8.16.18

We took our first zero in three weeks at Snoqualmie on the 15th of August. Tripping down a rocky dirt road beneath the ski lifts and into a valley filled with smoke from three separate fires. We booked a room at the Summit Inn, washed off the most obvious layers of dirt, and headed straight for Commonwealth, the only open restaurant in town. The last stretch to the middle of Washington had changed the way we experienced the trail with the more milestones, old faces, and the Canadian border now a little over two weeks away. We’d been out here on the trail for roughly 5 months and it wasn’t until Snoqualmie that we realized how much everything had changed since March 19th when we showed up at Campo with heavy packs and too much water. There was this idea at the beginning that some ‘change’ was imminent, that I’d walk a scenic trail dominated by alpine forest and bucolic sunsets and campgrounds, slowly finding the relevance of the whole thing...that it might appear one morning and I could nod my head to myself while I stuffed things into the bag for another day. But this isn’t accurate either...the truth is I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what I didn’t know and for most of this journey I’ve simply tried to assess where I am, where I need to be, and what needs to be done to get there. I did not anticipate the actual process under which these ‘changes’ occur. I can only say that yes, walking 20-30 miles per day for five months in the wilderness will undoubtedly change you. It would change anyone-and to those day hikers that we pass full of questions and wistful ‘somedays’ we always say ‘just start walking. you can do it. anyone can do it.’ We’ve met people from age 17 to 75 on the PCT. People who have taken years to complete all the sections. People who were terrified of being alone at the beginning passing us a thousand miles later with confidence and a completely new energy about them. People who got off the trail to nurse injuries then got back on and kept going. We all learned how to adapt in the end. It’s been the only hard and fast rule. The trail doesn’t automatically change anyone. We both agree it’s not a cure, not a place to come for that all-encompassing moment of revelation. It’s brutal. It’s exhausting on a level I didn’t understand before regardless of whatever competitive sports or journeys I’d done in the past. It also required us to do the one thing we weren’t anticipating: let go of control. Put your thumb out and hope for the best. The trail doesn’t get easier even with the relatively forgiving stretches in Oregon. What happens is that the body and mind begin to anticipate a sort of grind and you start pushing through with less and less complaints. You become acclimated to a certain level of discomfort. You slowly understand the cycles of your own inner animal-that regardless of how well you eat, how much you paid for your gear, and how long you spent stretching in the morning, you’re going to have days where you just feel off, nauseated, and moody. 

We sat eating bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapeños at Commonwealth with the same childish satisfaction we felt during our first burgers in Big Bear. Now we were actively working on our exit strategy for Hart’s Pass. We’d have to set up camp, wake up and tag the border and return that evening then wake up and get a ride to Stehekin or Mazama where we hoped to shuttle into Seattle and find transportation back to Bishop to finish the Yosemite stretch before the end of September. We looked at all the old photos on our phones of the first few months, laughing at how inept we were at certain points and choices we ‘strategically’ made but there were no real judgements. What mattered was that we were here. That we’d kept moving...and for all the struggles, bites, and bruises there hadn’t been a single moment of regret. Boredom was non-existent out here and each day presented entirely new challenges that not only kept us occupied but seemed legitimate rather than contrived; that is, if we had problems on the trail they typically involved food, water, or shelter. 

At the Washington border we’d come out of a fairly steep series of switchbacks into the tiny town of Cascade Locks along the great Columbia River. On the other side through the near-constant fire haze was the town of Stevenson. Connecting the two was The Bridge of the Gods, a great steel structure dating back to the active trading days along the northwest waterways. Of course, these passages are still much used and great cargo ships churn through hourly. 

We pitched our tents on a fine grassy embankment at the RV park where a dozen or so other hikers were set up just above the south side of the river and decided because of the timing and scenery and hiker-discounts everywhere that we’d take a zero here. I’d never felt so calm on a zero before. Typically there’s so much to do that towns far more stressful than the trail but we took our time-wandering here and there from grocers to coffee shops and showers. A different sense began to overtake us (and I think all the other NOBO hikers as well) Finally. Washington. While It felt like we’d been in California for a year, Oregon had seen us averaging 25 miles per day and I felt as though between the pace and rabid swarms of mosquitos we’d nearly breezed through to where we now found ourselves...perched on a picnic table watching flicks of geese and an old red and white vintage steamboat take tourists to and from the eastern docks. 

More thoughts on what happens after this. It’s on everyone’s lips now. ‘Where’s home for ya? What’s your plan? You guys got jobs to get back to?’ Other hikers laugh it off. We joke that the good thing is that you’ve got 6 months to think about your angle of re-entry. Although I rarely think about it in a tactical adult way. It’s a lifelong balancing act between adventure, creativity, and basic survival. The older I get the more I appreciate things like plans and logic. On the other hand this journey has uplifted a whole series of assumptions I had back in January when I was convinced I could take a four-season tent on a 2,600 mile hike. If I’m to become tactical in my old age I hope it’s the same sort of tactical that allows me to appreciate these sorts of things. The people I’ve met on the trail alone have already upended what I thought about the hows and whys of life. The support I’ve received and words of encouragement have been enough to convince me to stay on that silent rarefied course. It doesn’t need approval. It creates its own sort of weather like the High Sierras. So when I think of ‘what to do’ when this is finished I think gosh...I’m not on vacation. It’s just the appropriate bridge to whatever comes next. It’s a tribute and there’s little more to explain. 

Four days after Cascade Locks we came out at Forest rd 23 and stuck our thumbs out until Bill from Trout Lake stopped in his little red Honda Civic and turned the hazards on. He drove us the 13 miles into town and gave us a quick tour of the amenities including one cafe and one public shower at the one campground up the street from the one general store. We thanked him and waved goodbye and the ladies at the store said they let hikers camp on the lawn as long as we pitched our tents after the sun left the grass and had them up before it hit the grass again in the morning. We sprayed the bags down with degreaser and hosed them off for the first time since Campo. We never took to the term ‘hiker trash’ which was a sort of badge of honor the younger kids claimed. It meant going as long as you could without showering or changing clothes until you basically resembled a sort of homeless shade of brown and smelled so awful that it burned people’s noses wherever you went. We felt this was a bit rude to families and day hikers or people whose services and charity we depended on. There were a few stories of 20-something characters abusing the selflessness of others and using the PCT as a free-for-all probably because it was the first time mom and dad couldn’t tell them what to do...but these were few and far between for the most part. We just didn’t understand what was so wild and natural about smelling like garbage when hygiene was natural to every wild creature in the forests we walked through. Either way we had started to realize our bags needed attention...badly. So we did our best that evening. 

We updated pics and wrote home and ate at the cafe and shared a huckleberry milkshake and bought onions and garlic and pasta at the general store and cooked it all in the Jet Boil and my camp stove. We’ve become pretty good at cheffing with what we’ve got, packing small amounts of olive oil and seasoning for each stretch. 

When we wanted to head back out to the trail the next day we called Doug on the Trail Angel list at the store and he showed

up in about 20 minutes and gave us some local history and talked about his volunteer work on the PCT, going out with crews and making sure the trail was 18” wide. Two minutes after we waved goodbye I was certain I didn’t have my phone on me. Hanne rolled her eyes once but half-smiling because I lost things pretty much on a weekly basis. Sunglasses, knives, satchels, my spork, the sacred Cholula, and now my phone-but we didn’t skip a beat and our thumbs went back up...and then ten minutes later old Bill came serving into the trailhead with his red Civic and twenty minutes later the lady at the store handed me my phone. Some hikers had just brought it in from the bench where we’d been waiting for Doug. Then Bill said he’d take us back to the trail AGAIN and twenty minutes after that we were headed for White Pass. 

This stretch took only a few days but we got an incredibly close look at the Miriam fire and the crews that we trying to contain it. We also started passing more and more south-bounders or SOBOS heading the other direction. They seemed full of the fresh optimism we’d felt back around Big Bear-many dealing with the same early-thru-hike foot problems we’d dealt with as well. It’s also been good to get their perspectives and info from up the trail. The day before White Pass we were hiking up a barren stretch before Goat Rocks and we noticed a massive plume of vapor expanding above the horizon. It wasn’t smoke but I’d never seen a storm grow so fast. We were mystified but we were hiking directly toward it over the Knife Edge and soon we saw smoke mingling with the cloud. The hotshots must have just dumped something on the Mirriam Fire we thought...only moments later though a SOBO came careening down the side of the Knife Edge telling us that this fire wasn’t the Mirriam Fire at all but a new one that had sprung up just hours ago on the west side of the detour we’d been forced to take. This meant we were essentially walking through a fire sandwich with Mirriam burning to the east and this one on the other side. This gave us pause...first because we’d assumed we were walking far to the west of the blaze and now it looked like we were hiking directly toward a new fire that was burning so fast it’s taken over the whole side of the mountain. We thanked her for the info and debated what to do. “If this is a new fire we might be out of luck. The wind is heading east up here but it looks like the smoke is moving west over there. How fast can fires move? I don’t know...very fast. We shouldn’t mess with it. But then we lose the window if they close the detour. Not worth it. But then we have to backtrack three days. Hmmm’. It looked like our plans had suddenly been changed but we spotted some tents far below by a stream and decided to see if they had better info. Half a mile later we spotted yet another fire burning down in the valley. 

‘Wait a minute, which Fire was she talking about?’ This little one? Because this is actually west of the detour. The big one has to be Mirriam. Why didn’t she mention that? Hmmm.’

We made our way down to the tents and realized it was our new buddies Sparky and Ghost Hiker we’d just met in Trout Lake. 

‘No no this big one is the Mirriam Fire.’ Ok, that made sense.

So we got as close as we could to the detour trail that night and hoped to push through before this smaller fire caused any problems. 

In the morning we found the PCT closed off with long strips of yellow tape and official detour notes from the Forest Service. The air was incredibly smokey but we pushed on, crossing a few streams and hopping over logs to get to the highway that would take us into White Pass.

Around noon we’d caught a ride in and sat at the convenience store with other hikers. News was that the detour we’d just taken was now officially closed as well but people kept walking in saying they’d just done it. Across the street hundreds of tents lined up for the hot shots brought in from as far as New Zealand to fight the blaze and we set up above a lake behind the store in a dry patch with a lone picnic table. The best part about White Pass was that the coin-op shower kept running after your five minutes was up which is gave me enough time to get the deeper dirt out of my toenails for the next stretch. It’s the little things...which brings us to Snoqualmie Pass. We’re hoping to finally get past the smoke during this next stretch but it seems like the whole northwest is smokey right now. The plan is a seven mile climb today then two days to Steven’s Pass. So close. And so many more miles ahead. 

Love

W