P: Pacific Crest Trail

 

 After a little thought, I decided that the Pacific Crest Trail would be perfect for the letter P. It certainly encompasses a vast number of valleys and passes (another "P" word!) through a lot of mountains, if not mountain tops.

The stats: 

What: 2663 miles of trail running from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, as near as is practicable to the crest of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains.

When: Designated as a National Scenic Trail in 1968 and more or less completed in 1993 (note that people had been hiking it for decades before that; the first person to walk border-to-border through the mountains was Martin Papendick in 1952, well before the trail was even planned. The first through-hiker (person who hikes the trail in a single trip, or one season) was Eric Ryback in 1970. 

Where: As noted, up the crest of the Sierra and Cascade mountains through California, Oregon and Washington.

Why: (couldn't resist throwing this one in) Why a trail like this? To celebrate and preserve the natural places. Why hike it? There are probably as many answers to that as there are through-hikers. Had I hiked it when I was young and first thought of it, it would have been in part just to prove I could. Were I to do it now (not likely, but you never know; a lot of the hikers are retired), it would be in a less goal-oriented way, and I probably would skip some of the more tedious bits--so not a "real" through-hike, but a multi-month immersion in the trail and the land.

How: President Lyndon B. Johnson created the system with the National Trail System Act of 1968. But the trail only exists because a lot of people have sweated a lot to build and maintain a trail through some amazingly rugged country.
Want to know more? Visit the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

The PTC and Me:

I first became aware of the trail (not sure if I'd heard of it before that or not) in the mid-1980s when I was living in Seattle and hanging out with a lot of peak-bagging backpackers. Many of them had done at least parts of the trail; at least one had through-hiked the Appalachian Trail as well. That brought the trail to my attention, and during my time there I hiked many small bits of the trail in the course of heading to one place or another.

In 1990, I succumbed to the lure as best I could. I took three weeks off from work, and hiked from Canada to Stevens Pass in Washington, a distance of about 200 miles. For the record, it is not legal to enter the US on the trail, then or now. But the official end of the trail, at the border, is a long way from any US road, so what was a girl to do? I hiked right through.

When I hiked the northernmost bit of the Trail in 1990 (if it wasn't '89 or '91; somewhere in there), I carried a camera fondly (?) known as "the brick." It was my mother's camera, given to her in 1950 (1951? help me out here, Mom!) when she went off to Alaska to teach. It weighs probably 3 or 4 pounds, with only one 50 mm lens, and I had limited understanding of how to use it. I hiked alone so there are no pictures of me (who'd ever heard of a selfie back then?).

So, again, we have photos scanned from old slides with inadequate technology. I could use more recent photos from shorter trips that have included bits of the trail, but I like the feel of these.

Northern border. At this point, I was 6 miles in. Observe the cleared strip that marks the border.

I believe that "Cascade Crest Trail" was an earlier name for the northern parts of the PCT. Gads, that pack was almost as huge as the one Cheryl Strayed carried in "Wild"!

Glacier Peak

No longer sure where this was--somewhere in the North Cascades, north of Rainy Pass. There were some great ridge-line stretches.

I think this is the camp where a t-storm cut loose in the night, and I reached out and flung my ice axe as far from me as I could get it!

Lupines

 

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

L: Long Trails; and the Progressive Book Club

This is another of my loose interpretations of the letter of the day.  "Long Trails" is a topic, and only in part the topic of the book I'm reviewing:

Title: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Publisher: Knopf, 2012 (paperback Vintage Books, 2013).  315 pages.

Summary:
On one level, this is the story of Cheryl Strayed's thousand-mile hike on (and off) the Pacific Crest Trail.  More accurately, it is the story of the way she used the PCT to get her head together and stop ruining her life.  It is much less a narrative of the Trail than the other books of this sort I reviewed not long ago.

Review:
As noted, this is a book about Cheryl Strayed's journey from self-destructive lost girl to--well, we can only infer from her brief resume of her post-trail life that she pulled herself together into something.  As a narrative of introspection, the book is pretty good, though the tone drifts over into the "poor me" a little too much (on the other hand: she had plenty to feel sorry for herself about, though much was her own fault).

As a narrative of a Long Trail (there are several designated Long Trails in the US, but the longest are the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail), it reminds me a bit of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods (not necessarily a good thing).  You want to laugh out loud at the absurdity of some of the things Strayed does, and grit your teeth at the stupidity and naivete that goes hiking off into the wilderness with no more understanding of backpacking than I have of Hungarian.

Many of my backpacker friends hate this book.  They object to how much time Strayed spends telling us about her journey to the bottom so that her need to hike the trail makes sense, and they object to her incredible ignorance about the hike itself.  I say that both of those things are immaterial.  The book is not about hiking at all.  It's about grieving and healing and growing up.  It takes a long time, and the journey is painful to watch.  When Strayed goes off for a one-night stand in a town along the trail, I want to slap her face.  I would have appreciated less detail at that point, too.  But I get it.  

This is one Trail narrative I would recommend more for those who don't hike and aren't much interested in hiking, than to those who do and are.  It's an easy and compelling read, but it's not really about the PCT.  And it's certainly no guide for either hiking or life.

Full Disclosure: I was given a copy of  Wild  by a family member, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Hiking Long Trails (Book Reviews)

Back in my younger years, I harbored moderately serious fantasies about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (now that I'm 50, that's been reduced to a tentative plan to hike the John Muir Trail, or a version of it that suits us, in a couple of years).    (Note: the PCT is 2,660 miles and runs from Mexico to Canada along the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains.  The JMT is 210 miles and runs from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous US).

Even though I do not now expect to ever through-hike the PCT (and don't actually want to--too many parts of the trail just aren't that fun), I still love reading books about it.  This month, a friend sent me two books about couples hiking the trail.  Both were winners of the Barbara Savage Miles From Nowhere Memorial Award, given to compelling narratives of personal journeys in the form of muscle-powered adventure.

First, a note about the Pacific Crest Trail, because this is important to understanding both books: The problem with walking 2660 miles in a single season is that you have to start very early.  This is fine for the desert portion of the trail--in fact, even March is getting almost too hot there.  But the Trail in the first 300 miles, alternates between desert crossings and climbing up over 10,000-foot peaks in the San Bernardino Mountains.  Weather seems to be wrong more often than not, and you're never quite in the right place at the right season.  If you are too early, the Sierra is impassable (and you have to hike it when it's only sort of passable).  If you are too late, either you die in the desert or you freeze in the North Cascades in October (and probably get snowed out and have to quit).   And even by time you reach northern California, you are hiking through some very hot and dry areas in the middle of summer.  There are places where you just have to hike 25-30 miles in a day, because there is no water.  The highest point on the trail is over 13,000' (a pass in the Sierra); the lowest is about 180 feet, where the trail crosses the Columbia River.  That's a lot to ask of any body.  If books like these talk a lot about food, there's a good reason for it.


 I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool For Love Hike the Pacific Crest Trail, by Gail D. Storey.  211 pages, including appendix on gear and food.
Published 2013 by The Mountaineers Books
Source: a friend sent me her copy to read, along with A Blistered Kind of Love (see below).

Summary: Gail Storey and her husband of 19 years deal with his midlife crisis by getting outside.  He is fairly experienced (he hiked the Appalachian Trail a few years earlier); she is not.  Gail is going along, originally, primarily because she doesn't want to be left behind (as she was when he did the AT; she started that with him and quit after 40 miles).  The story is as much about their relationship and her growth as a human as it is about the trail.

 Review: First off, I want to say that I found it immensely encouraging to read this book, because Gail and her husband, Porter, are in their 50s.  Not 20-somethings who have bodies willing to take a beating, but people like my husband and me--fit, but  having to be a bit cautious about the level of abuse we dish out.  And the trail does dish out hard stuff for them.  Weather, distance, elevation changes, altitude.  And Gail's body does not take kindly to this.  Instead of hardening to the trail, she loses her appetite and loses way too much weight.  But here's the thing: instead of wanting to quit, she falls in love with this painful way of living.  She is finding out that there is something she's out there to do besides be with her husband, and she's sort of sitting back and letting it happen.  The Trail chews Gail up and spits her out.  But her account of it, and of the spiritual change that takes place in her through it, is worth the reading.

Here's my favorite line, just to show that the woman also has a way with words.  She is describing a time she spent three months in a Buddhist monastery, before she was married:
"Like me, everyone in the meditation hall seemed hell-bent on finding peace."


 
  A Blistered Kind of Love: One Couple's Trial by Trail, by Angela & Duffy Ballard, 264 pages.
Published 2003 by The Mountaineers Books
Source: given to me by a friend (see above).

Summary: Angela and Duffy Ballard hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2000, as a pair of not-yet-engaged 20-somethings.  He was in medical school, she working, so they operated under strict time constraints (he had to be back in Philadelphia on Sept,. 20 to start school--a pretty early end date for the trail).  Neither of the pair was particularly experienced, though he at least had done some camping as a kid.  This book is about both the relationship and the trail, but perhaps more about the trail than I Promise Not to Suffer.  While the Storeys practiced a fairly extreme ultra-light approach, the Ballards  opted for heavier packs and more comfort.  It's interesting to see how the two options pan out, as each has obvious drawbacks (a scant tarp is dubious shelter when the weather truly goes wild, but a tent is a lot of weight when you have to carry a gallon or more of water and 10 days worth of food).

Review: It was fun to compare the two books, though I don't really recommend reading two such books back-to-back, especially if you have responsibilities that you might prefer to leave behind (no, I won't be running away to hike the PCT.  For one thing: winter.  But it's tempting).  I found this to be a more compelling narrative of the trail, leaving me with both a more complete sense of what it's like to hike it and a more even narrative.  This is probably because the book is written by both Angela and Duffy, in a back-and-forth style that could use some visual cues to tip the reader off, but otherwise works well.  I like that incidents--especially fights--were dissected from both sides.

Fights, you say?  Well, naturally.  Neither couple gets away without conflict; it would be unbelievable if they did.  But this pair had only been together for a year or so, and had a lot to learn about relationships and each other, at the same time as they were learning about hiking.  An impressive survival feat!  It's not surprising that they express fears and worries about things that a more experienced hiker (I've never done a long trail, but I've spent a lot of nights in the wilderness) might dismiss.  I found myself at times feeling superior ("well, gee, didn't you guys even know. .  . "), but it's part of what impressed me: that two such neophytes actually made it to Canada (even if they didn't hike absolutely every section; time constraints forced a couple of skips).

Favorite bit: the first acknowledgement in the front of the book is. .  . the peanut, without which their hike (and many others) wouldn't have been possible.



Full Disclosure: I was given  copies of I Promise Not to Suffer and A Blistered Kind of Love by a fellow hiker, and received nothing whatsoever from the author or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and no one else's.

*****

And if you like to hike and want to introduce the kids to it--check out my fun picture book: