Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (41 page)

Another day at “the office”. By the way, if you have office envy, there is plenty more office space available!

Rare is the individual whose mind hasn’t been captivated by the great explorers of centuries past. Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, and the Pilgrims all crossed oceans on far-flung peregrinations. Countless others made history in the Great American Westward Expansion. Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, and John Wesley Powell, to name but a few. Not for a second would I rate hiking the PCT in the league with these intrepid souls. That age is long gone, and never to return. But that doesn’t mean that a person should lose one’s adventurousness or curiosity. Quite the contrary.

Consider for a moment the tragic case of Chris McCandless, the protagonist in Jon Krakauer’s,
Into the Wild.
So young, but so earnest and thoughtful, McCandless had headed off on foot across the country after college graduation. Given a literary diet overly rich in the Yukon adventures of Jack London, it was perhaps inevitable he would end up in the Alaskan bush country.

“Nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future,” he wrote. “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.” Obviously, McCandless took his wanderlust too far, for he ended up trapped in the nether regions and starved to death.

Perhaps the most poignant part of the entire story is that McCandless’s instincts were quite sound. In fact, on the way to Alaska, McCandless actually hiked for a while on the PCT. Had he just continued, he might have been able to sate his appetite for adventure right there on this wondrous national scenic trail.

The nation’s two great national scenic trails (AT and PCT) may be the closest thing that an average person like myself can ever get to an open-ended journey, like the explorers of yore. Both rate among the few things in my life where I can honestly say I’ve done my utmost. I’m immensely grateful for the experience.

Yet, I would never try to talk anybody into attempting them. They require all-out effort for an extended period of time, and are inevitably accompanied by a certain amount of peril. Rather, my message is directed to the person who says, “I really would like to try them, but I don’t know if I’m capable.” That person would then be in the same shoes as I was in 2005, when I had set off so full of hopes and fear on the Appalachian Trail, never having even spent the night outdoors. My strongest exhortations to that person would be to put their game face on and step forward.

I distinctly remember arriving at a campsite alongside a lake on a miserably cold, rainy night in northern Washington. All my usual doubts were flaring up this evening, as I struggled to stay warm. While hurrying to erect my tent, I suddenly heard something emerge from the nearby pond. I jerked around to see the smiling face of a nude male heading dutifully to his nearby tent. His trail name—which could indeed be a metaphor for the entire long-distance hiking experience— was Crazy, But Good Crazy.

Suggested Readings

White, Dan, Cactus Eaters: Harper Perennial, 2008.

Ballard, Angela and Duffy, A Blistered Kind of Love, The Mountaineers Books, 2003.

Krakauer, Jon, Into the Wild, Anchor Books, 1996.

Krakauer, Jon, Into Thin Air, Anchor Books, 1998.

McDonnell, Jackie, Pacific Crest Trail Handbook, 2009.

Spearing, George, Dances With Marmots, Lulu Press, 2005.

Blanchard, Dennis, Three Hundred Zeroes, Amazon, 2010.

Schifrin, Schaffer, Winnet, Jenkins, The Pacific Crest Trail,

Wilderness Press, 2003.

Ryback, Eric, The High Adventure of Eric Ryback: Canada to Mexico on Foot, Chronicle Books, 1971

Go, Benedict, PCT Data Book, Wilderness Press, 2009

Acknowledgments

Several people helped turn out this work in a timely fashion. Miles Brandon, who proved to be almost embarrassingly helpful while hiking the trail, also assisted me by letting me use many of his photographs. Thanks again, Miles.

Carl Triplehorn of Alaska, who took over one thousand photographs on the PCT, was nice enough to give me access to some of them.

Dave and Nancy Fernbun, avid beach-walkers in Sarasota, Florida, but equally avid readers, offered several helpful suggestions. Of course, their enthusiasm was partly driven by their western orientation, and virtual refusal to acknowledge the mountains in the East as anything more than blips!

Dennis Blanchard, also of Sarasota, Florida, and author of the entertaining hiking narrative,
Three Hundred Zeroes,
showed the generosity that has made him so popular in the hiking community. Dennis knows a technophobe when he sees one, and helped me get the manuscript format-ready for publication.

Jaime Dunn of Knoxville, Tennessee, and an avid mountaineer herself, proved to be genuinely interested in this work, and showed a keen eye for the arresting detail.

Once again, my mother helped with re-supply, by sending out maps and various articles of equipment to various post-offices along the way. She is another example of someone who has absolutely no background in hiking or wilderness adventures, yet gamely warms to the task when engaged. That says a little something about the virtues of the outdoor life.

About the Author

Bill Walker was born and raised in Macon, Georgia. He was a commodities trader in Chicago and London for 14 years, and later a teacher in Latin America. His first book, Skywalker–Close Encounteres on the Appalachian Trail, was a narrative of his 2005 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Mr. Walker, who is 6’ 11”, is currently working on a book on the subject of height. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.