God is light, we are told, and Hell is outer darkness. But look at a desert mountain stripped bare by the sun, and you learn only geography. Watch darkness claim it, and for a moment you may grasp why God had to create Satanāor man to create both.
I have read so many accounts of walking along the PCT or its predecessors, that I'm a little embarrassed that it has taken me this long to discover Colin Fletcher's account of his 1958 walk from the Mexican to the Oregon border. Fletcher's walk was before the PCT had been knitted together. He chose a route that started near Yuma, Arizona, crossed Death Valley (where he buried water caches in advance) and the highest peaks of the White Mountains and eventually finished in the Warner Mountains in the NE corner of California. He did spend considerable time on side roads and his route was generally east of the PCT.
His route did take him up and over Piute Pass to Selden Pass, Silver Pass, and Mammoth Pass to Mammoth Lakes before dropping down to Mono Lake and on north. Annette McGivney, editor of Backpacker, has written that "Colin was sort of the founding father of modern backpacking, the first person to write about going out for an extended period and being self-sufficient." Because many people started following Fletcher's advice in The Complete Walker (which Fletcher published in 1968) according to McGivney, "the book could be credited with starting the backpacking industry."
In the end, Fletcher published ten books. The Complete Walker and The Man Who Walked Through Time (about Fletcher's walk through a long portion of the Grand Canyon) together sold more than a million copies.
In the Thousand-Mile Summer, I was deeply affected as Fletcher grappled with the profound solitude of his trek. He described the intense sensory experience of being alone in the wilderness, where every sound and sight is heightened. He mused on the nature of solitude, noting that it can be both a source of deep contentment and profound unease. Even when you are with others walking long stretches of the PCT, I do think that his reflections should resonate with you.
