Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail by Bill Walker Page B

dilemma of desert hiking. On your breaks you had a choice between roasting in the broiling sun or let the bees molest you in the shade. It was positively hellish.

     
    Struggle is one thing. Damaging your physical self is another. And that’s what I was doing. I needed to get out of here. But I had no idea how. So I fell back on the automatic default position.
    When in doubt a hiker hikes. We are creatures with great faith that if we just continue moving forward, somehow, something good will happen. My steps were stiff and clodding, with heavy emphasis on the heels. I was lucky to make a mile at a time before having to take a break. While reclining glumly up against my backpack I heard the first voices in a couple days coming from the opposite direction. It was a couple carrying daypacks. Immediately, the old hiker Yogi-ing instincts surged to the forefront.
    “Excuse me,” I said to this pleasant-looking middle-aged couple, “Could you tell me if there happen to be any roads or any towns around here at all?”
    “Well, yes,” the man said. “Where are you trying to get to?”
    I didn’t want to overplay my hand too quickly. First, I had to cajole them into letting me into their car. They described a complex series of dirt roads, turning into paved roads, into other paved roads.
    “Is there any way in the world you could give me a lift up to that first paved road?” I earnestly asked.
    “Sure, sure, we’d be glad to drop you off up there,” he said.
    Slowly, but surely, I drew snake eyes with this couple. He was a preacher at some remote hamlet called Mount Gregory. After I began talking rhapsodically about the wonders of the PCT, he suddenly said to his wife, “Honey, we haven’t been to Big Bear Lake in awhile. Would you like to have dinner there tonight?”
    They drove me 1 ½ hours south on a winding mountain road, and dropped me at Big Bear Lake Hostel.

     
    Deep down I knew I had to do it. In fact, I had known it for some time. The three-day comeback hike had been almost proforma— to prove to myself that there was no alternative. I was going to have to skip forward. I had hiked every blaze of the Appalachian Trail and dearly wanted to hike every step of the Pacific Crest Trail. This was supposed to be my hike-to-end-all-long-hikes. Now it wouldn’t be pure.
    My mother and brother consoled me with phone calls. “Bill, that’s great you take such pride in the whole thing,” my mother reasoned. “But does it really matter to anyone else whether you do the entire trail or not?”
    Sound reasonable, to be sure. Was there an egocentric element to thru-hiking? Probably, and to that extent it is not a terribly worthy endeavor. But there was another big issue.
    Knowing you have a long journey to complete forces you to keep hiking on low morale days, if the weather is crummy, or maybe you feel like lingering in a trail town. It was a great motivating force. Now that I would no longer be a virgin, would I be able to muster that same sustained effort?
    Fortunately, I was able to catch a ride to the one place more than any other that exudes the spirit of the PCT. Suddenly, I was surrounded by swarms of hikers and couldn’t have been happier about it.

Chapter 14
    Donna
     
    Y ou know—if we males just didn’t have such damn egos, we’d be alright. I stood there with another male hiker with another male ego taking in the whole scene at the Saufleys.
    It was a brilliant tapestry. You couldn’t help noticing the number of truly fine-feathered females flitting around all over the place. They were loving the attention and having the time of their lives.
    “What are these girls,” this guy commented to me, “cheerleaders or hikers?”
    “Yeah,” I said light-heartedly, trying to make conversation. “I bet some of ‘em don’t even have backpacks and are just trying to act like they’re hikers.”
    I said ego, right? You’re welcome to label us with stronger adjectives.
    In any event, the girls were