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The Journey

I’m exhausted. Fourteen miles into town on gravel roads, then asphalt roads with traffic from Highway 210 rerouted onto the same road I hiked …this isn’t what exhausted me.

The fours days prior with temps in the mid 90’s while winds howled 30 mph as they pushed me sideways along the dusty roads, causing a man we met to remark that we needed to shorten a pole on the wind side because we were leaning so hard against the wind …that isn’t what exhausted me.

The nearly 500 miles we’ve come in the first thirty-two days while sleeping on the ground most nights as ticks kept us trapped in our zipped up tents aren’t what exhausted me either.https://fromdreamtolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/img_7826.mov

We’ve actually slept well, and the previous few nights were helped along by people who either offered us a place to camp sheltered from the wind, or gave us cold beverages and snacks, invited us inside out of the wind for an hour or two, or even took us inside their homes for the night, cooking dinner and breakfast for us before we hiked away the next day. These people added energy back into our days.

In fact, I’ve come to believe it’s the people along the way who have kept us on trail. Sometimes I feel like each day a stranger picks up where another stranger left off, gently easing our path and giving us encouragement, as though they’ve formed an unspoken agreement to ensure we continued along our journey.

No, lack of a good nights rest isn’t why I sit silently in my hotel room. I’m thinking nothing and doing nothing. I have no will to take off my hiking shoes. I don’t make a move to take a shower, normally the first thing I prioritize when reaching a town. I’m thoroughly and completely exhausted.

It’s the thought of hiking more of the same which exhausts my entire being. I sit on the hotel bed minutes after checking in, eating chips and staring blankly at the wall. Wingman seems to be doing the same thing from the couch in our little suite. After a while I say, “I was serious,” and then look over at Wingman. “I will be happy to take a few days off to climb a couple mountains and then come back to the trail.”

“Me too,” he answered, “My sister can bring my truck – I’ve already asked her.”

By the end of the evening we went from thinking it over to a new plan. We will road walk the next forty-five miles of the North Country Trail over the next three days, then his Mom and sister will bring his truck to us in Frazee, MN.

We cannot wait. I’m a USA Highpointer, which means I climb, drive or walk to the highest points of every state. I’ve completed thirty-four and next weekend we will be climbing King’s Peak in Utah, followed by Borah Peak in Idaho a few days later. My ice axe is being shipped from California, where I had it held in anticipation of hiking the Sierra Mountains, to Wyoming – ready for me to pick up along the way.

We hope a few good things are different when we return. First, we already know the miles ahead change from nearly all road walking to mostly trail. Only about one-third of the trail over the next two hundred miles is on a road and further north it’s all trail. Trail is why we hike after all. Short roads connecting long trails are not bad. The reverse is just trudging across America.

Second, more trail maintenance will be finished. Some trail ahead is still thigh-high with brush and grass. The ticks are very heavy and include deer ticks which carry Lyme disease. I am now used to pulling several ticks – if not dozens – off my shoes, ankles and legs every day. Deer ticks are harder to see than wood ticks though, as deer ticks are no bigger than a dot. We soaked our shoes and socks in Permethrin for the upcoming miles, but if more trail has been cleared by the time we come back, trail life will be much better and ticks will be fewer.

We expect Minnesota will open more in a couple weeks. Right now, some showers and restrooms ahead may still be closed. Breakfast isn’t served in the hotels – just sugary prepackaged treats – and most restaurants are still take-out only. Even remote areas like those we hike need a little more time to reopen in Minnesota.

Finally, we expect to be rejuvenated mentally. I’m pretty stubborn, which helps me reach my goals. What I need right now is to enjoy the challenge of pursuing this goal more than I have this first month. Since we don’t plan to finish all 4,735 miles in one season, it really doesn’t matter how far along we make it before snow flies – my cue to go home.

If we come back to trail and find it isn’t the journey we want to spend our days navigating, we can take the truck straight to the Boundary Trail and Lake Superior Trail sections of this hike. There are a lot of good hiking days ahead. We just need a strategy for creating them.

Two days later, I’m resupplied and nearly ready for the seventeen mile road walk ahead today. We casually walked nine miles of trail in a big “U” through town yesterday, so we even hiked some miles on our day off. It was a really pretty walk with groomed trails on half of it and downtown on the other half. I only found two ticks, and the rain which soaked us mostly dried by the time we found a partially open restaurant downtown.

I’ve been told repeatedly Maplewood State Park is beautiful. It’s our destination today. Once we finish today’s road walk, we will be in the woods on a trail camping on the last available site. It looks like a pretty sunny low temp day. I think it will be a good start to our new plan.

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Drop Me at the Mexican Border

Soon I will touch the wall between California and Mexico, turn around and take a photo, then begin hiking across the desert toward the first reliable water source at Lake Moreno twenty miles to the north. April 22 is my start date. I cannot wait.

The new monument marking the start of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) faces north, so most people post a photo of themselves next to it with the trail heading north in the background. What you rarely see is the wall between the USA and Mexico in the background, but it’s there and I intend to place my hand on it before taking my first steps. After all, I am planning to hike from Mexico to Canada – and do not want to short myself the first 100 yards or so of such a monumental hike.

It took two tries to secure a thru-hiking permit for the PCT and I was ecstatic when my application was approved. There appear to be thousands more applying for a permit than receiving one and only two permit lottery days. I could have found a way to hike it without a permit, but it would have been much harder logistically and may have meant I couldn’t hike the entire trail.

The first 700 miles are desert. I will hike for long distances through dry creek beds as this year has been a very low snow year. Even if some late snows come along, it’s likely to be far below average. Right now, most of California is measuring less than fifty percent average snow/rainfall.

Water is one of the major differences between the PCT and Appalachian Trail (AT) which I hiked in 2018. I expect to carry a lot of water as there are few sources and lots of desert sun to hike, while completely exposed to sun and wind. Because far fewer roads cross the trail, I need to be more self-reliant, too. There will be many places where I need to hike multiple days before I come to a road and can rethink my strategy, gear, or food and water.

Another big difference is elevation gain. Even though I will eventually hike to a few mountains which are twice the elevation of the highest point on the AT, the overall elevation gain is far less. This doesn’t seem to make sense until you realize elevation gain is measured from every low to every high, and the AT has lots and lots and LOTS of up and downs. The PCT, by contrast, goes up and down fairly slowly over very long distances. There will be plenty of steep places too, just not so many in relation to the entire trail. My uncle and I hiked to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous states, a few years ago. It’s a side trail from the PCT. This time, I plan to bypass the high altitude extra hike and just keep plodding along north.

Up in the Sierra Mountains, I will have many steep and dangerous places to hike. Lots of places to be careful of footing and fast streams to cross. The low snowfall lowers my risk of flooding rivers, so I will benefit later from the low snow year. I’m hoping it makes up for being so thirsty the first seven hundred miles.

In Northern California and Southern Oregon, I may have to reroute for fires. It’s generally expected hikers will be rerouted sometime on the PCT as fires have become such an issue the last several years. If this is the drought year predicted, it will be dicey in July and August. Once well into Oregon though, I only have to keep up a good pace and make it through Washington before the snow flies. In 2019, major storms came early – in mid-September. I hope to be done by the end of September, but we will see.

It seems like I’ve only talked about the hard stuff in this post. Oops! There is much beauty and good stuff, too. I’ll share it as I go along. I don’t know what possesses me to want to hike 2,650 plus miles, but the backpacking bug bit me and held. Maybe my posts from trail will give you a better idea of the appeal and not just the misery.

I finish at the Canadian border, and have a walk-thru permit from Canada to enter. There isn’t a formal border crossing, as it’s just a trail through trees marked by the northern terminus monument. No wall, barbed wire, big river or armed guards to navigate. Nevertheless, an entry permit is needed to legally enter.

Thank goodness I received one, as it’s only seven miles to E.C. Manning Provincial Park in Canada, but at least thirty-five miles back to a road in the USA. Plus, some of my Canadian friends may be waiting there to celebrate with me as I finish. Walking from Mexico to Canada along the PCT is another dream of mine. In just six weeks it will be time to move from dream to life!