September 10, 2016 Mile 1904.1-1932.8 (+2.2 alternate trail) 30.9 Miles When the alarm goes off at 5:30, I have to force myself up. I never heard a train all day yesterday, so I assumed the tracks next to our campsite had been retired. About an hour after I went to bed, I learned different. All night there were trains, and they always shocked me awake so that with adrenaline coursing through my veins, it was difficult to fall back asleep again. I start packing up, but I’m close to finished before I hear Roadside starting to stir. I waited for him and then we hiked out through a lush forest and up a quick climb. A campsite is perched on an overlook above the lake we’ve just left, and I once again find myself wishing we had gone just a little farther last night. We could have avoided the trains and enjoyed the lake from this magnificent site. But would I have had my transcendent experience of detachment? Maybe the creek and the immersion in the forest were vital. Or maybe starlight and a grand view would have served as well. It’s impossible to know. I can say this, though: an experience like that would keep me searching for big views in order to access that state. The forest and creek were beautiful, but they left me feeling that the experience was something in me rather than something out there, and therefore, something I can access from anywhere if I only look. The trail is poorly marked, with a few junctions that we have to stop and check against the map. We return to the official PCT, east past hwy 58, and then make a turn back north to the Rosary lakes, where we stop for breakfast. There are a few people camped around the lakes, but most of them are still asleep. A whisper of a breeze stirs up ripples that lap at the shore. After breakfast, we remain in a tunnel of trees for hours. I plug into a podcast and chug along with Roadside somewhere behind. At Shelter Cove, he found a bear bell in a hiker box and decided to strap it to his backpack. He must be more worried about bears than I thought. I find the sound obnoxious, but I’m pleased to discover that I only need to be about fifty yards away from him before the sound disappears in the trees. Some mountain bikers ride by—I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed anywhere on the PCT, but I’m not about to get into an argument with a group of people in the middle of the wilderness. I remember hearing that Chuck Palahniuk came up with the idea for Fight Club after he had the shit beat out of him while camping—he decided to tell some noisy campers to shut up. Maybe I’m a coward, but I decide to keep my mouth shut. It’s forest forever. It’s pretty enough but it’s monotonous. I feel like I have been hiking in this forest for my entire life. For several lives. I lose all sense of direction, all sense of time, all sense of the world beyond these forested walls. I just have to trust that the trail will eventually lead us through and spit us out somewhere on the other side. It feels more like a mobius strip of infinite forested wandering. I’m looking for a good view, somewhere I can stop for lunch and feel some sense of progress, but it never comes and I’m starting to feel sluggish and low energy, so finally I just sit down in the forest and eat my lunch in a silent limbo. Roadside appears as I am packing up. It feels a little better to know that I haven’t turned down the wrong trail somewhere. We emerge into a burned-out area. There still aren’t any views, but it feels open enough that I decide to check for cell service. Just a little. Not enough for a phone call, but enough to send a text. Roadside heads on while I text back and forth with Lindsey. This little bit of connection to home and the outside world grounds me, makes me feel alive again. It’s only a few minutes, but it gives me energy and I’m ready to haul ass again. I’m tearing down the trail, which quickly dives back into deep forest again. I fully expect to catch up with Roadside any minute, but it’s a couple hours later before I finally catch up. He seems pissed about something, but he’s not offering and I’m not asking. I wonder what it is. Maybe the endless forest is affecting him, too. We pass lakes. It seems like there are hundreds of them, and we never see them until we’re right up against them. The other side of every lake is just more forest. I ache to see something else, anything else. Some of the larger lakes have mythical names: Brahma, Jezebel. We finally stop at Stormy lake to camp. While we make dinner, I finally ask Roadside what’s going on.
“Are you alright? You seem kind of pissed off.” “I’m fine. My backpack broke and I didn’t eat lunch.” That’ll do it, I suppose. He tells me he hadn’t seen me for so long after breakfast that he was afraid he wouldn’t catch up if he stopped for lunch. I figured he had already eaten when he caught up. The backpack is intact and still works, but one of the framing supports broke, so it’s unbalanced and leans off to one side. Not a comfortable way to hike. He needs a new pack. I need to replace a few things, too—my sunglasses, which broke about a week ago, and my pants, which are torn open along the seam near my right ankle. The pants are particularly annoying—they are flapping around and catching on things, which causes them to tear further. At this point, they’re open about halfway to my knee. There’s an REI in Bend, which we can hitch to from Sister, Oregon, a few days hike away from here. We make plans for another zero day before we go to bed.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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