Made for Walking

Cheryl Strayed hiked a long section of the PCT in 1995. The boots she wore then probably looked something like the stock image on the cover of her book. Very...sturdy. And from the descriptions therein, it's clear that she had a horrific time with her feet. By which I don't mean to say that her feet hurt, or that she got blisters, though both of those things are true--but she was losing toenails. Wait, let me be perfectly accurate: she was tearing out her own toenails because it made her feet HURT LESS. The very idea makes me queasy.

I enjoyed reading this book, but a few pieces of the paradigm have changed significantly since '95, like footwear. I've already said to Dad, please, don't run away with the idea that ripping out toenails is par for the course on a long-distance hike; that it's normal. It isn't.

Boots are designed to protect your feet, yes?--from rain, snow, rocks, burrs and things that go bump in the night--and as consumers we buy right into the notion that our feet need to be protected from our exciting lives. Sometimes they do! If you're exploring pressure-ridges in Antarctica at forty below, for instance, you want some boots. My standard-issue extreme-cold-weather bunny boots had no treads on the bottom and consisted of less than 50% foot. Wearing them, I couldn't walk very well--I'd just sort of bounce along and hope I wouldn't encounter any stairs--but my feet were never cold, not ever--and as far as the US Antarctic Program was concerned, that was the most important feature. All such protective boots serve a very specific purpose, and that purpose is not travel.

But if you're planning to spend five whole months walking, you had better lend a little more thought to the question of what you're trying to protect your feet from. Is it snakes? No. Spilled coffee? Nope. Subzero temperatures? Nooo... Is it the person attached, battering them unrelentingly against the ground for MILE after everlasting MILE? You're getting warmer!

Emma "Grandma" Gatewood thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1955, solo, at age 67, wearing Keds sneakers. She's a famous lady in the realm of ultralight hikers nowadays; at the time she was more of an eccentric novelty (maybe because she was also pitching a tarp made out of a shower curtain). Ray Jardine still had a difficult row to hoe in the early 90s, trying to convince people of the superiority of lightweight footwear. It sounds like the point has carried by a few thousand demonstrations, however, because it's lesson number one these days for somebody like myself, just starting to learn about the PCT. A thru-hike isn't an extended camping trip so much as a very long walk. The best shoes for a very long walk are walking shoes. Boots ain't made for walking.

one popular model

Most hikers these days choose a well-treaded trail runner, or sneakers. Just go to the store and try on as many pairs of shoes as you can stand before you want to start throwing them at the unhelpful sales associates. The shoes don't have to be fancy, or expensive--because you're going to destroy them, and all of their successors. They ought to be comfortable, light-colored, lightweight, breathable, and a little too big. After marching a few days in the blazing-hot desert, feet swell and rub against the inside of a fitted shoe. And they sweat--a lot. The result of this combination of moisture and abrasion is blisters, so you choose your shoes with an eye to heading off the problem from the beginning. Let them breathe, and don't worry about "waterproof." It's summertime! GoreTex or heavy leather boots can't keep your feet dry when the moisture is coming from the inside; nor will they prove very effective while fording a knee-deep stream. They'll just never dry out afterwards.

With decent footwear and a little attention to rinsing out [non-cotton] socks, most people will suffer a couple of blisters, no more, in the first two or three weeks of hiking, and that's it. THAT'S IT. Your feet adapt and toughen, and it's no longer an issue. I am not making this up.

Without the high boot tops to keep debris at bay, some people choose to wear gaiters over their shoes. In a high snow year, a little more traction may be desirable through the Sierras, and microspikes adequately serve that purpose. The shoe stays the same, though.

The principal drawback to sneakers or trail runners is their lack of durability, so yes, you have to replace them at regular intervals--how often depends on the shoe. You'll know when they're done, because you'll feel it in your shins, knees, hips, and back. (Talk to a devoted runner, they can tell you all about it.) But the great thing about sneakers is you can buy a new pair in virtually any settlement in this country, or online for delivery to the next trail town. 

Jargon

One of the problems with stories about Antarctica was that they required too much exposition. I often felt that I got bogged down with explanations and lost the thread of the story. This is one reason that I'm making a conscious effort to expound (in dull and largely unnecessary detail) what-all I'm up to before I set foot at Campo. Later I'll be able to say something like "that goddam bear kicked my canister in the river and I wound up eating dandelion greens for two days before I got to Lone Pine," without anybody having to ask, "what canister?"

In recent conversations I catch myself freely using words and phrases I've picked up from my handbook and the internet that may not have any meaning unless you, too, are planning a hike from Mexico to Canada. Below is a list of terms culled from the Hiker's Glossary that should help, I hope. 

base weight

The weight of a loaded backpack, not including food, water and stove fuel. The base weight also does not include items that are only carried during short sections of the trail, such as ice axe or bear canister.

bonk

Running out of energy due to eating too few calories. Also known as "hitting the wall."

bounce

Sending unneeded gear ahead by mail. Many thru-hikers will use a bounce box or bucket (a real bucket), which contains items that may be useful at various points along the trail but aren't needed all the time, such as extra medication or toiletries, battery chargers, laptops, warm clothing layers, etc.

cache

Water left beside the trail by trail angels for use by thru-hikers. Most of the caches on the Pacific Crest Trail are in the southern California deserts where reliable water sources are far apart. Caches are not to be considered reliable water sources. Thru-hikers are advised to carry enough water to get to the next reliable water source, and to take water from the caches only if they find themselves running low. Cached water is not intended for bathing or cooking.

cowboy camp

Sleeping under the stars without a tent. Often done to save the time and effort of setting up a tent when the weather is expected to be good through the night.

dry camp

Camping in an area that has no nearby water source. Stealth camps are usually dry camps. A common technique on the trail is to eat dinner at a water source, continue hiking into the evening, then set up camp wherever one finds oneself at the end of the day, even if it means camping on the trail itself. 

flip-flop

Turning around and hiking a skipped section in the opposite direction, to return to the place where you left the trail. A flip flop is often an attempt to postpone difficult trail sections until conditions improve, such as high snow in the Sierras.

glissade

Sliding down a snow covered slope. Glissading is faster and more fun than hiking down a snow-covered slope, but is not without its risks.

gram weenie

Derogatory term referring to someone who is obsessive about reducing their base weight as much as possible. 

hiker box

Boxes at some resupply points that hikers use to exchange unneeded or unwanted food or gear. Closely related to SKUA.

hiker funk

After a few hundred miles on the trail it becomes difficult to wash the sweat and dirt out of your clothes. The resulting smell is called hiker funk. The reason the person giving you a ride into town has the windows down is not because the air conditioning isn't working.

hiker hunger

That empty feeling in your stomach that results from eating 4000 calories per day, but burning 6000 calories per day.

hiker midnight

9:00 PM. The time by which thru-hikers are usually asleep.

hiker trash

A general description of a thru- or section-hiker, or of hikers collectively. It probably comes from the fact that thru-hikers often are confused for homeless people during town stops. It also comes from the fact that the usual ways of determining status in real life have little, if any, meaning on the trail. 

nearo

Nearly a zero. A day in which one hikes only a few miles, usually because the rest of the day is spent in town.

NOBO

northbound.

the pack

The bulk of thru-hikers who are hiking within a few hundred miles of each other. As interest in the trail grows every year, the size of the pack increases, causing problems for trail angels, businesses and resources in southern California. By the time the pack has reached northern California, it is more spread out and has less impact on local resources. Also known as the herd.

post hole

Inadvertently breaking through the surface of the snow so that your leg resembles a fence post stuck in a post hole. Postholing is the one reason that everybody's daily milage drops abruptly in the Sierras. 

Ray Day

June 15th. In an average snow year in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Ray Day is the best date to leave Kennedy Meadows on a northbound thru-hike. Named for Ray Jardine. 

repeat offender

Someone who thru-hikes or attempts to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail more than once.

ride bride

A female hiker who accompanies a male hiker when he attempts to hitch a ride. It is thought that people are more likely to pick up a male hitchhiker if a female is with him, and that a female hitchhiker is safer if a male is with her.

section-hiker

Someone who hikes a significant section of a long-distance trail, thereby covering the entire length of the trail over a succession of hikes.

skin-out weight

Base weight plus the weight of clothing and gear worn. Only gram weenies really care about their skin-out weight.

skip

Leaving the trail and reentering at another location, thereby bypassing a section of trail. Skipping is done for several reasons: forest fires, heavy snow pack, fatigue, lack of motivation, a need to make up for lost time or to meet up with friends who are hiking ahead of you. Often people who skip a section of trail, but complete the rest of it, still consider themselves thru-hikers, especially if the reason for skipping was to bypass a trail closure due to forest fires. 

slack pack

Hiking with minimal gear, usually little more than food and water, while someone else transports the bulk of your gear ahead by car.

SOBO

Southbound.

stealth camp

Camping away from common camping spots such as lakes, stream crossings or meadows. Promoted as a way to avoid bear encounters.

sun cups

Uneven surface of snow resembling a giant egg carton. As the snow melts in the spring, pockets of water form on the surface of the snow. This water warms up in the sun and causes the snow under it to melt faster than the surrounding snow. Difficult to walk on. 

thru-hiker

Someone who hikes the entire length of a long-distance trail, traditionally from end to end. 

trail angel

A non-hiker who helps a hiker in some way, providing rides to town, free meals, or coolers of cold drinks on the trail; stocking water caches; offering their home for the night. Some trail angels, like the Saufleys in Agua Dulce, are such permanent fixtures of the PCT that they've become minor celebrities. My mom would make a great trail angel. 

trail magic

Unexpected generosity from a non-hiker (see: trail angel), or a pleasant surprise along the trail.

trail name

A nickname used by a hiker. A trail name can be chosen by the hiker prior to the hike, but is considered more official if it is given to the hiker during the hike. A trail name often derives from an unusual, humorous or significant characteristic or event associated with the hiker. 

triple crowner

Someone who has hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Appalachian Trail (AT), and Continental Divide Trail (CDT). 

Vitamin I

ibuprofen.

vortex

Anything off trail that draws hikers into it, and hikers find difficult to leave. Usually a town stop, restaurant or trail angel's home.

yogi

A means of obtaining help or supplies from a non-hiker without directly asking. 

yo-yo

Hiking the entire length of the trail, then turning around and hiking the entire trail in the opposite direction in one season.

zero day

A day in which you do no hiking, in other words, zero miles. Often taken in town in order to do laundry, eat, shower, eat, resupply, repair or replace gear, eat, and rest your weary body. And eat.

Curiously, apart from the recurring "PCT," trail-language employs remarkably few acronyms. The only one of any importance:

HYOH
Hike Your Own Hike. An encouragement between hikers to hike according to your own dreams, goals, expectations, or preferences, and not have your hike determined by other hikers' expectations. Guidebooks, websites, and other resources provide invaluable advice, but this is your hike. Hike it your way.

Nor Any Drop to Drink

One of my prevailing obsessions these days is the snow level in the Sierras. There's a handy set of figures here, detailing the maximum, minimum, previous, current, and average snowfall on three sections of the trail. I look at them nearly every day. As you can see, last year's green doodle barely manages to clear the bottom of the graph, and the pink line indicating the snowfall for this year lingers somewhat below average. Anything could change, of course, but that's where we are now. This is good news in terms of how soon we can enter the Sierras, and by extension how soon we can begin hiking; and it's good news for short women who are maybe not excited by the prospect of fording raging rivers of snowmelt. But last year's record dry spell deteriorated into a brutal fire season, and I don't think anybody wants to witness a repeat performance. Less snow means less water for drinking, too, for the second year in a row, in a desert setting where natural water sources already run the gamut of "variable quality."

Some thru-hikers prefer not to treat their water, and that is their choice. I used to haul wild water from the spring outside of Fox in Alaska and it was great. But giardia poses a greater threat to long-distance hikers on the PCT than bears do. (Cryptosporidium and salmonella appear on the list, too, but giardia gets top billing.) Giardia is transmitted through fecal matter of infected animals (including humans), principally through water. My folks know it as beaver fever. Once you've got it, there's no way to just muscle through--you have to get off the trail and find medical help. Seriously. The parasite won't kill you, but if you insist on forcing the matter in the middle of the wilderness, dehydration will kick your ass. Not to mention hunger, and feeling utterly wretched while attempting to walk 20 miles every day. I have invested too much money and precious optimism in this trip to risk it on something as easily prevented as a water-borne illness. Thou shalt treat thy water.

While Si and I were in New Zealand we boiled questionable water for three to eight minutes as dictated by the signs next to the taps, and I have no idea whether or not it was effective, but we both lived to tell the tale. Obviously boiling isn't feasible on the PCT. There must be ten thousand water filters and chemical treatment systems to choose amongst, and it's much less fun than picking out a shelter. If so inclined, you can exercise your right to buy all sorts of loathsome equipment for large sums of money: great heavy pumps with intricate moving parts that break or clog, drops and tablets that magically transform your water into potable, unpalatable iodine juice.

I'm kidding, you don't really have to do that. As our water becomes less reliable, our treatment methods grow more efficient. These drops are tasteless! This filter leaves your water tasting better than before! Speaking of first-world solutions, they have pen-sized ultraviolet lights for killing germs, gadzooks. I suppose the question isn't as much to do with which treatment system is most effective (used correctly, I reckon they're all about the same) but which one you'll employ most effectively, which one you can integrate into your hiking style.

Well hell if I know. I'll only be able to figure it out with practice, and it's likely that in consequence my water-treatment method will change over the course of the trip. Which is to say, after I've had a chance to see what everybody else is packing. Nothing looks very promising at the outset. Pumps break, gravity filters are slow, steripens eat batteries. A few tablets are good for emergency backup, but not as a first line of defense. In my research, the two methods that I find most appealing are Aquamira and the Sawyer In-Line filter.

Aquamira is a set of drops that comes in two tubes, like epoxy. Put in one, let it mix, put in the other, wait 15 minutes, and then it's safe to drink. Active ingredient is chlorine dioxide. It's a little slow--you need a timer--but it's easy. Nothing to break. It's small, too, so of course it's much favored by backpackers. On the downside, buying all those tiny bottles (30 gallons of water per set) has the potential to add up in the long run (as opposed to getting a filter that lasts the whole trip), and you can't just pick them up at the gas station with your stove fuel, so you'd wind up ordering a bundle and mailing them to yourself along the trail. (Logistics, ugh.) Some people give up and just carry a tiny dropper of bleach. Well why not, the Red Cross does it. To each her own.

The idea of adding something to the water seems inherently flawed to me, when what you're trying to do is get something out of your water. (Nobody talks about fertilizer runoff or mineral taints, incidentally. Just parasites.) My other dilemma is the mechanics of using chemical treatments efficiently. Say you scoop some water from a stream using a water bottle--the outside of the bottle, including the seams on the mouthpiece, are covered in "dirty" water that doesn't get treated when you introduce the drops to the vessel, so strictly speaking, it isn't safe to drink from the bottle. So, what then? You pour the treated water into a second vessel, designated "clean," and keep one exclusively for doing the scooping? I don't know.

This incidentally raises the question of vessels. I love my stickered-up "indestructable" Nalgene bottles, but they're unnecessarily heavy for this adventure. The most lightweight water bottles are these pretty Platypus bladders, and their Evernew cousins. Not only are they light, but they're collapsible. Paul has one, and it's nice, surprisingly sturdy. The things to watch out for are punctures and, well, pricetags. In some areas you might need to carry seven liters of water, which is quite a few Platy bottles, and all of a sudden you're paying how much for what now? Gatorade bottles, by contrast, are light, sturdy, wide-mouthed, readily available, easily disposable, and cheap. You get one for free every time you buy 32 oz of Gatorade. They don't need to be collapsible, because you can just throw out the surplus containers in town when you don't need them (or when they fail), then pick up another couple liters of Gatorade when you approach a stretch of dry trail, because that's something you can totally buy at the gas station. I think Gatorade is pretty gross, frankly, but I can't argue with the logic, so I scrounged a couple empty bottles out of the recycle bin at work, to get me started. Maybe I will develop a taste for it later.

Then you have hydration bladders, the kind with hoses and bite-valves. Hands-free hydration. From a lifetime of day-hikes, I know that I will not pause to dig out my water bottle until I'm intolerably thirsty. I just won't. I stop for nothing. Drinking water from a bottle won't "force" me to take breaks, I just wind up not drinking water until I see stars. It's lunacy, really. It only takes a few seconds to unbuckle your pack and take a few sips. But there it is, some madwomen will just keep walking. For this reason I have a Camelbak, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. I didn't take it to Antarctica, for obvious and reasonable reasons. I resisted steadily the idea of taking it on the PCT, because I convinced myself it wasn't really necessary. It's a little heavier than the newer models, the hose is a pain in the ass to clean, and the soft sides, again, are subject to puncture wounds. But I have to admit it works for me, in the same essential fashion as, I don't know, wearing shoes works. A few ounces in my pack one way or the other won't make nearly as much difference as a constant supply of water to my body. If it fails for any reason, I'll just have to cope and replace it.

Point conceded, the Sawyer in-line filter suddenly looks really appealing. You splice a two-ounce piece of machinery into the hydration tube and continue to drink normally. (Please fit your own hydration tube before assisting others.) The suction draws water through the filter, so no pumping required. It needs a back-flushing in town now and then to purge the filter, and you don't want to leave it sitting out on cold nights or the filtering mechanism might freeze and perish, but it's light, easy, doesn't "run out," there's no waiting for a chemical reaction, and because the mouth piece is removed from the reservoir you can immerse the whole bladder in the river if you want, no problem. And if I buy it from REI it falls under their 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, so if I do encounter a problem somewhere along the trail I can just call the company and get it resolved, ahem ahem. With a couple of scrounged Gatorade jugs as auxiliary vessels, that system might work for me.

I feel like I'm developing a greater appreciation for the consumption of small beer among the peasantry. Water treatment is a beast.

Ice Brain

I just finished reading Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World. Cherry, at 24, was the youngest member of Robert Falcon Scott's second expedition to Antarctica. He was one of three men who sledged around Ross Island during the brutal black heart of winter to collect Emperor penguin eggs from Cape Crozier. For Science. It beggars words. After recovering for a handful of weeks in the hut at Cape Evans, Cherry then accompanied the Polar expedition as far as the top of Beardmore Glacier, where he and several others turned back in order to depot provisions for the return. Scott's crew reached the Pole in January to discover that Admunsen had beaten them to it.

"Much of that risk and racking toil had been undertaken that men might learn what the world is like at the spot where the sun does not decline in the heavens, where a man loses his orbit and turns like a joint on a spit, and where his face, however he turns, is always to the North. The moment Scott saw that Norwegian tent he knew that he had nothing to tell that was not already known.

"We did not suffer from too little brains or daring: we may have suffered from too much. We were primarily a great scientific expedition, with the Pole as our bait for public support, though it was not more important than any other acre of the plateau."

All five Englishmen died on the way back, the last three pinned down by a blizzard eleven miles from a supply depot; Cherry was part of the team that found them the following spring. He eventually went home to endure lifelong PTSD and depression. I won't presume to say who was better off, he or his friends, but I want to offer my [very belated] respects to Cherry, because to my delight and surprise he wrote a really wonderful book. I knew about the existence of his account, of course, because no semi-literate soul can go to Antarctica and not encounter a few quotes from it. I looked it up at the library recently when I found myself wanting something Antarctic, but I was expecting a dry, historical, possibly rather preachy piece lauding sacrifice in the name of god and country, and it is nothing of the sort. It's marvelous. Full of marvels. Full of little anecdotes and precise descriptions that make me gaze into the middle distance and wonder if I...? Cherry has a real voice. He devotes a good deal of time to extolling the virtues of his lost comrades, demeaning his own part in the quest, but he did the hardest thing imaginable, in my opinion: he bore witness.

(I find now that Sara Wheeler, whose Terra Incognita I enjoyed so much, also wrote a biography called Cherry, which I'll have to look into.)

early Antarctic sleeping bag

It so happens that my new sleeping bag showed up in the mail just as I was reading the chapter about The Winter Journey. The three men had already been sledging in total darkness and unimaginable cold for three weeks. They'd acquired five penguin eggs by stumbling around treacherous pressure ridges in a mid-day twilight, then smashed two crossing a rock slide. Upon getting back to shelter, all hell broke loose, the tent and the roof of their shelter blew away in a blizzard, and they huddled in their sleeping bags in the lee of their broken stone hut, with their precious penguin eggs, hoping for the grace of god.

"Many hours ago Bill had told us that if the roof went he considered that our best chance would be to roll over in our sleeping-bags until we were lying on the openings, and get frozen and drifted in.

We turned our bags over as far as possible, so that the bottom of the bag was uppermost and the flaps were more or less beneath us. And we lay and thought, and sometimes we sang.

Face to face with real death one does not think of the things that torment the bad people of the tracts, and fill the good people with bliss. I might have speculated on my chances of going to Heaven; but candidly I did not care. I had no wish to review the evils of my past. But the past did seem to have been a bit wasted. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities.

I wanted those years over again. What fun I would have with them: what glorious fun! It was a pity.

And I wanted peaches in syrup - badly. We had them at the hut...and we have been without sugar for a month. Yes - especially the syrup. 

Thus impiously I set out to die."

They lived, astonishingly, to recover their tent and break for Cape Evans. There stands a fine (if dramatic) demonstration of the importance of a good sleeping bag. At the end of a normally tiring day, it's a haven of warmth and restful oblivion. In the last extremity--the one you hope you will never encounter--it can save your life.

(The modern Antarctican equivalent of a sleeping bag, of course, is Big Red, the bright crimson duck-down expedition parka issued to each and every individual before departing New Zealand. That coat turned into a bit of a beast at times, possessing the sheer recalcitrance of any bulky inanimate object, but I admit I was never cold while wearing Big Red. I think we all developed a grumbling affection for it. And my comparison isn't an idle one. Sometimes I'd open the door to my dorm and find my roommate sitting on her bed, watching a bad 80s dance film on station TV, all snuggled into her Big Red zipped up to the eyeballs.

"You cold, Kristina?"

She'd grin. "'S cozy! Like wearing a sleeping bag.")

big red

All the PCT handbook and forum advice underscores the fact that there are many ways to cut costs on a thru-hike, but your sleeping bag should not be one of them. Cough up! A sleeping bag both lightweight and toasty warm doesn't come cheap. If you aren't warm enough, you won't sleep well, and when you're walking a marathon every day, the daily opportunity to rest and recharge takes on special importance. (And I need my sleep, full stop. I hear a chorus of heads nodding. The bears have nothing on me in this respect.) Plus, if you find yourself in hypothermic conditions, or a storm surprises you in the Sierra, you must be able to count on your sleeping bag to keep the furnace running.

big blue

They maintained good records, those early Antarcticans, so I can tell you that the explorers' sleeping bags were constructed of reindeer skins from Norway, and weighed 12 lbs apiece; most carried eiderdown bag-liners, too, which were 4 lbs each. My new goose-down sleeping bag, the Western Mountaineering Ultralite, weighs a mere 28 oz, extraordinarily light--made by the elves, you know!--and very warm, rated to 20F. I love it already. Extracting it from the stuff sack is like unloading a clown car, it puffs past all credibility, and with a compression strap it'll deflate to the size of a soccer ball. Most likely the single most expensive item on my shopping list (more than a KitchenAid, sigh), but as I say, this wasn't the place to cut corners, and I suspect that it will see many adventures.

"And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, 'What is the use?' For we are a nation of shopkeepers... And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."