September 9, 2016 Mile 1871.7-1875.7 (+20.8 alternate route) 24.8 miles Less than ten minutes after packing up and beginning to hike, we’re greeted by gorgeous pre-dawn views to the east. This is one of the greatest draws of hiking, and it’s what often keeps me hiking long after I’m tired: what’s around the next corner? Food breaks and campsites are often put off for the promise of a better view or better site that’s always just out of view. When it doesn’t materialize, it’s only a little farther to get around the next corner. It also holds a lesson to appreciate where you’re at and not to run yourself ragged trying to get to a place that is likely only nominally better. It’s a lesson I’ve learned over and over again, as I starve and exhaust myself for that next view, only to find myself twenty “around-the-next-corners” away in a place that looks much the same as the first spot I thought about breaking. But a view like this morning is why I never quite learn the lesson. If we had hiked ten more minutes, we would have gone to bed watching the light show and darkening lakes over this enormous view. We pass a hiker that we met last night named Gazelle. He was trying to catch up with another hiker named Old School, who Roadside remembered was one of the guys by the spring. It looks like he didn’t catch up, because Gazelle is by himself, in a ragged-looking sleeping bag sprawled in the dirt. For some reason I haven’t done much cowboy camping on this trip. A tent always seems like it will make me feel safer, but when I hear something crunching in the middle of the night, it’s reassuring to look over and see a deer, or even nothing, than to sit inside my tent wondering if it’s a bear or a mountain lion. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, I would much rather look at the stars and think about the enormity of the universe than to lie in my tent replaying old regrets and wondering if I’ll be able to get back to sleep. Nonetheless I’ve spent most nights, especially cold nights, in my tent, both to break the wind and to keep the dew off my down bag. Has that tradeoff been worth it? It’s hard to say. After four miles we hit a junction with Windigo Pass Road. The PCT continues forward, but Roadside and I have decided we’re going to take the road down to the Oregon Skyline Trail. It’s a little shorter and lower elevation, but it has water, so we won’t have to carry twenty extra pounds of water with us through this dry stretch of PCT. I’m grateful that it’s a dirt road rather than a sole-pounding, soul-draining asphalt roadwalk. We follow it down for a couple miles, then turn onto the OST, where we cross paths with a couple of Southbound hikers taking the same shortcut. After a few miles in dark, canopied forest with the occasional glimpse out toward small lakes, we emerge into a section of seven- and eight-foot-tall firs, probably replanted after a clear-cut. We reach an unmarked split in the trail. The map doesn’t show a junction here, and the two paths are so close to the same direction that the GPS is no help in telling us which one to take. I think through the possibilities. If the right fork is the wrong way, it will spit us onto a road next to a lake, which connects up with the OST ahead. If the left fork is the wrong way, it will take us to some unknown place in the forest. I actually have a feeling that the left fork is the true OST, but the right fork is the safer choice. Five minutes later we’re lakeside, on a paved road headed north. All of my fatigue from yesterday’s 30-miler rushes into my arches and calves, all of my distaste for roadwalking coalesces as a nausea that runs throughout the rest of my body. The roadwalk is a few miles, and we’re passed by one silver truck, headed the opposite direction. We discuss asking for a ride if the truck returns this way. We pass an inlet to the lake, and I’m struck by the lack of life. It seems like there should be ducks and other birds around, but it is perfectly still, not even small ripples from bugs alighting on the surface. We find a campground with pit toilets, trashcans, RVs and horse trailers. Across from the pit toilets, there’s an empty campsite with a picnic table in the shade where Roadside and I stop to eat lunch. The campsite next to ours is occupied by two ladies in their late fifties, two horses, and a dog. One of the ladies comes out to groom her horse and strikes up a conversation. “Are you guys hiking the PCT?” “Yeah,” I say, “have you seen a lot of hikers come through here?” I’m curious who else has come by, but I’m also looking for reassurance that we aren’t the only hikers taking a shortcut. “Not a lot, but there were a couple guys that came through here this morning.” From her description, it seems like one of them was probably King Arthur, though she doesn’t mention the crown, so who knows. “We were surprised to find campers here,” I tell her. “Every other campsite we passed on the way here was completely empty, and we only saw one truck on the road.” “It’s not a very popular place,” she says. “This campground is a little more popular because there are horse trails here. But other than that, there’s not much to do.” I’m not sure what she means by that. Much in the way of civilized activity? Maybe she means boats aren’t allowed, or there are no fish in the lake, or something like that. After lunch, Roadside and I empty our ziploc bags of garbage into the trashcans—every ounce counts—fill up our waterbottles at a spigot, and start back up the trail that begins again at the back end of the campground. It’s a grueling, hot, sandy trail that has been pulverized by years of heavy horse hooves. We huff our way slowly uphill for eight miles between tall, half-barren trees. The forest changes again near the top of the uphill, and now we’re in lush, night-dark forest. The downhill is much steeper, and the deadfall obstacle course begins again. This time it’s a tangled mess. Trees lay upon one another four and five deep in every direction. Root systems have torn huge clumps out of the earth, and the craters left behind have demolished all but a few dots of trail. We are so close to Shelter Cove Resort now, and I’m frustrated by the slower pace at first. But as I’m climbing over trees, balance-beaming from one cluster to another, staring down at an eight-foot drop into a black root crater, trying to pick out a path to the next balance beam, watching that I don’t trip over broken branches, fall headlong, and meet the same fate as these broken trees, in the middle of all that, I realize that I’m enjoying myself. At the end of one of these jungle gyms, I realize that I have been in a flow state. A perfect match between the challenge and my skill set, to the point where I lose all sense of myself and become one with the task at hand. A few days ago, I don’t know that I could have handled this with the same comfort and lack of fear. The past few days, though, I’ve been immersed in practice sessions with these skills, balancing and identifying unlikely paths through all the other deadfall. There’s a certain pride and self-confidence that I feel from it, even if the only other person around to see it matches my skill with equal capability. In fact, there’s a certain camaraderie that comes from that fact: these skills are rare, even if they aren’t particularly useful outside of this specific context, and it’s something we share that the mass of humanity does not. Out of the belly of the beast, we cross a railroad and find ourselves walking between manicured lawns dotted with wood buildings, picnic tables, and campfire rings. The canopy is still total, but it is less thick here and green light filters through. We walk toward the brightest lawn, which is at the shore of a large lake. Everything is so well-kept here. Retirees and vacationers stroll slowly along the lake; others sit in adirondack chairs on the lawn, under a tall flagpole. Further along the lakeshore, at the far end of the lawn, is a building that looks like a store. A tarp-shed stands nearby, with a picnic table and several backpackers. We stop there first and drop our packs, introduce ourselves to hikers we don’t know and greet the ones we do—PIF and Hard Way—then head into the store for food, beer, and resupplies. Inside, a few rows of camping gear and thruhiker staples—Knorr’s sides, Pop Tarts, Idahoan instant potatoes, and Top Ramen—take up one side of the store. The other side is fishing tackle and gift shop paraphernalia. I scan the gift shop for anything that looks useful, but like most times I’ve looked for gear, nothing seems worth the weight. Curiosity satisfied, I head back to what I really want. Food and beer. There’s no restaurant at this lodge, but they do have an oven and an assortment of frozen pizzas. It’ll be about 15 minutes until our pizzas are ready, we’re told. We should come back in because nobody will chase us down or call out our names. We head outside with our beer, our resupply boxes, and a few snacks.
There’s a charging station (outlet splitter) at the far end of the picnic table, and while we wait I plug in my battery pack. The other hikers are engaged in thruhiker activities—packing and repacking their backpacks, consuming as many calories as possible, and trying to expend as few of the same. We pass a lazy conversation back and forth with Hard Way and PIF, with pauses and silences interspersed liberally. The usual topics: where we’re from, when we started. The answers are forgotten as quickly as they’re spoken. That’s okay. The conversation is about enjoying being in each other’s presence, not about getting to know one another. We don’t really expect to see these people again, and even if we do, the questions and answers will come up again. The other hikers seem nice enough, but they’re a little ways away, doing their own thing. Roadside goes in to check on the pizzas and a minute later brings them out. They aren’t anything special, but they sure taste amazing. I finish mine and go back in for a pint of ice cream and another beer. Someone comes by to ask if we’re staying in the campground and to collect money, but we decide not to. There were a few sites on the other side of the railroad tracks that we can use for free. Besides, if we camp here, we’ll stay for breakfast, and then we’ll start late. We have a winter to race. Evening is getting close, and we’ve all had several beers. The quest for calories makes it all too easy to justify drinking far more than we should. Usually, the furnace in our bodies burns the alcohol away so fast that we don’t even feel a headache the next day as long as we’re drinking enough water. But I’m a little buzzed now, and when we’re halfway back to the trail I realize I’ve forgotten my battery pack. I leave my pack with roadside and speedwalk back. Then we find a place close to the railroad tracks and a small creek racing toward the lake. Setting up my tent is a pain in the ass. I’m exhausted and buzzed and even a little overstimulated from being around so many people. After I finish, I sit down on a bank above the creek and look at the lush ferns and forest across the way. The creek is noisy but relaxing as it rushes over spherical and oblong stones. The ferns and fir branches sway in the breeze, away and apart from me. Emanation of earth, piquant pine. The light dims, but I stay and watch, a sentinel in the dusk. Somewhere behind me, in some other era, Roadside has retired. The stones on which I sit dig into my backside, and still I sit. Something essential, primordial, ritualistic even, roots me and insists that I not budge. I watch the world move about me and become aware of my own awareness, detached and observant. I am aware of the wind moving on my skin, of the raised hairs on my arms and neck, and the gooseflesh that washes over my body. I am aware even of the currents of alcohol within my awareness, but even that doesn’t touch this deeper awareness, this perfect stillness inside me. I sit and watch for eternities, worlds dying and reborn again with the same perfect imperfections, and I see my own place within those worlds, affected, affecting, and yet apart. Eventually even this passes and I sink back into my flesh, the cold numb pain of my buttocks, the chill on my skin, the fatigue in my eyes. The alcohol has pulled back and left a minor wound in my temples, which pool with a weak throbbing pain. I shift carefully and shake out my legs (pinpricks and stabbing aches from the rush of blood), brush off pine needles and dirt from my pants, look around me to get my bearings, and enter the dark safe womb of my tent.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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