Off The PCT

I'm officially off the PCT. I had originally planned on going all the way to Canada. Back in '04 when I did this trail last I was able to get far enough north that I could make it to Burning Man, return to the trail, and complete the remaining amount before the weather closed in on me. This year however, I was traveling with a group that wasn't putting in the miles necessary to make it possible this year. I was faced with going on without them to complete the trail, or staying with them, enjoying their company and giving up completing the trail. I opted to stay with them. I left the trail at Castella, CA, at mile 1505. I actually hiked 1400 miles of trail because there was 100 miles of trail that was closed because of the wildfires out here this year. It's been a fun and eventful 1400 miles and I got to meet some great people.

I put out my thumb to catch a ride down to Yuba City were my VW bus has been with a friend. By wild coincidence the driver that stopped was someone I'd met 10 years earlier while hiking the Appalachian Trail. He drove me quite a ways and dropped me off. My next ride was with a young guy fresh out of the Army who was interesting to talk with. Now I'm at a friend's house in Yuba City and reunited with my beloved VW bus. I've been trying to wade through an over-stuffed e-mail inbox, eating junk food, and staying up WAY too late watching pulp TV.

In the next day or so I'll head out to the empty dusty location of Black Rock Desert, NV where I'll spend the next six weeks helping to build the city, protect it from would-be gate crashers, and then tear it all down again and restore the location to it's former emptiness. So while one adventure is at an end another is about to begin. I've taken thousands of photos of the PCT and look forward to sharing them once I get home and can process them. I'm also looking forward to taking many more photos at Burning Man.

My Obscure Fame

I just found out on the trail that to a small group of people I'm "that guy" who was outstanding enough in a way as to make a lasting impression. Though my name wasn't remembered, my deed was. Here's the background...

In 2000 I worked a summer job for an outdoor adventure group that led wilderness trips for teens. I was on a 3-4 day trip on the Lost Coast with 2 other adults and 8 teens. The Lost Coast is one of the last (THE last?) parts of the California coast to be undeveloped. It's a narrow band of beach between the ocean and steep rising cliffs. At high tide the water will come right up to the base of the cliffs in places. It's also known for having an active bear population so food must be properly stored.

I was out with two other adults and eight teens. One of the girls was reprimanded by another adult for breaking a cardinal rule. She took it upon herself to sneak out that night and run away. We didn't discover that she ran until the very next morning. She had all night to get ahead of us. We had two factors working in our favor - there was really only two directions she could go because of the water and the cliff, and she was most likely to go in the direction we came from because she wasn't trying to run for good so much as just pull the rip chord on her own time in the group. She wanted to go home, not evade us forever.

It was decided that one group leader would stay with the kids, while another would scout in the opposite direction just to rule it out, then return to help watch the remaining kids. I was chosen to go in the direction the girl had most likely gone. I had hiked the Appalachian Trail the year before and I was still in pretty good traveling shape. I took some of the gear from my pack for so I could travel lighter and off I went.

I found the girl once I got back to where civilization touched the beach again. She had gotten to a phone, made her calls and was simply waiting for one of us to catch up. My boss (back on the east coast) had already received a number of calls on the matter from the girls parents and understood what was going on. So when I called him to tell him that the girl was back under supervision he said "I didn't expect you to catch up for at least another half an hour". At that point I transported her to the airport and she was flown home.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I was chatting with another hiker and mentioned that I had once worked for a small outfit that did outdoor adventure. She asked what it's name was and I told her. (Here's the small world moment.) She began working for that very same company the following year. It was quite a coincidence given how very small the company is. I mentioned the incident above and she got excited. She told me that the girl remained the one and only runaway the company has ever had. She also said that that incident has been used as a training scenario every year since. Lastly she went on to say that she never knew who it was that went after the girl, but it was always emphasized that "that guy could really run!" That guy was me.

Another Rattler Story

I was spending a quiet afternoon inside my tent writing in my journal and waiting for my hiking partner to catch up. I caught a motion out of the corner of my eye and turned to spy the back portion of a rattle snake going by just 4 feet or so away. I've seen bigger by far - the ones on the Appalachian Trail easily reach 5 feet long and bigger through the middle than my wrist. But a rattler is a rattler and seeing one in the wild is always exciting. I moved to get a better look at it and the snake realized for the first time that I was nearby. Rattlers are not aggressive by nature though so it didn't coil and rattle at me, but rather it froze to assess the situation. I got out my camera and the snake started moving again. At one point it was only about 2 feet away. The photo is a bit grainy because I took it through the mesh in my tent, but here's the shot I took. You can see the edge of my tent in the upper part of the photo.

The following day I saw a rattler in the process of eating a bird. I hadn't seen so many snakes since the southern desert. It was surprised because I was traveling through a forested area and not in the open rocky desert where I was used to seeing rattlers.

A Bear

I forgot to mention this closer to the time it happened, but it's new to all you. I was hiking close to Yosemite with about 5 others. We were at the end of our day and it was time to cook dinner. We all cooked and ate. It's a general practice not to cook and camp in the same spot because of the large bear population, but it was very close to getting dark and so we thought that we might just stay. One in our group shouted "bear!" and I turned to see a very large bear wandering toward the clearing we were in. I shouted loudly and forcefully at the bear, but it took no notice at all. Normally bears want nothing to do with people. I've seen them run away as quick as they can when they see me, but in this case the bear was very used to people. It wasn't skittish. It got within 100 feet or so and circled 1/2 way around our camp and wandered off down a river, but it knew where we were. I had little doubt that if we stayed it would be back and looking for our food after we bedded down. So with that in mind we collected all our stuff and moved on another mile and into the night that had descended. We found a suitable place to camp and never saw the bear again. I've seen a number of bears over the years, but this was the biggest. I have a healthy respect for bears. I know they hold all the cards in the wild. They are surprisingly fast and very powerful. If they decided they wanted to hurt a person there's little that could be done, but always there's the knowledge that bears generally run away. This one didn't. It walked away but not because it was scared.

The Latest From The PCT

Things are still going well. I'm feeling strong and the miles are getting easier. It's getting hotter though and the humidity is up. The mosquitoes are bad at times, but they have been far less of a problem of late. The big news has been the number of fires out here. There's a 100 miles section of trail that's closed because of a forest fire. The group I've been traveling has been wondering for a over a week what we'd do about it - road walk around it? Hitch ahead? We hoped that by the time we got to the closure area that the situation would have changed and we'd be able to just continue on. No such luck. We go to Sierra City ( a sleepy little town tucked in the hills) and a ride opportunity dropped in our laps. The hitch was reputed to be rather difficult so we jumped at the chance still not knowing if we should go ahead a little more and walk all the trail we possibly could before going ahead. However, the ride we took paralleled the trail and once we got further ahead and saw just how thick the smoke was we decided that we made the right decision in taking the ride. Visibility was down to about a half mile, and had we walked through all that smoke it wouldn't have been very good for the lungs and no fun at all. So now I'm in Chester, and looking to get back to the trail in about an hour. Lassen Park is coming up next and I look forward to that section as it's very beautiful. My time's about to run out, so more when I can find the time.

From South Lake Tahoe

The last time I had access to the Internet was also the last time I had the chance to shower or do laundry. Check the last post to see just how long that was. I think this makes an ALL TIME record for me for being dirty even on other thru-hikes. I got into South Lake Tahoe last night and was finally able to get clean. In desperation I hiked 37 miles in a day and got to a road crossing early enough to still hitch into town. I was pretty tired afterward, but it was all worth it.

Since I last wrote I have faced the worst of the mosquitoes on the trail so far. All in all it was not as bad as the hike in '04, but that is by no means to say the bugs weren't still horrible. I have been trying not to use DEET. But one morning I would have happily applied it with great zeal if only I didn't have to stop and pull it out of my pack. I hustled for 7 miles that morning before I could find a place with enough breeze to even stop. To stop for more than a heartbeat meant being swarmed by a cloud thick enough that it sounded like the mosquitoes were harmonizing. But the worst of it is behind me now.

That's it in a nutshell. My time at this library is about up. More when it happens. Oh yeah....the scenery has been spectacular, but it almost always is.