Day 26

Start: Tentsite, mile 413.6

End: Trout Lake, off mile 423.8

Miles hiked: 10.2 miles

The NOBOs cleared out early in the morning, waving their goodbyes as I ate my breakfast. Today was another special day: town day! The plan was to head into Trout Lake, eat a hearty meal, and pick up my resupply box. Sun didn’t have a box there, but he was happy to tag along.

With only 10 miles in the day, the hiking was short and sweet. We ascended for a bit and were treated to another magnificent view of Mt. Adams. These mountains never get old. I enjoyed the view for a good portion of the day because I was passing through a burn zone. There were no trees to obstruct the sky. And since it wasn’t too hot and there wasn’t the immediate threat of a tree falling, I enjoyed the burn zone.

More and more NOBOs passed as the day progressed, and soon I found myself back under tree cover. At the bridge about 2 miles from the road to Trout Lake, I found the memorial to the hiker “Colors,” who tragically passed away in that spot during his thru-hike. Taking a moment to think about him, I took the chance to be grateful for the days that I have on the trail. Every day isn’t guaranteed, even when you’re living the dream.

With that somber note, Sun and I hiked the last two miles to the Trout Lake road and were lucky enough to get a hitch immediately. A NOBO PCT hiker who had to get off trail in March had dropped off another hiker as a favor and was headed back to Trout Lake just then. Awesome! Of course we talked trail in the van and shared our trail stories.

Once in Trout Lake, Sun and I immediately went to the cafe and got a burger, fries, and a soda. It hit the spot! Then, we crossed the street and walked about 300 feet to the General Store aka hiker central. We got set up with a campsite, laundry, shower, and got started on our chores.

To me, Trout Lake was a great trail town. Despite there not being too many places for hikers to stay, the people at the general store were super friendly, their selection of food and drinks was great for a small town, and the place was very relaxing. There weren’t a ton of of hikers around, so I figured that most people skipped this stop. But for me, even though I camped at the county park instead of getting a hotel room, I felt very relaxed and comfortable, which is exactly what I want from a zero day.

I spent a few hours in the afternoon chatting with Janitor since I missed him so much. There was no cell service for me in town but the store had WiFi available. When dinner time rolled around Sun, Nik (a young German hiker), and I headed down the road to the pizza place. It was about a mile walk, but the pizza was worth it! We split two pizzas and they were demolished when we left.

We all headed back to the campground after chatting with NOBO who was consistently hiking between 30 and 40 (sometimes more) miles per day. Although we weren’t going to hike that far tomorrow, we still needed our rest. The campground was quiet despite other non-thru-hiker campers being around, and I slept peacefully through the night.

And that’s a day in the life of a PCT SOBO hiker!

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Resupply 24 | Leadore, ID to Wisdom, MT

Author’s note: I am now in crunch time for getting to Canada and posts may be delayed as I try to push bigger days with less catch up time in town.

Day 93, 14.5 miles.

At breakfast this morning I flipped through the first annual CDT 2024 yearbook that my friend Lookout printed. I’m glad the inn had a copy. It can be a very lonely trail so it’s nice to see everyone together. In fact I’ll probably never see the SOBOs I met again until they show up in this yearbook, since they’re headed in the opposite direction. Class of 2025 hikers can go to advtgt.com/class-of-2025 to get notified when yearbook submissions open. Anyone can buy a copy.

Today I did a lot of stretching and logistics and finally organized a shuttle back to trail in the afternoon with a local named Carolyn. On the way up, I told her I had seen a golden eagle. “You know what I just learned about eagles?” she said. “Every forty years, they go hide somewhere and break their beaks and pluck all their feathers so they can regrow.” “Really! That’s insane,” I said. “To put yourself through so much suffering, in order to come out fresh.” Then I thought, well, it’s not unlike what I’m doing, is it? (Author’s note – this is MYTH – I only found out after I had internet later to fact check this).

The hiking today was weirdly easy. It was well graded and well maintained. There wasn’t any crazy wind or biting flies or mosquitoes. I didn’t have to climb over deadfall or get my feet wet. It was cloudy and cool without any rain. The gates opened and closed easily. It was actually pleasant hiking. I thought, am I on the PCT? I kept waiting for the catch. I saw one road up ahead and thought, surely I’ll need to get up that. But the trail contoured around the bend. The cruisy trail gave me a lot of time to think.

On the ridgeline today, I walked past a lot of trees that grew leaned away from the wind. It wasn’t windy now but you could see the impression the wind had left on how the trees grew. Humans are the same. Whatever headwinds you grew up with may be gone, but you might still be compensating. You might still be leaned away instead of leaned into. One thing I love about mountains is that its contours mirror the way water carves into the sandbank on the side of the road. Like something so humble can be scaled up into something so grand. Everything in the physical universe is the same, just at a different scale. I am a human walking in an ecosystem. But I also contain ecosystems: in my gut, in each cell of my body. There is a logic to it all, and I fit into it. I am not separate from all of this. All of this is me, and I am all of this. That’s what’s in my brain when the world recedes and it’s just me and the woods. By the way, I hike totally sober. No drugs, no drinks. 

Day 94, 33.3 miles.

The first existential crisis I ever had was when I was six or seven. I was walking to school with my mom, and in Seattle where I grew up, we get a lot of rain. And when there’s rain, there’s slugs. And one day I asked my mom: hey Mom, why do slugs exist? She looked at me and said, “why do you exist?” Oh, this broke my little brain. I mean, you tell me, you gave birth to me! And when I was 9, I read the whole of Gone With The Wind, which is not fourth grade reading material or content. It took me a month, but I wanted to see if I could finish the longest book I’d ever seen. So I guess I have not changed. I’m still out here thinking about existence and trying to finish the really long thing. I saw someone had written their name in sticks today on the trail. We humans love to write our names everywhere, like we’re so scared of dying and being gone that we’ve gotta make sure people knew we existed. Today I walked by Lemhi Pass, which is where Lewis and Clark, guided by the Shoshone woman Sacajawea, would have crossed the mountains looking for a northwest passage. I can’t imagine being in her position: hey we’re going to take over your neighborhood and everything around it but first can you show us around? There is a spring here called Distant Fountain Spring that is considered one of the headwaters of the Missouri-Mississippi river system. At this point I’ve walked past the headwaters of all the major rivers in the U.S.: the Rio Grande, the Colorado River, the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and the Columbia River (I’ll walk past this in Canada). All of it starts here on the continental divide. 

Day 95, 30.8 miles.

I met a steady stream of SOBOs all day today. Often we would do a quick exchange of information. “How was the hitch into town?” I’d ask passing SOBOs. “Is the stretch to Lima as rough as everyone says?” they would ask me in return. I chatted with two SOBO women for a while comparing notes about who we knew up and down trail. They told me a lot of SOBOs had already quit in the first 300 miles. “Brutal start in Glacier,” she said. “It’s hard terrain with a lot of up and down.” “Well a lot of NOBOs quit in the first 100 miles before they even get to the first town,” I said. “There’s no water and if you can’t make the mileage to the next cache you’re screwed.” “Brutal start on both ends,” she agreed. “People forget this is the most formidable of the triple crown trails.” Shortly after I left them I heard a voice call out: “Stitches?” It was Casper, one of the few fellow women who also did the Sierra with me in 2023 which was CA’s highest snow year on record and she went in without snow experience. She went on to complete the AT last year and is hiking this trail SOBO to finish her Triple Crown. I knew she was nearing the end of Montana but didn’t know exactly where I’d see her and it was so nice to see a familiar face from my first long trail. I told her about Wyoming and she told me about Montana. Meeting people going in the opposite direction means you’ll likely never see them again on this trail. But wherever you met, the two of you together have hiked the whole trail, and slowly you’ll each fill in the knowledge of the other until you’ve both completed it end to end. Later on, at least four SOBOs told me that I was about to walk in some incredible scenery. In the comments it seemed the NOBOs were not as impressed. “It’s a lesser Winds,” one wrote. But beauty need not be zero sum. The Winds can be beautiful without taking away from the beauty of this valley in Idaho. This trail is sometimes described as a string of pearls: moments of delirious beauty interspersed with mundane nothingness. You’d be remiss to focus only on the brightest pearl rather than appreciating all of them as they come. 

Day 96, 36.4 miles.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the culture of this trail. I feel like I have a distinct sense of the trail’s culture even though I’ve hiked it almost entirely alone, seeing very few others. I expect many others have a similar experience. So where does this feeling of a collective culture come from? Certainly there is the vibe of each trail town and the people who help out along the trail corridor. I think it might actually be captured in the comments we leave for each other on FarOut. Of course the majority of them are utilitarian: this stream is still running, there’s two good campsites here, don’t miss this turn. But then there are the other comments:

A discussion in the comments of the Sacajawea Memorial about honoring the historical significance of Sacajawea.

Or the detailed ratings for gates along the trail: this one swings at a B flat. This one has a creative locking mechanism. 

Or a series of comments at the intersection of the Oregon Trail, all of them from hikers who were primary school students in the U.S. at a certain time when we sat in computer labs and played the computer game Oregon Trail. 

Or sometimes a comment gets downvoted for not being part of the culture, maybe about cutting switchbacks or taking following the redline too seriously.

When I’m hiking alone, reading these comments brings a little levity to the day. You feel like you’re still part of a community that shares an understanding of what it means to be hiking the CDT. 

We think of gossip as idle chatter, but it actually helps create culture by defining bad behavior and good behavior. What the norms of a society are. And that’s what we hikers are doing in the comments.

Day 97, 9 miles into Wisdom, 15 miles out. 24.2 miles total.

Last night when I was looking at where I might stop to camp, I realized the comments from hikers noted the road going into Wisdom was very quiet and some waited two hours for a ride. Most of the SOBOs I had spoken to had hitched from a busier road into Darby, MT. But I had a pair of new shoes waiting for me at the post office in Wisdom, which was only open for two hours in the morning. So I wanted to stage as close to the road as possible and prepare to sit at the road waiting for cars for up to two hours. Right as I got to the road a car passed and I stuck out my thumb. No luck. No luck with the next couple cars as well. I hope this isn’t all the traffic I’ll get today, I thought. Then another car approached and slowed, then pulled over. I ran up to the window. It was a mother and son. “Where you headed?” She asked. “Into Wisdom,” “Oh, that’s where we’re going. We’ll take you.” Eileen dropped me off at the post office, I got my shoes and did my resupply, and then she took me out to lunch and gave me a ride back and invited me to come back anytime. Sometimes you have to let the wrong cars pass by so that the right car can pick you up. Life is abundant if you allow it to be. The CDT today overlapped with the Nez Perce trail which was a route the Neemeepu people used to access summer hunting grounds and later used to flee war brought by white settlers. As I walked in their footsteps I looked at the forest and thought about how the plants and trees are just plants and trees to me but the indigenous people here would have known how to use all of it; how to follow the rhythms of this particular landscape. I had to get into Wisdom to survive, but they could survive off this land. That is what it means to be indigenous to a place. For some reason the pass here is named after the white man who launched a surprise attack on the fleeing natives. Why immortalize someone for trying to kill people who are already leaving the land you’re trying to take over? And why take it over in the first place? Is that what we value in America? Are we proud of that? 

xx

stitches

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Monday, October 14th – Ghost Ranch, NM

I woke before the sun rose above the horizon. For the first time in a while, I slept deeply and warm – so warm that I even cracked my quilt open. It was a luxury I had forgotten about.

I took pictures of the sandstone cliffs as a wave of gold slowly gained over their native burnt orange color. Korn and I enjoyed the wonders of an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at the ranch, and soon after, I stepped back onto the trail.

The path led me along a gravel road nearing the Rio Chama, a major tributary river of the Rio Grande. A bridge carried me across the large body of water, and then the trail led me through the canyon as the light softened. By dusk, I was still walking, eager to make some miles and get closer to the next town – Cuba, NM. I ate dinner in the dark, near a rusty tire through that served as a water source. The moon rose full and clean above me, casting a pale wash of light over the dirt road and the surrounding woods. It was the kind of silence that made you sit up straighter. I felt it then – something. A presence. Like eyes behind the trees, watching from the shadowed timberline.

I kept walking, steady-footed and outwardly calm, but inside every alarm bell was clanging. Night hiking stirs a different kind of awareness – vision narrowed, sounds sharpened, the world shifting into shapes you can’t quite name.

Out here, darkness belongs to the predators.

After another hour of hiking, I camped just a few miles from the highway, on a patch of level ground. I felt proud – I’d pushed through and hiked more than I had planned to.

I. The Question

Wednesday, October 16th – Cuba, NM

I walked past scattered houses and barking dogs and reached the town of Cuba, NM. First stop: McDonald’s. Peg Leg and Syrup were there, as well as other familiar faces tucked in the corner of the place. I stuffed myself with food, then wandered to the dispensary. Word was, if you bought something, you could camp for free in their field out back. I picked up a pack of CBD gummies, hoping they might ease my foot ache a bit.

The field was tucked behind a marijuana grow, half-wild and fenced in. Not exactly your typical campsite. I looked around, laughed to myself. Sketchy, sure – but it had charm. One more odd place to call home, at least for the night.

After finishing my laundry, I found myself drifting back to McDonald’s like a sheep to its pen. McDonald’s was a haven out here – hot food, free Wi-Fi, long hours, and a warm place to sit that didn’t stink. It drew in all kinds – thru-hikers, yes, but bikepackers too. I ended up chatting with a British cyclist riding the Great Divide all the way from Banff. He looked worn in the same way I felt. I told him about the sketchy little field behind the dispensary. Told him he could crash there too. Two felt safer.

The next day, I woke to raindrops tapping my tent. When they let up, I packed and went for breakfast. The forecast wasn’t good – a storm was blowing in. And I thought the desert was sunny and dry! I gave it some thought, weighed my options, and stuck with my plan. I’d leave the next morning, no matter the weather. If my timing was right, I’d hit the summit of Mt. Taylor just after the storm cleared.

I spent the day ticking off the town chores – resupply, mailed out a box to Pie Town, then settled back into the strange comfort of McDonald’s.

At the grocery store, I was lining up my items – ramen, tortillas, Nutella – when the young cashier glanced at me and asked, flat as a board, “So, why are you walking anyway?”

I’d heard that question a hundred times before. Usually, I had an answer ready. But the way he said it – like it didn’t matter, like he didn’t expect anything true to come out of my mouth – hit different. For a moment, I just stood there. Then I gave him the safe, generic version. The one we all fall back on when we don’t want to explain too much: “I just wanted to travel and explore the country. You know, go on an adventure.”

Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t right. It didn’t sound like me.

I walked out into the parking lot with a grocery bag in one hand and something heavier in the other. Four months. Over two thousand miles. And I still couldn’t say, with any certainty, why.

Friday, October 18th – 24 hours later

I climbed up one small mesa and watched the wind whip the sand into swirling dust devils. The wind had fought me the whole day. I wore sunglasses just to keep grit out of my eyes. The sky had darkened during the afternoon, and rain threatened. I found camp wedged between three low-standing trees – the only protected spot for a few miles around. My tent flapped in the wind, and rain started tapping the tent. I couldn’t settle. I thought about the border, wondered what weather I’d meet there. I prayed for sunshine and blue sky.

I told myself what I always do: Everything is temporary.

The next morning, rain woke me. I waited it out and then stepped out of my tent and into a world transformed. Fog tangled around the cliffs and mesas like smoke. The light was dim, almost dreamlike. A heavy layer of dark clouds laid above the horizon. I started walking with difficulty – the ground had turned to slippery paste. It wasn’t used to so much water. Each step was a gamble. Clay clung to my shoes like bricks, weighing them down. I moved slowly. The rain fell on and off – never enough to quit, but just enough to wear me thin.

The whole day, I didn’t see a single soul. I walked alone, with my thoughts, into this barren, muddy, relentless country.

In the afternoon, a break in the clouds let the sun through. But not for long. After crossing a shallow river that had swollen with the latest rainfall, I saw the climb ahead – dark clouds massing over it like a warning. Lightning cracked the sky open across the ridge. I waited for half an hour behind a cluster of trees near an empty water cache, watching the thunderstorm closely. When it passed, I moved fast. Who knew when the next one would hit – there was never just one.

The trail climbed fast and steep. I was soaked in sweat and breathing hard when the sky lit up again, white and sudden. I didn’t wait for another warning. Quickly, I found a flat spot sheltered under a few trees and pitched my tent as fast as I could. Soon after I had entered my tent, hail pounded like marbles on the ground. Thunder followed, deep and brutal, like drums at a metal concert – raw, deafening, and close. I could feel it in my bones, in my chest. It was right above me. 

Flashes of light burst through the fabric of my shelter, one after another. It felt like watching fireworks from inside my room on Bastille Day. I used to hate fireworks as a kid. But tonight, I wasn’t scared. I was in awe in front of this display of raw power. Lightning kept tearing through the sky, each bolt shredding the darkness like a blade through paper. I laid still.

Then, through the storm, I heard voices – the first I’d heard in over a day. Peg Leg and Syrup. They’d camped farther down the mountain, I heard them say as they passed. Sounded like they were moving on.

II. Tsoodzil, the Turquoise Mountain

In the morning, I finished the climb and stepped onto the flat top of the mesa. Visibility was low – a heavy mist clung to everything, swallowing the horizon. Charred trees leaned along the path, their limbs twisted and lifeless. Crows cut through the fog, cackling as they vanished between the few standing trunks. I felt as if I were walking into the set of a Tim Burton film.

Later, the wind blew the mist away, and for the first time in the past two days, I saw blue sky and felt the warmth of the sun. The trail was easy, but dull. The water carry was long, but the cool air helped. By the end of the day, I made camp beneath tall pines as the sun melted into the horizon. Finally, I was dry and warm. That night, I didn’t put my rain fly on and fell asleep while watching the stars appearing one by one in the darkening sky. 

Monday, October 21st – Mt Taylor Alternate

I woke up cold. A layer of frost clung to my gear. The storm had dragged in a cold front behind it – temperatures were dropping, and it was clear now: fall had settled in for good. I passed a hunter’s camp and took the Mt. Taylor alternate – a dirt road that went up most of the way. In Navajo, Mt Taylor was known as Tsoodzil (Turquoise Mountain) and was one of the four sacred mountains that marked the Navajo homeland.

The sky was clear, the air crisp. I was surprised to walk through patches of snow near the summit. Finally, by 3 pm, I reached the top. I waited for sunset, shivering in the wind. But the panorama was worth it.

I hiked down in the dark and set up on the side of another dirt road. Tired, but satisfied.

The next day, I walked into Grants and checked into Motel 8 just after noon for a long-needed shower and rest. Peg Leg stopped by my open door, and we caught up. I told her I’d heard her and Syrup walk past my tent during the stormy night. She shared her side.

That night, they’d camped at the bottom of the mesa, just a few hundred yards below me. Both in their tents, sheltering from the hail, when suddenly she heard a rushing roar. The ground shook, but it wasn’t thunder. Before she could react, a wall of water hit the tent – a flash flood. They scrambled out, grabbing what they could.

Soaked and with half their gear lost, they decided they couldn’t stay out there. They pushed on, heading straight to Grants – about 60 miles nonstop. It sounded like hell.

Hearing this, I empathized with them and felt grateful for myself. Lucky even. I realized I’d only avoided the same experience by pushing further uphill. That realization sat heavy. Close calls often did.