I joined Spiff and Six Toes for 3+ days on the trail from July 3-6. We hiked 76 miles from Tuolumne Meadows to Sonora Pass. It is AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME! Join them for a day or two. Be trail angels for them or someone else. It could reorder your priorities. It has for me. I can’t wait to join them for another stretch later this summer.
I posted more pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11311360@N08/sets/72157606179092051/. The terrain drops your jaw like a ton of bricks. What I’ve heard about the high Sierras is true: they are like the Enchantments in Supersize mode. It is granite country, and lake country, with Montana-sized meadows and temple-like ridges. Spending a few days away from concrete and cars, and in a place like this, raises fundamental questions about what is important and what is not. (Important: Food, water, sun, bugs, being kind to your feet, sharing, friends and loved ones; Not important: Almost everything else.)
I met up with Six Toes, Spiff, Charles, Judy, Andrew, and Edith, in Lee Vining, CA. We had a great dinner, heard tales of the trail, and laughed a lot. It was like a birthday party – which is a good thing because it was in fact my birthday. Andrew, Edith, and I visited Mono Lake the next morning as Spiff and Six Toes got their supply boxes ready. In the afternoon we all walked north on the trail until Charles, Judy, Andrew, and Edith said goodbye and turned back to Tuolumne Meadows.
That’s when it hit me that I really was on the trail – with hardened trail veterans and 75 miles to go. In my haste to get ready I impulsively bought new shoes. This is not usually a good idea before a long hike. Six Toes and Spiff had to keep moving and it was my job to keep up. I had images of emerging 75 miles later with bloodied stumps where feet used to be.
Fortunately, things turned out pretty well and my feet survived intact. This is a good thing because I needed all my blood for the mosquitos. Mosquitos are industrious little buggers, and those of you who care about them will be happy to know that we donated many, many liters of blood for the hatching and rearing of mosquito babies.
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The first thing to know about hiking the PCT is that everyone has a nickname. I first met a woman who called herself - with no sense of irony or need for explanation - "Shake 'N Bake." Her husband is Low Rider. Spiff and Six Toes have shared a lot with them, including, as far as I can tell, hot tubs and motel rooms. But they do not know their real names.
On our first day out we were joined by Jellybean, a wonderful woman with whom I went skinny dipping in lakes and slept in a broken down motel room before learning her non-trail (i.e., real) name. Later we were joined by Lil' Wrangler, who is not little at all, but who got his name because he ordered four corn dogs off the Lil’ Wrangler children’s menu at a restaurant in southern California many weeks ago. Lil’ Wrangler’s cap even has a nickname, as the words “Super Visor” are written across the bill. Maybe it is the thin air, but this type of humor works on the trail.
Later I met Squatch, Nibblewill Nomad, Barely Legal, Llama, Johnny Two Stoves, two of the Three Amigos, and – apparently because he is from Italy and needs no additional nickname – Lorenzo.
Nicknames are sort of given and sort of chosen. Despite having the unquestionably best name of all, Barely Legal was trying to change her nickname to Wild Child. You tell me which works best.
The second thing to know is that hiking the trail is a metaphor for life itself – you travel with others, but ultimately you are on your own. Groups form and dissolve without any communication that I could discern. Jellybean simply was part of our group. Then Lil’ Wrangler was too. Llama could have joined us, but he hung back and I did not see him again for two days.
A third thing to know is that hiking the PCT is not like backpacking as I know it. When I go backpacking, we lug a ton of stuff up to a pretty spot and look around for a nice area to make home for a couple days. We set up a kitchen area, set up the tent, and find a spot to stash food away from rodents and bears.
Through-hiking, in contrast, places no premium on finding the “right” spot. Instead, when it is time to get ready for bed, everyone flops on their own plot of gound like puppies and pulls out their books and journals. Tents, if used, pop up in a minute.
I slept without a tent for two nights. The stars and constellations are tilted compared to what we see up here in Washington. Cygnus the Swan, Lyra, and Aquila the Eagle soared overhead throughout the night. My sleeping bag got wet, but I copied Spiff’s lead and hiked in the morning with the bag draped over my pack. It dried up in no time.
For many people, hiking the trail comes to define their lives. Shake N Bake told a story about a friend who hiked the PCT four years ago. When asked by a mutual friend what she had been doing lately, this friend began, “Well, I recently hiked the PCT…” The trail was that important, that much a defining experience in her life.
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We had a car waiting at Sonora Pass, and drove to Bridgeport for the night. After breakfast we drove back up and hung out as Gordon – a trail angel in a white van – blasted the song “Out on the Crest Trail” over his van’s speakers. We danced – I caught Six Toes dancing on video – and hung out until there was no longer any excuse to stick around. We said goodbye and Spiff and Six Toes shouldered their packs and disappeared into the trees of Sonora Pass. It was a hard moment. I considered dropping everything to join them on the trail. Gordon’s song says, “There’s a strong wind, and it’s pulling me northward. To the Canadian border. And I’ll soon be there.”
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