The Story of a Playful Journey on the PCT
Tom. He was mistaken as my husband often by our fellow thru hikers, as they listened to us call one another “hun” all day- but not said in the way an adoring mother would swoon to her child or the way a young new couple would grotesquely exchange every few seconds as they groped in public- no, it was more like the way Marge and Bob from Wisconsin would say “hun” as they drove across the country on their 40 year wedding anniversary and saw something, say, a rock, that they just gee-dog-gon-it needed to stop and take a picture of. The mistaken relationship wasn’t that surprising and felt almost accurate as we whispered in our tent “g’night hun”- except for the fact that we were definitely competing to see who would kiss the most boys that summer (Fairly sure we’d say Tom won).
We set off to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in April of 2015, going for all 2600 some miles of it, together. Tom (later to be named the Deadly Amoeba…we’ll get to that) insisted we hike the whole damn thing, even the desert, because when all was said and done, “would you rather tell people the story of the time you hiked some of the PCT or all of the PCT?” Bragging rights took priority. And just so we’re clear, by “hike the trail together,” I mean breath in each other’s farts each night because you are sleeping shoulder to shoulder in a tent that is big enough for one and a half people and you’ve been eating dehydrated highly processed foods- oh, and walk a lot and coordinate logistics and laugh and swim and cry and walk some more and yell when he eats all of the gorp, compromise compromise compromise, panic when something hurts, and sing at the top of your lungs and giggle yourself to sleep for 5 months. At the end of the hike, when describing how it was, Tom tied it up in a nice little package saying, “Everything was beautiful and nothing ever hurt.” not because that was true, but because it made all of the grit that seemed to much to describe, ours.
To understand why I’d choose to hike for 5 months is beyond comprehension for most, let alone how I came to choose who I would hike with. “You’re going to do what? You’re going to share a tent all summer? Don’t you think you’ll get sick of one another? What if this ruins your friendship? When was the last time you even saw this person?” Maybe it’s best to go back to the beginning, when I first met Tom, to understand why it was a no-brainer to ask him to go on a long walk with me.
The Meeting
It was 5 am. The streets of Xela, Guatemala were dark and quiet as we waited outside of the Quetzaltrekkers headquarters for our ride to the two day guided group backpack up Tajamulco- Central America’s tallest volcano. We tourists, packs’ filled with ridiculously heavy gear were, in my opinion, awkwardly quiet and a bit dull. Juice, a volunteer guide with QT from the Netherlands, started filling us in on the details of the adventure. In the background, there was Tom, the second guide squatting under the street lamp, attempting to hold in his laughter. He covered his mouth with his delicate hand, squirming with delight any time Juice said things we tourists needed to know. And just like that, I was glued to him. Right then. I needed to know who he was and all of the wheres’ and whys’ and hows’. It wasn’t just that he was incredibly good looking and had an amazing Australian accent- there was a playfulness to his demeanor that was intriguing and honestly, compared to the boring vibe the other tourists were putting off, he was cosmic. I observed him throughout the day’s journey up the volcano and took the opportunity after base camp was set up to walk with him over to a ridge line to watch the shadow the volcano cast as the sunset. We chatted on our volcanic stroll and skipped all small talk (my effort towards being memorable), I figured we could get to that later. “So, how’s your relationship with your dad?” And we went from there.
The following morning, after a crappy cold night’s sleep, we readied ourselves in the dark to summit the volcano for sunrise. Some in the group stayed at base camp because the altitude made them ill. Suckers. Tom was guiding the rear of the group, which is where I found myself struggling with the altitude but determined to summit. Before long, it was just the two of us trailing far behind the rest- me, shitting my brains out and Tom supplying the TP (karma maybe?). I must have stopped 3 times to shit, completely mortified to be sharing this moment with a boy I wildly wanted to impress, simultaneously finding the situation hilarious and perfect. We watched the sunrise together that morning just shy of the summit, he 20 or so feet away in a bolder field asking how I was fairing and me, reclined between two boulders, a grand backcountry loo, pants down to my ankles, with my insides falling out, “I’m good! Still shitting!”
For me, meeting Tom was what I imagined love at first sight would feel like. I was smitten. For a month I took Spanish classes during the day and spent my evenings with the crew of QT guides. I went on nearly every hike they offered. After weaseling my way into living at the guide house for a few weeks, Tom and I made plans to travel to Nicaragua together and then he would come back with me to Portland for a week. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I knew that if things went well and he actually fell for me, I would sign up for a work visa in Australia and see it out. He would be worth the risk (and who doesn’t want to see Australia anyway?). Thing is, there was zero indication that he was interested in me romantically, so I didn’t have high expectations. My low self-esteem was vibrant at the time, I knew all of the reasons why he wasn’t interested in me in that way- they fit neatly into the narrative I’d been telling myself for years. But, a day into our travels together, while cozied up in our bare bones hotel room in Guatemala City, Tom scratched my back in our hot and humid cement room and tentatively began to open up to me about who he was and the parts of his identity he had been coming to terms with. “Lindsey, you do know that any other guy in this situation would be all over you by now, right?” No, I didn’t know that. The lack of intimate pursuit wasn’t because I wasn’t smart enough or fun enough or pretty enough or thin enough…on the contrary, I was fully enough and completely loveable. He thought the world of me and he was gay. Oh!
We spent the week in Nicaragua hiking and swimming, drinking cuba libres, picking the peeling skin off of each other’s bodies, speaking the majority of the time in a “Fargo” accent, and getting to know one another a bit better. I’m lucky he didn’t kick me to the curb with all of my (what was likely offensive and ignorant) questioning about his sexual orientation. I had just broken free from a belief system that programed me to think that being gay was a sin- equal to being an abusive alcoholic. Abstain or go to Straight Camp, man. Hate the sin, love the sinner. I didn’t believe those phrases any more than I believed the earth was flat, but I was letting go of buried biases and had a lot of growing yet to do.
A few weeks later when we parted ways in the lush leafy streets of Portland, Tom held me out at arms’ length and looked into my eyes tenderly. I was already missing the warmth of him next to me at night and he hadn’t even left yet. With a bit of awe and poetic prose he said “we fell in love, didn’t we?” I agreed. We had. I cried as his ride drove him away, knowing we would probably never see each other again, because, well, life.
But to my amazement, over the following 3 years, we had managed to see each other twice- once when he came through Portland with his new boyfriend, and a second time when he convinced my broke ass to meet him in Guatemala for a last minute QT reunion- of which he paid the majority of.
Enter the summer of 2014. I was 31 and knew I needed something to happen in my life that brought me joy, made me proud, and gave me purpose. I needed SOMETHING. Single, childless, and in a job I liked but one I did not want to keep much longer; having seen my brother’s life dramatically change from a boating accident, having seen my father’s mobility stripped from him, having supported my friend through the death of his brother and then that of his unborn child- I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that all we really have is now and that it was time to fully experience the now, NOW. No more waiting for life to happen to me. Seize it. Run towards joy. But how? And what?
The proposal
I messaged Tom with a hair brained idea: “Tom, so I think you should put in for a leave from your job and come hike the PCT with me next summer.” I was thrilled it was an easy yes. We’d met hiking. We’d imagined what it would be like to “some day” hike the PCT while sitting in the cozy cocoon of the QT guide house with other big dreamers. We’d had heaps of fun traveling together in the past. We both wanted something beautiful to happen in our lives, some change born of challenge, and neither could imagine sharing it with any other person. It was a go.
We knew it would be hard. We knew it would be beautiful. We knew we would cross rivers and mountains and snow and be hot and sweaty; that we could come across bears and cougars and snakes. We knew we might fight and might have to deal with some serious internal shit- shit that could be emotional and embarrassing to share with another person. We also knew we were eager to feel it and do it all together.
Our intentions confirmed, we spent the next nine months on opposite sides of the world preparing ourselves for this massive undertaking. Me, imagining and wondering all the ways in which this would change the direction of my life, reading reading reading, second guessing all of my barely used gear and swapping items out for lighter gear to earn a smaller base weight, researching logistics like a new mother about to be tested on how to keep her baby alive, hunting for deals and sales and bulk dehydrated butter on the cheap, working extra hours, selling off my belongings, trying to get out of debt and into the green, and attempting to “get into shape” by hitting the trails as often as time allowed. Tom, spending hours days weeks reading online reviews about packs and rain jackets- paralyzed with indecision but also not needing to make the call quite yet because he would buy his gear stateside, working full time, and navigating the world he shared with his less than thrilled boyfriend, trying to keep his excitement about the hike to himself so as not to bring up the issues his leaving roused in their relationship. Us, emailing back and forth about what sort of tupperware we should bring to eat our shared meals out of, who’s tent to use and what about resupply strategies and o wow how beautiful will it be?
And then it happened. 7 days before our trek was to begin, he actually arrived…with a thrown out back and a flippant fear about losing control of his bowels. We were off to a great start! The house turned into a full blown prep zone. Rooms were covered with little zip lock baggies full of powders that would hopefully taste like food when we added water. Tom trimmed the margins off of our paper maps and I cut the tags off all of our everything- because EVERY OUNCE COUNTS! We went to every gear shop in town and then went again. It was a week of madness and I don’t think we slept much. We’d sleep on trail, right?
And We Walked
In the early morning light, April 28, 2015, we piled out of a minivan full of aspiring thru hikers smelling of detergent and soap for the last time, driven by a former PCT hiker lending a helping hand to Scout and Frodo- two notorious trail angels that gathered up anxious hikers from the San Diego airport, fed them, housed them, and got them to the southern terminus of the PCT, sending them on their way with wild support.
The first thing that became very clear to us when we walked away from the barbed janky border wall where the southern PCT Terminus stood weathered and proud, was that we were already in love with our new life. We fucking loved it. It wasn’t uncommon to randomly pause on the trail and exclaim to one another “I love our life!” Everything felt fresh and surprising. This. This is our life. We nap in the dirt when we are hot. I love our life. We eat picnics in beautiful places for lunch everyday! This is our life. We walk errrrrryday and cap it with a sunset. We love our new life. So simple and pure. Walk. Drink. Eat. See. Feel. Be. Cozied in our down sleeping bags with so much ahead of us, we fell asleep that first night sore, with just a hint of “o shit,” but determined and giddy nonetheless.
We were happy…unless Tom was injured.
Ten miles into the socal desert on our first day, neither of us having ever hiked more than 12 miles in a day, we felt optimistic even with the oppressive sun and heat. We speculated how far we would make it that day…hell, maybe we would hike all 20 miles to the first water source before nightfall! We’ve got this handled! Breaks in the shade! Snack often! Take lots of pictures with Lindsey’s butt in the shot! Nap after lunch! And then, at mile 13, cowered under a bush casting some shade and crackling power lines, we were absolutely defeated. Funny how fast the mood can change out there. My feet hurt. I was hot. And Tom’s injured back? Yeah, that was flaring up and he was walking crooked, looking more and more like a penguin with each step. “Think we can make it 2 more miles down the hill to camp?” Fuck. I was exhausted and terrified Tom would have to quit. That was it. I’d have to hike the PCT alone. All of this planning and he’d be out before the end of the second day. Those last two miles to camp were slow going but we had to do it to set ourselves up for success the following day. I walked behind Tom and critiqued his gait, hoping it would help him and alleviate the pain he was in. Our tent was pitched just as the sun was casting it’s dusky shadows. Rehydrated, filled with beans and rice, we were hopeful and optimistic, just like that.
Worrying about Tom’s well being, health, and happiness became a repeated source of anxiety for me. It wasn’t his fault. I needed him. I wanted to share the experience with him, and frankly was terrified to go at it alone. He brought so much laughter and comfort to the trail already in a day, I didn’t want to do it without him. So I made it my aim to be a good hiking partner, the best hiking partner, one that drags his broken body to Canada no matter the extra effort it may require, one that considered his needs before my own. Carry extra gear to lighten his load to stave off shin splints, you got it. Set up the tent, blow up his sleeping pad, cook his dinner so that when he arrived 2 hours after hiking alone in the dark, all he had to do was get cozy and eat and say funny sassy things. Filter water and leave it waiting for him on trail with love notes to give him more time to walk or rest and less time doing chores, you betcha.
The pains came and went the whole trail. As my body grew stronger and more resilient, his seemed to be in constant protest. His back. His gait. His knees. His feet. Plantar fasciitis and an inflamed achilles. A massive rock shifted under his feet, rolled over his leg, leaving him with an open wound that could have seriously injured him or become grotesquely infected. Bee stings. Rolled ankles. Debilitating shin splints. Ball chafe. As one pain would clear up, another would form. And yet, he pushed on. We still hiked 30 mile days day after day. Worry worry worry. He was always on my mind. If he was later than I’d expect to a break spot, I assumed he’d fallen or broken something (generally to be discovered that he got cell phone service and was busy swiping right on boys to line up a date in the next town). The only thing that kept me from resenting him, because it would have been easy to fall into the belief that his injuries were holding me back, was the fact that as much as I gave to him, he was there filling me up in the ways that I needed as well. We gave to each other and it was a beautiful partnership.
I wasn’t alone in worrying about Tom’s injuries. He had to grapple daily with them. He had to listen to his body and push through pain and fight his tendency to imagine the worst case scenario. One small injury in particular, got him his trail name.
For days we had been anticipating our arrival to Deep Creek Hot Springs. Word on the trail moves up and down like a game of telephone and snippets made their way back to us about the desert oasis that awaited us. Three pools of gloriously hot water. Cold refreshing river to dip in. Sandy beaches. Nakedness. Local hippies. Drugs. Bliss. The deadly brain eating amoeba. Trash. Surface turds. Sounded dirty and dangerous and awesome?
The two hottest pools were teired and carved into a beautiful rocky ledge just next to the river. To avoid a cold dip in the river, one could enter easily into the top pool and gingerly climb down the second pool situated about 8 feet below. We stripped out of our sweat stiffend clothes and made our way to the top pool. Just before dipping my toes in, Tom reassured me that as long as we did not submerge our heads, we were safe from the amoeba. His confidence and direction took away any worry I had. The water felt so good, but the rocks that lined the pool were a bit slimy so we thought we would try the lower pool. Tom led the way up over the ledge, and as he turned to start his careful rock scramble down, he disappeared and I heard a splash. I jumped out of the top pool and peered over the ledge to see Tom emerging from the deep waters of the pool below, flipping his brown sopping wet hair back from his face like a mermaid and sputtering and spitting water from his nose and mouth. He looked up at me, eyes wide in disbelief, and called up that he had fallen in! The panic in his face was honestly comical but I tried to keep myself from laughing. There he was, spitting and sputtering and shaking his head to get any and all water off of it when he realized that his arm was scraped and bleeding. Not only had he submerged his head and gotten water into his mouth, he had an open wound in the water. Shit. The. Amoeba. I told him he’d be fine. We cleaned up his arm, but he didn’t spend much time in the hotsprings after that.
Over the next two weeks, Tom would occasionally list off who he was bequeathing his gear to when he died from the brain eating amoeba. I could have his jetboil. His boyfriend his bed at home, his backpack…If he felt anything weird in his body, it was the amoeba. This went on until we got into a small town, randomly picked up a local paper, and read that a young girl had died from the very brain eating amoeba that Tom KNEW he had. Panic Panic. Big eyes. More bequeathing. Our trail pal, Beaver, continued reading the article and we learned that 2 weeks was the magic number. Tom was in the clear. He exhaled dramatically and proceeded to admitted that he had been so nervous before even getting into the pools that he had, in addition to repeatedly telling himself to just stay above water, put hand sanitizer on his nipples and butthole, thinking it would maybe serve as a bit of a firewall against the amoeba getting into his body!!! That was it. The name we had been testing out, Muu Muu (from the hot week he hiked commando in a blue muu muu dress) was tossed aside for good. The trail family dubbed him “Tom, The Deadly Amoeba” and he accepted.
It was fitting. The trail tried to eat him up and leave him as a pile of bones dead in the dust, but he prevailed and moved forward, he made the miles with his injuries, no matter how late into the night it took, allowing us to keep pace with the best little trail family you could hope for. “Hi, I’m The Deadly Amoeba, but people call me Tom.”
We were happy…unless I was hungry (or hot or on my period).
Did we thru hikers hike to eat or eat to hike? There was nothing more glorious than thinking about what you would eat next and honestly, it probably was what we thought about at least half of the time we were walking. Tom made a rule very early on- we were not allowed to talk about what we were excited to eat unless that food was less than 5 miles away. I protested. Apparently my obsessive chatter about the next town’s fat stack of pancakes and coffee 3 days away was getting to him. A compromise was struck. We would only talk about what we would eat once it was within a day’s reach. So we would fixate on the food we were about to eat, and the closer we got to the perfect spot to snack or lunch, the harder we hiked because even a handful of peanuts was enough to push for.
“Hun…I’ve done a bad thing.” Pulled from my break time bliss, I looked at Tom, dreading what he was about to say. Again, he had mindlessly eaten my share of our food on top of his. Tom stood 6 feet tall and was built like a Greek god. There was just enough body fat on his frame to prevent his sit bones from bruising. While I had some fat stores to burn for energy, Tom had none. He had to eat enough to keep his body from consuming his muscle. And when it was time to eat, he would often black out and eat completely unaware of what his hands and mouth were doing.
We started off our hike fully collaborating on all fronts and we shared literally everything except our packs and clothes. One water filter, one tent, one jet boil, one pot, one shit kit- the list goes on. We were so intertwined in our planning that we divided food into our packs based off of weight, not off of what we ourselves would be eating. We’d food buy together, lay it all out in front of us and then take turns dividing up the weight. “I’ll carry the heavy PB jar if you carry the tortillas and chips.” If we had trail mix, there was one bag that we shared between the two of us. If it was in Tom’s hands and he started eating, it was usually gone in 5 minutes when it was due to keep us fed for 5 days.
Rather than change our system and carry our own snacks to make sure there was enough food for poor little ol me, I just policed his intake or made sure I carried the good stuff and rationed out his portion for him. We were ridiculous to the fullest extent, but it did create heaps of laughter (until it didn’t!). I would hand him a bite of some dried mango, forcing him to eat slower until I had had my fill and then he could devour the rest. It went this way with meals too. Two bites for me, one for Tom, until I had had enough, and then he could zone out and indulge. It worked and actually kept us entertained and united- until our paces began to shift about 2 months into our journey.
It was clear, our hiking styles no longer matched perfectly. When I noticed that shift, I held so much guilt around being a terrible friend and hiking partner. Why can’t I just walk slower to keep pace with him? Why don’t I want to stop and take as many mini breaks? What is this pull to push myself and hike fast and hard up these mountain passes? Why do I keep leaving Tom behind? I’m so hungry but he has all the lunch fooooooood. It felt like I was asking to break up when I suggested we start carrying all of our own snacks and not collaborate on that front anymore. Buy our own, carry our own, eat our own. I felt like an absolute shit partner. I was clearly betraying our quirky shared way of existing on trail, but it made more sense logistically and he agreed to it, but not without a few side comments about me leaving him behind all of the time to fend off the cougars and bears by himself.
We adapted. We found our groove. Carry your own snacks or risk having your partner eat all of them.
We were happy…unless we were annoyed with each other.
Never EVER start the day without making a hot cup of coffee. This was discovered early on, when we woke around mile 85 aiming to break camp before the sun got mean. It was due to be a hot and exposed day with water sources few and far, so Tom, as we broke camp, insisted it was smart to get moving, get some miles in in the shade and cool air, and make a coffee later when we wanted to take a longer break. I was silently fuming. FUMING. The trail was unpredictable and could throw any number of unexpected challenges for us to pick our way through. Hot coffee, first thing in the morning, as the sun was preparing to put on it’s show, was the one guaranteed pleasure, the one guaranteed source of joy I had each day. Would there be other wonderful moments, yes of course, but they were not guaranteed. Tom learned that day that hiking with an annoyed, moody, brooding, short, uncaffeinated Moonshine was not worth the extra 15 minutes of early morning walking awarded- not to mention super annoying for him to put up with!. No matter how early you want to start, Moonshine must have her one pleasure. Hot coffee. And every morning after that, Tom woke me up with a steaming cup of joe and a “hun! Time to get up!”
We learned a lot, about one another and about ourselves. Some of the lessons were trivial, light and funny, and only applied to backpacking, while others taught went a little deeper and explored who we were and how we related to one another and to the world around us.
More than most, Tom appreciated the vistas around him. He reveled in their beauty. He knew when to stop and soak up the gems around him, he knew not to pass up a beautiful lake, but to get naked and get in it. Very rarely was he annoyed, even when he was hurt, Tom was just flat out good natured and kind- sassy yes, but kind. I think the only times I actually saw him annoyed with me on trail was when I made comments about his pace.
Never insult one another’s speed. We were hiking up a hill after taking an afternoon off at Ziggy and the Bear’s trail angel house (well, I was there flirting with a very tall handsome hiker boy while Tom was scooped up in an SUV by some muscular man to be wined and dined in Palm Springs!). Tom was leading that evening through the wind farms and golden grasses where we had been on hike rattle snake alert. It was that beautiful hour before sunset and if we wanted to camp near water and not be night hiking for too long, we needed to pick up the pace. I blurted out as I nearly stepped on his heels “Tom, if you were hiking any slower you’d be walking backwards.” The glare he gave as he turned his head to look back at me entirely offended was a good slap as he stepped aside to let me lead. Not much was said for the next mile or two but you better believe we were moving at a much faster clip and he kept up just fine.
The great thing about being annoyed with one another was that it usually didn’t last long enough to create a divide in our partnership and the annoyance eventually led to a change that stretched us, forced us to be more honest with our feelings no matter how trivial, and brought us to a better place in our collaborative hike. The most petty recurring riff we had was where the fucking tent would lie for the night. Of course, our mutual goal was to find the flattest spot so we wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night piled atop one another at the bottom of the tent. Of course. It sounds so trivial, but this was the kind of shit that would cause couples to start off in one tent and leave a trail town with two tents and two separate agendas.
Tom and I had spent a late June day hiking in the Sierra through a powerful thunderstorm, bodies vibrating with each boom, cowering at the tree line waiting for lightning to pass, wading through a trail that had become a creek bed, and pulling our way up and over a mountain pass. It was an unforgettable day, to feel the power of the weather and mountains was incredible, but needless to say we reached camp exhausted. We set to setting camp and dividing up our chores with a system we had perfected over the past 2 months of hiking. Tom filtered water and readied our dinner supplies while I pitched the tent. Instead of tending to his chores, he shuffled over, muttering “ya reckon that’s that flattest spot?” as he started making micro adjustments to the tent. This was not the first time he had critiqued my set up with a “ya reckon?” This was not the first time he moved the tent to try out different spots, that I had ALREADY looked at, only to bring it back to the one I had chosen, deeming it the flattest spot. No, this was not the first time we had stood staring at each other with the tent and the words “ya reckon” between us. After the day we had had, and the other moments of second guessing my choices boiling up in my chest I sneared “Yes! YES! I RECKON this is the flattest spot! I wouldn’t pick a shit spot!” At that, I probably threw a mini temper tantrum and stormed away from the tent, letting him finish staking it in.
We did not talk to one another as dinner was prepared and instead paid attention to our friends we were sharing camp with. I was hot. Boiling. But then, Tom sat next to me on a log before we ate, we leaned into each other, resting our weight into one another, and the anger was gone. I loved him. It was that easy. Just a little wordless nudge to remind us that we loved one another. Anger gone, we confronted our building issue calmly later that night. Trust. Trust that whoever is setting up the tent is going to pick the best spot for a dreamy nights’ sleep. Trust. Trust that whoever is on water duty is going to have enough water filtered for dinner and the night and for breakfast. Trust, that when someone says they want to stop for the day that they need to stop for the day. Trust that we were out there considering each other’s needs and looking out for one another.
We were happy…because we were together on trail
Everything on trail was simplified into basic objectives giving us clear expectations for what we were to face each day. This was true for every thru hiker, not just us. Walk. Find and filter water. Eat. Eat again. Sleep. Repeat. Then TOWN DAY. It was up to us to bring life to the objectives with personality, joy, wonder, strength and purpose. It was up to us to navigate the variables thrown our way. Weather. Terrain. Our bodies. I think Tom and I excelled when it came to bringing vibrancy and hilarity to the objectives. Walk: we did, but not without some dancing. Find water: filter and drink, then get naked, get in. Eat: lessons learned, candy bars. Sleep. Sleep…ahhhh to be in the tent together. We would bed down each night, Tom making at least 257 adjustments to his positioning (his feet had to be elevated just so), and look through the days photos, recapping what we had just experienced. It was one of my favorite things, being in that tent together, planning out our next day, and waking up giggling after a sound sleep because we just couldn’t help ourselves. It was so good to wake up and know we had to walk and to know that it would be fun. And then came TOWN DAY: just like Christmas morning.
We did town day proud from the very beginning by never passing up a burger and always saying yes to milkshakes and a room. In town, we walked as little as possible and allowed our tired bodies time to rest and bulk up on calories, but when you also had heaps of chores in preparation for the next leg of the journey, finding the time to devour a family size bag of chips in bed could be hard. And that my friends, is one of the many reasons I loved having Tom as partner- he cared for me when I needed rest and always found a way to lift my spirits when the exhaustion was breaking them.
We were in Bishop, CA, about a third of the way through the Sierra, and I could not imagine moving ever again. Those mountains were kicking my ass and I was losing weight really rapidly. We just could not seem to get enough food into our packs and had been rationing our meals and snacks. My feet were so sore and I was incredibly tired and I had a moment where I understood why so many hikers ended their journeys right about then. I did not want to quit, but I got it. Tom, without any prompting from me, saw what I was going through and, bless his heart, had me stay in bed, told me not to worry about a thing, that he would go do all of our resupply and run our errands. All I had to do was rest. This wasn’t the first time he had done this, and it wouldn’t be the last. A couple of hours later, Tom burst through the motel room door beaming and energized “hun, I’ve done a good thing”. He came over to the bed and dumped out the contents of our food buy- on the bed at the top of the pile of mac and cheese and ramen lay 48 candy bars. 48 candy bars for 6 days!! I died laughing. We would no longer starve and we would never be tempted to murder our pals for their candy again. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Never enter the wilderness without candy bars.
Tom and I were lucky. We knew we were where we wanted to be when we were out on that trail and that confidence in knowing we were doing exactly what was right kept us from ever hitting that dreaded place most thru hikers reach- the mental struggle to stick with it when the pleasures of the front country are beckoning you to come, shower, put your pack away and stay. We never entertained thoughts of quitting our hike because they just weren’t there. That doesn’t mean there weren’t times when we were so desperate for a cheap motel room and a $7 bottle of champagne that we’d have given any number of favors to anyone to make whatever moment of misery we were in stop and to carry us into those places of civilized bliss. No one ever carried us anywhere, we got there with our own two feet and good humor.
Tom and I decided that passing the 1,000 mile marker warranted a celebration, so we hitched our way down to Kennedy Meadows North, a dude ranch-meets-campground equipped with a saloon and porchside restaurant, for a fat juicy burger and a nice bottle of champagne. We cheersed to our progress and drank to us. A quick two glasses on empty stomachs later and we were happy drunks…happy drunks that still needed to visit the general store to food buy for the next leg. Needless to say, that was the BEST resupply I think we ever carried. It consisted mainly of candy bars, chips, cheezeits, chocolates, and any other snack a 5 year old would have thrown a temper tantrum over. We wabbled through the small store with our shopping basket exclaiming “hun! look! snickers! you love snickers” “O yeah hun, put it in!” and spent more money than we probably should have on empty calories, but hey, we had made it 1000 miles through the SoCal desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains! JUNK FOOD!
Having hiked other long trails alone now, I can look back and see how valuable the silliness Tom and I both poured out was. With out it, you’re left to the silence of your own mind, and that can often take you to dark places on those hard days. It’s true when they say different people pull different qualities of your personality forward more than others, and Tom and I, well, we brought forward a childlike playfulness in one another- even on the most repetitive of days. Hiking a 16 mile steep decent off of a mountain from the pines to the hot desert floor could put even the most positive person in a foul mood. But Tom and I? Not so much. We spent hours calling out to each other hun! yeah hun! would ya look at that rock, hun! O yeah, hun, that’s real nice, hun, you betcha. o hun, we gotta get a photo of that one. HUN! do ya see that tree? O yeah, hun, you betcha, that’s real nice, how do ya think it got itself way up there hun? It might have been obnoxious, but we were entertained and miles melted away under our blistered feet easily. Through the silliness though, we really were pointing out the wonder of it all.
I’d say I was fairly good at appreciating the beauty around us, but my anxiety around pushing forward to get to Canada could have kept me from pausing were it not for Tom’s encouragement to stop and enjoy the places we were in. To swim naked. To nap. To take our shoes off and wiggle our toes. To rest in the shade. In the sun. To be. To dance on the trail to take our mind off of our throbbing feet. To hike at midnight naked under a full moon. To twerk at every beautiful vista. To laugh. To play. To sing.
The amount of beauty we moved through was even more than I thought possible and it was so damn lovely to have Tom standing there to share it with, to have him to look over to and see him reflecting back the same open mouth awe that was on my own face. The strongest memory I have of that shared awe was on our fourth day. We’d spent the first half of the day adjusting our gear and gorging ourselves on food in Mt. Laguna. Once we’d had our fill of all of the goodies, we made our way north. A few miles out of town we found ourselves approaching the most stunning desert view. The wind was waltzing in the tall green grasses that the trail wove through, the sun casting it’s golden glow on everything, bringing the moment to just below real magic. The natural energy made it’s way into our core, we moved forward, both spinning and signing at the top of our lungs “the hills are alive” as we approached the vista. We were so small and the world was so big and o wow it was just something else to be in that moment. It was then that I first experienced tears of absolute joy from the overwhelming beauty. It’s a feeling that stole my heart and has had it ever since.
The finish
We walked the last .2 miles to the northern terminus in the early morning on Oct. 5th with our pants down, bits out, squealing like children. When we got to the PCT Monument, standing tall in the line of clear cut forest climbing its way through the Northern Cascades, we did what we knew to do and got naked in the cold mountain air. It felt insane. But, the trail…it was insane. The trail had stripped us and connected us to an animal strength we didn’t know we had. It had shown us all of it’s curves, all of it’s intimate details, the parts you can only truly see when you have fully thrown yourself into its grit, have taken down your barriers and uncluttered your mind. We breathed it’s air, sometimes pine scented, sometimes thick with smoke, heated with sulfur, sweet with rain. We had felt it’s skin on our feet and moved through its seasons. We had fallen and bled on it’s rocks and dropped our tears in it’s dust. We had slept in the softness of its bosom and immersed ourselves in the deep pools of it’s lakes and cascading rivers. We’d laughed in hysterics when brought to the brink of exhaustion from her relentless exposure, giggled when she showed us her soft little creatures, smiled when she gifted us friends. It’s easier with 5 years of hindsight to attach poetic descriptions to what took place, but really, right then, standing there naked just felt like the right thing to do because it was wildly entertaining and would make for a great photo. So there we were. Stripped bare, having walked for nearly 5.5 months, surrounded by the trail family we loved, at one with the trail that had pulled us there, having experienced a change and growth within ourselves too profound to yet put into words, and most of all, just having the fucking time of our lives.
This was our life.
We loved our life on that trail and we definitely loved one another.
We loved what it showed us, what it gifted us, where it led us. We loved the unadulterated joy it provided. We had lived fully. We had made ourselves proud. We were happy.
Everything was beautiful and nothing ever hurt.
Table of Contents
I love this, and I love you, and I love Tom.
Everyone loves Tom. He has that effect on people!