Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (30 page)

“They’re handing out beers,” I let on.

“Yeah cool,” Waffles said. “Are they gonna’ feed people?”

Ultimately, my sense of obligation won out over my craving for the food.

“It’s looking like we’ve got a beachhead,” I said choosing my words carefully. “But we’re not feeling completely secure yet.”

I began introducing them and trying to integrate them in with the Shriners. Fortunately, these folks found a way to feed all of us, with second helpings and desserts included. Then, the toastmaster announced, “Let’s have some campsite humor.”

Immediately, a man to my left who looked to be pushing 80, asked, “What’s the difference between a peeping-tom and a pickpocket?”

No answer. “A pickpocket
snatches watches,”
he announced logically.

Not bad. My turn.

I couldn’t control myself at joke time any better than at food time.

“They took a poll of how many women smoked after sex,” I announced. “Ninety-nine percent of women said they did not know, because they never had
looked.”

More racy humor followed (I even felt the need to make an awkward apology to Poet the next day). You could feel the Shriners becoming weary, and probably wondering if they had made a good food investment. We hikers silently filed away—with full stomachs to be sure—to pitch our tents.

In the morning, though, we noticed they had brought out mountains of bacon and eggs. Again, we all went into action. Individually, everybody walked up to where they were cooking the food, all with the express purpose of thanking them for the previous night. Of course, we had ulterior motives.

“Can’t thank you enough,” I ritually said on my passage up. “We’ll be bragging about this to all our colleagues on the trail.” But they all held firm and bid us crisp, “happy hiking” farewells.

Back on the trail after about five miles, we all took a break together at a water source. Everybody unenthusiastically pulled out our pop tarts, crackers, and peanut butter, and went about their business.

“Wonder why they didn’t offer us any more food this morning?” Five Dollar asked.

“It looked like they just kinda’ decided we were all fucked,” Waffles opined.

“Yeah.” Everybody shook their head matter-of-factly. Nobody spoke of it again. Just trail business.

Fortunately, we had the powerful white-capped eminence of Mount Shasta at 14,179 feet to console us today.

“When I first caught sight of it,” John Muir memorably said, “my blood turned to wine, and I haven’t been weary ever since.”

At twilight everybody got stuck out on another narrow saddle for several miles. There was nowhere to camp, which seemed like a theme playing out more and more in surprisingly rugged northern California.

Poet and I were in the vanguard and kept throwing out ideas as the last daylight dimmed.

“What about there?” she would ask.

“Too steep to sleep.”

“I just don’t see anything flatter,” she correctly observed.

“My map shows a dirt road coming up somewhere here,” I said. “There is usually somewhere to camp near those.”

Finally, I dropped my backpack and ran off to do some reconnaisance. Soon, I found the dirt road. But it had a steep shoulder on one side and a dropoff on the other.

“Hey, why don’t we put our tents up on the road,” I suggested. “That’s the only flat spot.”

“Yeah,” she said unenthusiastically, “but look here—see the fresh tire marks.” There was absolutely nowhere else to camp. However, I did see some downed trees.

“Hey Poet,” I suggested, “how about helping me haul some of these trees out here. We can lay them across the road about 50 yards above and below us. A car would crash into the trees before us.” She was skeptical at first, but soon we had our sleeping territory in the middle of the road cordoned off from any vehicle traffic. The other hikers liked it as well, and about ten of us camped right in the middle of the road. In fact, it was a technique I would end up using several times further up the trail when I couldn’t find anywhere to camp as dark approached.

Heck, even I could be a little creative out here when necessity demanded it.

Chapter 33

California Leavin’

I
t was undoubtedly the worst seven miles of the PCT—paved road walk—to possibly the worst trail town on the PCT. But I was desperate to get there.

For starters, hiking on steaming asphalt with the sun beating down on you is simply no fun. But more importantly, was the great hiker obsession—food. There was a restaurant in Seiad Valley that closed on Sunday afternoons. But I didn’t know what time. It was a classic tradeoff. The faster I went, the more calories I would burn; but the better chance I had of eating some real food. So I walked at maximum speed.

A southbounder appeared in the distance. I hadn’t seen another hiker in days (after finally crying uncle in my strenuous attempt to keep up with Miles and Poet), and normally would have been quite chatty. But today, I was all business.

Trailside breaks are a hiker’s best friend.

“Excuse me, do you know what time the restaurant closes in Seiad Valley?”

“I think 2:30,” he said.

“Do you have the time?”

“2:00.” “Thanks.” A half-hour later a truck came up from behind me.

“Would you like a ride, sir?” the driver asked with a knowing smile.

Without hesitation, I threw my backpack and myself in the back of his truck for the last three miles. When we neared what looked like the restaurant in this two-building town, he yelled back, “Usually hikers have me drop ‘em off a couple hundred yards in front of the store, so nobody can see they got a ride. Do you want me to do that?”

“No thanks,” I said. “To the store please.” I practically burst into the air-conditioned restaurant where a few hikers were finishing up their lunch.

“Are you still serving?” I asked the lady behind the counter.

“Just finished up,” she said.

I looked deeply into her eyes, somehow trying to show a passion—or craving—for food theretofore unknown to her.

“Would it help if I beg?” I finally asked. Unlike the shriners, this woman had seen her share of hikers. She wasn’t outmatched.

“No it wouldn’t,” she answered me crisply. “We’re through today.”

There were only 35 miles left in California, but that included a 5,400 foot ascent. At least calories weren’t a problem, though. Tradition requires hikers to try the
five-pound pancake challenge
in Seiad Valley. That’s a
tall
order in any event. And it was made more difficult by something I had kept hearing on the trail.

“I hear they’re not very good.” They weren’t. A strapping hiker from New Zealand named
Heaps
had knocked out 3½ pounds, but nobody else even came close. My effort was abysmal.

I was wobbly from pancake mix as I wandered down the road out of Seiad Valley in 100 degree-plus weather. My backpack was running about 45 pounds from carrying five liters of water. Some hikers had hauled alcoholic spirits out of Seiad Valley to celebrate the border crossing. Not me. To be sure, it was a pretty big deal. After all, I’d been in California 3 ½ months, which was at least two weeks longer than I had anticipated.

Within a mile of the border, the trail was running high along a ridge overlooking Donomore Creek. Suddenly, I heard a ruckus of heavy crashing and thrashing on the steep hill that lay between me and the creek. There was only one possible explanation.
Where is it? More importantly, which way is it running?

Fortunately, I heard more thunderous steps and commotion further down the hill. Finally, a medium-sized brown bear tumbled out of the woods into Donomore Creek. Many times in the day while hiking (but never at night!) I had fantasized about what the perfect bear encounter would look like. This was it. I was no longer scared to death of bears on a daily basis, which I guess is an accomplishment of sorts. But to see one is to respect their awesome power.

Unfortunately, the older couple I had camped with the previous evening had been planning to camp here at Donamore Creek. I left them a note on the trail alerting them to the presence of a bear in the neighborhood. They later told me it convinced them to hike on.

I then crossed the well-signed border, but could find nowhere better to camp than alongside a fairly prominent dirt road with ravines dropping off on both sides. This time it was a much smaller animal I heard tiptoeing around my tent in the dark—
cougar, coyote, raccoon?
At first I though I was imagining it, because the steps were so light.

“Who’s that? Who’s that?” I kept calling out.

Silence.
Then I would hear the unmistakable steps of a four-legged animal. I had company. This animal probably traveled this road every night, but had never seen a tent alongside it.

I was now in Oregon. But I had been in California so long my mind still lay there. All my life, I had gotten bent out of shape listening to Californians describing their state as the be-all, end all—a veritable earthly utopia. Now, however, after traveling the length of the state I could at least see where these people were coming from.

“Everything starts in California,” is the state’s reputation. Objectively, they have lived up to their billing. In the 1960’s, the antiwar protests and sexual revolution received their greatest impetus here. In the 1970’s, California Governor Ronald Reagan spearheaded the nationwide revolt against higher taxes. In the 1990’s, California became the first state to outlaw smoking in all public places, a trend that was soon replicated across the country. What’s next?

PCT hikers had been amazed back in the desert when we passed through thousands and thousands of wind turbines. “Hey, at least we’re trying something,” several people had remarked. Also, I had at first been confused in trail towns coming upon so many unflushed toilets (various signs overhanging the toilet recommended one flush every four urinations). My attempt to replicate this back home at my mother’s house was met with great ridicule from my mother! In any event, hiking the PCT fits right in with California’s next great revolution—energy independence. After all, who has a lower carbon footprint than a long-distance hiker?

I had had a
California deficit
when I arrived in the state to hike the PCT, having spent a mere three days in my life in the Golden State. I had learned on the Appalachian Trail that the best way to erase
a geographical deficit
on your resume is to cover the place on foot.