Zero Days Read online

  In the morning, as soon as we were all out of the tent, a tall man with wild gray hair approached us from the truck. We drew together like a flock of sheep confronting a stray dog. The man in the old shirt and ragged straw hat, carrying a gallon jug, came closer. The irrepressible Mary said cheerily, “Hello!” And he said, “Hello, I’m Laurence. Would you like some water?”

  Laurence turned out to be a gentleman from Warner Springs who had unofficially taken over a section of trail and made its maintenance his chief preoccupation. He restored springs, trimmed vegetation, and saved hikers who had gone astray. He had driven out to Chariot Canyon the night before so that he could get an early start on trail repairs that morning. Laurence took us under his wing, meeting us at various points along the trail with extra food and water and pointing out ways to find springs in the backcountry. Several days later, he gave us a ride all the way down Van Dusen Canyon to Big Bear City, the northernmost point of his circuit. Laurence is in many ways a typical old coot of the desert, but he helped us out a lot, while making us his particular hobby for those few days.

  Many people who run businesses in towns near the trail make a special effort to help thru-hikers. Mary Ellen, at the Redwood Motel in Bridgeport, California, provided extra towels as soon as she knew we were backpackers, and also gave us an old sheet to spread out on the bed before sorting our gear, thus sparing the clean bedspread. She described the town’s eateries, let Scrambler help her fold the laundry, and made us feel that we were interesting people in our own right, not just another set of backpackers with dirty hands and faces. Not everyone who makes that special effort finds that it’s always appreciated. Some motel owners have described encounters with what amounted to “a pack of spoiled brats” who made a mess of their rooms, left trash lying around, and treated the hosts rudely. Some business owners and volunteer trail angels alike have encountered unpleasantly demanding thru-hikers who take their help for granted. These instances are rare, but they are a source of worry to the trail community. Help from trail angels and others is so important on the PCT, the hiker community does not want a few bad seeds discouraging these random acts of kindness.

  Through most of southern and central California, trail magic consisted of chance encounters or planned acts of kindness from “the Trail Ratz” (Dave, John, and another Dave), who provided water caches and even chairs where they were most needed; accidental angels such as Walt, Donald, and Ted, who gave us lifts into town on the rare occasions when we hitchhiked; John, who gave us his extra food on his way out of the woods after a four-day backpacking trip; Todd at Cooper Canyon Trail Camp, who donated energy bars, plus fresh cilantro from his garden; Mary Barcik, who carried water jugs into the desert; and Bruce Osgood, who provided Gatorade.

  We encountered fewer trail angels in northern California, probably because so many thru-hikers drop out by then, so we considered ourselves pretty much on our own. And then, one cold, wet day, we discovered the Big Lake Youth Camp run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church near Sisters, Oregon. Seventh Day Adventists trace their church back to the 1840s, when the end of the world was confidently predicted by one William Miller. Modern-day members have put Armageddon off a little longer, and meanwhile have adopted habits of healthy living that have given them a well-deserved reputation for longevity. A small denomination, Adventists are best known for encouraging a vegetarian diet and abstinence from tobacco and alcohol; running a first-class research hospital in Loma Linda, California; and insisting on a strict observance of the Sabbath, which for them is Saturday. However, it was their reputation for hospitality that mattered most to us.

  September 11 that year was a rainy day. So rainy, so cold, and so windy, in fact, that for the first time, we stayed in the tent all day. The next day, we packed up and got going, despite the almost constant rain. We had heard that thru-hikers could stay at the youth camp and possibly get food there, too. We assumed this meant we could pitch our tent on the grounds, get water, use the bathrooms, and maybe visit a camp store. It was getting on toward dusk when we arrived at what was obviously a pretty big operation. There we met Tammy, whose full set of rain slickers let us know that this kind of weather was the norm. When she told us we could borrow a cabin, raid the pantry, and cook in the big kitchen—well, it was that good old died-and-gone-to-heaven feeling I hadn’t enjoyed in a month of Sundays. Or Saturdays. First, we moved into a big A-frame cabin with a huge, wall-mounted propane heater, which we turned on full blast. Then we hung up our wet clothes to dry, put on what clothing was left, and headed for the kitchen. There, we were invited to help ourselves to a huge quantity of leftovers in the camp kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator, which itself was about the size of our home’s kitchen and living room combined. About that time, seven more backpackers, who had arrived earlier, joined us in the kitchen: Nocona and Bald Eagle, Crow and Sherpa, Dirty, Chef, and K-Too. The 10 of us cooked and ate and cleaned up—and talked a lot—and then retreated to our warm, dry, roomy cabins. Gary and I each took a bunk bed downstairs. Mary climbed up to the loft, where I presume the camp counselor slept during the busy season. (Mary told me later that, to her surprise, she felt a little lonely up there. I guess after four months of sleeping inches away from me, that was only natural.) Here’s the journal entry she penned that night before drifting off to sleep:

  Day 133: It was either misting or raining the whole time. Finally we got to Big Lake Youth Camp. Paradise! Food and a microwave!

  The next morning, it was back to the kitchen, where I fried up a dozen eggs just for the three of us, to go along with some toast, cereal, milk, and fruit cocktail. I love to cook, and after months of adding boiling water to ramen noodles, the opportunity to engage in actual cooking was gratifying. When we dropped by the home of resident staff members Tim and Brenda to leave a donation, we had a hard time saying goodbye.

  Some people who hold special places in our memories were neither trail angels nor demons, just people we happened to encounter and who left a big impression. A fair number of people in this world enjoy predicting disaster, and we ran into a few who let us know they doubted we’d be able to complete the PCT, especially as we brought up the tail end of the hiking herd in Oregon and Washington. Our favorite herald of catastrophe was a man we came to call the “Pig-Tailed Prophet of Doom.” To this day, Gary can get a laugh from Mary and me just by dropping his voice, glaring at us, and declaring in a sepulchral tone, “The snow level’s dropping to 3,000 feet! Run for your lives! We’re all going to die!”

  We ran into the prophet in September, the day we returned to the trail after a stopover in the tiny Oregon resort town of Detroit. We had already had a full day: breakfast at the Cedars Restaurant, a lucky offer of a ride back to the Pamelia Lake Trail from a sweet local guy named Jim, and a scary road walk that took us through a construction area with no shoulder and big trucks barreling down on us at 65 miles per hour. We were taking a break in a turnaround where the construction crew had piled several steel beams. A couple drove up in a faded orange Toyota pickup truck and asked us whether the dirt road there led to the trailhead. The man had long hair in braids and wore one of those colorful knit Peruvian “chullo” hats with the long strings hanging down. We started discussing the weather. Gary said he’d heard it was going to be bad. The man turned to the woman and assured her the weather was going to be fine and not to worry. They then drove on up the road, and a few minutes later we followed on foot.

  We stopped briefly for a snack at the trailhead, where it started to drizzle, before we walked up the trail that connects with the PCT. We stopped to chat with two women on their way down the trail—one a cancer survivor, the other a rock climber who rhapsodized about Oregon’s famous Smith Rock—and soon after that we had our second encounter with the couple we’d met earlier. They had run into yet a third group, which had brought along a weather radio. The forecast was grim, the group had informed the couple. At this point, the previously sanguine male half of the pair experienced a sudden epiphany. The woman was calm
when we met them again—they were on their way out after all, after having walked only a mile or so from their car—but the man was agitated and kept exclaiming, “The snow level is dropping! To 3,000 feet! The snow level is dropping!” His manner was reminiscent of Chicken Little’s “Sky is Falling” routine. Finally, he rushed down the trail. We could see him on the switchback below us, moving so fast that his braids flapped in the breeze.

  He became forever after the “Pig-Tailed Prophet of Doom.” He was right about one thing: The weather was lousy. We camped near Whitewater Creek, it rained and snowed all night, and we had to pack up under the tarp the next morning, patting our bent-over backs for having chosen the only tent site of three that didn’t fill up with a puddle. But it was nothing like the near-death experience our pig-tailed friend had anticipated.

  The employees of the U.S. Border Patrol were memorable, for sheer persistence if nothing else. They were everywhere. We had been at the Mexican border for about 15 minutes when Officer Amy drove up in her official government truck to ask us who we were and where we were going. These were my tax dollars at work, of course, and I had to ask myself just how likely it was that a group of undocumented immigrants, including a little girl, would arrive at the border from the north, driving a rental car with San Francisco Bay Area license plate frames, and stand around the PCT monument taking pictures of each other and arguing about how the digital camera worked—in broad daylight. Illegal aliens are known to try all kinds of inventive, and frequently dangerous, stunts to get into this country, but really now. Us? As we headed north, we became accustomed to the constant scrutiny from cars, helicopters, and airplanes. But I felt somehow relieved once we hiked north of Palm Springs and the surveillance pretty much stopped.

  Another memorable law enforcement encounter took place months later, near the end of a scorching day on the infamously hot (and dry and dusty) Hat Creek Rim of northern California. We had spent the night before with Dennis and Georgi Heitman in Old Station. Georgi fixed French toast in the morning, and we ate our second breakfast at the Coyote Cafe. (The concept of a second breakfast, which I first came across in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, is eagerly embraced by thru-hikers during town stops.) Late that afternoon, the sun was westering, but the air was still hot. We had walked off the trail a hundred yards in order to read the signs at an intersection of dirt roads, and since we were there, we decided to take a sit-down break. Gary and Mary had taken off their boots (smart thru-hikers take off their boots every chance they get in hot weather, to let their feet cool off), and I had set out the food and water. We were sitting on the little dirt berm that had been created by the last road grader that had come through, probably months earlier. I couldn’t think of a more desolate, godforsaken spot in northern California. Just then I saw a plume of dust and announced, “There’s someone coming!” We hastily got ourselves, our food and water, and the packs off the road, just in time for the arrival of a sheriff’s deputy in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

  Deputy B. looked like he’d just spotted a UFO, complete with a family of space aliens. We were quite obviously the last thing he ever expected to see out back of beyond—a middle-aged couple and a little girl, enjoying a picnic as though we were visiting a city park. No vehicle, no nothing. How in the heck had we gotten there? It took a long time to persuade him we had a good reason to be there. I think what finally did the trick was that no matter how bizarre our story seemed—we’d really been toting backpacks for 1,300 miles just so we could take a roadside rest in his jurisdiction?—there wasn’t any better explanation. Finally convinced that we weren’t space aliens, weren’t lost, weren’t crazy, and weren’t going to die of thirst on his watch, Deputy B. bid us farewell, told his radio dispatcher not to bother sending reinforcements, and went on his way. A nice guy, on the whole, just not accustomed to thru-hikers.

  Alas, we also encountered a few demons, of the two-wheeled variety. Gary, Mary, and I believe that if backpackers don’t stick up for the trails, no one else will. So when we see mountain bikers using trails where they’re clearly banned, we speak up—nicely, of course, until they try to run us down. A few years earlier on the Tahoe Rim Trail, we had encountered a few aggressive bicyclists who seemed to feel that since they were already breaking the rules about where and when they could ride, they might as well wipe out a few backpackers while they were at it. Before all you mountain bikers protest—yes, I know, most of you are considerate and law-abiding and all that. Too bad we’ve met so few of you. Yogi, a Triple Crown hiker and one of the nicest people I’ve ever encountered, has had similar experiences and has come to a similar conclusion. She explains her don’t-back-down philosophy in Yogi’s PCT Handbook, her invaluable guide to all things PCT: “There are signs at every trailhead indicating that bikes are not allowed on the PCT. The people on the bikes must see those signs when they get on the trail, but every bike person I’ve met has denied any knowledge that bikes aren’t permitted.” Once Yogi explains the rules to the errant bicyclist, she continues on her way—but she doesn’t get off the path. She sums up her attitude thusly: “You don’t belong here, so I’m not going out of my way to make this easy for you.” Yogi admits there is an element of danger to this, but she also notes how many hikers she has heard complain bitterly about bicyclists using the trail—just minutes after passively letting one go by without saying a single word.

  The bicyclist we met on the PCT in early May was riding in a popular hiking area that sported “no bicycle” notices about every hundred feet. But we always assume (or at least pretend) that people may have honestly strayed, so when we saw this guy sitting in the middle of the trail next to his bike, Gary informed him politely that he was on the Pacific Crest Trail, where bicyclists are forbidden. Too bad, was the stranger’s attitude. We walked around him and were continuing single file along a narrow trail on a steep hillside when he caught up with us from behind, and demanded we let him pass. Gary didn’t see why we should have to get out of his way—especially when it would have been really awkward at that point—but the biker didn’t want to wait. “I’m bigger than you!’’ he announced. Gary quickly dropped his pack and got ready for trouble. Mary grabbed the camera, I got out my notebook and pen, and we prepared to report on the impending fisticuffs. Perhaps Gary’s stance—he learned to box while working as a roughneck on an oil rig in Louisiana’s bayous—made an impression on the aggressive two-wheeler. Or perhaps the trailside press gallery gave him pause. Either way, he abandoned any idea of taking on Gary, grabbed his bike, ran uphill from the trail to get around us, and pedaled madly away.

  We met a gang of dirt-bikers riding their noisy little motorcycles along the California aqueduct about 10 days later. All dressed up in their flashy costumes, their faces invisible inside their Star Wars helmets, they were merely a nuisance on what was essentially a public dirt road. But as we hiked away from the aqueduct and on toward Mojave, we saw evidence of other dirt-bikers everywhere. The damage was appalling. The dirt-bikers, not content to tear ruts in the PCT by riding on it, had also ridden up and down the steep slopes at right angles to it. Where they crossed the PCT, they tore trenches in the trail and caused erosion that destroyed portions of it, making it difficult and even dangerous to hike. Farther on, in the more level areas, the dirt bikers had created moguls on the trail, humps that forced us to walk in and out of dips constantly. What should have been an easy, pleasant walk through the pine and juniper forest was thus made tedious and tiring.

  We discussed what we would do if we saw any more dirt bikers. At first, our intentions were reasonably humane: We would stop them, lecture them, and try to gather enough information in the process that we could call the appropriate land-management agency from the next town with the details. But as the damage continued, we began to fantasize a bit. While Gary was lecturing the bikers, I said, I should accidentally-on-purpose push their dirt bikes off the trail and down the steep hillside. As the destruction continued north of Mojave, however, I eventually decided there was only on
e fair way to treat dirt-bikers who knowingly travel where they’re forbidden and deliberately destroy the desert landscape. I won’t say exactly what that fate was, except to mention that the world has too many morons already, and that we were always short of protein.

  CHAPTER 5

  FOOD AND WATER

  Day 32: Gift Soup

  Handful of noodles (from John)

  2 large chicken soup cubes (from John)

  Cilantro leaves - fresh (from Todd)

  Boil 3 to 4 cups water. Add noodles and chicken bouillon. Simmer until cubes dissolve and noodles are floppy and slippery. Turn heat off and add cilantro leaves. Stir well. Let cool nine minutes. Serve. Do not drain! Water will boil off, leaving a starchy, delicious sauce.

  —from Scrambler’s journal

  WE ARE SUCH FOOD SNOBS in California. We’ve all read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal and Greg Critser’s Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. We buy boxes of organic fruits and vegetables direct from the farm, and we eat whole-grain everything. Wonder Bread? We wonder what it is. We call ourselves vegetarians, even if we’re really beady-eyed vegetarians (eating fish and chicken, but nothing with four legs) or even flexatarians (vegetarian when it suits us). We think of PETA’s animal rights activism as mainstream, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association as a fringe organization. And we feed our kids diets that would gladden the killjoys at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

  That pretty much described my family—until we hit the trail. Breakfast, from one international border to the other, consisted of Pop-Tarts. Why? Because they don’t melt in the heat, they don’t harden in the cold, and they come in an amazing array of flavors, not to mention startlingly vivid colors. Food during the day was nuts, dried fruit, Pringles potato chips, bags of crackers and pretzels, and many, many bars: granola bars, PowerBars, energy bars, protein bars, and candy, candy, candy bars. Mary wasn’t much of a chocolate fan before the PCT. But when we took our three-week hiatus in June, we went to Costco and bought just about every chocolate-coated, chocolate-filled, and chocolate-flavored bar in the store. Evening meals were a little more healthful, consisting of comparatively nutritious freeze-dried dinners. Although they were on the costly side, they included grains, vegetables, and protein. And they were tasty, filling, nutritious, and—best of all, especially in the Northwest—hot. We augmented them with ramen noodles, which gave us extra carbohydrates and broth, also blessedly hot.