July 30 - Final Thoughts

Last year I had the great pleasure of walking 810 miles along the PCT, over the course of seven weeks, before my journey was cut short by a freak injury. This year's hike was considerably shorter, both in terms of distance walked and time on the trail, and I feel I should provide an explanation of why I left the trail early.

Due to last year’s injury, I faced incredible pressure from a number of people about returning to the trail. Liz, my brothers and sister, and numerous other family and friends all strongly voiced a number of concerns. Their overriding message was the danger in walking alone. Trust me, no one appreciates these dangers more than I, and believe I highlighted the perils that await on the trail throughout this year's blog.

As a result of all the warnings and advice, I made a commitment to everyone that I would only undertake the walk if I had a partner and set about trying to find one or more. Unfortunately, due to family commitments, I had to discount Tina, and a couple of people who had previously expressed interest didn’t really pan out. Therefore I felt rather fortunate when I met Marvin via a Facebook page. We spent considerable time getting to know each other via email and text, and so made a plan to walk together. The one negative to only having one partner is what happens in the event said partner gets injured? Once you start down the trail you do so on a “wing and a prayer,” and ironically it was me who suffered the first injury. This accident, which occurred right at the end of day one, was deliberately omitted from the blog so as not to cause undue stress to Liz and family members. The last five miles of our walk was conducted on snow, and as I was stepping off the snow, I slipped and fell forward. This resulted in severe bruising to my left hand, which I can still feel today after almost a month, as well as to my ribs.

Once Marvin rolled his ankle the 3rd time it came as no surprise when he had to leave the trail. I’m surprised he went as far as he did, to be honest, but on reflection, he had very little choice as he needed to reach a town in order to get “rescued.“

I felt very fortunate to find another hiking partner at the time Marvin was leaving the trail. Unfortunately, the chemistry I had enjoyed with Marvin was not present with Jim, my new sidekick, although this was not evident at the outset.

Jim had been on the trail since March, and after 4 months of walking was in great shape. Unfortunately, I was always playing catch up! Every morning at breakfast, Jim would talk about the need to get 10 miles in before lunchtime, something we never achieved even going downhill, and it was a constant grind. The biggest challenge of walking with Jim was his negative attitude, and he constantly bad-mouthed the PCT and the trail, especially the hilly sections. Interestingly, in all the time I was walking with Jim, I only ever saw him pull out his camera once, which I think speaks volumes!

I could put up with all of these shortcomings, but when Jim started to talk about the need to be up at 3 am and on the trail by 4 this was the final straw, as it made absolutely no sense to me. This idea really germinated in Jim when we reached Belden, and it was at this point that I decided walking with Jim was not for me. When hiking I want to stop now and then to take a photo, or admire the views and my surroundings, and also to look back occasionally but for Jim, it was all about grinding out the miles. Jim was on a mission to reach a point along the trail by a certain date in order to meet up with his personal trainer. I know what I am capable of, when it comes to mileage, and felt I was still 3 – 4 days away from knocking out 20+ miles per day on a constant basis, and that is what I relayed to Jim that evening, once we reached our campsite, as I felt guilty about holding him up.

Another problem I was wrestling with was equipment issues. The sternum strap on my backpack was broken, and would not clip together. This strap is the one that holds the two shoulder straps of the backpack in place. Fortunately, thanks to a small piece of wire that looked like a pipe-cleaner, and provided by Marvin, I was able to fashion a solution together to hold the straps in place. Both of my water pouches, which are integral parts of my Sawyer water purification system, had sprung leaks rendering them useless. I had lost my spork the first day out from Sierra City, which meant I had to utilize a couple of tent pegs to try and eat Japanese style using them as rudimentary chopsticks. Finally, and arguably, the most important malfunction was to the way-finding App that I was using. This App had worked perfectly last year, and provided information on where you were on the trail, how far ahead water and camping spots were to be found, and even pointed out which direction the trail lay if you strayed from it. I now found that I was continuously 3 miles behind what Jim’s App was showing. The reality is I could have repaired or replaced all this malfunctioning equipment once I arrived into Chester, but the one ingredient I would not be able to replace would be someone to walk with, and that is why it made sense to depart from the trail at Belden rather than endure another 2-3 days of Jim’s whining.

At the time of writing this, I should tell you about a post I read on a Facebook page just a couple of days ago, which illustrates precisely why I refuse to walk the trail alone. There was a picture of a very healthy looking hiker who I would estimate was in his 50’s. The post was an appeal for information on the hiker who had been missing for 4 days. The missing man was carrying a SPOT, which is the same rescue beacon I had used to summon help last year, but which had not been activated. There was all manner of conjecture in the comments to the post, but nothing concrete as to the whereabouts of the individual. It’s worth pointing out that with the SPOT you can pre-set a message that you can send home each evening if you are out of cell phone range, and which Liz found very comforting to receive. At the time of typing this I still have not heard if the hiker has been found. This just illustrates why I refuse to undertake this walk alone.

It was an incredible journey, although way too short, and I’m already working on pulling together a team to join me next year so I can take another stab at this incredibly beautiful and alluring trail.

Wanderer.