so close to him. I thought I was camping near a thru-hiker—they usually want the company, but car campers are often looking for solitude. “You can camp wherever the hell you want,” he says gruffly, and climbs into his tent. I decide to stay put and eat my dinner. The map says I’ve hiked twenty miles today, but it feels like I’ve hardly gone five. The forest has remained mostly the same, my body isn’t fatigued like it should be. I don’t even have any clear memory of the last few hours. I keep my eyes peeled for Roadside, but he never shows. Temporary friends, temporary life. All is change. Anicca.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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