PCT Vol. 2: But Still, I Walked

I got married again, in the only way I knew how: Just us, on top of a mountain. No pomp and circumstance, no schedule, no expectations to meet. We stood on the trail that brought us together, shared our vows for each other – our hopes for our future together, the life that we want to build; shared simply and privately and whole-heartedly.

After the end of my first marriage, I thought that it would be different. I thought that there would be more hesitation. I’d certainly felt it in the first relationship I had after my divorce, the way that I loved him from a safe distance. I thought that part of my soul had been irrevocably tarnished, and would never be quite the same again. Maybe that was the case, and I got all of my wariness out of my system before I met Ben. Or maybe, as it so often is… it was just the wrong person, the wrong time.

But, as I rounded the corner of Wayah Bald fire tower, the rightness of the moment, this person, this life, settled deep into my bones. It was always going to be that smartass thru-hiker who was waiting for me in the snowstorm. It was always going to be the one who told me, a total stranger at the time and for many months after, that he had complete faith I would make it to Katahdin… because he’d been there before, and knew what it took to make it. I think my person believed in me before I believed in myself.

But because marriage is not an end goal; it’s the beginning of a life shared by two people who have full lives of their own… I married him, and then four days later, I walked away.

The Full Brunt of Alone

After a two–day honeymoon, Ben and I left our hotel on the Pacific coast, and drove south to Scout and Frodo’s, which was an incredible experience. Scout and Frodo are two trail angels – people who give freely of their homes, their time, and their resources to help hikers along their way. They have been a traditional stop for thru-hikers destined for the Pacific Crest Trail for decades, but this was their last year hosting hikers in their backyard.

Their hospitality, and generosity, was over-the-top in the best way. Their neighbor, a Triple Crowner named Barrel Roll, cooked dinner for us. Scout and Frodo made us breakfast, and they both led us through talks about the conditions of the trail ahead, advice for what was to come, and anecdotes from their own hike.

“I have two questions for all of you,” Scout said, sitting cross-legged in a loose circle of hikers. He held up one finger, with a little smile on his face. “First… if anyone could hike with you for just one day, who would it be? And second,” he held up another finger, “who has said or done the nicest or most memorable thing to support your thru-hike?

I looked to my left, where Ben was sitting, a temporary tattoo drying on his leg (Scout had offered us a little pile of tattoos to pass around the circle, and I had one on my wrist.) He caught me looking and winked. I bumped him with my knee.

“I would want my dad to join me,” I said, when it was my turn to share. “His back isn’t what it used to be. He would do it if he could. I wish he could.” I thought back to just a couple weeks prior—my parents had visited Ben and I in North Carolina. We’d driven up to Newfound Gap, where the Appalachian Trail crisscrosses the border of North Carolina and Tennessee… where I had given myself my trail name. The place that first showed me I was capable of walking thousands of miles.

My dad had walked the AT with me there, north of the gap — slowly, with a sturdy cane sinking into the damp earth. “I want to just go until the next blaze,” he told me as I shadowed him. “Just on to the next blaze…”

I quelled my worried-daughter thoughts and hung back, watching him walk ahead in the Trail lined by bluets, shooting star flowers, little ferns unfurling in the spring air. I recognized a wanderer heart when I saw it, just as Ben had recognized it in me the day that we met. It killed me to watch my father walk, and know that he would have to turn around. I knew the call of the next blaze all too well. I had been immensely lucky and privileged to thru-hike once. And now, I was going to do it again.

“If I got my inclination to thru-hike from anyone, it came from my dad,” I told the group simply. “And as for the person who has done the most meaningful thing…” I jutted my thumb towards Ben. “My husband was the first person who told me I would make it to Katahdin on my AT thru. He’s given me so much guidance for this one. I don’t want to leave him, but I want to make him proud.”

The next morning, in the pre-dawn hours just as the birds began to sing, I woke up. I could feel Ben staring at me from across the dark expanse of the tent. I reached out my hand, and he took it. We laid there in silence for a moment that felt too short, before I rolled away, and began packing my things.

It was almost a good thing that he had a plane to catch, because we would’ve let the sun rise fast and hot on the first day of my hike, postponing the inevitable. The moment when I would turn and walk away from him, and begin our longest separation since we’d found each other again in Asheville. Ben, who couldn’t stand to be apart from me long enough to outlast a week-long work trip in Colorado, who flew out to meet me for a day, and meet my family, a scant 2-months-and-change into our new relationship. Ben, who hadn’t batted an eye when I half-jokingly told him we should move in together after 6 months of dating, since we were commuting to his house or my apartment every day anyway. He’d readjusted his “bug-out bag,” as I’d jokingly called it—his little collection of toiletries and clothes that traveled back and forth with him from his place to mine—and said: “Well, can you get out of your lease?” Ben, who—I stopped that train of thought, my throat tight. I looked out the window at the dust and the lonely little post-apocalyptic town of Campo, California.

We pulled up right next to the monument, which was huge, but stood small and proud next to the wall on the border; a rust-colored behemoth that snaked away forebodingly into the distance. There was even a patrol truck barreling down the length of it, sending a plume of dust into the lonely desert sky.

We got out, I climbed on the monument, and it was all smiles and fanfare for the two of us, alone at the terminus, until I climbed back down into the dirt. My pack was leaned against the monument, and Ben stood a few paces away, looking between me and it. I closed the distance and tucked myself into the familiar fold of his arms.

“Well,” I said, and that’s how far I got before I started to cry.

“I’ll come see you,” he murmured, almost chuckling because, I was being so dramatic. We had plans for him to come out in a couple months after all, if not sooner—and then later, once I hit Oregon, he would drive up and run support for me, so I could put away miles and get back to our hostel in time for SOBO season.

But I wasn’t thinking of all that. I was thinking of what was about to happen: about shouldering my pack and clipping it into place, and then turning north while he drove away.

And I did, somehow. I stepped back, dried my tears, picked up my pack, and turned. I turned back, two or three times, watching him walk to the car, then get in the car, and then, where the trail crossed the road, he slowed and I ran up to the window to kiss him one last time.

Then, he was gone. And I was alone.

And Still, I Walked

I’d thought that walking off the Appalachian Trail for the last time would’ve been the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I hadn’t even cried like this on summit day. I trudged through the desert as the temperatures rose, face a snotty mess, not caring; just lost in the immense, particular loneliness of missing the one person I wanted to spend all my waking hours with.

But still, I walked. I walked, because even with the ache, I knew that I wanted this: I wanted to walk from Mexico to Canada; I wanted to be Newfound again. Newfound, who laughed, delighted and renitent, in the raging heart of 50-mph gales in the Whites; Newfound, who started hiking scared and shaking and unsure, and ended the last thru-hike with steady acceptance of whatever was to come. Out there, I’d found the sure foothold within myself that allowed me to trust my own instincts, for the first time in my life. I hadn’t lost that. It was still there, still in me. I could do this.

“Okay, Newfound,” I said, and squared my shoulders, and pretended to be brave. “Let’s go to Canada.”

The First 100 Miles

The first day, I only hiked 11 miles—starting later in the day, and immediately having to deal with a gear malfunction. I was wearing socks and liners; and one of my outer socks had split along the seam. After stopping to repair the seam, I’d lost more daylight than I wanted before setting up my tent, borrowed from Ben, for the first time by myself, so I parked myself at the next available flat spot. I was glad that I had—the Durston X-Mid Pro is a fantastic tent, but has a huge footprint; and I had to change sites a couple times to find one large enough for it. There was one other hiker near me, which was a relief to me. I’d never enjoyed camping alone.

As I was setting up, two hikers I had met at Scout and Frodo’s, Showstopper and S., passed me—more familiar faces along the trail; a comforting sight even if they were moving on.

I wrote a letter to myself in the gathering darkness.

Newfound, you survived the end of your world looked shame in the face and found that you loved yourself. You found your way home after years of sending your soul into exile. Your greatest fears have given you your biggest blessings. The fear you have now will do the same. Walk. For the life you live and to honor it, keep walking.

My alarm went off the next morning at 4:30, and after a few clumsy attempts at packing up, I stepped off around an hour later. I ate breakfast at my first water source of the day, Hauser Creek, then walked on to a malt shop where Showstopper and S. were wrapping up lunch. All of us, plus two other hikers, M. and P., huddled around the “artisanal water fountain,” where we fed it quarters in exchange for gallons of water, all of us laughing and taking turns putting our Smartwater bottles under the stream.

We siesta’d under an overpass that day, before hiking on. Even with the long breaks, when I arrived at my campsite near Kitchen Creek with several hours to spare; I had completed over 17 miles that day—on day two. The terrain of the PCT, so far, was extremely forgiving. Still, I worried for my knees, concerned that I was making the same mistake I’d made on the AT—going too fast, too soon. I resolved to keep the miles as short as I could, but still made a steep descent to Kitchen Creek for dinner.

When I climbed back up to my tentsite, I found myself alone—just me, my tent, and the 4ft tall chapparal on the ridge. And oddly, it didn’t make me nervous to be alone. I called Ben, and we talked until the sun set.

The next morning, I woke to fog—a cloud inversion from the creek below. It was the second day in a row that I’d woken up to a completely wet tent, something that I hadn’t anticipated happening in a desert. I stowed my things, and hiked on, unsure of where to stop for the day. There were new camping restrictions by Mt. Laguna; to bypass them I would have to do over 20 miles. But, my mind was quickly made up for me as I climbed away from Fred Canyon Creek. A sharp pain spiked in my right foot, near the ankle, right on top. I sat down and pulled off my shoes. A noticeable, red bump with a prominently angry tendon running straight through it, made my mind up for me. I loosened my laces and booked a room at the Tiny House Block hostel, worried that I would have to zero. I managed to book an appointment with Blaze Physio before limping out to do my town chores in Mt. Laguna.

Blaze told me that it was just a pressure injury, and gave me a few exercises and a new lace pattern for my shoes to relieve the pressure.

When I returned to the hostel, M. and P., who I’d met at the malt shop, had shown up. We caught up about the trail, and they hiked around me as I made my way slowly up the trail, only putting away 14.7 miles on day 4. Showstopper and S. caught up to us as we set up camp, and I decided to cowboy camp for the first time. The moment the sun went down, to mark the occasion, we all heard a mountain lion scream.

On day 5, the spacing of the water sources required an 18+ mile day—a longer distance than I felt I should be doing, but I resolved to take a long, shoes-off siesta to allow my foot to breathe. I hiked slow, adjusting the lacing on my shoes as I went, and the pain didn’t return. I found a bush where I siesta’d for some time with S., whose husband, Showstopper, had hitched into town earlier in the day to deal with horrific blisters. We chatted and watched a roadrunner sprint back and forth in the dirt road in front of us, and I braved a cloud of bees and hornets to refill my water from a underground tank.

S. continued on, and I continued to siesta, watching a fire truck amble up the hill with a tank full of water to refill the tank. “Fuuuuck,” one of the firemen complained when he saw the bees, and I had a private chuckle, remembering how, mere hours before, I had gingerly danced around them, trying not to get stung.

“Want a water?” the same fireman asked, walking up to me with one in his hand. I grinned.

“Nah, thanks though! I braved the bees and got some from the tank earlier.” I patted the full CNOC bladder next to me.

“Well… there’s dead animals floating in the tank, in case you change your mind.” He waggled the water bottle towards me, cold, dripping, and dead-animal-juice free. I hadn’t drank any of the water yet, and planned to filter as I always had… but I had iodine tablets to treat as well.

“Ah…”

He smiled. “Here.” He tossed the water towards me, and I caught it. “I’ll bring you another one. Stop by and say hello in Warner Springs—my name’s Cody.”

The next day, I hiked a short day—only 6 miles—which I made up the next day with my first 20-mile day of the trail. It was windy, but the grade was so gentle that I made it to Barrel Springs, completing 20 miles, by 2:30pm. My next opportunity for water was 10 more miles away, and I knew that I was already pushing my luck with a 20, so I stayed put. M. and P., and a hiker I had met in passing on the Appalachian Trail, Ridealong, caught up hours later, and we chatted by the springs before heading to bed.

The desert, so far, has been a mix of surprising signs of life that I didn’t expect to find—jackrabbits scattering away from the light of my headlamp in the morning, mountain lion screams echoing off the ridges and gulleys, arid water carries and then fast-flowing, cold springs. So far, it hasn’t been anything that I expected—it’s been more.

I still get choked up if the silences on the phone calls linger a bit too long with Ben, but with plans to see each other within the next couple hundred miles, and the beauty unfolding before me, it’s been easier. I don’t think there will be a day that goes by that I’ll see a sunset, turn to point it out to him, and feel the pang of a reminder that he’s not at my side.

But, I’ve done hard things before—and have never regretted it before. I have to trust it’ll be the same here.