Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail Read Online Free PDF Page A

“but if we make it tonight there is bound to be some hot food.” That right there should have set off a red flag. How many times had I seen hikers make reckless decisions because they thought it gave them an angle on some hot food?
    “We should be able to make it if we go now.” We headed off on our first serious climb, as other hikers looked at us curiously from the comfort of their sleeping bags.
    Nowhere does the bottom drop out of the temperature like in the desert.
    “Hey Ralph,” I called ahead as we hurried climbing up the mountain, “I’m stopping to bundle up.”
    “Me too.” A half-hour later, darkness had descended, and we were leaning into a cold, stiff breeze. Worse yet, we were climbing a bare, rocky mountain that offered nowhere feasible to camp.
    “My fault,” I yelled up to Ralph. “It’s unbelievable how quick it got dark.”
    “No problem,” he said, “but I’ve got to add another jacket.” I quickly threw on long-johns and practically everything else. Our breaths were now completely visible. We both put on headlamps and tried to find out where we were on the maps, but it was useless in such a barren area.
    “If we keep going we might hear the noise from the Kickoff,”
    Ralph suggested.
    That became our strategy. But another half-hour later, and we were still climbing, as it got colder and windier. I had hiked 171 days and 0 nights on the Appalachian Trail. Now, here I was my first night on the PCT, hiking practically petrified in the black as pitch night.
    “Looks like we’re off the trail,” Ralph said.
    “We could go back down the mountain,” I faintly suggested.
    But the nighttime adrenaline kept us humping. “Hey,” Ralph suddenly said. “Is that a light down there to the left?”
    “I see it,” I said hopefully. “And that looks like a lake too.”
    We found ourselves stumbling over rocks and running into various obstacles over the next half-mile. But we finally made it to the Kickoff party. Things were wrapping up for the evening except for some people shivering around a campfire. We had gotten our miles, but not our hot food.

Chapter 5
    The Kickoff Party
     
    H ow am I going to get out and take a leak with frozen shoes?
    I lay shivering inside my tent, amidst a sea of other tents. As usual, I had awoken in the middle of the night heeding nature’s call. The mountain cold settling into this lake valley had plunged the temperature all the way down into the twenties. When I had opened my tent flap and begun clawing around, everything was frozen—the exterior of the tent, the backpack, water bottles, even my shoes. For once, however, I was prepared.
    My ever-industrious mother had ordered a light, plastic urine jar from Home Health Care. It’s strange how, even in the anonymity of a tent on a freezing cold night, one still can be self-conscious. Nonetheless, this midnight urination came off as planned and saved me an unpleasant midnight rendezvous with the freezing cold. Call it a small confidence-builder, if you will.
    Another hiker here in Tent City (we were all later to learn) had awoken with a similar problem. Actually, this woman in her mid-twenties had a bigger dilemma. She needed to have a bowel movement. There was probably a bathroom somewhere in this park, but it was likely a good ways away. And, of course, it was freezing cold. Serendipitously (or so she thought!) though, she had a plastic bag in her tent. I doubt I need to enlighten you as to what brilliant solution she conceived. What the average person may not be aware of, however, is just how difficult such a crapshoot can actually be. Here, I must force myself to admit that a month later in a freezing hovel in the Mojave desert, I would consider the exact same course of action as this woman attempted. Quickly, I was to realize the physics of such an act were much more complicated than I had ever fathomed. Plus, I had knowledge of this woman’s ill-fated effort at the Kickoff.
    Surely, I don’t need to