THE OPEN SOURCE JOURNEY

This has been a good start to the year. 2017 wasn’t a great one. And I only mean that existentially. 

Last year the best part of me shrank a little. The force and intensity of its fire inside dimmed a little. It went back to being a little self conscious. It started mirroring questions in others eyes. Wondered what it was celebrating. Wondered why it was smiling as much. Even scoffed at the how easily pleased it was. Wondered why when it turned its belly up, noone played. And it got determined to stop looking like it was trying.

I took off to the mountains for a week at the end of last year- I knew I needed it. 2017 was a full year, but felt like the soul disappeared by the early part of it and only made a couple of short visits after. A cabin/mobile home in the mountains around Mount Shasta. Cooked every meal, made & drank a ton of chai, got off the internet, read a TON, finally started writing a bit, and walked in the mountain air. Was just what the doc ordered. Even with that little, I saw the light emerge a bit. The fact is that I need the mountains, solo time away, and some project to keep me going. I need to see and be excited about the story as I’m living it out. And I didn’t have one any more. Worse still, every time someone mentioned the sabbatical I cringed a bit.

I like stats. Not as much as a baseball fan but they can tell a story and I'll try to use them to summarize some aspects of my first section on the PCT.

It was pretty relaxed in that I wasn’t walking too many miles per day and wasn't waking up early. In my case “If I can hike anyone can” is not false modesty :). I had been lucky with blisters, which is the most common annoyance with thruhiking, but the soles of my feet felt shattered enough to force a couple of injury days. And considering I had just camped alone twice I hadn’t really started hiking solo yet.

By the time I hobbled into Warner Springs to end Section A, I’d finished 110 miles and two weeks on the trail. My previous longest wilderness backpacking trip was 23 miles and three days- I was beaming with pride!

I hadn’t yet been tempted to hitch hike or skip a section, and that was reassuring as far as motivation levels. I was also beginning to feel and smell like a thruhiker and was bummed when I had to stop.

As we approached the 100 mile mark we were also beginning to see friends and fellow thruhikers drop off the hike. Some dropped due to injuries, others to tend to family issues, some because the discomfort of the walk was beginning to get to them, and still others because they were burning through money faster than they expected.

As much as this was my own journey, the moment someone I knew well on trail dropped out, it gave me a sinking feeling. Like being abandoned. And for a brief period it would suck the joy out of my own journey. The best way to get past I learned was just to get back on trail or distract yourself with the logistics of the next section.

Most of the thruhikers team up on trail. Teaming  up means you camp together, are hiking within a few miles of each other through the day and generally plan ahead to the next break or to the campspot at the end of the day.

I noticed that having even one person with me changed how I related to the environment. I was a lot more vulnerable when alone- leaves rustling at night, someone seeing a bear ahead on the trail, darkness approaching and no campsite- all those bothered me. Having even one other person with me, however weak or strong, changed that. I saw the difference on the first two nights itself. Sometimes vulnerability is the prerequisite for any deep insight and change, and I needed those. I felt like I had to do it alone.

For not being a standout hiker the one reason I did stand out on the trail was my daily start time. I’d normally wake up by 8am, then spend 45 minutes staring with disbelief at the mess I had to pack up again. Finally I'd get on the trail between 10:30-11 am. For most hikers when hiking in the desert that was almost the time in the day that they'd stop in the shade in order to escape the oppressive heat of the sun. And yes, they’d start by 6am or so.

For a lot of us #n00b thruhikers water was a huge talking point at the start. How many liters do we carry? Where is the next water source? How much water do others use up? Technology these days makes things a little easier though- the trail has a well documented online list of water sources called the PCT water report with regular updates from hikers as they pass those sources.