Mile 2,190 to mile 2,159
Miles: 31
I finally have a trail name! It's Pika (pronounced pie-kuh). I've been introducing myself as Pike. Mid-morning, I stopped to chat with a group of three Washington NOBOs: Tank Girl, Bingo, and ____ Squatter (can't remember the first word of her compound name). We laughed at each other's trail stories and shared notes for the miles ahead. At a certain point, unsolicited, I started telling them everything I knew about pikas, the little rabbit creatures that live in boulder patches. I finished my description by saying that I had been trying to mimic the squeak that they make. Immediately, Tank Girl insisted that I demonstrate the squeak, offering to do her Yoda impression in return. I declined at first but was quickly pressured into it by all three of them. I squeaked and was surprised at how well it came out. I explained that it hadn't come out as well when I had been practicing it while hiking the evening before. One of them yelled, "that's your trail name!" All three spun towards me in unison and said in chorus, "that's it!!" I stammered that I wasn't sure about it and Tank Girl hollered back, "you don't get to choose your name! It's stuck now. If people ask you where it's from after you tell them your name is Pika, just make the squeak. Don't say anything else."
Otherwise, today was another grind. I pushed myself to do a big mile day so that I can coast into town tomorrow. The interminable Washington ridges meant that my 31-mile day was also a 7,000 foot elevation gain day. I'm feeling the strain in my calves, knees, and feet now. My right shin throbs when I hike fast, warning me with tinges of shin splints. Luckily, knowing that my finish line and a long rest are just a day away, I don't have to worry too much about the overuse injury.
As I hiked today, I ran into around 25 NOBOs, the most I've seen in a day on the trail. The dispersed herd of NOBOs must not be far behind. I chatted with many of them, interested to hear how they were feeling at this point in the trail. It seemed like half were worn out and just want to get the trail over with, while others maintained a positive attitude and were excited by Washington's treasures. The most downtrodden were a young Swiss couple who, as soon as they saw me, blurted out the story of how mice had chewed a hole in their tent last night and had been such a nuisance that the two of them were chased out of their campsite at 2AM, packed up, and hiked 5 more miles before re-setting up camp and going back to sleep. That sucks. They asked me if they should be worried about mice or bears in Northern Washington (congratulations, mice, you inspire fear on par with bears), I told them that I hadn't had any problems and that I sleep with earplugs in and my food in my tent. They seemed appreciative but unconvinced.
I ran out of gas at midday today. The trail wasn't especially hard, I had yet to tackle my major climbs of the day, I just found that every step required conscious effort. It was worrisome to feel so worn out. I had 35 miles left to go before Cascade Locks, and I knew how long those miles could feel if every step was a struggle.
Contemplating my weariness, I decided that I probably hadn't been eating enough. I had increased my mileage to 30/day for the past two days but hadn't increased my calories. I was still eating the same amount as day 1 on the trail, and the same amount as my 10 mile days with my Uncle John through Goat Rocks. I'm no calorie mathemagician, but I reckoned that I probably needed a snack.
I soon came upon a bridge over a twenty-foot wide creek. I sped down to the bank, plopped onto a rock, threw down my pack, yanked out my food bag, ripped off my shoes, and stuck my bare feet into the icy water: full recovery mode. I spotted a two-inch trout darting about in the water near my feet. Transfixed by the fish, I opened up my food bag and, on complete autopilot, ate half a bag of salami and a bag of wheat thins. In real life, you try to limit your snacks to a couple hundred calories. In hiker life, you force yourself to keep eating until you've consumed at least five hundred calories or, better yet, a thousand.
As I was strapping on my pack, about to head out from the creek, two SOBO thru-hikers who I met on day 1 strode up. It was nice to see their familiar faces. I hadn't seen them since I ordered chocolate milk in the grungy Summit Pancake House in Snoqualmie Pass, and they had spun around from another booth to chat with me. We stood by the creek and caught up. They remembered that I was leaving the trail at Cascade Locks, but they also knew that Cascade Locks hadn't always been my goal. They asked me how I was feeling about my impending finish. Having been asked the question many times in the past few days, I could feel myself grow defensive. I felt the familiar need to show that I was confident in my decision and that I didn't have any quitter's shame. Pausing for a moment, though, I realized that the question wasn't actually about me. They didn't intend to lord their thru-hiker status over me. Instead, the question was about them. They have a long, long journey ahead and are only one fifth of the way there. They wanted to be reminded why I was leaving the trail so that they could confirm that their reasons for staying on it were still intact. I told them that I was excited to find an apartment and to prepare to start work, activities that are all antithetical to the thru-hiker perspective. They relaxed and congratulated me on my upcoming finish.
I left the creek and immediately began a two thousand foot climb, my first of the final two big climbs of the day (and the hike). The salami and wheat thins were quick to kick in and the uphill hike helped the aches in my feets and knees to subside. It was a hot afternoon and I was soon drenched in sweat but this time, with a belly full of snacks and fresh-feeling legs, rather than a bedraggled city-slicker stuck in the wilderness, I felt like a consummate outdoorsman racing up mountains. I powered up the hill, pausing every quarter mile or so to catch my breath for thirty seconds and to peer through the trees that obscured views of the valley below.
I crested the first climb, reaching a nondescript high point barely distinguishable from the trail leading up to it and the trail leading away. Woods are woods are woods. I spaced out and listened to my audiobook of Predictably Irrational as I descended into the valley, knowing that another climb awaited me on the other side. A while late, reaching the base of the hill, the dread of the final hill to come started creeping in. It was already close to 7PM and every other hiker I spotted was either already bedded down in their tent or rushing to set up their site and make dinner. I envied their completed days. I still had 3.5 miles and a 2,000-foot climb ahead of me.
As I rounded a bend in the trail, I saw a thru-hiker up the trail headed towards me, the first hiking hiker that I’d seen in an hour. I paused as he approached, and he greeted me and asked me how I was doing. I answered, “alright, just a late day push, you know?” He gave me a nod and in a cheerful manner piped up as he passed me and hiked down the trail, “Hell yeah. You got this.” At first, his teenager-ish encouragement felt cliched and condescending. As it sank in, I realized that he was right. I got this. Hell yeah. In fact, his short phrase was the perfect trail-mantra-of-the-moment. I started hiking again and looking around me.
Hell yeah, mountain
Hell yeah, flowers
Hell yeah, sunset
Hell yeah, blisters
Hell yeah, ramen
Hell yeah, loneliness
Hell yeah, not purifying my water
I carried four liters of water from the last creek before my final ascent. Initially, it had felt silly since I was about to hike directly uphill, and I had gotten the water from a creek over which stood a creosote-covered bridge that stank of putrid chemicals. Best carry this tainted water with me up that big hill so that I’m not subjected to any nasty clean clear cold fast flowing water from streams up ahead, right? But the evening was hot, the trail was tough, and the creeks up ahead were rumored to be dry. Plus, my spate of recent dehydrated episodes was still fresh in my mind so I was happy for the comfort of packing heavy.
As I reached the summit, my final summit on the PCT, the trees shrunk, twisted, thinned out, and opened up just a bit. Through the gaps in the forest, I was treated to my most incredible sunset on the trail. Thanks to the forest fire smoke-filled sky, the bright sunset pink that usually resides far away on the horizon stretched all the way to me and over my head, covering the entire visible sky in great smears of a glowing deep pink color.
I was stunned by its all-encompassing beauty. I felt as if I’d spent the past month hiking toward the sunset and I’d finally arrived. The pink light illuminated the woods around me, casting shadows with pink highlights on the ground and making the woods glow with otherworldly color. As my eyes adjusted to the dusk light, the greens and grays and yellows of the forest faded out of the visible range until everything was a shade of pink. Before the trail, if I had seen such a scene in a movie, I would definitely have turned to Em and muttered, “well that’s just totally unrealistic.”
I continued along the ridge of the peak and the trees grew smaller until they were all about my height like twisted, misshapen Christmas trees. With my head at the level of the canopy, the sky became huge and glowed with light from both the setting sun and the moon. Birds chattered all around me, invisible but for an occasional jiggling branch or a blur of wings. Soaking in the 360-degree views, stopped every twenty feet and would turn in a circle, soaking in the ridges, mountains, and skies to all sides. I finally found my campsite, a single tent site right along the trail with only a downed log to separate it from the track. The site was split in two with a narrow bench log and a ring of fire stones on one side, and a sloped single tent site on the other, ringed by trees with barely enough space to walk around a tent. Next to the fire pit were a bunch of twigs arrayed to spell out, in all caps, “LOOK” with arrows below pointing in all directions.
I set up camp, found that I had enough service to text Em, and started making my dinner. I had saved a Knorr side dish for my final trail dinner since they’re a step up from ramen. Texting Em and giving the food time to rehydrate, I tried to tell her about the sunset and days travails, feeling silly as I struggled with service since I’d be back in civilization in less than 24 hours. I opened up my screw top food container, added a packet of tuna to the mix, and began digging into my dinner. I immediately noticed two things. First, the tuna was spicy though I thought that I had added a plain packet. I peered at the package, using my red light headlamp, and realized that the red light made all red text invisible. Under the red light, it had appeared to be a plain package with a white stripe across the front. Switching the white light, the white stripe on the package was revealed to read “SPICY THAI” in large blocky letters. Whoops. Second dinner realization, the Knorr side dish wasn’t cheddar and broccoli (my fave) as I had expected. Instead, it was chicken-flavored rice AKA the same exact flavor as my chicken ramen. I laughed out loud to myself. Of course, my last dinner would be a series of mistakes. Hell yeah, chicken rice and spicy tuna.
