t a y l o r w e l c h

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.” -Edward Abbey

I slept until about 9, which felt heavenly. The bunkhouse was fresh with cold morning air. Jerry, the trail angel who runs Hiker Haven, drove all the hikers into town to have breakfast. We sat around a big round table at the inn and I ate a giant plate of scrambled eggs with a warm homemade biscuit. I was so content. One of Jerry’s friends, Bill, walked in as we were eating and had breakfast with us, eventually offering to let Dustin and I use his washing machine, since Jerry’s wasn’t working. The town of Skykomish is about 200 people. The high school, middle school and elementary school are all contained in one building. The girl who gave us a ride to town yesterday told us that she graduated from that high school and that there were six people in her graduating class. When we told Jerry this he said, “Oh, wow, that was a big one.” When we finished breakfast Jerry dropped Dustin and I at Bill’s. We did our laundry and made phone calls and googled things for a few hours. I sat by the Skykomish river and talked on the phone, watching the light catch on the water, watching tiny birds flit from one bank to the other. When our laundry was done, Bill drove us back to Hiker Haven where we watched movies, ate copious amounts of gas station microwaveable food and basked in our cleanliness. The next day all the hikers got ready to leave. We got to town, ate breakfast and did phone chores, scrolling and scrolling in service land. Supposedly there’s no service until Manning Park, in Canada, 188 miles away. I ordered shoes and a new tent since my zipper broke. We got a ride back to the trailhead at Stevens Pass and scrolled some more, trying to squeeze every last google out of the internet. We hiked out around 2:30, later than we had planned but it was nice to have a relaxing day. This last section of trail into Canada is tough, notoriously so. We hiked a difficult 10 miles to camp, our feet aching after the short day. We pitched our tents next to a lake, cooked dinner and went to bed. My alarm went off at 5:30 and I ignored it stubbornly. I was up by six and walking around 7:15, later than I would have liked. The day involved lots of climbing and descending, over and over again. The terrain was tough, roots and rocks nestled in ditches where water had eroded the trail into little canyons, barely wide enough to put both of my feet inside side by side. It was painstaking work. My pack heavy with five days of food didn’t help. Huckleberries grew dense along the sides of the sunken trail. When I felt discouraged or tired I stuffed my face with a handful. We took more breaks than usual, stopping for water every five-or-so miles just to take our packs off, sit down, and drink a liter of water. We ate lunch at a beautiful lake that sat low in a basin of gray boulders. The water was a stunning blue, bright and deep at the same time. After I ate a tortilla with cheese and hot sauce for lunch we plowed on, climbing and descending for twelve more miles to camp. We only hiked 21 miles but it was arduous work. We finally got to camp at 7, in a little saddle at the top of a climb. I cooked spicy pasta shells and set up my tent while they soaked in boiling water to finish cooking. I ate them gleefully and chatted with a Swiss couple camped in the same spot. The setting sun cast these beautiful rays over everything, like it had spun the light with gold and laid it out over mountains and tall spruces and firs and patches of dirt. My alarm went off at 5am. I sleepily ate my breakfast and left camp at 6:15. The morning was dangerously warm and the rest of the day followed suit. There was a lot of climbing today, steep inclines leading to breezy passes. The trail was rough, rooty and rocky and carved out of the earth like yesterday. Sweat ran down my face, dirt gathered on the insides of my elbows, stuck to the sweat on my legs. We stopped for lunch at a creek and I hid in a patch of shade. A couple hiked up to me while I was eating. “Is that real food?” a middle-aged lady asked. “If you count cheese and cheetos and taco bell hot sauce in a tortilla as real food?” I mumbled back at her through my mouth full of junk food. After lunch I washed my feet in the creek, put my pack on and hiked, climbing again, dealing with many large blowdowns. I took a break at a creek three quarters of the way up the hill. I killed flies that bit my legs. I watched an ant carry a dead fly body in a large circle, pulling it around, yanking it through tufts of grass with all its might. It had no idea where it was going. We climbed a bit more and then descended a couple of miles to camp for a 23 mile day. The backs of my knees were sore from all the climbing. I made dinner and pitched my tent. Dustin made chocolate pudding that didn’t really set but we ate it anyway and it was better than not having any pudding. I didn’t sleep very well, and I was up at 5 and walking at 6:30. The morning was warm again and I knew we were in for another hot day. I climbed up and over a pass as light slid onto the mountains. A warm breeze passed over the mountainside. I lumbered on into the morning, tired, my feet hurt, my pack straps digging into my shoulders like they do. In a couple of hours I was dripping sweat, climbing 1500 feet in the humid sun. When I got to the lunch spot, a little campsite perched almost at the peak of the climb, it was half-shaded. I was so happy. I laid on my tyvek, feeling the weight of my body released from me feet, my skin hot. I ate lunch and then dug dirt out from under my toenails. I hiked out around 2, stopping at a little stream and pouring water over my head. It was so cold. I began a long descent that left my feet angry and painful. The forest around grew huge and tall and dense, moss carpeting the entire floor, growing over rocks and downed trees. It looked like one huge blanket, like snow. It consumed everything. Giant ferns and wide green leaves grew all around. In some places leaves grew into little archways over the trail, tinting the sunlight green. I felt like I had entered another world, like I was a bug, something microscopic, crawling through some super-sized version of forests I thought I knew. At 6:45 we got to camp at the Suiattle River for another 23 mile day. It was raging and swollen and brown. The water munched down over big boulders, slapped against rocks on either bank, making it difficult to get water. I cooked dinner, burnt it, ate it anyway. I was so hungry. Today felt just as difficult as yesterday. As I washed my pot I felt the exhaustion creeping up through all of my bones and I hurried off to bed. At 5am when my alarm went off I could feel that deep tired trying to pull me back into sleep. I begrudgingly got up and moving in the warm morning. I began a monstrous climb, 4,000 some feet. The incline wasn’t terrible but my body was exhausted and painful. My feet hurt in so many different places and ways. As the day heated up I got pack rash again. The straps of my pack began to chafe my armpits. I sat down for lunch and was greeted by biting flies. I killed so many of them and they continued to appear from whatever terrible place biting flies materialize. I filtered water and kept walking, the day beginning to boil. It was so humid. Smoke hung low in the atmosphere, trapping all the heat. My hip began to hurt. I listened to music to try and power through the next few miles and started crying in the middle of the trail. A huge fly whizzed around me, hanging in front of my snotty face. I wiped the snot from my nose and then wiped my snot-covered hand on a tree. I walked and snot-rocketed and walked and snot-rocketed. Washington is hard. I forded a creek and the icy water filled my shoes, which felt great on my aching feet. I sat down on the other side of the creek and filtered water. I talked to Dustin and felt a little better. there were only three more miles to camp. A hot wind followed me the whole way. I got to camp around 6, laid out my tyvek and collapsed on it. I laid on my back feeling the pressure release from my feet. I took off my socks and scraped some of the dead skin off my feet. I filtered water and made dinner and ate snickers bars and felt the heaviness of exhaustion pooling behind my eyelids. I crawled into my tent happy that there were only ten miles left until Stehekin tomorrow. We got up at six and hiked the last ten miles to town, arriving early to the spot where the shuttle would pick us up. A girl I met my second day on trail was there. She was hiking south. It was so cool to see her, in the same way it had been cool to see Blue. A white bus pulled up to the group of hikers and a middle-aged guy wearing a ten-gallon hat and a short-sleeved button down climbed out. He stretched his legs, we got on the bus, and got out at the infamous Stehekin Bakery. I got a lemon bar, a piece of hawaiian pizza and a giant stromboli filled with ham and swiss cheese. Dustin got the same one filled with pesto, onions, mushrooms and swiss cheese. We split them and felt like we could die happy. Then we got back on the bus and got dropped off a few miles down the gravel road at the North Cascades Lodge, where there’s a campground and a store and a public shower/laundry building. I took a great shower, did my laundry, spent too much time at the post office and ate a giant burger with beer battered fries. We stayed up late talking with other hikers and then wandered back up the steep dirt road to the campsite. I awoke to a bright tent, the day becoming warm even in the constant breeze that tumbled over the little town of a Stehekin. I broke down camp and went down to the deck of the lodge. When Dustin got there some kind of debacle was going on about a bus driver not having a CDL, and no busses were running, so we walked the 1.6 miles to the bakery. We got stuck in front of the pastry case again, eyes like saucers, salivating at bacon-swiss stromboli, carrot cake muffins piled high with cream cheese frosting, chocolate zucchini cake, chai coffee cake, six different kinds of cookies, etc. I ate so much. I felt like I did in Big Bear Lake, hundreds of miles ago. I laid in the fetal position on the grass outside, again. Other hikers laughed at me, again. At least this time nobody asked to take my picture. I packed out two pieces of pizza for dinner. A bus came around 11:20 to take us to the trailhead. All of the food jostled around in my stomach. I curled up in the seat and tried to stop thinking about how sick I felt. I sat around at the trailhead for a few minutes and then decided there was no better way to cure a stomach ache than a 29 mile climb, so I started walking. A woman we met in Skykomish named Hot Thumbs has been hiking with us for a few days now. The three of us hung out at a creek and talked for a bit. I saw my first bear on the PCT today. It was a bit small. I think it was a young adult bear. I rounded a corner and it was in the trail eating berries off bushes. I startled it and it ran further down the trail. “Heeey bear,” I called, trying to make it run off the trail. It looked at me. “HEY BEAR,” I yelled. It ran off onto the hillside, ambling over bushes and taking swooping bites of berries as it passed them. It was cute. We reached our campsite around 6:30 for a 13 mile day. I ate my pizza and taught Hot Thumbs how to tie a bowline knot. The trail to the site was covered in bear scat. A ranger had warned us that this area was densely populated with bears who didn’t care about people being there and would do anything to get to their food. We hung everything we had that smelled from a tree and hoped for the best. I dreamed about bears and woke up at 6, the sleep still so close, heavy on my brain. We packed up and hiked out into the dense forest in the cold morning. After a few miles we crossed a highway that led to a trailhead parking lot and caught up with some hikers we met in town, Hats and Butter. Hot Thumbs and I walked with them into the parking lot where we were greeted with trail magic. We each had a beer and sat in the parking lot talking and procrastinating the long climb ahead of us. We let the day warm up a bit and then started the climb. It went on and on through the forest that soon opened up and had us on sandy ridge line, a row of peaks opposite us. Can something be bright dark gray? If it can, that’s what they were. Everything was so bright against the deep blue sky. Everything green was so stark against the pale pinks and browns of the rocks that lined the dusty trail. I hiked with Hats for a bit and then Butter for a while. We talked and marveled at the snow-covered mountains in the distance, the plummeting valleys below. The day was so windy, my hat blew off at one point and I had to tip toe down a steep hill of loose rock to retrieve it. I love that hat so much. After a while I crossed a tiny stream to find John, who I had hiked around for a while in the desert, sitting on the other side. It seems like every day I see someone from trail past. It’s really nice. We caught up for a bit and then I hurried off to camp. Being a Friday, all the weekenders were out and the campsites were all full of big tents and very few people taking up lots of space. All the thru hikers end up cowboy camping where they can fit, which if you think about it is a really funny scenario. Sometimes if the trail is really packed on the weekend and we can’t find a campsite, Dustin and I shake our fists and, when we’re out of earshot, yell “get off my lawn” in an old man voice. I got to camp around 7, made mashed potatoes, set up my sleeping pad on the ground and pulled my sleeping bag around me. I listened to the sound of the Methow River next to me and watched one star in the sky above become ten, twenty, thirty in a little opening in the trees. Another hiker twenty feet away began to snore loudly. I put my earplugs in and hoped no bears would bother me in the night. The first light woke me as stars began disappearing. The sky turned light blue and I ate a pop tart and drank instant coffee in my sleeping bag as everyone else in camp went about their morning chores. I started walking around 7:30. The morning was chilly again, it felt good to shift into fall, away from the heat of summer that crept in at eight in the morning and lingered all day. I stopped at a stream before a 2500 foot climb to filter water. I powered up the climb, stopping a couple of times to take in the views of giant mountains opposite me. They were all angled and brown and dark gray, snow still resting in little pockets on their faces. Once I was on the ridge, wind swept over the side of the mountain. Big white plumes of smoke from two forest fires extended from other ridges to the north and the east. I stopped to eat lunch with Dustin and Hot Thumbs at a little spring in a sunny meadow. We huddled in a patch of shade. I ate cold ramen and washed my socks in the icy water. I left a note for Hats and Butter telling them where we were camping that night. A couple of hours after lunch, Hot Thumbs and I hit trail magic: a canopy set up at Hart’s Pass campground with coolers full of fresh cut watermelon on a table. We drooled over that for a while and then kept walking, climbing and descending and climbing to camp. Nine tents were already pitched in the field, all weekenders, so we cowboy camped on a ledge above the site. The moon was bright all night. In the morning a chorus of pikas woke us to see a beautiful yellow-pink sunrise. The sun was fiery orange as it peeked above the ridge in front of us. It had gotten quite chilly at night so we got up slowly. I brewed coffee thanks to the cup and reusable filter Hats and Butter had given me. This was the best treat I’ve had in so long: to drink hot coffee in my sleeping bag on this beautiful ridge watching the sky light up the day. I felt so soothed and wonderful even though my skin was dirty and my feet were prickling from all the miles I’ve walked and I smell like an old running shoe. Dustin left camp first and Hot Thumbs and I slowly got our things together and left about a half an hour later. We climbed up and over a pass, then descended to cross Foggy Pass (it seems like all the passes in Washington are gloomy: Rainy Pass, Foggy Pass, Windy Pass, the list goes on). I filtered water from a creek, talked to a day hiking couple and their dog, and ran into hikers all day who had chosen not to go into Canada and had already been to the monument. This was weird. This is the end of the trail for so many people. As they talked to me and walked away from me I could feel their energy just colossal and booming in a way that mine couldn’t be yet. Even though I still have miles to hike after I get to the monument, it feels enormous to be able to touch one end of it tomorrow, to bring tangibility to all of these miles, to remember where I was four months ago when I touched the one at the southern terminus. All of the moments I’ve experienced between the two have already been stupendous, difficult, agonizingly beautiful, mind-numbingly fatiguing and filled with infinitely varying amounts of hope and sorrow and joy and wonder. I felt lucky that there were more ahead of me. I knew that if I had to be done today, that if I didn’t have a reason to hike more miles, to keep being on the trail, that I would be deeply sad. My immediate physical pain would be relieved if I didn’t have to continue waking up and walking so much every day, but I would spend so much less time in the sun, so many fewer moments watching the world unfurl itself before me in such a pure, silent, slow way. I would miss drinking cold mountain spring water, I would soon take for granted all the moments I spent squeezing water from one bottle to another through my filter, I would become accustomed to the luxury of turning a knob on a faucet and filling a glass of pre-treated city water. I would be forced to face the world as I’ve grown up knowing it: loud, busy, fast, demanding, stark and harsh in opposite and tragic ways from this one I’ve lived in for four months. This is what people mean when they when they say that thru hiking will break your heart and ruin your life. I have spent the last few days contemplating the progress of human kind in the context of this walk. People who walk long trails often find that it needs to become part of their life permanently. Why is this? I keep visiting this question. Weren’t the earliest humans nomadic? Is this similar to the way they lived? After walking so many miles it seems like it could be true, going where the weather is suitable, following reliable food, bearing witness to the constant pattern of nature accumulating and dying and being born again that is life. We have moved so far from this as a species that to live in this way would be defined as unsuccessful, unproductive or foolish. How could a person make a “decent living” if they spent so much time in nature? I guess that depends on how one defines living decently. Thru hiking ruins a person’s concept of leading a successful life as society defines it. It brings people back to the essence of whatever it was to be human thousands of years ago. I watched smoke plumes from a wildfire extend into a bright blue sky from behind a jagged gray ridge. This fire was caused by humans, rangers had told me a couple of days ago. The smoke was so dynamic, so many different textures, puffy and flat and dense and thin as the wind spread it across smaller peaks in the distance. Some of the smoke was bright white, other smaller plumes were an old yellow, and another was a deep gray. Hot Thumbs and I stood at the last 7000 foot peak on the PCT in Washington. This was going to be her last night on trail, her last big view. We could see the trail below us snaking down the side of the mountain. Another hiker, Chubs, pointed to some peaks in the distance and said, “That’s Canada.” We just stood there and looked. We savored that last northern Cascade peak, the wind swirling around us, our shirts flapping in the breeze. We descended to Hopkins Lake and filtered water as the sun sank behind the mountain, then hiked the last couple of miles to camp. I made pesto pasta, drank electrolyte water and ate a snickers bar. I blew up my sleeping pad on my sheet of tyvek and watched the stars come out one by one. I woke up and made coffee, the process spilling it all over my tyvek. I drank it and watched the pale sky lighten, smoke dense in the mountains north of us. We got to walking soon and descended into it. This was the first time I could really smell the smoke. In four miles I heard clapping and cheering and walked into the tiny clearing where the monument was. It was four little wooden pillars and one metal one, an American flag on one side and a Canadian flag on the other. I walked up and looked at it. “Touch it!” yelled someone behind me. My hand reached out for it and I hesitated just above one of the pillars. Here it was. One end of this thing. I put my hand gently on the pillar. I froze there for a moment, I looked at the clear-cut line of trees behind the monument, the dividing line between two nations. What a moment this was. I was still glad I wasn’t done yet, but it felt good to celebrate all the miles I had hiked anyway. I drank a beer and Dustin, Hot Thumbs and I took pictures. Then we hiked the last smoky eight miles to Manning Park, a resort where we ate giant burgers. We showered and then Dustin and I said our goodbyes to Hot Thumbs who was taking a bus to the airport to go home. Then we got our longest hitch of trail into Vancouver, about 140 miles, during which I got a smoothie and a free beer and chips and dip. We got to Vancouver at about 9pm and met up with Dustin’s friends who generously let us stay with them for a couple of nights. In a few days we’ll take a bus to Sacramento, resupply, and hike into the High Sierra from Kennedy Meadows. I can’t wait.

8/20 - 8/23 71 miles We slept late and decided to get a coffee and breakfast at the food truck. We loitered a while and talked to other hikers. Around noon we headed back to the trail which was packed. We both forgot what it was like to be on trail near a parking lot on a weekend day. Around ten miles in the people began to dissipate as we continued our long climb. We were still in view of Mount Rainier for a while, eventually losing sight of it and, as the sun sank lower, huge dark gray jagged peaks lined up along the sky. The trail was rough, made mostly of angular rocks piled up on each other, a slight depression just enough to follow a trail. I filtered water at a lake and another hiker we had met in town, Valley, caught up with us. He asked us to keep watch for him while he went skinny dipping. He jumped into the big green lake. The cold water pulling a loud yell out of him. When I left the lake it felt like I was climbing forever. I hiked with Valley for a while and we chatted. It was nice to talk to someone new. We took lots of breaks to look at Rainier and the other huge peaks ending in dramatic points against the blue sky. It seemed like they went on forever, rows of them stacked one behind the other, feathering out and on into the sun behind them. I hiked until dark. We had only done 15 miles but the climbing and the terrain made it take so long. I got to camp, set up my tent, and cooked dinner, teriyaki rice with bacon bits and smashed fritos, as the last of the daylight drained out of the atmosphere. I ate with my headlamp shining into my teriyaki rice. I crawled into my tent and felt exhausted and happy. We slept in and I was hiking at about 8. There were so many weekend backpackers, more than I had ever run into in one section. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. At about 9 I ran into a couple and chatted with them for a bit. They said they were trying to find a good place to watch the eclipse. That was it! The eclipse! They were all here for the eclipse! As I stood there talking to them I told them I didn’t have anything through which to view the eclipse and they gave me an extra pair of paper glasses they brought. Trail magic. I hiked on to a creek and a large waterfall. I filtered a little water and ate trail mix and watched the eclipse begin. I watched it there for a while and then left the creek, walking through a burn. The whole thing was so eerie and magical, the burnt trees towering over new wildflowers and shrubs in this half-light. It was like someone pulled a shade over the sun, replacing its light with a dusty glow. It was a beautiful, dull, hazy tint. Soon the light became normal again, and I ate my ramen lunch at another creek before a big climb. I powered up the climb, knowing I had to get it over with. At the peak of it I stopped at a small lake. It was green and receding. I drank water and ate trail mix and stared at the spruces on the edge of the lake, at the big silver peak behind it, at its skirt of gravelly-looking boulders just dribbled down the peak’s front. The world was so still and quiet. Pika squeaked from the boulders. A marmot whistled. I left shortly and began a long descent through thick smoke. I think it was from the fires in British Columbia. Supposedly that smoke is still lingering in northern Washington. As I descended, a grouse (a bird that looks like a wild chicken) landed on the trail. I felt kind of manic and I yelled “CHICKEEEEN” and ran after it. It didn’t even fly away, just waddled along kind of frantically down the trail. It stumbled off into a bush after a while and I left it alone. I crossed the Waptus river and found a little campsite on the other side. I chatted with some section hikers while I filtered my water. I cooked pesto pasta and drank electrolyte water. Feeling full and sun-soaked and tired, I crawled into my tent. When I awoke, tiny pieces of ash had settled on my fly. The morning was warm. Already I could tell it would be a hot day. I ate a pop tart in my sleeping bag, drank instant coffee and hiked out, up one steep climb and down the other side. The smoke was thick, the mountains across from me looked dusty and faded like an old photograph. We stopped for lunch and I ate ramen, thinking about the long afternoon ahead. We still had 2500 feet to climb. Dustin left before me from our lunch spot. I rounded a bend and watched as he stood a wet log on it’s end, about the length and width of his own body, and pushed it over, wedging it into channel of water in a river. He saw me and threw his hands up in excitement, proud of himself. We crossed the river and continued up the climb. I passed lots of weekend backpackers and section hikers. I noticed another thru hiker coming southbound. He stepped aside to let me pass. We exchanged the usual, “Hey, how are you,” and I paused. “You look familiar,” I said, “What’s your name?” “Blue,” he replied quietly. Blue wore a teal hat. He had long brown hair and a beard. He had a ukulele in his pack. “You’re going southbound?” I asked. “Well now I am.” “What day did you start?” “April 30th.” “That’s it. Me too. The last time I saw you was at Hauser Creek,” I remembered of my very first day on trail. A kind of astonishment washed over his face. It was funny. I remembered that afternoon perfectly. My foot hurt so bad. I couldn’t get my water filter to work. Blue sat there on sleeping pad talking about going five more miles and had so many things together. I sat there wondering if I would ever have my routine that dialed. If I would ever figure out how to use my water filter, If I would ever figure out the appropriate amount of water to carry. From time to time I thought about all the people I camped with that day and wondered where they were. Now one of them was standing here staring me in the face, two-thousand-four-hundred-some miles away from that creek. We shot the breeze for a little bit. We didn’t really know each other at all, but we knew each other better than we knew the day hikers, the weekenders. There was this strange bond there that I felt before with other hikers I hadn’t seen in a long time, this strong old memory that grew taught with all of the steps I had taken between then and now, reinforced by the idea that that other person and I both had taken lots of steps in that time, maybe in different weather, with different people, but the whole time we were doing the same thing. It felt good. We went our separate ways and I kept on climbing. I filtered water and climbed some more, eventually crossing Piper Pass and beginning to descend through a rock field, the sky all pink and light blue behind me. When I finally got to camp my feet hurt a lot. A few of the toes on my right foot have been numb for a few days. I heard that happens to some people. I made dinner and got into my sleeping bag, grateful to be going to town tomorrow. I accidentally slept late. I was walking by 8 and I was exhausted. My body was tired, my pack felt like it would never fit right, giving me a rash on my back, chafing my armpit into oblivion. I grew frustrated. I climbed slowly. My feet ached. I stopped at a stream and drank a liter of water and brushed my teeth. I felt a little better. I met up with Dustin at Susan Jane Lake and ate ramen and looked at data for Skykomish, the town we were about to enter. I hiked over Stevens Pass and under some ski lifts. I went into the lodge and got my package. Dustin and I broke down our resupply boxes and talked with a friend of ours, Pooperazzi (he always catches people in the act). We thought he was a few days ahead of us but he showed up right before us at the lodge. We hitched into Skykomish and ate burgers and fries and mozzarella sticks. I forgot about fried mozzarella sticks. They were so good. I stared at the table and drank the last of my soda, dazed from calories. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but when I was in Wrightwood I was hiking around a boy named Croc. He was eighteen. He said that every time he ate a Clif bar he could feel his body metabolize it, that he could feel the calories burning up and away. I felt like that sitting at the table, my body anchored firmly to the chair, my dirt-smudged arms cemented to the formica table, my metabolism rocketing away inside my skin. I could feel the burger and the fries and the cheese just burning up and away in my blood somewhere. After that we hitched a few miles more to the Dinsmore’s, a trail angel’s house. We showered and exploded our packs in the bunkhouse, throwing things away and sorting things and attempting to do laundry, even though the dirt never really seems to dissipate from any of my clothes. We watched Children of Men which, if you’ve never seen it, is a movie set in 2027 on the edge of dystopia. It was all so plausible. It was really nice to watch a movie, but that police-state-total-war society felt so close in time, like if the future of possible worlds was laid out in front of me, that would be one of the options I could point to and say, “Yes, this one could totally happen.” It contrasts so starkly to looking at those deep blue lakes, those sharp gray mountains, to that child-like optimism that my new, bright, slow existence has given me. Oh, I saw another grouse today. I saw a bush at my eye-level shutter and I peered inside it. The grouse, plastered against the steep hillside, looked at me with one big eye, terrified. It waddled up the hill away from me.

I woke up at 7 or so, thankful for the thick motel curtains that blocked the sun, letting me sleep. I looked at the mountain of my gear piled up in the corner next to the mini fridge. I decided I had better get up and get moving. I cut my hair in the motel bathroom. I love cutting my own hair. I downloaded the last things I needed to on the motel wifi, put on my still-damp clothes, ate the rest of my strawberries I had bought at the grocery store, and went to get a coffee. The mountain air was chilly. I put my socks in the sun on top of my pack to dry in front of the coffee shop porch. I sat on the porch and drank my coffee and met some other hikers who were hanging around. We headed back to the trail at about 11. I saw nine horses on trail today. The last time I saw horses on trail was before I hit the 100 mile mark, way back around Mt. Laguna, California. The trail wound through a new section of wilderness, still in the Wenatchee National Forest. By four in the afternoon shards of sunlight were scattered across the trail. Light shone down on leaves of the lush Washington greenery. The sharp smell of spruce was heavy in the air. I passed lake after glimmering lake. I listened to podcasts, a quote in one of them catching my ear, “the experience of being alive is being thrown out of the nest over and over and over until you die.” I couldn’t hear who it was who originally said this. I thought about the way I perceive joy now, about how much easier it is to create, to find. I reflected on how much more adaptable I’ve become, about how even though there are parts of a stable life I miss sometimes, I am thriving in this transience. I thought about what it meant to be secure in life, about what it meant to be happy, about how happiness and stability aren’t always one in the same. I thought about things people or society expected of me, or even things I perceived they expected of me. I thought about how much I used to stress out about that, about the possibility of falling short of those expectations. I decided I’ve already lost too much sleep about that and started listening to an audiobook, Chelsea Girls by Eileen Miles. I hiked for another while, stopping at a lake to filter water. I got to camp around 5:30, which felt so early after hiking long mile days. I was glad to hike only 12 miles today. I made taco rice and drank an Emergen-C, listened to the creek gurgling behind me as I looked out onto a meadow, tall spruce rising from its edges. I awoke to a chill in the air. The breeze off the creek was cold. I did as much in my tent as I could, packing up quickly and hiking fast to try and stay warm. I saw more animals today than any other day on trail. In total, I saw: a boston terrier (wearing a pink fuzzy jacket), a golden retriever, two black labs, a rottweiler, a jack russell terrier, a pika, a duck, many many marmots, probably twenty chipmunks and a garter snake. The morning was chilly for quite some time. I passed a sun drenched wetland with tall green grass, mountains of green spruce in the distance. I passed a giant blue lake, and stopped to eat lunch. I laid out my tyvek and ate too much peanut butter wrapped up in a tortilla. I laid around in the sun like a snake. I packed up and climbed for a couple of hours until Mt. Rainier appeared. It’s so big it almost looks fake, like someone hung a photo of it against the sky. It’s blinding white was difficult to look at for too long. The afternoon soon became windy as dark clouds bounded across the sky. I hiked quickly again, trying to keep warm. I reached a pass, continued over to the other side of a mountain, descended two switchbacks and heard Dustin yelling at me. “LOOK TO YOUR LEFT, IT’S A WOLVERINE.” I saw only marmots. “What? Those are marmots?” Dustin insisted there was a giant wolverine very close to me. I waited for him to catch up. “Oh. I guess they looked a lot bigger from up there.” We laughed. We watched the marmots sitting on rocks. We wished we could be so lazy. A pike darted around carrying some leaves from one pile of rocks to another. The marmots whistled like they do. We hiked through wildflower-smattered green hillsides until we got to camp. The wind was chillier still and we ate quickly, getting into our tents as soon as we were done. As the days grow colder my hiker hunger becomes a dangerous force. I eat dinner and an hour later it feels like someone has thrown a giant scary lever that opens up some kind of second stomach I didn’t know I had. The emptiness of it is irritating as I try to sleep. Every time I take something from my food bag I look longingly at all the food, wishing I could eat it all in one sitting and bask in the fullness of my growing incinerator-of-a-stomach. The morning was damp. Water pooled in my rain fly, under my sleeping pad. We were in a cloud and there was little actual rain, just constant condensation hanging onto trees and shrubs. I listened to the news as I walked, everything still talked about Charlottesville. It hung heavy in my mind for the fifth-or-so day now. I felt like I should have been there, I saw countless posts from friends who were traumatized by the event, but I was proud of them for going and for standing up to such a disgusting show of outright white supremacy. Many people on the trail are politically apathetic, or they are privileged enough to ignore politics. I feel too much community and societal responsibility to be politically silent or apathetic. I sat at a spring and wrote a letter of thanks to my eleventh grade U.S. History teacher who required that we read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. It taught me how much power history has, that especially regarding who records history and how they view it. Zinn’s account disputes many common historical narratives that are recorded in textbooks. It gave me a political cornerstone to build from, it taught me to question who records which side of what story in the regards of history and modern events, and it gave me a new idea of my place in the world, and the United States, as a privileged white person. I hiked and I watched thin clouds blow through a deep valley, like steam from a hot shower moving through a bathroom. I rounded a corner, Mt. Rainier on my left, a wildfire burning in the distance. I thought about the eventuality of things, about the selling off of public lands for private interest, the wildfires and the climate change behind them, fracking, pipelines, big money, losing my health insurance, the constant struggle all of it. My mom told me she was pregnant with me while she watched the Rodney King riots in LA on TV. She said she remembered thinking “How could I bring a child into this world?” Maybe in the womb I could read her mind. Maybe that’s why I feel compelled to try and do something about anything. I looked at water flowing from a spring and wondered how much longer will it be safe to drink? I felt like I was late all day even though I had nowhere to be. At lunch I laid out all my things to dry on shrubs near a spring. Dustin gave me half a pink lady apple that someone gave him as trail magic yesterday. It was so cold and crisp and clean-tasting. A blister filled with blood nagged at the back of my heel all day. I put duct tape over it and it only got worse. I listened to podcasts and tried to forget about it. The location of it made climbing painful and it took me a little extra time to get to camp. As soon as I got there I popped it. I thought about how I would soak my feet in Snoqualmie in a couple of day, how nice it would feel to have a clean blister. I made rice for dinner and drank electrolyte water in the chilly evening. It really felt like fall here. The sky was all blue and bright and there was that fall feeling in the air, like instead of that fuzzy summer air this air had an edge to it, and that edge was hard and cold and fresh. Wispy clouds glided around way up in the sky. We were camped in a tiny meadow next to a spring surrounded by lots of spruce trees. As soon as I was done brushing my teeth I got into my sleeping bag to hide from the chill. I woke up and felt lazy. I ate breakfast in my sleeping bag. I eventually got going, put super glue on my bloody blister and cranked out some miles before lunch through dense forest. The trees were all thick, their roots covered in moss like a little skirt. Mushrooms grew large on their trunks after all the rain. We ate lunch at a spring and then climbed for a long time, the canopy breaking occasionally as we crossed open hillsides or walked along bits of ridge. When I got to camp a southbound hiker was already there and he was really nice. He wore a polyester Hawaiian shirt and a purple hat. I asked him about places he had already been and he asked the same of me. We talked while I set up my tent and made dinner. By the time I finished eating it was nearly eight. I rushed to get into my sleeping clothes and go to bed so I could get all the sleep I wanted. The morning was cold again. I ate a pop tart, drank instant coffee and started hiking. I felt a little burnt out but town helped to motivate me to hike the 17 miles there. I walked down the road to the Chevron where my package was. Other hikers sat outside drinking coffee and soda and going through their boxes. I dropped my pack and walked through an isle of auto products to a freezer that was turned off. A sign written in sharpie was taped to the door. It read “PCT BOXES”. I picked up my box and went to the bathroom. Just outside the bathroom were probably 100 PO Boxes. I remembered reading something about this Chevron being the post office for this tiny ski town. I got a burger from a food cart outside. The owner was really nice and helped us find a place to sleep since the inn was full. I did some chores in exchange for my stay at a place nearby. It was really nice. I took a shower and scrubbed all of the grime off my scalp. I felt the water run over my freshly uncovered skin, so stark and new and stinging. I scrubbed the dirt from my legs, between my toes, washed my face until it was bare and squeaky and shining. I whisked back the shower curtain and watched the steam from the hot water hanging thick in the air. I thought about how nice it was to have warm steam instead of the cold, damp, Washingtonian notion of standing in a cloud for six hours a day. I dried off with my gross shirt. I got my other filthy clothes. I washed them with hand soap in the bathroom sink. The water was murky dirt colored. I wrang and agitated and drained and rinsed. The water never ran clear. I stopped after a while, hung up the clothes and drank a beer outside with another hiker. We laughed about our poor social skills, the way microfiber attracts offensive odor more than any other fabric, the hilarity of our bubbled and ridiculous existence. We couldn’t decide if we felt more nature or more human. We decided that question meant it was time to go to sleep.

*miles bug: when one feels extremely motivated to hike big miles for no reason in particular.

Today I hiked my 1000th mile. Most people who started the same day as me reached theirs a while ago, but I’m not bothered. I thought a lot about my first few days on trail, about Ellen, who is back in Richmond. This hike would have been so different if she had been here this whole time. I wish I could have seen that play out, I thought as I walked. I realize there are 330 more miles until I have walked half of the trail. Though I’m not even half-way done yet, I thought about how much time had passed, how the miles continue flying by faster and faster. Town stops are shorter now, we enter and leave as quickly as we can I wondered if the rest of the trail would fly like this. It’s August already. I can’t believe that. I stopped to cook dinner at junction and Dustin caught up just as I finished cooking an alfredo pasta side. Mosquitoes nipped at my skin through my thin shirt, flies buzzed loudly around. When we finished we walked quickly to a flatter area just before a parking lot and found a couple of tentsites. I wanted to cowboy camp again but the bugs were too irritating, I needed some peace. I set up my tent and crawled inside, eager to peel off my sweaty clothes and wriggle into my dry sleep clothes.

Mile 2129.7 - Cascade Locks, OR - 14.7 miles In the middle of the night I squished a large something on my wrist. I freaked out and slung it off my skin into the dirt around my tarp. I woke up frequently, finally falling into a deep sleep just in time for my alarm to go off. As I got my things together, Dustin threw me a packet of instant coffee just before he started hiking. I drank it and listened to music as I walked through the dense woods, climbing for the first part of the morning. I was excited to get to town. I listened to some news podcasts and the trail began a sharp descent. I ran for periods of time down the trail, my legs fatigued from pacing the momentum of my body. Just before the stream where I would filter water, I passed what I thought was animal scat and turned out to be a giant slug, almost the length of my foot. The day had grown hot and humid, especially with all of the elevation loss. The new shirt I had picked up in Sisters had caused my back to chafe against my pack. It was painful but it didn't seem too bad. We ate lunch at the stream and continued on, determined to get to town. The trail put us onto a gravel road, leading under an interstate and into a park, right in front of the main street of Cascade Locks. We laid in the park in the grass. The long, steep descent had produced blisters on the ball of my right foot. I poked it with my finger, looking at the differences in color, trying to determine whether or not I should lance it. Eventually I decided against it and we walked into town. We went to the house of a local trail angel. A wooden sign out front read "Shrek's Swamp". We put our things on a flat patch of ground and hurried off to do our errands. For dinner we went to a super hiker-friendly ale house and ate burgers between two small pizzas. As I took the last bite I couldn't believe I had eaten the whole thing. I thought about that pizza burger for a lot of miles. I found a new shirt in the post office hiker box and changed out of my old one. My pack rash was worse than I thought. Opposing crescent moon-shaped scabs had formed on my back, around them the skin puffy and angry looking. I went to the store and bought antibiotic ointment. After dinner we put in laundry, did the last of our chores and got ready to head out the next day.

Timberline Lodge - Mile 2106.5 - 12.1 miles It felt so good to be chilly in the morning. We slept in until 7:15 then hustled down to the lodge for the buffet. The spread was incredible: cheesy scrambled eggs, frittatas, sausage patties and links, ham, potatoes roasted with onion and bell pepper, honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, pineapple, strawberries, waffles, cinnamon rolls, strawberry pound cake, berry smoothies, coffee, orange juice--it went on forever, unlike my appetite for once. Dustin and I ate in silence. There were several other tables of hikers doing the same thing. Lodge guests chatted, ordered mimosas, read newspapers. The hikers ate like animals. When we were done we walked back to our campsite to grab our packs. On the way Dustin realized he had eaten way too much, began to feel really sick, then threw up behind a rock. I felt bad for him but it was kind of funny. He's been having trouble eating enough calories. We packed our things and headed down to the lodge to get our resupply boxes and fill up our water. We left around noon to a trail absolutely packed with day hikers. We mostly descended into a canyon lined with tall spruce trees on either side, mountains towering above. We had the option of crossing a river by walking on a thin log with lots of broken-off branches or wading through a pretty swollen river. We decided to wade, which was cold but went well. In places the water reached my shorts. After that we continued onto a trail that would take us by Ramona Falls, a huge waterfall cascading over dark, mossy rock that splits off into dozens of tiny falls. We looked at it while we ate a snack, then headed out to our campsite two miles away. Just before camp we had to cross a pretty large river using two large fallen trees stacked one on top of the other. I shimmied along the bottom tree with my feet and held onto a rope tied across the top tree, leaning over it to compensate for the weight of my pack. We set up camp, filtered some water, cooked dinner and were ready for bed around six. We thought about doing more miles that day but it would put us in our next town, Cascade Locks, at an awkward time, so off to sleep we wehnt.

Sisters, OR - Timberline Lodge After spending a few wonderful days at the Outward Bound base it was time for us to head out. Our plans drastically changed due to a rapidly growing fire in our next section. A section of trail was closed and an alternate had been provided, but the fire grew thousands of acres over three days, consuming the alternate as hikers attempted traveled on it. The forest service woke up hikers and demanded they evacuate immediately as the fire approached. We first thought of going to the next access point at Olallie Lake, though it would be difficult to reach due to very rough forest roads. We checked the fire report the morning we were heading out and the fire was approaching that area. We decided to play it safe and found a bus that could take us almost to Timberline lodge. We would skip 96 miles by doing this, but felt it was for the best. Sam dropped us off at the airport around 9 and we waited on benches in the shade until the bus arrived. The bus was incredibly hot. The woman sitting diagonally in front of me looked at the driver occasionally, rolling her eyes and scoffing in an irritated way. I sat there and felt sweat accumulate behind my knees, the hot wind of the seemingly non-functioning air conditioner moving the sweltering air around the bus. We got off at a rest stop in the tiny town of Government Camp and walked five miles up a steep road to the lodge, ascending about 2,000 feet. When we got to the lodge I felt hangry. We ate a pizza, found a spot on the trail near the lodge, and set up our tents. Then we went back to the lodge and looked around. We ate some ice cream. I went outside and watched the last golden sun rays of the day beam at Mount Hood. Snow still lined its faces. I was glad to be back on trail.

Mile 1971.1 - Mile 1989.0 - 17.9 miles Total PCT miles hiked: 893.9 The morning was warm. It began with a long climb through a strenuous lava field. The terrain was made of sand covered in volcanic rock, providing the illusion of traction as I took one step and slid down halfway into my last step. It continued on like this for a few miles. I became angry. I thought things like, "Why does this trail even go here?" and "Who the hell built this trail through these ankle-breaking, loose, terrible rocks?" Eventually that climb ended and opened into a beautiful meadow full of purple lupine. Butterflies darted around. We soon entered another lava field, this one full of oddly shaped rock. We stopped at a lake to filter water. It was deep blue, eerie and welcoming in the morning light. We hurried away from the lake into another forest and climbing more hills of volcanic rock, stopping at a campground for water. After trying to find a lake for a few minutes, we passed some people setting up tables, "Are you PCT hikers?" they called out. "Yes," we replied in unison. "We're setting up trail magic if you want to stick around for a few minutes. We have grilled cheeses and grapes and watermelon and beer." We dropped our packs as fast as we could and spent the next two hours stuffing our faces. It was a great morale boost. We sat and talked and ate and it felt so good to be full. After lunch we happened upon another lava field and more trail magic, this time from a guy on a monocycle named Ron. He had hiked the PCT in 1985 and 1988. He gave Dustin and I Cheetos and potato chips. We were so grateful to have so much trail magic on such a tough day. The lava field that followed was extremely exposed, very hot, and the ground was very uneven. I listened to music most of the time. I felt like I was on another planet. My mouth grew dry and my lips grew chapped in the hot wind. My feet ached from the uneven, hot rock. When the volcanic rock finally ended, we began a sweltering climb up dusty dirt through an exposed burn area, which led to our campsite. We were so glad when we arrived. We cooked potatoes and mixed in the Cheetos and chips. It was great.

Mile 1950.7 - Mile 1971.1 - 20.4 miles Total PCT miles hiked: 875.1 I slept in an hour later and woke up feeling great. I watched the sun soak long strands of moss swaying from the branches of trees. The morning was chilly as we walked up and over a small peak, then through a few miles of forest that led to one of my most beautiful days on trail. Purple lupine began to appear in the forest, which soon broke into a meadow lined by two huge peaks and a wall of rock on one side and pines standing tall in front of a purple range of mountains in the distance on the other. The sun swept over the meadow. Long grass tickled my legs as I walked. The quiet hum of bees pollinating an expanse of yellow wildflowers and purple lupine filled my ears. The meadow continued on for a while, bringing us to streams full to their brim from the recent snow melt. The peaks we first saw stuck around in our periphery all day, both snow capped. One was brown and round at the top, partially obscuring a sharper one behind it. The sky behind them made them stand out, a crisp, radiant blue against their dark brown and grey faces. We stopped for lunch at a stream and napped in the shade of tall spruce trees. I ate two packages of ramen noodles and some Snickers bars. After lunch we passed through an area closed to camping for restoration. It was covered in obsidian. The sun passed through trees and illuminated the tiny pieces of what looked like black glass. The chunks of black rock soon multiplied, piling up along the sides of the trail. I stood in front of a waterfall probably 30 feet high and looked at the tiny rocks with their smooth faces and sharp edges. In less than a mile we crossed another stream, took a few more steps and I was shocked by the beauty: on my left sat a pile of tiny pieces of obsidian, catching the glow from the afternoon sun, glimmering at me. On my right, a spring bubbled out of jagged, flat rocks piled up at the base of a mountain. Just beyond the spring snow sat somehow just beneath the surface of a deep blue pond. In that moment I felt the earth gurgling with the joy of an unusually late spring. I stood there for a while, watching water seep up out of the ground. I walked another half a mile and was greeted by dozens of tiny orange butterflies. They zoomed past my face, flying all around me in the evening breeze. We reached another stream and I filtered water. I watched the lupine and the grass slink from one side to another in the wind. A hummingbird flew from flower to flower just feet from me, hovering long enough for me to admire its light brown color, the tiny green spot on its back. Minuscule bugs flitted around in the sunlight. The ice cold water gurgled through the middle of it all. I felt so present today. I felt so overwhelmed and absorbed by nature, by all the butterflies, by the sunlit moss, by the hummingbird that came so close to me because we were operating with the same slow frequency of the world in that moment; it had no reason to be afraid of me, to dart away.

Shelter Cove Resort - Brahma Lake - 26.7 Miles Total PCT miles hiked: 834.7 If you count going .6 of a mile off trail to get water and the 1.4 mile road walk I did this morning from the resort to the trail, I walked 28.7 miles today. This was definitely my longest day thus far. I can feel it from my waist down. I ate a piece of pizza someone gave me yesterday for breakfast while swatting mosquitoes away from my chin. We were walking by 6:30am down the road and back to the trail. We climbed 1000 feet to start the day, halfway up was a beautiful vista of a lake. There was lots of shade during the morning which was nice. We were mostly walking through a ski resort closed for the season. After our first climb, we ate lunch around 11:30 at Bobby Lake. I cooked ramen noodles and ate them while I laid on my tyvek, shaded by tall spruce trees. After lunch we walked another 5.8 miles to our next water source at Charlton Lake. A short trail led to the water. I immediately took off my shoes and socks and dunked my feet into the cold, clear lake. It felt so good. I felt my body relax. I looked at the stones on the bottom of the lake, at the trees on the opposite shore, their deep green highlighted in the full sun. The water rippled in a light breeze. After a bit I filtered water and got back to walking. I made my way through a sunny burn area in the warm afternoon. My feet were getting tired. At one point I had to sit on a blowdown to get over it and I sat for at least a full minute, feeling my aching feet dangle in the air, giving them a break from supporting the weight of my body and my pack full of four days of food. I stopped to eat dinner 3 miles from where we planned to camp, at Taylor Lake. Mosquitoes bit my back through my shirt as I gathered water. I took my shoes off while I cooked and swatted more mosquitoes away from the bottoms of my feet and my heels. I ate my chipotle cheddar pasta side as soon as it was done, not even caring about burning my tongue. I was so hungry. I willed my feet to make it through the last three miles. When we got to camp the sun had just set. We set up our tents in a fury as the mosquitoes descended upon us. I filtered water from Lake Brahma in the warm dusk. I got into my tent and stretched for a bit. Then I did the most divine feeling thing ever: rubbed my own feet after they carried me almost thirty miles. They ached deeply. It felt so good to move all that muscle and skin and tissue around with my thumbs. I wiggled my toes. I don't think anything has felt better in all my life. Then ate some snickers bars so I hopefully wouldn't wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

Mile 1875.9 - Mile 1895.3 - 19.4 Miles Total PCT miles hiked: 797.7 I awoke to the sound of rain pitter-pattering on my fly. At 5AM Dustin yelled from his tent, "The rain is supposed to stop after 7, do you want to sleep till 6:30?" "Duh," I replied. We got going slowly, were again swarmed by mosquitoes all day, and I ran out of DEET. About 11 miles into the day we threw down our packs next to a huge, crystal clear lake, set up our tents as fast as we could and dove into them to eat lunch and rest. When we woke up we both waded in the lake and washed our dirt-caked legs. I dipped my head in and scrubbed the crust off of my scalp. I wrung my sleeves out to try and get some of the grimy black sweat stains off of them. I have never been this dirty all the time. I never smell myself or other hikers until I smell regular people. I keep passing day hikers and weekend backpackers and I can smell them from 50 feet away. They always smell like dryer sheets or cologne, some of them like essential oils. I smell like a wet dog, DEET and really stinky shoes. After lunch we climbed 1400 feet, were still in a cloud of traveling mosquitoes, and stopped once at an overlook with a breeze that slowed the mosquitoes a bit, which was nice. We continued climbing and encountered snow, slushy from the recent rain and sun. Just before getting water we had to glissade down a steep slope which was really cold in shorts, but felt good after the humid day. About a mile later we reached camp. I sat down to cook and was attacked again by mosquitoes. I walked around so they wouldn't seem me while I ate a pesto pasta side and drank water with gatorade powder. As soon as I could, I dove into my tent to get away from them.