PCT Vol. 3: Uprooted
I woke to a shroud of mist coating the inside and outside of my tent.
I stretched gingerly, paying attention to my left knee. It obliged without complaint, so I stretched and lifted it from the ground, pointing my toes. Nothing. I let my leg fall to the sleeping pad with a little plop. I had tested it the previous day, doing 20 miles on day 7 of a thru-hike, and completing my first 100 miles of the PCT on the same day. I was worried that the same injury I’d had on the AT would raise its ugly head, but… nothing.
I gathered my sodden belongings and shoved them into my pack. First my quilt, loose and resting on top of my unused rain suit; then my journal stuffed along the side. On top, my ditty bag with my toiletries and med kit; my electronics bag, then a little roll-top Dyneema bag (the one I’d used on the AT to compress my quilt) full of sleeping clothes. I set a pot of water on my stove to warm up for breakfast, while I broke down my tent and gathered stakes from the dry, packed earth.
Then, breakfast eaten and pack full, I set out for Warner Springs: my next resupply point.
That resupply was a well-stocked gas station, where the helpful clerk, Shannon, strongly encouraged me to get two of the gigantic hot dogs when I was checking out with only one. Snacks acquired, I headed over to the post office, which was rumored to be hiker-friendly, to charge up my phone and battery bank.
As I sat in the corner on the floor, coiling myself into a smaller ball to let post office patrons by, I heard the postman say, in a jovial tone to someone he recognized in his small town: “Looks like it’s warming up, eh? Finally time to go fishing again!” My bad knee barely throbbed in protest, and I absently rubbed it. 100 more miles, I thought, much less enthused by the foretold heatwave. 100 more miles, and then we’ve gotta kick it into gear, just like last time.
To echo that sentiment, the next post office visitor, and older lady with coiffed grey hair, looked me up and down. “A little late in the season to be NOBO, eh?” she said, not rudely.
I hiked out in to the heat of midday, passing through open pastures, with cows judging and the sun blinding. I stopped to siesta at the first crossing of Agua Caliente Creek, then did a couple more miles up to a campsite with the creek roaring below. As I set up to cowboy camp, I was harassed by the first little cloud of mosquitoes.
The next day, the sun rose with a vengeance, and we hikers scattered under its gaze like ants. I beelined for Mike’s Place, a trail angel’s property with a stocked water tank. I rested there, drinking water, and filled every vessel I owned in preparation for the long water carry to the Paradise Valley Cafe—26 miles and where my first resupply box, with my microspikes, was waiting. As the sun set, I left Mike’s Place and ended at a little over 18 miles for the day, camping near a couple I’d met further south, R. and L.
My alarm went off at 3:30 on day 10 of my thru-hike, and I watched the moon set as the sun rose.
If the PVC’s burger is the “best burger on trail,” we are all going to have a bad time out here. I managed to eat all of it because, when hiking, food is food—and picked through my resupply box. I’d overpacked it, as usual, and made a sizeable donation to the hiker box. As I sat there, a hiker from my AT class, Snoball, sat and chatted with me before heading up trail, a pack of hot dogs and buns dangling from his pack. When the sun set, I roadwalked back to the trail, then hiked another mile or so before settling in for the night, as coyotes howled.
The High Desert
I started my day in the desert, and climbed up towards san Jacinto in a long, serpentine series of switchbacks. The higher I climbed, the tighter the switchbacks became, until I was going straight up the mountain—just as I had on the AT. And as I climbed, the wind rose into a gale, screaming in my ears as I switchbacked to the wind-facing side of the mountain.
It was a beautiful day and evening, watching the clouds scurry between the saddles of the mountains. There were blowdowns and treacherous rockslides to navigate, so when I finally made it to camp—a not-very-ideal spot in the windswept saddle of two peaks—I actually felt tired, and hungry, for the first time of my thru hike.
I chose a slightly wind-protected spot near two hikers I met along the way, Flora and Fauna (who SOBO’d the AT in ‘21,) popped in my earplugs to drown out the wind, and slept well for the first time of the thru.
I underestimated the next 8.6 miles of trail to the Devil’s Slide blue blaze, which would take me down into Idyllwild. I’d thought that I’d experienced bad blowdowns at that point, but every quarter mile had a vicious tangle of limbs and trunks to navigate. One of them required me to bushwack up a couple lines of elevation, lose the trail, and then I scuffed my knee badly as I scrambled back down to the PCT.
The wind was also much, much worse—and seemed to pick up as soon as I reached a point of the trail where it was almost too easy to slip and fall thousands of feet. I planted myself against the wind, trekking poles digging into the ground, and then, once the wind died, would step lightly and quickly past eroded patches of trail, my heart in my throat. There were sometimes mere inches of gravelly, crumbling trail between me and a near-vertical slide off the edge of the mountain.
When I reached Devil’s Slide trail, a 2.6 straight-downhill walk to a parking lot where I could hitch a ride into Idyllwild, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I knew that climbing back up would be exhausting, but the trail was wide, free of blowdowns, and evenly graded. It even had snowmelt streams running across it.
Once in Idyllwild, I quickly went about my town chores, and met up with Gameboy, one of Ben’s friends from the PCT, for dinner. By the time I made my way to camp, the sun was setting, and I didn’t feel rested. I woke up on day 13 and immediately decided to zero, though my first planned zero wasn’t going to be until Big Bear. I bounced from coffee shop to grocery store, writing and eating and resting… and then, day 14 arrived, and I hiked out.
Though I made it back to trail around 10am, and was hiking in cool, alpine forests, I only managed 11.1 miles—and did not climb the summit of San Jacinto. I’d forgotten how difficult it is for me to re-acclimate to hiking the day after a zero, and had to give myself grace as I made camp right before the huge descent to the desert floor far below us.
In Need of an Oasis
Day 15 was the most difficult day yet. Down, down, down over 7,000ft of descent, under punishing heat that only rose as I climbed down to the desert. The wind was utterly still in the switchbacks, but as soon as I made it to the low desert, it picked up with a fury. The hiking this day was so miserable I barely noticed myself passing the 200-mile mark.
To add insult to injury, I felt my shorts begin to chafe against my legs—I’d lost enough weight that there was space between the material and my thighs, and the sandpaper-like grime of the PCT jumped on the opportunity. In the middle of the descent, I checked (very briefly) for other hikers before stripping down and changing into a lightweight dress I was carrying for town days. Because it was sleeveless though, I had to put my sun hoodie over it—creating layers of fabric that barely toed the line between protecting me from the sun and overheating me.
As soon as I entered the dry gulley to hike the last 3 miles to the I-10 oasis, the wind howled against me, blowing loose sand into my eyes and mouth. Beneath my feet, the sand shifted and made each step a crucible. By the time I made it to the cool darkness of the interstate overpass, I threw off my pack and threw myself to the ground after it, feeling utterly soul-crushed by the heat, the sliding sand, and the sustained 40mph gusts of wind that drove me back with each step.
It’s fitting, I thought, as I leaned my head against the cool concrete and stared up at the overpass with cars rumbling overhead. It felt appropriate that I would suffer so much in the vicinity of the same strip of pavement that, if I walked eastbound on it long enough, would take me back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I’d spent most of my life trying to leave my home town, and now, thousands of miles away, it seemed to be mocking me.
I missed North Carolina with every part of me in that moment. The cool mountain air. The humidity. The rain… especially the rain.
Eventually, I peeled myself off the ground, shouldered my pack, and then, hilariously, ordered an Uber into town. A beat-up Mazda pulled up, and in it was a driver in a suit two sizes too small, smelling overwhelmingly of cologne; the picture of a private chauffer. “I would like to visit Baton Rouge!” he said, when I told him of I-10 and its connection to my childhood home. I didn’t have the energy or the heart to advise against it.
When he dropped me off, I sat in the cool AC of the Cabazon In-N-Out, silently eating a burger while much cleaner restaurant-goers bustled around me. I stayed there until the sun began to set, then ordered another Uber back to trail.
Survival of the Smallest
I texted Ben that I was night hiking, and he called, staying on the phone with me until I was past the line of houses next to the trail. “It’s a weird section,” he recalled. “The houses continue for a bit, and then you follow a road.” Once I was past the houses, he wished me safe travels, and hung up. I clicked on my headlamp and proceeded into the darkness, the windmills ahead of me growing larger and louder as I walked.
When I was about a mile out from my planned stop, around 9:30 pm, I saw headlights round a bend in the road.
I paused, reflexively reaching up to the button of my headlamp.
And then the headlights… moved. Not headlights. A spotlight. It swept up the ridge across the road from me, and then pointed directly at the PCT. Searching.
I clicked off my headlamp and lowered myself into a crouch. I was close enough to the windmill farm that it could just be security, but… as the truck drew closer, it directed its spotlight directly towards the PCT. Shit. Security or no, I was a solo woman hiking in the dark. I didn’t need to know what that truck was up to. There was a patch of prickly pear ahead of me, and I dove for it, flattening myself behind it. As the truck ambled closer, I snatched my hat—white, reflective—from my head, and shoved it under my body, flattening myself in the dirt, making myself small.
The truck ambled by, the spotlight casting wide shadows over my prone body. About 50 yards behind me, it reached a gate in the road, and the brake lights flashed as it shifted into park. Doors opened. Male voices floated up the trail towards me.
I rose silently to my feet, and stole my way north by starlight, not daring to risk my headlamp.
I made it a quarter of a mile before the truck made a 3-point turn and drove towards me again, spotlight trained on the trail. I bushwacked west a few yards, and flattened myself behind a bush that was indistinct and shadowy in the darkness. This time, as the truck drove by, I reached up for the knife dangling from my neck, touching it to reassure myself that it was there. There would be no running from them, not in this terrain. With steep ridges on either side of the trail and road, I wouldn’t outrun them… heat-zapped and tired as I was. I would have to fight. Knowing this, I still felt strangely calm, breathing even and deep… waiting. It wouldn’t serve me to panic when I needed to carefully listen for the squeal of brakes, doors opening, and footsteps.
I thought that the truck slowed as it passed me, but I could have been imagining it. Regardless, it moved on, up, over a rise in the road, and disappeared.
I figured that it was better to camp where I knew I hadn’t been seen yet, than to keep hiking north and risk running into the truck with its lights off, so I laid out my camp right there, on a sloped patch of dirt surrounded by prickly protectors. I didn’t sleep well, between waiting for the truck to reappear and the windmills whooshing overhead.
By the Roots
The next day, I woke up early and hiked as far away from the dirt road as I could. But then, mid-morning, my tiredness caught up with me and I hit a wall. I set a new course: the Whitewater Center, where I’d heard there was ample shade, friendly rangers, and a wading pool to cool off in. I stayed there for most of the day, running into hikers I’d met before the long descent from San Jacinto—Rattler, Easy, and Stretch. We laid out on a grassy lawn as groups of schoolchildren paraded past, their parents and chaperones side-eyeing us as we napped.
When I woke up, I felt I had enough energy to make a push towards Mission Creek: the next challenge of the Trail. It was rumored to be a hotspot for Norovirus, and the trail itself had been washed out with the last hurricane that hit the California coast and moved inland. Mission Creek had swelled and torn its canyon up by the roots. To hike through it didn’t mean following a trail; it meant following the creek until the trail rose above the carnage just enough to remain untouched… and then clamber up informal paths to rejoin it.
I descended to the creek and crossed it, clicking on my headlamp to set up my tent. The hikers I’d met up with were just behind me, and I saw their headlamps bob along the opposite shoreline as they made their camp there. I fell asleep quickly to the sounds of rushing water and frog-song.
Every day of the last few days had been the “hardest day on trail so far,” for different reasons. I wasn’t injured—I was strong. The climbs weren’t difficult—the elements were. The PCT was laughing at how many times I’d reassured myself: "The grade of this trail is so much easier than the AT; it’ll take me less time to complete it,” I had told others while discussing my plans to thru-hike again this year.
Sure, I had scrambled up vertical rock faces and outrun microbursts and survived bone-chilling cold on the Appalachian Trail; but the challenges the PCT posed were its own version of difficulty, and commanded my respect. Like the stretch of trail before me, I felt uprooted, torn apart, washed away. I was a stranger in a strange land, and while I was captivated by the beauty of this wild place… I missed Appalachia every day.
That’s what I came out here for, though: the challenge. The uncertain places where I grow faster, better, more surefooted. Is wanting a thing enough to go and get it? With every step, I was telling myself that it was. It was enough to simply want it, to be curious and open to the lessons it was going to teach me.
Over the last few days, I’d ascended to some of the highest elevations I’d ever trekked to, and then descended to the oven-like desert floor. I’d quite literally experienced extreme highs and lows in this place; this barren, prickly place of opposites. It was normal, I knew, to feel upended by so much change in such a short amount of time.
I could handle what was next, I knew. Because I wanted to.
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