Reflection

Around mile 1100, I found a quiet spot off the side of the trail next to a lake and settled down for a late breakfast. Despite the constant desire for forward momentum, I determined to enjoy this well-earned respite. I had survived the gauntlet of the High Sierras; surmounted its icy, rock cathedrals and weaved my way down through the soft snowfields that clung to the ramparts. I had crossed the Tuolomne Meadows and its swarms of insatiable mosquitoes. The desert was long in my dust. I had emerged a mountain man, or so I fancied myself, forged in the crucible of that alpine altitude. My fingers twirled the hairs of my budding beard, yes still a little thin on the sides, but I was pleased with the growth. I leaned back against a rock and exhaled.

Hikers on Sonora Pass

Too often I worried about the miles ahead, still over 1500 to the border, another 45 to my next resupply. I wondered if I would make it. Did I have the right stuff? After all, I had decided to hike the trail on little more than a whim; barely a month passed from the time I first considered the thought to my first steps away from the Mexican border. Others had dreamed about this trail, their hike, for years, and spent more time planning  and researching than they would on the trail. I did not have the same initial investment, the same sunk cost. I was 24 years old, unemployed, unsure of myself, my direction in life, but at least on the trail I had a direction—north, and a goal—Canada. I pushed the future miles and concerns about my future out of my head. 

The Bridge of the Gods: Cascade Locks, Oregon

I supplemented my daily oatmeal with a cup of Folgers Instant coffee, a treat courtesy of Milestone, a fellow thru-hiker who was liberal with his food. Perhaps the coffee’s flavor had an inverse relationship to its effectiveness; it tasted terrible, but packed a punch. After limiting my coffee intake to town stops along the way, I had rediscovered an old sensitivity and the stuff surged through my body like a super-drug. I resumed hiking, at a faster clip than ever before. I entertained those cheery thoughts that occupy a mind when one is confident and assured of their forward progress. I barely noticed the scenery, high off my caffeine buzz, but, after about two hours, it seemed that the trail was skewing east. The sun was no longer behind me and upon closer inspection, the path seemed rougher and less defined than the well-trodden PCT. My phone was out of battery; earlier, the folks at Echo Lake turned a deaf ear to my requests for a spare electrical outlet, so I couldn’t check my HalfMile app to see if I was on trail.

Smedberg Lake after Tuolomne Meadows

I continued hiking, less assured than before, but still unwilling to acknowledge the fact that my caffeine-fueled powerwalk had accomplished the opposite effect and instead of making time, I had lost it. After another half hour of walking east, willing the trail to turn right, I admitted defeat and pulled out my paper maps, fearful of discovering just how lost I might be. It wasn’t too bad. I was near Phipps Pass. I had somehow missed the junction earlier and now appeared to be about 5 miles north of trail split. I didn’t want to retrace my steps, and looking at the contour lines, and remembering some route-finding techniques from an old NOLS course, I figured I could bushwhack back to the PCT. I welcomed the change to my routine, a brush with nature, a chance to experience the wild up close. I clambered over a small knoll and maneuvered down a scree slope that fed a rock-choked lake, and skirting the lake, I picked up a drainage that flowed to the west back to the PCT. I circled around a marsh and threaded through a pine forest careful to keep the stream within earshot if not my eyesight. I felt like Kit Carson, or Geronimo, just me, the wild, and my hi-tech backpacking gear. Progress was slow and not straightforward. I had to climb over logs, around cliffs, but I eventually met up with the trail, that thin slice of civilization on a large desolate wilderness. I ate an avocado, honey, salami, hummus tortilla (delicious) and waved to Milestone when he passed me.

Lake Aloha

I hadn’t lost too much time, but I didn’t have much time to lose. I was set to meet the Moffats on Saturday, in less than two days, and I was 45 miles away from Route 40 where they would pick me up. I accelerated, like a magnet to metal, the promise of food, shelter, shower solidifying into reality the closer I got to Donner Pass. Unlike the Donner Party, I would not starve. The Moffats' were more than hospitable. David Moffat graduated from St. Paul’s two years before my parents and met his wife Wendy at Brown. They are west-coast transplants but both seemed to have fully embraced the style. They were drawn to Truckee because of the mountains, the skiing, and the good people that enjoyed the mountains. David and Wendy both remarked that a special kind of people like and live near the mountains, a good people, humbled by the power and beauty of their surroundings.

At their mountain house, I ate lots of hot food, cereal (Honey Bunches of Oats), chocolate Ovaltine milk (just great) and I discovered that my interest in the FIFA World Cup was second to David's who is an absolute soccer fiend. Wendy even drove me across the border to REI in Reno, where I exchanged my backpack free of charge. And how did I repay their hospitality? By scratching up their Prius, a car so easy to handle that David claimed it could drive itself. I was so embarrassed, and still am. I admitted my mistake only later in a thank you/apology postcard. I really stretched the limits of the writing space, expunging my guilt.  

I wish I could tell you my hike was a journey of redemption, a triumph of the will, if you’ll pardon the expression. But, I didn’t find myself, or rediscover some insight hidden within the depths of my soul. It was awesome, it was like nothing else I’ve ever done, and I doubt I’ll ever do something like it again. I struggled, I survived. There were times of triumph and of absolute misery. I reached my apex with the trail, on the frozen heights of the sublime Sierras. Fattened from the Moffats and my food bender earlier in Mammoth, I never regained my earlier sleekness. I spent a lot of times in grocery stores wandering through the aisles, looking at the items in my cart, wondering, is this really all I’m going to eat for the next four days? If only I could take the store with me. In Washington, I took to sleeping with my food to protect it from the mice that seemed to infest every campsite, and in doing so violated every rule of bear safety and camping protocol. But, it was better than the alternative—holes in my food bag, little brown turds on my JetBoil cup. 
On the trail, I looked forward to towns, and what they offered; food, and comfort. But, I knew that each stop would be short and that the next night I'd be curled on my worn-out sleeping pad that did little to soften the roots and bumps of the hard ground, and inside the thin walls of my tent that did little to muffle the fearful sounds of the night. Terrifying sounds, the dive-bombing night-hawk that sounded like a super-sonic semi rumbling by my tent (see video below), the bleat and heavy hoof-steps of a deer (identified only after I worked up the courage to open my tent), the screech of a mountain lion down in Southern California, the unidentified noise of some mutant creature on the Southern Pacific railroad. I wondered if I was losing my mind. I wondered if I would lose my life. 

I don't have these same concerns now, I'm safe and warm in town, but I worry about other things. I am not a thru-hiker anymore. People don't offer me free food, rides into town, or marvel at the miles I've hiked. The thru-hiker hubris has faded and now I'm a normal person who did an incredible thing. And it's hard to be normal once you have felt exceptional.