PCT Vol. 4: Recoil

Mission Creek

I woke up before my alarm to frog-song and starlight blazing overhead. I packed up my things while breakfast hot-soaked in my pot, throwing on my puffy against the waterborne chill. After eating and packing up my camp kitchen, I saw headlights bobbing across the water as the hikers south of me began to gather their belongings. I hefted my pack, and hiked on.

A hiker named Aloha had left a detailed description of the stretch of trail before me in a FarOut comment. I had a short stretch of official PCT I could follow before previous floodwaters had wiped it out of existence. When I reached that washout, I would need to descend into the rocky, sandy creekbed and hike until the next stretch of intact trail. This process would continue for about 20 miles, and my goal was to hike through this section in one day.

So, before the sun rose, I hiked about 4 miles into the canyon, and stole deeper into its shadows as sunlight began to crest the horizon. It would be a warm day, and down in the creekbed with no shade, exposed to the hot noon sun.

There was water flowing throughout the day’s hike, especially the sections in the creekbed, but previous comments had warned about an outbreak of Norovirus, and word on the trail was that the water here was tainted. After my experience with Noro, being a hostel owner and having to keep it at bay with constant Lysol baptisms of every surface in our basement, I doubted that it was in the water. It made more sense for hikers to have picked it up near the I-10 oasis, then start showing symptoms in Mission Creek… and Noro is more typically spread through surface contact than water sources. (So, the spigot at the bottom of the San Jacinto descent got a hefty side-eye from me, but Mission Creek was less worrisome.) I filtered the water I gathered from the creek as I would any source, and never contracted noro.

The most difficult part of the day was the climb out of the creek, but as I climbed, I wound a path through blooming lupines, tall grass, and pine trees that gave me much-needed shade. I found a spring at the top of the climb, took a siesta to wait out the heat of the day, then hiked 8 more miles to bring my daily total to 22 miles. I didn’t feel fully spent at the end of that day, which told me that my trail legs were beginning to kick in.

On the Nose

The next day, I made my way into Big Bear with the trail angel Kenny, where I was reminded of an important lesson. I normally don’t comment on political matters—after all, I’m a jaded elder millenial who no longer believes my vote holds any weight whatsoever, but I was happy to see Trump indicted for all his felonies and shared something about it to my Instagram stories. I had a couple of what I like to call “flouncers:” angry direct messages from Instagram users on the red side of the political spectrum, announcing their departure from my following since they don’t seem to like it when their content-makers have agency and opinions that differ from theirs. I watched them go with a couple laughs and eye rolls, judging them as incapable of encountering opinions that differ from their own; in other news, intolerant, unintelligent, and not worth the time it took to swipe their messages out of existence.

(The irony of my dismissiveness was about to slap me across the face.)

Kenny picked me up at the trailhead, and I hopped into his truck. We made our way to town, where I ran into a hiker named Momentum, or Mo, and resupplied. After a couple hours of us all finding lunch and resupplying out packs, Kenny returned to shuttle us to his house, Kenny’s Place.

Along the way, he pointed out the wild donkeys that had been rounded up and adopted to private landowners, pulling fully onto the shoulder of the road so we could watch them. “Snowball and Frostbite,” he said, pointing out the babies; each knobby-kneed and full of playful energy. Then he told us about his new wife, who lived in Arizona; how much he missed her and how he was considering taking time off from the hiking season to be with her and return to his true passion: making music.

We drove on to his house, entering a little neighborhood with dusty Californian lawns. As we turned into the driveway of Kenny’s Place, the first thing I saw was a gigantic, proud “MAGA” painted on the side of his house, along with all the Trumplican regalia you could possibly imagine. I almost started laughing as Kenny shifted his creaky truck into park and killed the motor. Thru-hiking has a way of teaching you many things, but this one was a bit on the nose. Fine, I thought, amused at myself and the situation I’d found myself in, as I pulled my backpack and groceries out of the truck. Fine! I get it. Trumplicans are people too. They’re not all assholes. Be open to new ideas and meeting people where they are, not judging a book by its cover, radical empathy and acceptance, all that shit…

Kenny was one of the kindest trail angels I’d met on the trail so far. The entire home was ours to use— I cooked myself dinner on his vintage gas stove. The next morning, he cooked, but not just for us. He always cooked extra helpings to distribute to the less fortunate in his community, and only called us up for breakfast once he’d delivered his donation. Then, he promptly shuttled us back to trail, all for a price that was much less than what he should’ve been charging.

The last time I heard of him, he decided to shut down the hostel and do what his heart was telling him to do: be with his partner and make music. Good for you, Kenny. Thank you for your hospitality!

Running on Empty

My goal, when I left Big Bear, was to situate myself where I was sleeping at the hot springs near Deep Creek. A series of incredibly warm days and poor sleep saw me hiking only 17, 18, and 15 miles, but I took a long siesta at the hot springs before moving on that day.

I felt tired. Bone-tired. With my pace, I was going to put away more than 500 miles in a single month… my first month on trail. On the Appalachian Trail, I had hiked less than 300 miles in my first month, and had been in better physical shape when I left on that thru. I was tired, and I was ready for rest. But with Ben solidifying plans to meet me in Tehachapi, I was gunning for as many miles as I felt I could safely do.

But, I still found reasons to rest. The hot springs were one of them. Switching between the cold water of Deep Creek, and the hot spring pools, relieves some of the tension in my shoulders and legs, and gave me a good excuse to take a midday snooze. I hiked around Barber and his partner, Delight, that day, and was just ahead of my friends Flora and Fauna. The hot springs was a natural gathering space for hikers (most camping is totally dispersed, so I’d camped and hiked alone for most of my time on trail,) so it was nice to talk to people.

As I neared Cajon Pass, running on fumes, I made the mistake of telling Ben that I wanted a reason to push through the next section. He texted back that he’d reserved me a room in town, and I had 24 miles to complete the next day if I wanted to make it. Tough love.

It was my biggest day on the PCT so far, 22 days into a thru-hike. I woke up early and finished 12 miles by 10:00am, and took only short breaks throughout the day. I pushed for those miles, and by the time I made it to Cajon Pass, I ate my McDonalds in total silence, mentally drained but done with those miles by 3pm. Then, chafing and limping on both feet, I road walked to the motel, nearly getting run over by a driver who was making a right turn while looking… left.

I collapsed into that hotel room, then showered (and discovered new, increasingly undignified areas of chafe,) and in one of my lower moments on any trail, had to Uber groceries to myself. The items were: diaper rash cream (for the pre-existing chafe) and 2. Deodorant (to prevent future chafe.) I had it delivered to the lobby.

Feeling Watched

The climb out of Cajon Pass was nearly 20 miles of steady uphill, and brutal: purely because of the heat. I started late, so I took a siesta and hiked into the night. My original goal had been Guffy Campground, but I decided to stop at a tentsite just south of it as the darkness closed in. As I hiked, I felt as though I was being observed. The feeling was so strong that I stopped and turned around a couple times to check behind me. Nothing. But, the feeling persisted, so I hiked with shallow breaths and light tread in order to hear the footsteps—or paws—of whatever was behind me.

As I drew near the campsite, I saw a spot by an open cliff edge overlooking the twinkling lights of town. As my headlamp beam swung around to inspect the site more closely, past an old fire ring, a pair of yellow-green eyes staring over the circle of stones halted me in my tracks.

I made several quick comparisons, fast with the speed of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Deer, I knew, had wide eyes like this, but their eyes shone mostly white in the gloom, with some green or yellow tinges. Black bears had reddish orange eye shine. Foxes and bobcats and rodents had red eyes as well. The only green eyes belonged to canines… and cats.

The animal picked up its head, not high like a deer’s, not medium-height like a bear’s, and not low like a coyote’s; all options far more preferable to what I now realized was standing about 15 yards from me.

Mountain lion, I knew, and I breathed in deep, lurched forward into a tense crouch, threw open my arms, and screamed.

The eyes winked out of existence, and my headlamp beam was too dim to track its movements as it paced away. I fumbled with the button on my headlamp, and for a brief moment, it went out entirely. I hissed a couple curses under my breath before clicking it back on to full blast, in which I caught the black tip of its tan tail disappearing behind a tree to my left.

I moved slowly, but with purpose, swinging around to face it as I backed towards the campsite. The mountain lion had retreated into the trees and now stood about 20 yards from me, but as I moved, it turned to look back at me. Under its fixed stare, I felt something that resembled fear coil up under my ribcage, but the sound that erupted from the center of my chest was pure rage. The second scream I hurled towards the lion was something vicious and primal; ripping my throat raw as it splintered the night.

The mountain lion took off into the darkness, and disappeared.

I stayed at that spot for the night, too unnerved to continue on. I didn’t sleep well (understandably) so I took a nero into Wrightwood the next day, staying in a shared Airbnb with other hikers. I picked up new socks and a hiking dress from Jollygear, so that lifted my mood a little… but I still left Wrightwood late the next day, only covering 10 miles but still summiting Baden-Powell on my way.

On the Road

The next morning, my alarm went off at 4am, as it did every morning on trail. But instead of packing my things, I laid there. Until 9am. Mentally and physically tired. I had pushed for the last couple hundred miles, and had only had a zero day in Idyllwild. I knew I needed rest, but sat there, wallowing in guilt for not being productive, shame for allowing myself to feel guilty over it, and bone-deep exhaustion. My phone buzzed around 8:30—a call from Ben. I answered.

“You get going yet?” he asked when I picked up, chipper and not judgmental, but the words felt like a flash burn against my already-anxious nerves.

“No,” I snapped, insecure and immediately defensive. “I’m being a lazy fuck, Ben.”

My husband is one of those hikers who has a seemingly endless well of energy for big miles, no breaks, and always on the lookout for opportunities to challenge himself… and he wasn’t ready for my outburst. In his world, the big miles and near-exhaustion are signs of having had a good time. In my little world, curled up in my tent under a layer of quilt and shame, I just felt spent, fed up, and guilty all at once. I felt judged, but the reality that he wasn’t judging me nearly as much (if at all) as I was judging myself.

“Okay…” he said, after a beat of pause. “How’re you doing this morning?”

“You could’ve led with that,” I retorted, and angrily wiped at the tears that were trailing down into my hairline. “I’ll call you later,” I added.

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.” I hung up, and pitched my phone into the corner of my tent, where it landed in a pile of my stinky, stiff, filled-with-dirt hiking clothes. Eventually, I dug into the pile, changed, packed up, and hiked out. As I walked, I thought about that morning, what the strong surge of emotion was about; why it was primarily shame-based. I’d thought I was past that. Apparently the lesson hadn’t stuck.

So, no more shame, I decided, and when I came to a crossroads, where I could follow the PCT over a series up pointless ups and downs, or road walk, I decided to test that conviction. I had been a purist on the Appalachian Trail, until I realized how that mindset had been holding me back and blue-blazed on the very last day of my thru-hike. It was time, I knew, to give myself grace, walk a continuous footpath, but hike my own hike.

I turned onto highway two, and walked. All in all, I probably shaved about 2-4 miles off the PCT, but still walked over 20 miles that day despite my late start. Along the way, I saw things that caught my interest: tunnels carved into the side of mountains, coral snakes and rattlers, long, sweeping views, and no cell signal to distract me from the walk. I fell back into the cadence I knew: me, walking, alone with my thoughts. I thought about the AT, how I’d felt the same way in New Hampshire… thousands of miles in instead of hundreds. What was my anger, frustration, and shame trying to teach me?

One of the rules I live by is that, if something sparks a sense of insecurity within you, it’s because you already believe the thing to be true about yourself. If a stranger walked up to you and told you that your nose was missing, and it was strange and weird that it was, and you should be ashamed of its absence… you would laugh at them and walk away: because it was patently false.

But when we hear things (or think we hear things) that ring true to us, because they harmonize with the shame we already hold within ourselves… that’s a different story. It might be ridiculous to believe that you were weak for needing a single rest day after walking for hundreds of miles, but if you already believe that to be true about yourself… and someone alludes to believing that about you, too…

Shame is what insecurity feels like when it’s been “found out;” when you feel observed amongst it. You want to hide. You want to lash out. You want to defend. You want to crawl into a hole and stay there. What insecurity-based lie did I believe to be true about myself, to feel so immediately ashamed at being caught… resting?

I must have started to believe that rest wasn’t important; making miles was instead the priority. Wasn’t that something I’d promised to never do to myself again?

Was it because of the mission of the PCT? My “reasoning” for being out here? To challenge myself? That certainly made sense to me. Why else would I feel so negatively about rest days—because rest isn’t a challenge? I could argue that, as a thru-hiker who wanted nothing more than to make miles, forcing myself to rest was the true challenge set before me.

Either way, I decided, as I walked along the shimmering asphalt, in the slim shade of my umbrella, it didn’t matter. The insecurity was there and I had rooted it out. It had recoiled into a hissing shame spiral, and struck out at me, and I’d lashed out at Ben. It wasn’t serving me, and it was time to release it.

So the next day, when I hiked down to a trailhead, and a day hiker cracked open a watermelon on the picnic table, I stayed there for hours with other thru-hikers—talking, eating, unbothered by the sun’s downward trend towards the western horizon. I stopped in Acton the next day, and Agua Dulce for lunch, and Green Valley the day after, and I refused to feel an ounce of guilt over it.

The terrain mellowed out, and the miles flew without me forcing them. My next goal: getting as close to Tehachapi as I could, because Ben was flying out for a visit. I needed a string of zero days, and he was on his way to help me take them.