Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (13 page)

Thru-hikers are renowned for breaking camp in the morning at breakneck speed. But now I had to carefully administer ointment, pads, and surgical tape to each foot in my tent before breaking camp. The balls of my feet where Renee had cut deepest were throbbing. That was bad news because
day two
is the key day when coming back from an injury.

I focused on making every single step with as little pain as possible. Needless to say, that is a losing proposition. While rock-hopping on my heels across Holcomb Creek, I bought it—
splash—
straight into the drink. After quickly pulling myself out of the stream I thought,
Hey, try to turn this into a positive.
So I decided to take an extended break right there to soak my feet in this rare desert stream, hoping to numb them. However, the bees were utterly ferocious in the shade where I leaned on a rock. That was another dilemma of desert hiking. On your breaks you had a choice between roasting in the broiling sun or let the bees molest you in the shade. It was positively hellish.

Struggle is one thing. Damaging your physical self is another. And that’s what I was doing. I needed to get out of here. But I had no idea how. So I fell back on the automatic default position.

When in doubt a hiker hikes. We are creatures with great faith that if we just continue moving forward, somehow, something good will happen. My steps were stiff and clodding, with heavy emphasis on the heels. I was lucky to make a mile at a time before having to take a break. While reclining glumly up against my backpack I heard the first voices in a couple days coming from the opposite direction. It was a couple carrying daypacks. Immediately, the old hiker
Yogi-ing
instincts surged to the forefront.

“Excuse me,” I said to this pleasant-looking middle-aged couple, “Could you tell me if there happen to be any roads or any towns around here at all?”

“Well, yes,” the man said. “Where are you trying to get to?”

I didn’t want to overplay my hand too quickly. First, I had to cajole them into letting me into their car. They described a complex series of dirt roads, turning into paved roads, into other paved roads.

“Is there any way in the world you could give me a lift up to that first paved road?” I earnestly asked.

“Sure, sure, we’d be glad to drop you off up there,” he said.

Slowly, but surely, I drew snake eyes with this couple. He was a preacher at some remote hamlet called Mount Gregory. After I began talking rhapsodically about the wonders of the PCT, he suddenly said to his wife, “Honey, we haven’t been to Big Bear Lake in awhile. Would you like to have dinner there tonight?”

They drove me 1 ½ hours south on a winding mountain road, and dropped me at Big Bear Lake Hostel.

Deep down I knew I had to do it. In fact, I had known it for some time. The three-day comeback hike had been almost
proforma—
to prove to myself that there was no alternative. I was going to have to
skip forward.
I had hiked every blaze of the Appalachian Trail and dearly wanted to hike every step of the Pacific Crest Trail. This was supposed to be my hike-to-end-all-long-hikes. Now it wouldn’t be pure.

My mother and brother consoled me with phone calls. “Bill, that’s great you take such pride in the whole thing,” my mother reasoned. “But does it really matter to anyone else whether you do the entire trail or not?”

Sound reasonable, to be sure. Was there an egocentric element to thru-hiking? Probably, and to that extent it is not a terribly worthy endeavor. But there was another big issue.

Knowing you have a long journey to complete forces you to keep hiking on low morale days, if the weather is crummy, or maybe you feel like lingering in a trail town. It was a great motivating force. Now that I would no longer be a
virgin,
would I be able to muster that same sustained effort?

Fortunately, I was able to catch a ride to the one place more than any other that exudes the spirit of the PCT. Suddenly, I was surrounded by swarms of hikers and couldn’t have been happier about it.

Chapter 14

Donna

Y
ou know—if we males just didn’t have such damn egos, we’d be alright. I stood there with
another male hiker with another male ego
taking in the whole scene at the Saufleys.

It was a brilliant tapestry. You couldn’t help noticing the number of truly fine-feathered females flitting around all over the place. They were loving the attention and having the time of their lives.

“What are these girls,” this guy commented to me, “cheerleaders or hikers?”

“Yeah,” I said light-heartedly, trying to make conversation. “I bet some of ‘em don’t even have backpacks and are just trying to act like they’re hikers.”

I said ego, right? You’re welcome to label us with stronger adjectives.

In any event, the girls were damn good-looking and having a damn good time. This guy and I also were proven to be dead-wrong. The next morning I noticed some very noticeable girls packing up their backpacks and preparing to head off, while the guys were taking their seats in a circle of chairs. Among the girls leaving was Luna, who we would all see a lot more of. She had just given a guy a Mohawk haircut to great applause, at which point she proceeded to head off alone into the desert.

She was soon followed by the dynamic duo of Root Canal and Color Blind. I looked at the physiques of those two and thought, “I’d be lucky to keep up with them for even a day.” Male hikers soon started calling Root Canal by a different name—Turbo Puss. Guess which name stuck?

Again, I wish we weren’t such pigs. Maybe this Chinese-style confession will make me less so.

The best place for a hiker hostel is in the middle of nowhere. By that measure, the Saufleys in Agua Dulce are perfectly located. Their hostel,
Hiker Haven,
lies slap-dab in the middle of perhaps the most featureless part of the entire southern California desert.

Hiker morale is often low upon arrival. And once you arrive on the main street in Agua Dulce there ain’t a helluva’ lot in the way of civilization, including no motels. Into this vacuum steps the strong, determined personality of Donna Saufley.

Immediately, Donna reminded me of Nancy Pelosi, only minus twenty years and a half-million dollars in cosmetic surgery. The similarities were not just in physical appearance, but also in style. Pelosi is renowned for running the U.S. House of Representatives with an iron fist; but cross her at your own risk. Donna was nowhere near so ruthless. But it was very clear from the beginning that you were a guest at her house and to play by her rules. Fortunately, she was determined, seemingly to the point of obsession, to make it a pleasant stay.

Every year she orders fifty cots to be set up under huge tarps in her backyard, along with two RV’s. One of the RV’s is outfitted with computers, kitchen facilities, and a shower (sign up on the wall), all operating on a backup generator she has installed. Because Agua Dulce has no post office she has turned her garage into a state-of-the art system for handling the many packages of food, shoes, equipment, maps, etc. Multiple washing machines and dryers are in constant use. Rather than a nightly charge, donations are into a jar on the honor system. All I can say is that I hope like heck she and her husband break even, because the expense is considerable.

The maximum stay is two nights, unless injured. It quickly became clear this rule was a necessary evil. Hikers get very comfortable here after 100 grueling miles through the desert, and don’t want to be thrust right back into the oven so soon. She regularly has to shush people on out of here, and back into the desert.

I didn’t fit in any of the available bunks, which visibly bothered Donna.

“Skywalker, set your tent up right here,” pointing to a plot of grass right in front of her house. The second night she found me an extra-long cot under one of the tents that, to my great surprise, I fit in.

The hiker box (where hikers throw away excess or dysfunctional gear) at the Saufleys blew my mind. Mountains of shoes, some of them looking like they had been worn just a few times, were stacked up in a huge box. The box just for New Balance shoes, the most widely worn brand on the trail, was especially bulging. Obviously, the desert had been hell on a lot more than just my feet.

Donna knew that. They immediately had me soaking my feet in a machine that soaks your feet in hot salt water. She also allowed me to stay an extra night, which you had to justify. She was determined that her place would be about getting you ready to hike—not partying. Unfortunately, others had some different ideas.

“Where did they all go?” Donna asked in surprise.

“They’re all doing the 24 beer thing,” somebody answered.

“What 24 beer thing?” Donna asked sharply.

“You know—the tradition where everybody drinks the 24 beers in 24 miles.”

“No, I don’t know about any 24 beer tradition,” Donna said, sounding alarmed.

A group of raging alpha males had been sitting around a circle that day drinking beers; someone had dreamt up the fantasy that PCT hikers traditionally try to drink 24 beers in the 24 mile stretch from the Saufleys to the legendary Anderson’s hostel.

“Chopper and Savior aren’t in that group, are they?” Donna quickly asked.

“Yes, they are,” somebody answered.

“I can’t believe it,” Donna visibly cringed.

I soon learned that Chopper and Savior’s mother had died several years ago in that exact section they were now hiking. She had gotten lost and died from
hypothermia.
Now her two accident-prone sons were attempting to drink 24 beers each, in the section where she had perished. Perhaps Donna had reason to worry.