*I am finally sitting down, after more than a month away from the trail, to finish my blog. I'm not sure why these last few days have been the hardest for me to get down in writing. Perhaps not finishing the blog was a way to not really end the trail. But more than that, I think once I finished walking, I was finished. I didn't really want to reflect. People kept asking me how it was, and I found that for some reason, there wasn't much for me to say. Yes, it changed my life. But how can you explain that in conversation? Everything after the trail was the same, the places I went back to, the people I saw; it was the same, but I was different. Or was I? I wasn't as different as I had wanted to be. I was still stuck in the same life, except now without a job or a place to live.
I bounced around for a few weeks after the trail, spending more time in the Pacific Northwest, visiting my family in New Mexico, staying with friends here and there in Minnesota, feeling like I had been caught up in a tornado, dizzy and reeling.
Now, the day before my 29th birthday, I find myself drawn back to the blog to try and put an end cap on my journey. So much time has passed that I probably won't be able to be as detailed as I had been, but it's the ending that matters. Thanking the people who helped me along the way. Creating a proper end.
So, here it is. The last of my wanderings.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Monday, September 1, 2014
Day 78: sucked in
August 21
zero
I get up early with every intention of getting back on the trail today. But as soon as I get down off my bunk I reconsider. My knee. My dumb knee just seems to be getting worse. It doesn't take much for Borealis to convince me to take a zero, grab breakfast with him, and then head over to the next town and go to the grocery store. I'm hoping to find a knee brace, and decide to upgrade my lunches from ramen to hiker trash burritos.
We get a ride into Goldbar (a town 13 miles away, but with an actual grocery store), from a mother and daughter who know the Dinsmores from way back, and are used to picking up hiker trash. On the way we stop at a roadside coffee stall, apparently famous for being in Harry and the Hendersons. I take pictures.
We resupply in Goldbar, I check in with my people, get caught up on some news, and then head back to the Hiker barn. I don't find a knee brace, so I settle for some icy/hot cream and an ace wrap.
More hikers meet us when we get back: Yetti Boy and Sugarbabe (a french couple), Bigfoot, Juicy, Darren and a few older guys who are odd, but interesting.
There is a TV and a bin with lots of movies, and people put them in one after another. It's almost as if no one has watched a moving picture screen in months! ;) In the evening, Jerry Dinsmore drives a group of us over to Skykomish (20 minutes away) so we can get fried chicken dinners at the bar. Jerry is a great guy, and I sit up in the cab with him chatting about his life, while Darren, Juicy, Bigfoot and Boots sit in the truck bed.
We are the envy of all the other hikers when we return with our fried chicken and jojos, and I share some pieces with Why Not (an older woman I met back in Oregon) and Borealis, since it's too much for me to eat. We all stay up chatting and watching movies, greasy and full from our dinners.
Over the course of the day I have decided that I won't be able to finish the rest of the 190 miles to Canada, the way my knee is. The last section before Canada is from Stehekin north 90 miles. The 100 miles leading up to Stehekin are widely reported to be some of the most difficult on the trail. I make the sad decision to go up to Stehekin and finish my section from there, feeling slightly like I've failed Washington. I try to be optimistic and grateful, and make reassuring promises to myself like "you'll come back and hike the whole PCT one day," or "you'll at least be able to section Washington in the future," but these are half-hearted attempts at self placating. It is what it is, I tell myself. It is what it is.
zero
I get up early with every intention of getting back on the trail today. But as soon as I get down off my bunk I reconsider. My knee. My dumb knee just seems to be getting worse. It doesn't take much for Borealis to convince me to take a zero, grab breakfast with him, and then head over to the next town and go to the grocery store. I'm hoping to find a knee brace, and decide to upgrade my lunches from ramen to hiker trash burritos.
We get a ride into Goldbar (a town 13 miles away, but with an actual grocery store), from a mother and daughter who know the Dinsmores from way back, and are used to picking up hiker trash. On the way we stop at a roadside coffee stall, apparently famous for being in Harry and the Hendersons. I take pictures.
We resupply in Goldbar, I check in with my people, get caught up on some news, and then head back to the Hiker barn. I don't find a knee brace, so I settle for some icy/hot cream and an ace wrap.
More hikers meet us when we get back: Yetti Boy and Sugarbabe (a french couple), Bigfoot, Juicy, Darren and a few older guys who are odd, but interesting.
There is a TV and a bin with lots of movies, and people put them in one after another. It's almost as if no one has watched a moving picture screen in months! ;) In the evening, Jerry Dinsmore drives a group of us over to Skykomish (20 minutes away) so we can get fried chicken dinners at the bar. Jerry is a great guy, and I sit up in the cab with him chatting about his life, while Darren, Juicy, Bigfoot and Boots sit in the truck bed.
We are the envy of all the other hikers when we return with our fried chicken and jojos, and I share some pieces with Why Not (an older woman I met back in Oregon) and Borealis, since it's too much for me to eat. We all stay up chatting and watching movies, greasy and full from our dinners.
Over the course of the day I have decided that I won't be able to finish the rest of the 190 miles to Canada, the way my knee is. The last section before Canada is from Stehekin north 90 miles. The 100 miles leading up to Stehekin are widely reported to be some of the most difficult on the trail. I make the sad decision to go up to Stehekin and finish my section from there, feeling slightly like I've failed Washington. I try to be optimistic and grateful, and make reassuring promises to myself like "you'll come back and hike the whole PCT one day," or "you'll at least be able to section Washington in the future," but these are half-hearted attempts at self placating. It is what it is, I tell myself. It is what it is.
Day 77: The Dinsmore's Hiker Haven
August 20th
8 miles
I wake up to find the forest enveloped in fog. Like out of a movie, I make my way through the dense silence and novelty of walking through a forest in the clouds. Everything beyond a few feet obscured and muted; calm and a little foreboding.
The forest floor is absolutely covered with blueberry bushes. Hundreds, thousands, millions of blueberry bushes, like an edible carpet out of Willy Wonka. I gorge on blueberries. "Violet, you're turning violet!"
I won't bore you with the details of my 8 mile hike, only to say it took me much too long to complete, and it was nearing 12:30pm by the time I reached the ski lodge at Steven's Pass. It was a painful limp down to the lodge, and a hard reality check that I might not be able to complete the rest of the trail.
The ski lift down to the lodge. I took this picture, wishing it had been running so I didn't have to continue limping down the trail, and then halfway down the mountain it started up. A guy yells down at me that I should have waited at the top for a ride down. Alas.
I get a ride from a nice guy named Mike, who lives in Leavenworth, but is headed to NY for a seasonal job. He hikes and climbs, and has lived all over the Pacific Northwest. He tells me Leavenworth, a bavarian-themed town an hour west of here, is the place to be. He gives me his card, in case I ever need a contact in the area, and I marvel at my fortunate hitching luck. He drops me off at the Dinsmores, and I make my way to the Hiker Haven--an entire building dedicated to hikers, with our own shower and washer/dryer. These people are amazing!
8 miles
I wake up to find the forest enveloped in fog. Like out of a movie, I make my way through the dense silence and novelty of walking through a forest in the clouds. Everything beyond a few feet obscured and muted; calm and a little foreboding.
The forest floor is absolutely covered with blueberry bushes. Hundreds, thousands, millions of blueberry bushes, like an edible carpet out of Willy Wonka. I gorge on blueberries. "Violet, you're turning violet!"
I won't bore you with the details of my 8 mile hike, only to say it took me much too long to complete, and it was nearing 12:30pm by the time I reached the ski lodge at Steven's Pass. It was a painful limp down to the lodge, and a hard reality check that I might not be able to complete the rest of the trail.
The ski lift down to the lodge. I took this picture, wishing it had been running so I didn't have to continue limping down the trail, and then halfway down the mountain it started up. A guy yells down at me that I should have waited at the top for a ride down. Alas.
I get a ride from a nice guy named Mike, who lives in Leavenworth, but is headed to NY for a seasonal job. He hikes and climbs, and has lived all over the Pacific Northwest. He tells me Leavenworth, a bavarian-themed town an hour west of here, is the place to be. He gives me his card, in case I ever need a contact in the area, and I marvel at my fortunate hitching luck. He drops me off at the Dinsmores, and I make my way to the Hiker Haven--an entire building dedicated to hikers, with our own shower and washer/dryer. These people are amazing!
While I'm relaxing and going through my resupply, up walks Borealis! We hug and he gives me shit for skipping up to Snoqualmie, and then feels bad for me when I tell him I twisted my knee and might not be able to finish. He tells me he's taking a zero here tomorrow, and tries to talk me into staying. But I tell him I'm headed back out on the trail tomorrow morning. He won't suck me in to his "town time" mentality!
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