Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (35 page)
Read Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail Online
Authors: BILL WALKER
He was also a map-reader
non-pareil.
This skill came in quite handy right off the bat, in the confusing maze of circuitous routes above tree line.
“Hey, we can take this side trail to Ramona Falls,” he said enthusiastically.
“Yeah, I guess,” I answered unenthusiastically, thinking about the extra miles it would add. To be sure, it was spectacular as we entered a lush green forest and soon came upon water rushing over a volcanic cliff. But Canada was still a helluva’ long way away.
“I don’t think it will be that cold up there in October,” Valhalla said. Of course, being Scandinavian, he would say that.
Pretty Boy Joe had bolted from Timberline Lodge at 6 a.m., and soon caught up with us with tales of his previous night’s evasive activities. I had forsworn night-hiking just a few nights before. But the odds of these two characters stopping at any reasonable hour were slim. At dark, we found ourselves on an exposed ridge in a steady drizzle, which conjured up deep-seated fears. Fortunately, Valhalla located what appeared to be an obscure side trail for us to camp. That side trail ended up being the most spectacular short-distance trail in the Northwest.
The Eagle Creek Trail is an engineering marvel. Over the course of just twenty miles, it passes a half-dozen major waterfalls. WPA workers had blasted ledges out of sheer cliffs for hikers to walk along (with clammy palms, to be sure!). In one place they had even smashed an entire tunnel out of a rock wall, so that hikers can walk underneath a 150 foot waterfall called Tunnel Falls. That was exhilarating enough for me. But not for Pretty Boy Joe. Soon he found a way down a steep bank, and suddenly had stripped down and dove naked in the pool of water where the cascades were crashing down.
It was a Sunday afternoon and the Eagle Creek Trail was teeming with weekend hikers coming up from the Columbia River Gorge. That’s where we were headed down to. We lost over 4,000 feet of elevation as we descended towards the gorge in what proved to be a glorious end to Oregon. Practically every hiker had developed an affinity for this state, so populated with adventurous souls.
We arrived at the small, riverside town of Cascade Locks, which at 150 feet is the lowest point on the entire PCT. The town was hospitable enough to allow hikers to camp and shower for free in a city park right along the river. Washington State—where I had never set foot—lay just across the way. But it was this magnificent Colombia River lying right in front of us that I couldn’t get my mind off.
It was one of the scenes in what I still consider, even in this day and age of revisionist history, to be one of the most dramatic stories of the American epic. I speak, of course, of
the Corps of Discovery.
T
he library of Thomas Jefferson is the stuff of legend. With 15,000 volumes, it was by far the largest collection of books in the country. Better yet, Jefferson seemed to have actually read most of them. His collection on North American geography was unparalleled anywhere in the world. There was one book in this collection, however, that had captured his imagination more than any other. In fact, he had become virtually obsessed by it.
The book was entitled
Voyages from Montreal, Through the Continent of North America, to the Pacific Ocean.
It was written by a young Scotsman named Alexander Mackenzie. In 1793, MacKenzie had attempted to find a continual water route all the way to the Pacific Ocean. MacKenzie’s crew had navigated various waterways from Montreal, Canada all the way to the Canadian Rockies. There his team found a mountain pass with an elevation of only 3,000 feet to get over the Rockies. They were easily able to portage (carry their boat overland) at this mountain pass, and eventually made it to the Pacific. There he staked a British claim to the Northwest. This alarmed Jefferson.
One specific passage in the book was particularly provocative. MacKenzie described the Columbia as “the most Northern situation fit for colonization, and suitable to the residence of a civilized people.” His recommended solution was for the British to settle the Columbia River. The possibility of the British moving south and colonizing the Columbia River threw the normally self-contained Jefferson into manic activity.
Thomas Jefferson was probably the greatest
Francophile,
and the greatest
Anglophobe,
in American history. This was especially ironic in a country that tends to be just the opposite. However, amongst the Nation’s Founders, suspicion of the British ran universally deep. Despite losing their thirteen colonies on the Atlantic coast in the Revolutionary War, Great Britain still held
more
land on the American continent than the United States. When Jefferson took the oath of office as President in 1801, he had every intention of reversing this.
What followed, of course, was the Louisiana Purchase. The seller, Napoleon Bonaparte, couldn’t believe his luck. Why would we actually pay for the territory? After all, France was bogged down in the Napoleonic Wars with England, and had no way to defend the territories from the United States.
“The sale gives England a rival,” he chortled.
The situation in the American West was like a chessboard—extremely fluid. To be sure, the European imperial powers were veterans at power politics and land grabbing. What they couldn’t reckon on, however, was that Jefferson, the notorious Romantic Man of the Enlightenment, would prove to be quite the Machiavellian, himself.
One huge question had been just how wide the American continent was—2,000, 3,000, 5,000 miles? Nobody had known for sure until British Captain James Cook’s third voyage up the Pacific Coast in 1780. The information from this voyage gave Jefferson a rough idea of the extent of the American continent. It was about 3,000 miles wide.
Jefferson and his secretary and alter-ego, Merriwether Lewis had picked up some vague information from various Indians passing through Washington about a large mountain chain in the West. Their best guess was that these mountains (the Rockies) were probably about the same height and breadth as the Appalachian Mountain Chain. Thus, Lewis shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a route to the Pacific. They even thought Lewis’ expedition could sail to and from the Pacific in one year. This was in spite of the fact that both of them thought woolly mammoths and other prehistoric creatures stalked the West.
The general belief was that the Louisiana Purchase covered the area between the Mississippi River and the Continental Divide. However, Jefferson had a more expansive interpretation—that it also included the Northwest Territories on the far side of the Continental Divide. It was up for grabs. But he needed an all-water Northwest Passage to stake an American claim. The Russians were known to have designs on a warm water ports in the Northwest region. The Spanish, who then held California, were perennial candidates to grab the Oregon territories further north. But the greatest threat was the British.
Jefferson’s and Lewis’ competitive instincts were aroused. If the British had already done it, we could do it better. This expedition was destined to be American naivete at its best.
It’s tempting, but I’m not going to go into the details of Lewis and Clark’s famous journey. The story is told in spellbinding fashion by Stephen Ambrose in his bestseller,
Undaunted Courage.
However, a few points do seem noteworthy:
--Lewis and Clark operated the Corps of Discovery through a joint command. Traditionally, this has had disastrous effects on a military mission. Why did it work here? The two men trusted each other completely. Never once did they quarrel.
--They had the very best men and equipment of the time on the mission. Every frontiersman, mapmaker, hunter, fisherman, woodsman, or boat builder worth his salt was dying for the opportunity to go west on this historic mission. Eventually, 33 people were named by Lewis and Clark. They chose well. Only one member died, and that was from sickness.
--No tales, of course, can match the drama of Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian girl who helped get them safely through the Rockies. However, Cameahwait, Old Toby, and other Indians also guided them at critical junctures. Lewis and Clark deserve credit for having a gut-level feel for just whom they could trust.
--President Jefferson, as well as Lewis and Clark, had generally enlightened attitudes toward natives. “Treat them in the most friendly manner which their own conduct will permit,” were Jefferson’s instructions. He had every intention of constructively bringing them into the American orbit. Only sporadic violence was perpetrated along the way against the native tribes, and it was generally done in self-defense. Unfortunately, neither Jefferson (a large slaveowner), Lewis, nor Clark showed such high-mindedness towards blacks. Clark brought a slave (York) along who participated fully in Corps activities. But Clark treated him very differently from the other men, and refused York’s request for release upon return.
In a technical sense, the Lewis and Clark mission was a failure. They didn’t find an all-water route to link the Atlantic with the Pacific that Jefferson so badly wanted. But what they did achieve was ultimately more important. Their journey firmly staked an American claim not just on the territory explicitly acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, but the territory west of the Rocky Mountains as well.
The British were still much more powerful than the United States and could easily have extended their territorial claims down to the Columbia River. The headwaters of the Columbia lie several hundred miles north in the Canadian Rockies, which would have made this huge river a more natural border.
Given that the PCT is a hike from Mexico to Canada, I would now be finished if that alternative scenario had prevailed. Part of me would have been relieved at that prospect! However, the PCT in Washington combines great beauty with difficulty. With a certain amount of trepidation, to be sure, I was greatly looking forward to it.
Without perpetual uncertainty,
the drama of human life would be destroyed.
Winston Churchill
“Y
ou know you’re supposed to buy all of your food for Washington in Cascade Locks,” Uber Bitch had told me back in central Oregon.
“You’re honestly telling me there’s not one decent grocery store we’re going to pass in all of Washington,” I had protested.
“Forget it. There’s nothing there.” Other hikers confirmed it.
