Being vs having

I subscribe to an email discussion for people hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The list is really active lately because all the new hikers are in their preparation stages. They're all obsessing about gear and bear canisters and all the unknowns. One of the things I enjoyed about hiking the trail was how it put into perspective how little you need to be safe, warm, comfortable and HAPPY. Whenever people obsess about gear, especially about bringing electronics, it makes me feel the huge gap between the artificial world of "society" and the real world of nature. We really need so little, and of electronic things, even less.

Here's a response I wrote about what kind of headlamp is recommended.

I found a headlamp a few hours beyond Mojave Dam at a little camping area somebody carved into the chaparral near a spring. If it's yours and you can tell me what year you lost it and describe it, I'll return it. It has three LED lights. It's very light. It's very dim. It was perfect for my needs.

I have usually hiked without any light at all, or at most with a one LED light that I could clip to the bill of my cap. I enjoy fumbling in the dark for some reason. I really, really hate light at night. Years ago I had a studio apartment in town that faced the street. Somebody came to the door asking me to sign a petition to put street lights on my street. I told them I would never sign such a petition. What about safety? Criminals? I countered, What about stars? What about sleep? They put the darn light in and I had to pull down a blind every night to sleep but my room was still pink from those infernal sodium vapor lights. Curse from hell, those things are.

I'm not a big nighthiker, but one LED is enough to hike a little bit at night if you aren't in a hurry. Three is absolute luxury. Mostly I use it for reading.

There's so much excitement involved in getting ready for a big adventure like hiking the PCT. You think of all these cool things you can get to enhance your experience. By god you NEED some of these things.

The real gift of hiking a long trail like this is you learn you don't need most of it. You start sending stuff home so you can lighten your load. Then you start sending stuff home because you really don't need it. Your gear gets smaller and smaller and your happiness rises higher and higher. You acclimatize to being outside. You aren't cold anymore. The heat's not so bad. Hills? Yeah, so what? 15 miles to the next water? Yay, that's one of the shorter stretches. Soon you don't care that your stove is made from an old can, your water bottle brand names are for liquid long drunk not for empty containers backpackers are supposed to have (and if you're like me, you found a way to scratch off the brand names anyway). Your maps were downloaded for free. You have a sixth sense about the trail and can find your way pretty well and don't need the GPS anymore except for its entertainment value. The tent you have, the sleeping bag--you barely notice which brand you bought and you couldn't care less what brand your friends have. Ahh, the freedom of the trail, the freedom to just BE and not to HAVE.

I miss the trail SO MUCH!

Divide Peak and fantasies

Today I did a little hike to Divide Peak. Divide Peak is a peak overlooking the ocean near Murietta Divide. Murietta Divide is the boundary of the watershed between Ojai and Santa Barbara. It is also the same trail I hiked on the first and second day of my 2009 hike from Santa Barbara to the Pacific Crest Trail. I walked right by the place where I slept on my first night of that adventure. It was nice to be back.

At the summit of the hike, we were at the top of 4700-something foot Divide Peak. Peaks and ridges surrounded us all at similar elevations. I was on the Crest once more. Two ravens floated by cawing. For a minute there I felt like I was back on the PCT in the So Cal section. I felt happy and at home. Everybody I was with (and it was a big group) sort of disappeared for a moment and I was back on the trail.

Lately I have been engaging in little escapist fantasies about living in an RV on the road spending all my time touring BLM and forest service lands. I have been wondering if I should get a van so I could have something to live in on the road. I currently own a pickup truck. Maybe I should get a camper shell instead.

It occurred to me today that an amazing adventure could be had with my truck and my backpacking gear. All I would need is my backpack and gear, a box with some extra gear for colder or warmer weather, a box with some extra clothes and a cooler to store some food. So a camper shell would be sufficient.

I could imagine myself parking at the trailhead and hiking up to Murietta Camp to spend the night. Maybe I could set up a stealth camp near the hot spring that was nearby. Backpacking feels so much safer to me than sleeping in a vehicle. Backpacking is respectable behavior. Sleeping in a car is practically illegal, at least around here. I could do this all over the place. Drive a little, hike in and set up my tent, pack it all up in the morning and return to my car, move on. Stay awhile somewhere nice. Do a few days of hiking at a time. What an awesome way to live that would be!

It's a great fantasy. Back to work tomorrow, sadly.

I miss the PCT

My job listening to whales has started.

Today while listening to whales with the Irish radio station in the background, I was flooded with mental images and feelings from the Pacific Crest Trail. At one point I felt so homesick for the trail I thought I would cry. I had to get up and walk around for a while.

The associate of that job and the trail is very strong. I worked there after both my big hikes on the trail. My memories were from both sections of the trail. Everything from So Cal to Washington was flooding back.

I miss the trail. My life is so empty now. I am homesick for the trail.

Hiker Trash

This is what Hiker Trash looks like. I don't know who these people are, but one of them is named Furniture. Anyway, I'm sometimes asked what Hiker Trash means and this is my answer.

Memories of the PCT flash into my mind

It's been a year since I left for my hike last year. I left on May 25, which was Memorial Day. This year Memorial Day was the last day of May. Last year I had hiked all the way from Santa Barbara to Hikertown on this day.

Every now and then I get these flashbacks from the trip. The other day I was just minding my own business when suddenly a vision of myself sitting in the sun looking at the Columbia River flashed over me. I was suddenly filled with amazement that I had ever been there at all. It's a long way just to drive and I walked there. It's an incredible feeling.

I miss hiking the trail. For as unhappy as I was much of the time, it was the greatest experience of my life. I hope some day that I can return.

I think all the time of how can I return. Could I live somewhere closer? The Man dreams of buying this dude ranch that was for sale near Burney Falls. I wondered today if I could get a job in Mt. Shasta City. The Man says encouraging things lately. His sub-200 mile trek on the trail gave him the bug and opened his eyes. He is much more relaxed. I think he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. He did the math and knows he could live on renting out his house. He's home free. So when can we leave?

Serendipity follows the PCT

I went for an over-nighter on the PCT this weekend. I decided to drive out to San Francisquito Road and hike north to Sawmill Campground, then come back the following day.

I tried to get an early start but partway down the freeway I realized I had forgotten my trekking poles. Without my trekking poles I wouldn't be able to set up my tent. I could sleep okay without a tent, but the weather report called for nighttime temperatures in the teens with a chance of snow showers. I was counting on my tent to help keep me warm and dry. So I turned back to get my poles.

I got started hiking around 9AM or 9:30, which wasn't too bad at all.

I could see three hikers on the trail even before I parked my car. I soon caught up to two hikers near a spot where I remembered peeing behind a bush in 2008. It was the same spot where I was trying to leave behind Graybeard. Graybeard was a nice man, but I just felt like hiking alone.

I met the two hikers and their names were Wildchild and Dash. Turned out they know my mother. My mother is so famous I'm going to have to call myself Pipers' Mom's daughter.

As I continued down the trail, I met a man from Lancaster. He seemed worried about his speed. People should not worry about their speed. If they feel they are falling behind schedule, all they have to do is get up earlier and hike later into the day. Take fewer zero days and soon you'll be ahead of schedule.

When I got to Elizabeth Canyon Road and the Red Carpet water cache, I was feeling a little disappointed. I should have started my hike here instead of at San Francisquito Road because the trail between the two was pretty boring. At the Cache were three more hikers in addition to the three I had already met. All were enjoying the water in the cache and taking a break in the freezing shade.

I realized I had forgotten to get a copy of the water report. I asked if anyone had a description of the spring that was coming up. They told me I should just take water from the cache. I thought I should leave that water for the thru-hikers. I really didn't need water, but was hoping to just get a sip to drink at the spring. They read me the description and it sounded like a tiny little drip.

A mile and a half up the chaparral trail I stepped in a mud puddle and found the spring. It was dripping with the tiniest of drips. I decided I would hold my bottle under the drips while I ate a Pro-Bar and when I was finished with the bar I had about half a Naked Juice bottle worth of fresh, cold spring water. I took a sip. It tasted good. I drank the rest. A few little floaties didn't bother me.

Up I continued into more chaparral. I was starting to realize that maybe this was not the really pretty section of trail I remembered and that I should have started my weekend hike somewhere else. I hiked through scratchy scrub laced with motorcycle tracks for quite some time. Then I saw a small glade of oaks ahead and I became very happy. I was going to enter the enchanted forest I remembered after all. The glade lasted only a few feet and then I was back in chaparral with a few interior live oaks to provide interest.

After miles of ravine cha-cha, I rounded a turn and saw a forest of pines that I remembered. There were piles of dead branches with pieces of plastic interwoven in the middles of them. It was very strange. I could see the three hikers I met at the cache sitting on some kind of structure. I read my guide book and it mentioned a guzzler was coming up soon.

I reached a faint road and decided I would go see if that led to the guzzler. It did. That was the structure the three hikers were sitting on.

I had carried with me from home 3.5 liters of water. I had drunk one of them already. I was not sure if I would find more water before Sawmill Camp and since that was my turnaround point, I'd need enough water to get there, camp and then return to the guzzler again. I decided I would get a liter of water here.

I dipped my bottle into the guzzler's standing rainwater basin. The three hikers were shocked. One of them took my picture. She called me the "crazy hiker who drinks from those things." It was my turn to be shocked. I asked them if they really never took water from a source like this. They said eww, no way. They always got "man-made" water. I got out my camera to take their picture. A picture of three crazy hikers who never drank natural water.

I treated the water and tasted it. It tasted terrible. Just like concrete. But it was clean and clear and would work for cooking pasta so I was happy. Off I went into the woods.

Soon the pines turned into big cone spruce with green grasses and wildflowers blooming around every turn. I had made it to the enchanted forest I remembered. I took lots of pictures so I could remember. Some of the big cone spruce trees were huge.

After a few hours of hiking in the freezing cold wind, I started to debate whether I should camp at Sawmill Camp or not. I remember it being a windy place. As the hour to reach the turnoff to the camp drew near, I started scouting out better alternatives just in case it was way too windy there. I checked my watch at each one so I would know haw far to backtrack.

I turned up the side trail to the camp. I walked all around the campground looking for a place sheltered from the bitterly cold wind. I found some really nice places but the layer of soft oak leaves and pine needles was so thick there was not a chance I could stick a tent stake in and have it hold my tent up. I finally settled for a camp site with a picnic table that seemed a little less windy than most of them. I started my dinner cooking and since it was windy, I waited until it was finished cooking to go set up my tent. Normally I would set up my tent while it worked. I wrapped up my dinner in something warm and went to set up my tent.

I got my tent set up and brought my dinner inside to eat in the warm sun while I read a book. Just as I was cleaning my pot, I heard someone call, "Hey thru-hikers!" I responded thinking they might be another thru-hiker hoping to share my spot. It turned out the voice belonged to a PCTA rep who was out on a work project. He was inviting me to dinner and brownies and a warm campfire. I could not turn down a warm campfire!

I walked down there to see Wildchild and Dash already there. I spent the evening standing around the fire trying to stay warm. It was really very cold out. I worried I would freeze all night long. Two more thru-hikers arrived and I enjoyed the conversation with everyone around the fire. I was so grateful to have this company, this spontaneous happy happening, that I was willing to pay for it with a cold night. I was so happy I had taken the turn into the camp and that I had not backtracked to one of my back-up locations. This is what I call trail magic. Trail magic wasn't the fact that these people were here handing out food to thru-hikers but that the trail took care of me enough to provide me warmth and company on what would have been a cold and solitary night. That's trail magic.

After a while I finally tore myself away from the fire and found my way by moonlight to my tent in the frigid wind. I wore every single item of clothing I had brought, save the homemade dirty girl gaiters. I wore capilene tights, hiking pants, rain chaps and my fleece leg warmers on the bottom. Long sleeve shirt, long sleeve button-up "desert" shirt, Patagonia Houdini wind jacket, fleece balaclava, homemade Ray Jardine bomber hat and the Houdini's hood on top of it all. Fleece fingerless gloves on my hands. My down sweater wrapped around my middle like an extra blanket. My 20 degree sleeping quilt wrapped in a bivy sack inside my tent. I hoped for the best.

I actually slept pretty warm. I awoke to a cold morning and when I felt I could brave the outside, I got up and looked around. There was a little ice on my tent. Cold clouds swirled around in the wind. It was much colder than yesterday.

I packed up all my stuff and went down to the PCTA work crew camp to make my breakfast by their fire. Instead, they offered me some eggs, potatoes and sausage, and hot cowboy coffee. Who could refuse!

More hours around the campfire. The leaders offered me a chance to hike further north and then as long as I returned to Sawmill Camp by 2PM they would give me a ride all the way back to San Francisquito Road. That sounded wonderful so I took them up on it. At 8:00 I realized that if I left now I'd have three hours to hike out and three hours to hike back. So loaded up my pack and headed off. They offered to let me leave my pack in camp so I didn't have to carry it, but I didn't want to leave my pack. I'm glad I didn't because I had to keep shedding layers and putting them back on. It was good I had a pack to carry all these layers.

The trail left the enchanted forest and passed the number 500 written in pine sticks on a dirt road. A short while later I passed a marker that the trail crew had just installed marking the real 500 mile point.

There was no more enchanted forest for the rest of my journey. I hiked through frozen chaparral outlined in a rime of white. It was beautiful but very cold. I needed both my fleece balaclava to keep my cheeks and neck warm and my Ray Jardine bomber hat to keep the wind from penetrating my head. My bomber hat worked great. Thank you so much, Palomino, for giving me the kit.

I kept hoping to get a glimpse of the view I saw in 2008 that planted the seed that led me to try to hike from Santa Barbara to the PCT. But the clouds were low and the snow was falling fast, but not sticking to the ground.

Soon I reached a dirt road and the data book said there was another guzzler down the road. I actually recognized the spot immediately and turned to go check it out. I didn't need any water, but the guzzler is in a small little enchanted oak forest and I wanted to take a picture of it. These things are really quite clever. People could install similar things if they had space in the yard and collect rain water to use in the garden. The previous guzzler was a concrete catch that filled a concrete basin. This one was a slanted metal roof with a gutter that fed the water into a fiberglass basin under the roof. I stopped under the roof to get out of the snow and take a little break.

The oak trees glistened with white. It was beautiful. I considered for a moment why I do these crazy hikes. Yesterday the first half of the day had been really boring. But I enjoyed it anyway because sometimes it's nice just to walk without distraction. I knew the weather report was daunting but I went anyway because I hardly ever see it snow. I wanted to see snow fall. Here I was freezing cold but I felt alive. I don't feel alive working and always being in air-conditioning during the day.

I started back southbound happy I had had a good adventure. The clouds began to clear a bit and I finally got my view. I could see Slide Mountain Lookout where I had considered making my trail. I could see a glimpse of Pyramid Lake. I could see the mountains near the Buck Creek Trail that I missed and the Snow Creek bushwack that I got lost in. I could see interesting rock formations that I remember seeing in the Google satellite views when I was researching my route. I saw the old highway with all the old inns that is now just a favorite Sunday motorcycle ride. I didn't see the Topatopas like I thought I would and this made me wonder how I ever though I recognized any of those mountains. That must have been serendipity of the PCT as well.

Hiking southbound I noticed a water tank. I decided to go investigate. I could not tell if you could get water out of it, but I was at the road so I decided I would just walk along the road instead of the trail. Wildchild and Dash had been hiking the road all through here and they said it had better views than the trail and highly recommended it. The views were very nice. I could see far into the Mojave/Lancaster area. The Tehachapis were covered in snow now. Storm clouds stretched far into the Sierra Nevada. I felt sorry for the thru-hikers this year. It's fun for a weekend but every day for months would be exhausting being snowed so much.

Along the way I saw a couple of dirt bike riders. Then I found a big baby bird laying in the road. It looked like maybe it had fallen out of the nest. I didn't know if it could fly yet. It looked lika dove. I picked it up and put it under a shrub to prevent it the indignity of being run over by a motorcycle or truck. It was soft, warm and heavy like my birds at home.

Eventually I reached a convenient place to get on the trail again and then I found myself back at Sawmill Camp waiting for my ride in the bitter cold. I got my ride back and enjoyed talking with Kevin of the PCTA. I hoped to see thru-hikers needing a ride to the Andersons when I got back to my car but there were none. I drove home fighting the urge to close my eyes and nap in the warmth of my car.

I'd post a picture but I can't figure out what happened to the network drive where I download them. It has vanished.

Good-bye to the PCT

I have felt such profound disappointment over the end of The Man's PCT hike. I guess I understand why he didn't want me to come home early. You really can vicariously live someone else's hike.

Even though I was only the support person, there was a thrill in sending the packages and looking at his schedule and wondering where he was. I felt connected to the trail. Now there is no more connection. It's very sad.

I have a nice backpack trip coming up in the San Rafael. A couple of day hikes to lead this weekend, too. Will I ever hike the PCT again? I hope so, but at the moment, it feels like it is a million miles away and I have nothing more to say because I have nothing more to do with it. Because real life is out on the trail and the trail is home to me, where am I now? Where is home now?

Secret pleasures of backpacking

These are things I really really like about backpacking that don't usually get mentioned:

• I love washing my feet in ice cold snow melt streams. I like the pain and the pleasure of it.
• I love feeling cold air on my face in the morning. I love it when my cheeks are cold.
• I love to start climbing again. Going downhill feels like I'm not going anywhere. Going uphill feels like forward progress. I like settling in for a long climb, putting it in low gear and forgetting all about it. It's meditative.
• I love going to bed in pain and waking up good as new.
• I love being toasty warm under my quilt. What I mean is, there's a certain measure of warmth where I just feel this huge pleasure come over me.
• I love to walk along knife-edge ridges, especially with a strong wind so you have to brace yourself with your trekking poles. The Goat Rocks in Washington was a supreme experience of this.

High mileage days

My two highest mileage days on the PCT had nothing to do with trying to get to pizza.

I hiked 35 miles one day simply by psyching myself into it. I decided that 30 miles was probably a psychological barrier so rather than think of the miles I was completing I decided to change my focus and think instead of chipping away at the miles remaining to the next town. Toward the very end of the day, I passed by a place I could have camped, and then I was stuck hiking for another hour through an area with absolutely nowhere to camp. Finally, just as the sun was setting, I reached the perfect campsite and my first 35 mile day.

I hiked 36 miles one day in Oregon. It was a relatively flat area of trail between Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood. I just kept hiking. I didn't feel like stopping. I finally only stopped because I needed the final waning minutes of light to kill any mosquitoes that might follow me into my tent. The next morning I hiked easily to Timberline Lodge where I stood on the balcony and looked in absolute amazement at Mt. Jefferson way in the distance, thinking to myself, I can't believe I walked all that distance in only two days. I knew not a single other person there would understand that feeling. It was one of the best moments of the hike for me.

Nobody told me the people would make such an impact

There's a saying about trekking in Nepal. You go to see the mountains, but it's the people you never forget. That certainly doesn't trivialize the breathtaking Himalaya. It just points out what a surprise the people of that country are, how much they affect you.

It is a profound experience hiking the PCT to have so many total strangers make such a positive impact on your life. Especially for the younger people who have grown up in a world of Amber alerts and being told never to speak to strangers and not even knowing their neighbors or playing outside unsupervised by adults. To find out that the world really isn't a dangerous place full of predators is an incredible experience of freedom.

As Americans we are so well steeped in pushing ourselves and achieving and trying to be great. The effort to walk border to border is immense, physically and psychologically. But we all do this kind of thing all the time. We strive. We're rugged individuals. There's another world out there on the trail and some are going to find it to have a very profound impact on their lives.

That I, too, found the hike to be all about the people doesn't negate the fact that I also found the hike to be all about the wilderness, and all about the solitude, and all about the effort and achievement, and all about the food.

I'm glad nobody told me about the people before I started my hike. It was a pleasant surprise.

Flashbacks today on a hike to Chorro Grande

Today I went on a hike off Highway 33 near Ojai. We started at about 3000 feet and hiked up to about 7000 feet. It had rained heavily yesterday and so there was lots of snow on the trail at the higher elevations. It was so beautiful.

One thing I love about California snow is that whenever I go hiking in it, usually it's in February, it's always on a sunny warm day. So my feet will be in the snow but my body will be in the warm sun. Of course, you can get trapped in cold snowy weather here, too, but I don't hike when it's like that. I wait for the sun and then lob snowballs and make snowmen as it's melting furiously in the glorious sun.

I really loved the hike we did. The trail was called Chorro Grande, which is the name of the spring 2/3 of the way to the summit. According to our Spanish-speaking friend from Venezuela, it's a sort of slang for diarrhea. It means Big Spurt or something like that.

The spring itself was a concrete rectangular pool next to a lovely camp under oaks, pines and big cone spruce trees. It reminded me so much of the PCT. That's the kind of water source we would want to find in Southern California, a good clean one built long ago and still there.

The trail itself reminded me a lot of the PCT. The oaks were just like the oaks I saw in the ranges around Baden Powell. Walking in the snow under the oaks looked exactly like the day Tony and I hiked in the snow between Inspiration Point and the Vincent Gap trailhead to Baden Powell. Same kinds of trees, same kind of snow. A total flashback.

Up at the summit we sat at a picnic table next to a snow-covered dirt road. There were interesting boulders all around. I actually sat right in the snow, sitting on my rain jacket and my lined windbreaker. I was glad I brought 4 jackets, because while I sat on those two, I wore my down jacket and used the other to keep my legs warm.

After lunch, we went back down the way we went up. The trail was always gentle and well maintained. It was easy to go up and easy to go down. The only thing difficult was the snow. It was slushy, wet and slippery as the day went on. We postholed every now and then up to our knees. I fell a couple of times, but the snow was soft so it didn't matter. I twisted my foot a few times, which hurt a lot on the sesamoid bone that has hurt ever since the PCT.

Part way down I decided to run. It was fun running down the trail. I got a side-stitch and walked the rest of the way.

As I approached the bottom, with the highway coming into view, it felt so much like the PCT I kept looking toward the mountain range on the other side of the highway, looking for the continuation of the trail to see where I'd be going next. Of course, there was no continuation. But I still had that familiar feeling of dropping down to some lonely road only to cross and climb back up to the crest.

At the bottom at the road I sat down to wait for the others. I looked down that lonely road and it looked just like a lonely California highway crossing the PCT. I felt very homesick and right at home and sad that I would have to get in the car soon to return home to this silly world I have to live in that feels so meaningless, pointless and unreal. Real life is on the trail.

What I think about on hikes

On day hikes I talk and think about regular life (talking if there's someone else there.)

On a backpack trip I find it takes 2-3 days before home/work life is gone and trail life has taken over. Then I think a lot less, talk a lot less and my thoughts are all about what's happening in the moment on the trail.

On a long-distance hike my thoughts go a million miles an hour. So much happens on the trail. Every moment is jam packed with stuff happening. So much to see and think about.

I think about food, about writing stuff down in my journal about every little detail I see of the animals, rocks, plants, scenery. I think about about family at home. Music runs through my head and sometimes it gets stuck there, sometimes words get stuck in my head, too.

I think about what's coming up, how I'm going to split the days up to the next resupply, how many miles to the next water, food and more food, what I'm going to eat next on the trail, what I'm going to eat when I get to town. Sometimes I think fondly about taking a shower.

Oddly, even though my thoughts go a million miles an hour and trail life is jam packed with stuff happening, I feel slowed down, calm, like I could go weeks without ever saying another word. But when I meet another hiker, we both talk a million miles an hour about everybody we've met, great experiences we've had, trail intel and food.

When I get to town I feel assaulted by people who talk fast about things I no longer understand and sometimes I have a hard time making sense of what they are saying. The trail I understand now, not regular life. I love it when it gets like that.

Nutrition on the trail

Every year, lots of people hit the PCT with grand plans to maintain good nutrition. I was no different. The trouble is, it won't matter out there. You'll be so hungry you could eat anything, and you will.

Some highlights (lowlights) from my own experience:

Hummus and crackers make an excellent lunch. A little olive oil in the hummus gives you good calories. A little hummus goes a long way, so it's light and you can stock up and bounce it ahead to keep yourself stocked. I always had ample energy for most of the afternoon after a good lunch of this stuff.

But, when it ran out, candy. Yep. For over a month I ate candy for lunch.

Why? First it was mosquitoes. It's likely you won't experience the mosquitoes that I did because I was in Oregon in July and you'll probably be there in August. But with all those mosquitoes, I could not sit down and stir up my hummus and then eat it. I could not sit down. I had to pace around while I ate. It was easier to eat something portable. So all the candy I would bring for dessert starting becoming my main meal. I could pop peanut M&Ms down the trail under my headnet. M&Ms didn't melt, either. And they didn't require me to seek out scarce water, which how it gets once more in Oregon. Cookies worked out well, too. Since I loathed to stop and rummage around in my pack, giving the bugs ample time to bite my butt cheeks through my pants, I stopped eating peanut butter, too. Lunch went in my pockets before I left my tent in the morning, and the easiest thing to put in my pockets were cookies and candy. I also carried one packet of instant pudding each segment. If I was lucky enough to find cold water in a relatively mosquito-free area to make it, it would be my last resort toward unquenchable hunger. Sometimes nothing I ate would stop the growling. Nothing but a pudding bomb in my stomach.

Breakfast started slipping from its more nutritionally lofty perch toward Fig Newtons and various kinds of bars. Mostly this is because I started getting tired of the things I ate. Also, in Oregon the water was too warm for cold cereal and milk. It was really hard to choke that down.

Dinner stayed as good as I could do. But I fail to see how any of the dehydrated things I cooked could be as nutritious as a real dinner. It's full of chemicals and it's very scary to think that a lot of it was stuff normal people make for dinner every day. I did my best to add real cheese (as real as that stuff in single serving plastic wrappers can be) and once in a while I carted around a head of broccoli or a giant leaf of chard. A drop in the bucket.

In town though. Oh the miracle of refrigeration! Yogurt never tasted so good. Breakfast was full of protein and fat. Stacks of pancakes with omelets on the side. Four halves of English muffin each with its own egg, plus all the sides, and oh what the heck, how about an ice cream sundae for dessert. And the all-I-can-eat breakfast buffets where I did indeed eat all that I could.

I spent a full zero day in Ashland. First I craved fat so I ate bagels and cream cheese and giant muffins with hunks of cold butter added to them. I did the whole pint of ice cream thing, too, which was rare for me. Then I started craving protein so I went out for Indian food and got some kind of platter of dead animals and ate the entire thing. Then, finally, I craved fresh food and got some kind of salad-type meal.

But it was back to cookies, candy, bars, pudding and macaroni and cheese once I hit the trail again. This went on through the mosquitoes and then into the rain, as the rain also made me not want to stop and sit down to mix up some hummus or rummage around in my pack.

It was awful but it was the only way I could survive out there. Oddly, it didn't seem to matter. It still boggles my mind that I could eat so poorly and still churn out a daily marathon. I crossed the Canadian border after months of junk food, feeling invincible and strong. I am completely baffled.

Thank goodness it doesn't last forever. You can fix your diet once again when you get home.

Hiking a local trail and having memories of the PCT

Today I hiked the Tequepis Trail in the rain.

If anyone read my trail journal of my PCT hike, they know from my travails in Washington how much I do not like hiking in the rain. Today it was not so bad.

I was smart enough to bring a rain jacket, something I didn't have in Washington. I wore that but kept it zipped open so I wouldn't overheat inside. I also stripped down my zip-off pants to shorts so my pant legs would not get went, which would be colder than having wet skin that can dry more easily.

I also wore Chaco sandals on the hike today. Strangely, my socks were drier hiking in sandals in the rain than they normally are hiking in shoes on a dry day. My legs stayed dry, too, since there was no brush on the trail to get them wet. I guess my nice, plump body serves as a good umbrella for my legs.

I got a little bit of a chill on the way down, finding it harder to stay warm with the reduced effort of descending. It reminded me a lot of hiking in Washington. There was a section near Snoqualmie Pass where I was very cold hiking in the rain and I worried if I stopped I might get hypothermia. I relied on my gloves a lot that day to keep me warm. I miss those gloves. I lost them on the trail in Washington near Glacier Peak. I keep forgetting that I no longer have them.

There is a camp at the bottom of the Tequepis Trail. It's the sort of place that people can hire for retreats or for summer camps for children. There was a group having a retreat there today. I found myself slipping into my old PCT thoughts. I kept thinking that maybe when we got there they would invite us for lunch or offer us some hot chocolate. Then I would have to remind myself I'm not in the PCT world anymore.

Later today, on a completely unrelated topic, I found a link to a web site about bears. Lots of people ask me if I was afraid of large animals while hiking the PCT. I was not afraid. I think this web site is a great resource to help dispel myths about bears. Check it out: Learn about bears.

Questions and answers about hiking the PCT

I gave a slide show last night of pictures from my solo hike. At the end, I opened it up to questions. Here are a few:

Were you lonely? Yes. But my loneliness was a good kind. I was lonely for my family and for the things I do in the community. It wasn't the alienated loneliness you feel in civilization.

Were you afraid? No, not really. What scares me are mean bosses and not being able to survive in civilization.

Did you have food cravings? Not really. I craved food, period. I laid waste to all you can eat buffets and satisfied all cravings in town, so on the trail, I didn't crave any particular food.

What was the best part of the trail, the part you would recommend to someone? It depends on what you like. If you like forests, hike Oregon and Washington. Otherwise, California has a great diversity from desert to the High Sierra. The prettiest is the Marble Mountains in California and the North Cascades.

The most amazing thing is getting to see the progression through biological zones. You go from desert to alpine as you go up in altitude. But you do the same as you go up in latitude, and seeing that at such a slow pace is the most amazing thing. In California, it's forest at 8000 feet, sub-alpine at 10,000 feet, alpine at 12,000 feet. In Washington, it's forest at 5,000 feet, sub-alpine at 6000 feet and alpine at 7000 feet.

Hiking a long trail like this really shows you your connection to the Earth. You know on a deep level where water comes from and how important it is to your life. You feel the tension between modern, civilized convenience and its devastating effect on the environment, and the privilege of being in nature. It's eye-opening.

Since hiking the trail, I no longer aspire to the kind of financial or career success I grew up believing I should. At the same time, I struggle with feeling like a failure. I hope I can resolve this conflict.

Music in my head on the PCT

One tune was stuck in my head most of the time while hiking the PCT this year. It's called Pachelbel Canon.

Its rhythm seemed to match the rhythm of walking perfectly. It's a tune that if you don't know exactly how it goes, you know enough of it to make up all kinds of variations. It's a never ending tune. It goes round and round again until you are driven mad.

The other main tune that got stuck in my head was Leader of the Band. I think the rhythm is similar to Pachelbel Canon.

I think the proportions were about 70% Pachelbel Canon, 25% Leader of the Band and 5% assorted Irish Traditional tunes.