Wilderness Backpacking Trails

This is one of my Trail Tales.  Here are entry 1, entry 2, entry 3, entry 4, entry 5 and entry 6.

We ended up with only one day available to look for logging jobs.  We filled out one application at Weyerhauser.  The receptionist asked us what kind of job we wanted and when we wanted to start.  Savitt and I answered “anything” and “in five months,” respectively.  Her look told us all we needed to know about our prospects.

By the time we packed up the Camaro for the return journey home there was not much time left to spare but, fortunately, we did not have to get to Connecticut by way of Miami.  The highlights of the return journey were:  purchasing tire chains to negotiate snowbound passes;  getting a ride down a ski slope in rescue sleds; and changing pants while driving.  I don’t know why the latter upset Savitt and Zwiebel so.

We delivered the Camaro with one hour to spare on our contract.  The owner reimbursed us for our deposit on the car with a check (that later bounced and the money never recovered) and dropped us off at the bus station.  This did us little good since our anticipated funds for the bus fare was now in the form of a check.  We called Warren Doyle at 3:00 a.m. and he immediately came down to rescue us.  Savitt and I made it back to school the afternoon before classes started.

Oh, yes, I mentioned this has to do with hiking the PCT.  We were driving along the Columbia River on the return trip, with the weather typically overcast and drizzly.  To our right were a number of spectacular waterfalls spilling forth from the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, the drifting mists lending a mystical aura to everything.  Someone, I forgot who, spotted a sign for the Pacific Crest Trail.  I knew nothing about the trail but, not surprisingly, Zwiebel did.  He suggested that we all hike it the next year.  Savitt immediately took to the idea.  They both pressed me to commit then and there, but I remember my response clearly:

“No, thanks, one long-distance trail is enough for anybody.”

If adventure is defined as heading out into the unknown, then that trip to Seattle and back surpasses my thousands of miles of wilderness backpacking as the most adventurous thing I have done. We met some unusual people, like the charitable inner-city teenage girl in Los Angeles who offered us her prized knife for protecting ourselves while we hitchhiked.  We did some unusual things, like camp out in back of a dumpster, and play cards in the back of a brand new mobile home being delivered to a dealer.  More memorable than any of that was the camaraderie we shared.  Sometimes we got on each other’s nerves.  Yet the more ridiculous the situation we found ourselves in, the more good-natured we seemed to become.  Was this always one of the rewards of adventure?  I wanted to know.

My first Appalachian Trail hike, while thoroughly enjoyable, was thoroughly planned by the foremost expert of the trail, Warren Doyle.  In retrospect, that thru-hike was more of a happy lark for me than an adventure.  Back in the seventies the Pacific Crest was not even a finished trail–an unknown quality unavoidably built in.  With a bunch of yahoos like us behind the planning efforts, well, anything could happen.  So a wonderfully foolish journey, and a 1971 National Geographic article subsequently sent to me by Zwiebel, were the two reasons why I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

This is one of my Trail Tales.  Here are entry 1, entry 2, entry 3, entry 4 and entry 5.

Our next day, the eighth one of our journey, was spent recuperating from life on the road.  We called transport car agencies in Tacoma and Seattle to find a way back home, this time without hitching.  We found a Camaro that needed to be driven from Seattle to Wilmington, Delaware.  Close enough!  The next day we would take a bus up to Seattle and sign for the car with all our signatures this time.  Then we would be able to use the car to search out all those summer logging jobs that no doubt were just waiting for us to come claim them.

The three of us prepared supper for my brother’s family that evening.  We all loved pizza and decided to make our first one from scratch.  Since we all like thick crust pizza we rolled out the dough about an inch thick, blissfully unaware that dough rises.  We ended up a culinary creation that was more like a loaf of bread with some sauce on top.  That should have been the signal that nothing on this trip was going to work as planned.

On the bus ride to Seattle I brought along some schoolwork that needed to be done to resolve an incomplete grade I received for the fall semester.  After arriving at Seattle, we planned took a Metro bus to visit MSR before picking up the Camaro.  I left my schoolwork behind on that first Metro bus we rode.  Instead of a relaxing day touring the city, while making our way towards picking up the Camaro, we spent a hectic day chasing Metro buses around town.

We tracked down a Metro bus on the route we had taken, only to find that buses switch routes.  We tracked down the original bus we had taken, now on a different route, only to find no schoolwork on board.  We were told to check lost and found at the Metro bus station, but by this time we had to first get to the transport car agency before it closed at 4:00 p.m., then get to the bus station before it closed at 5:00.

We arrived at the transport agency north of Seattle just in time to sign for the Camaro.  The car was only marginally bigger than a VW Beetle, but at least we had one less bag of food by now.  The car could also get to places in a hurry, which proved necessary.  The Metro bus station should have been only fifteen minutes away from where we were, but only if we knew how to get there.

We drove on Route 99 down a long, sloped hill towards the center of town.  The distinguishing feature of this main thoroughfare for the city is the cement divider that runs down the entire length, with absolutely no breaks.  Want to cross over to the other side?  You have to find the right turnoff for an underpass.  We found such a turnoff only after our third pass at driving up and down the length of the divided highway.  Even then we could not find the right street to bring us to the bus station, though the building was in plain view at times.  We ended up back on the wrong side of Route 99.

With about two minutes until closing we spotted a Metro bus that we followed to the station.  With the Camaro still in motion I hopped out of the car and ran frantically into the station. I imagined having to run up and down through a maze of hallways trying to find the lost and found office, like the hero in a suspense movie saving the day from some dreadful fate with one second left frozen on the clock.  In reality, lost and found was at the main desk.  I asked the attendant, gasping for breath, if I had made it before closing.  He looked at me somewhat bemused and replied:  “Sure, we don’t close until 5:30.”

My sister-in-law, Connie, had made us a terrific lasagna dinner for that night.  Unfortunately, our wild goose chase due to my boneheaded move caused us to arrive back at Olympia late and we had to reheat the leftovers.  After dinner I slumped down alone in the living room chair, my comrades decided they rather be in another room.  I reflected upon what a disaster the day had been, but at least we obtained a car that was a little bit bigger than a Beetle and had to be delivered somewhere near New England.  With these thoughts in mind Connie came into the room to deliver a message.

“A transport agency called while you were gone.  They have a UHaul truck to be delivered to Boston.”

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

This is one of my Trail Tales.  Here are entry 1, entry 2, entry 3 and entry 4.

We left Connecticut with sixteen days available to make it back in time for the spring semester.  We took three days to hitch to Sacramento from Phoenix, not bad for three guys toting along a whole bunch of stuff, but we were getting short on time.  The I-5 ramp in downtown Sacramento at midday proved to be a tough place to hitch.  Maybe our vaudeville routine was loosing its pizzazz, or maybe not venturing forth beyond that white line on the entrance ramp dampened our effectiveness.  Zwiebel decided to track down a phone directory to locate transport agencies in the area.  I had visions of him driving back with a car needing to be delivered to Salt Lake City.  During his momentary absence a car finally pulled over, another VW Beetle.

We quickly explained to the red-headed teenager that popped out that there were actually three of us.  This did not seem to faze him; in fact, he was apologetic about going only a few exits north.  Having to hitch out of the suburbs of Sacramento did not bode well, but we were desperate.  For the third time during our journey we crammed three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one two-burner Coleman stove and one can of Coleman fuel into a Beetle.  To close the hood the driver had to climb up and jump on it.

In a short period of time we found out a lot about each other.  He found out that we were going up to Seattle to look for logging jobs.  We found out that he was about to go into the service in a few days and had some time to kill.  As the only person in the car who had been to Seattle before, I began to bill it up as a great place to visit, with much the same zeal and ulterior motive as a travel agent.  This customer proved to be an easy sell.

“Hey, do you guys mind if I come along?” he asked.

We, of course, were enthusiastically receptive about the idea.

“Do you mind if I bring a friend along?” he pushed further.

Well, what were we going to say?  “No!  Bring your car but leave your friend home?”

Our host went to pick up his friend and then to his house where he dropped off a note for his Mom that said something to the effect of:  “I’m going to Seattle for a couple days.  I’ll call you tonight.”  Meanwhile, the other four of us went about the chore of finding the hidden crannies where two more sleeping bags and another body could be crammed into a VW Beetle.  A younger sister looked out the window with a puzzled expression as we drove off.

I did much of the driving, with the excuse of being the one most familiar with Washington, but with the real motivation of spending the most time in the least cramped seat.  We encountered blizzard conditions at the higher elevations of Oregon, which meant near zero visibility, but the sheer weight in the Beetle kept us on the road nicely.  I was the least troubled person in the car over the fact that I could not see.

We made one pit stop in the state to refuel.  At the station Savitt and I went into the restroom, where I saw a condom machine for the first time.  The novelty alone made me want to buy one.

“What are you going to do with a condom?”  Savitt responded sarcastically.

I resented the implications behind his remark, but had no legitimate answer.  We left the condoms behind.

We arrived at my brother’s house in Olympia, Washington early the next morning. Everyone had become so tired by the drive that we all spread our sleeping bags out on the living room floor and crashed.  In the afternoon we headed up to Seattle to give our benefactors the tour for which they made the trip.  By the time we returned to my brother’s house again “Red” and his friend needed to return right away to Sacramento.  They made the fifteen hundred mile round trip for a few hours of sightseeing:  in a customary Seattle drizzle.

What comes around goes around they say, and taking advantage of two teenagers wanting to see Seattle would come back to haunt me.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

This is one of my Trail Tales.  Here are entry 1 and entry 2.

We presented quite a sight with the three of us standing at the curb of the road with three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one suitcase, one two-burner Coleman stove, and one can of Coleman fuel.  That we got any rides at all attests to the magnificent goodwill of others, and to our ability to appear so foolish that no one suspected we were dangerous.

We were picked up late afternoon by a military man driving a white station wagon.  He drove through the night on Interstate 10, dropping us off in San Bernandino in the wee hours.  Hitchhiking to Seattle looked like it was going to be a breeze.  We rolled out our sleeping bags behind a dumpster and slept until first light.

After breakfast at a diner we called transport car agencies in the area.  With San Bernandino, Pasadena and Los Angeles all being good-sized cities we thought we finally had a chance, but no go.  We did find out that a mobile home was being delivered to a dealer in Los Angeles.  Since hitching on Interstate 5 in Los Angeles was where we wanted to be we climbed aboard the “shipment” and made ourselves at home playing cards around a table.  Yes, this hitching gig was working out well.

We were dropped off on a limited access highway that mainly served commuter traffic.  That was the point where reality set in.  We set up on the curb of a ramp with our three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one suitcase, one two-burner Coleman stove, and one can of Coleman fuel.  We worked shifts of two people with thumbs out, one person resting, thinking that the extra person provided more opportunities for showmanship.  We could have had all the rockettes out there with us and it would not have attracted the attention of commuters buzzing by to get home.

Around midnight, as a steady drizzle started to dampen our spirits further, a commuter coming home from the second shift took pity on us.  In fact, he offered for us to have supper and spend the night with him, which we readily accepted.  There was one catch:  we needed to pack our three backpacks, three sleeping bags, two grocery bags full of food, one suitcase, one two-burner Coleman stove, and one can of Coleman fuel into the second VW Beetle of our journey, this time with a fourth person added.

The man lived in a depressed section of Los Angeles.  His roommates had a big batch of delicious chili prepared that they shared with us and some visiting teenagers.  After the company left we sacked out in the living room, a distinct improvement from sleeping on pavement behind a dumpster.

The next morning we encountered more goodwill in a surprising way.  As we walked in the morning to the nearest Interstate 5 entrance ramp, two teenage girls who had shared chili with us the evening for spotted and stopped us.

“Hitching around here could be dangerous,” one concerned girl warned us.

“We’ll be OK,” I assured them, “There’s safety in numbers (even if our numbers get us stuck there for eternity, I added in my thoughts).”

“I don’t know,” the girl said doubtfully.  “Look, I just got this for Christmas, you guys probably need it more than me.”

She whipped out a huge knife with that pronouncement, one intended to gut something of flesh and bones.  The disconnect of a teenage girl selflessly sacrificing a Christmas gift best appreciated by Jack the Ripper left us a bit speechless.  Perhaps this was a rough neighborhood indeed.  In any case, we did not think such contraband should be added to our formidable load and we declined the gracious offer.  We would be offered additional contraband that morning that almost put an abrupt end to our journey.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

This is one of my Trail Tales.  Here is entry 1.

When the two Daves picked me up early the next morning, I immediately noted what Zwiebel defined as light packing.  Besides a sleeping bag and backpack, two necessities brought by each of us, Zwiebel additionally had loaded into the Beetle an extra suitcase, two full grocery bags of food, a two-burner Coleman stove, and Coleman fuel.  Amazingly, we were able to squeeze a good amount of the stuff into the trunk of the Beetle (recall that these cars have their trunks in the front and engines in the rear).  The food bags were kept on the back seat and the sleeping bags were unraveled to fill in the available space from about the chest down.

The roomiest seat was the driver’s and I angled to drive as much as possible.  Along the way I managed several firsts.  I got my first speeding ticket in Pennsylvania; I drafted my first trucks through Virginia; and I managed my first dent.  Actually, none of us were aware when the dent happened, though we suspected it was at a gas station in Tennessee during my turn at driving.

Technically, I drove the car illegally.  Since only the two Daves had picked up the vehicle only their names were on the official contract.  This presented an annoying problem when we reached the border of New Mexico.  We checked into a border station (state border, not country) whose attendants insisted upon examining our transport vehicle and papers.  These folks could count up to three and, having done that, informed us that one person, namely me, could no longer ride in the car.

The wise thing to do at that point would have been for me to simply walk out of sight across the border and then be picked up, but such wisdom would have been out of character with the overall folly of our mission.  Instead, I hitchhiked while the two Daves kept an eye on me from the car.

My first and only ride was with a laborer who migrated between jobs at oil fields in Texas and California.  His beat-up Mustang, with faded red paint blending in with extensive rust, rattled under the hood.  Only a few miles down the road he stopped to check out the noises.  The two Daves pulled over about fifty feet behind us.  Through the windshield I could see the laborer make a questioning glance at my comrades behind me.

We proceeded down the road a few more miles before the rattle became much worse.  We pulled over and this time both of us got out to look under the hood.  Once again the Beetle pulled over fifty feet behind us.  Both Daves waved at me and I instinctively waved back.  A concerned look came over the laborer as he looked back and forth between the two men in the Beetle and myself.

“Who are those guys?” he nervously asked.

“They’re my friends,” I honestly replied.

The laborer suddenly became much less interested in his car than in the open desert landscape surrounding us, undoubtedly noting the difficulty of any escape route through the tumbleweeds.  I did some fast talking to explain why a total stranger hitching a ride with him should have friends tailing behind.  If my explanation did not satisfy him, he at least figured he had no other choice and went along with my request to be dropped off at the next road junction.

As soon as we entered Phoenix we hunted down a small repair shop to hammer out the small dent.  We were charged something like fifteen bucks.  We then delivered the car to a nursing student who had flown out for school.  Zwiebel was the kind of guy who could start up a conversation and make friends with anyone, which is precisely what he did with nursing student.  Before long she divulged her life’s story and problems to him.  She then brought us all to a very nice park south of the Phoenix area, I suspect with the intention of enticing Zwiebel to stay behind.

While Zwiebel was making nice with our host Savitt and I tried to locate a transport car going from Phoenix to Seattle.  No luck.   The great northwest appeared to be the only region in the country back then to which everyone preferred driving their own cars there themselves.  Our host dropped us off on an entrance ramp to Interstate 10; we now would be making our way to Seattle via Los Angeles and our outstretched thumbs.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

“Phoenix!  You gotta be kidding!”  I yelled into the telephone receiver.

“Nope,”  Zwiebel replied, “We’re down in New York picking the car up now.”

“But Phoenix is not that much closer to Seattle than we are!”  I shouted.  “We can’t drive a transport car to Phoenix!”

“Too late, we already signed up for it.  We’ll be by to pick you up in a few hours.”  I knew, by the eagerness in Zwiebel’s voice, that I might as well pull raw meat away from a hyena as dissuade him from going to Seattle by way of Phoenix.  The crazy idea of Savitt and I going out there to look for logging jobs during our winter break had been mine, Zwiebel was not even interested in looking for such a job, but once we included him in our plans his natural zeal for far-fetched enterprises took over.

The entire week between Christmas and New Years we called transport agencies in the Hartford, Boston, and New York areas, searching for a car that needed transport to anywhere in the northwest region of the country.  When Zwiebel asked hopefully if we would settle for St. Louis I called the search off, with a hint of relief that I was perhaps coming to my senses in spite of myself.  However, Zwiebel would not be deterred, which perhaps explains why I was not consulted about a transport car to Phoenix until after an official agreement had been struck.

“What kind of car is it?”  I asked with resignation.

“Oh, yeah, glad you asked,” Zwiebel said quickly, “You better pack light; we’re going in a VW Beetle.”

I was not thrilled about three people riding a couple thousand miles in a Beetle, with Savitt at 6’3”, and with the gear necessary for a three-week trip to Seattle and back (by way of Phoenix!).  Yet, the original idea to look for logging jobs had been mine, and my traveling companions would be two of the best buddies one can have on an ill-advised adventure.

The three of us were part of a group that thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1975.  An instant chemistry developed between Savitt and I since the very first practice hike.  Savitt was my nickname for Dave Beffa-Negrini, originating from our passion for playing cards and a jeweler who coined himself “The King of Diamonds.”  Our natural abilities for long-distance hiking, our shared passion for games and puzzles, and our ability not to take ourselves or our tribulations too seriously made the challenges we faced along the trail enjoyable.

Zwiebel was the nickname given Dave Hall during the 1975 hike, partly to distinguish him from Savitt and yet another Dave in the group.  He was not an original member, yet began the thru-hike the same day as the group and had stuck pretty much to our schedule, in large part due to our support vehicle and to the charms of Katie Brown.  I  proposed to the group that we adopt him, which in essence meant joining us in a circle at occasional resupply points and reaffirming our commitment to help each member of the circle hike the whole trail.  Unanimous consent followed.  I am not sure whether he now blames or credits me with what followed, but we have remained good friends.

My relationship with these two, then and always, reminds me of a quote from Melville:

As for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by an unseen and unaccountable old joker . . .

I knew that the three of us would meet any ill-conceived or ill-fated endeavor good-naturedly.  With this certain knowledge, I consented on going to Seattle (by way of Phoenix!); thus began a true adventure in its own right which, consequently, ultimately gave birth to the adventure of hiking the 1977 Pacific Crest Trail.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

Here are Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3 and Entry 4.

I got an early start to Day 6 on the Pacific Crest Trail because, in my mind, I would certainly be reuniting with the rest of my group that day.  Being told that three hikers were ahead of me on the road walk towards Belden vindicated my own decision to take the road.  With no maps or guidebook I would have been in serious trouble trudging through snow trying in vain to catch up to the others on a remote ridge.  Since we were all somewhere along this road I should have had no trouble catching up to a pair of tenderfoots who were on the point of collapse the day before I last saw them.

Now that I was looking for them, the Vibram soles along the road were quite easy to spot, looking quite fresh.  At my first break near a residential area I asked a woman if she had seen hikers come through.  She had seen four hikers, which was good news because that meant Savitt already had reunited with them.  She added that they came through the day before.

The DAY BEFORE?!  I, a lean, mean hiking machine, went from being a half-day behind to a whole day behind a group with two tenderfoots?!  This was a serious blow to both my ego and to reason.  Well, I resolved I would not be carrying both tents again for these guys anytime soon.  I also decided it was time to do some serious hoofing.

I put in over thirty miles that day, started hiking at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, and by early afternoon reached our next resupply stop in Belden.  I was a little disappointed that me–the lean, mean hiking machine–could not catch up to the group before our resupply point, but very excited about being reunited with them once again.  I stopped in at a campground store that was to be our next mail drop and asked the clerks where in the campground I might find four other backpackers like me.

“They were here, but they left about three hours ago,” was the shocking reply.  “What the **** was going on,” was my mental note to self.  Our support vehicle could not have even reached the campground yet, I was there two days early, why were these guys shooting beyond our resupply point?  Some one had some serious ‘splainin’ to do.  Those tenderfoots could start carrying MY weight from now on.

I persuaded a pair of campers to adopt me for the night.  The next day Sue and the support vehicle arrived and we got our own campground.  She had not seen them, which made the situation get curiouser and curiouser.  Later that day everyone else in the group arrived at Belden — for the first time.  They had remained up on the ridge with Ken in charge of one of our two guidebooks and Savitt had reunited with them through the help of our other guidebook.  Of the three sets of tracks that initially led me astray, one belonged to Savitt getting back “on track.”

Oh, yes, I almost forgot, this trail tale is about how I got my trail name.  From the series of mishaps we just experienced we decided we needed to get guidebooks for everyone.  We also decided we needed to learn each other’s footprints.  Savitt was easy, he had large feet.  Ken was easy as well, he did not have Vibram soles.  The biggest problem was distinguishing between me and Dan, with similar size feet.  Dan had a “normal” footprint while I made divots with my toe, due to a somewhat bouncing stride.  My trail name became Diggerfoot.

As for that third set of tracks that I followed down to Gold Lake, and the Vibram footprints I followed along the road?  That makes for another “Trail Tale.”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

Here are Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3.

Day 4 on the Pacific Crest Trail started out bright and refreshing.  We were in no hurry to break our camp high above the snow line.  Ken, Howie and Dan finally left around 8:30 a.m.; I waited around an hour longer for our tent to dry and for Savitt to catch up from camping with friends the day before.  About an hour later I became impatient and left as well.

I was alone without a guidebook or maps, trudging over snow with no visible trail, but I was not worried.  The three others ahead of me made obvious tracks in the snow and I knew they likely be the only tracks until I caught up to them soon enough.  After an early ascent I hiked for the most part along a ridge until I came upon a surprised.  The tracks split up into three different directions.  There had been enough time passed and snow melt so I could not tell which sets were coming or going.  There was no obvious trail junction, and certainly no sign.  In 1977 the Pacific Crest Trail had few markers of any kind anywhere.

I stopped for lunch and did my best Sherlock Holmes imitation of figuring out which tracks were the freshest.  With some confidence I followed the tracks to the right.  That confidence slowly eroded as I descended steadily.  I eventually came to Gold Lake, where I got advice from the caretaker of a campground where to find McCrae Meadows, the group’s destination for the day.  I busted my butt back up the ridge until it occurred to me that at this point I had not a clue whether the group would be at McCrae Meadows or not.  After all, perhaps Ken finally made an orienteering mistake or something had happened to one of the tenderfoots.  Maybe I had been following my group’s tracks after all.  Back down to Gold Lake I went.

I talked to a variety of folks at the campground.  Two old guys were suspicious that I was scouting their fishing territory.  A 5th generation Californian was cordial enough and interesting to listen to.  Some teenagers gave me a beer.  None of them knew anything about a group of backpackers.  I spent the night at the campground and resolved to hike on roads to our next resupply stop in Belden.  At least I was able to dry my boots by a campfire.

I started the next day around 9:30 with a structured plan for making miles on the State Highway towards Belden.  I would take breaks at 12:30 and 3:30 and finish up at 7:30.  At my 3:30 break I asked a woman doing yard work for water.  She asked if I was connected to the hikers who had been through that morning.  After being told that I noticed the rest of that day that I had been following Vibram sole prints whenever the shoulder of the roads became sandy.  Psyched!

I knew the group could not have been too far ahead of me because of the tenderfoots.  I went a little extra that day, about 25 miles, which placed me in a neigborhood of houses by the train tracks the State Highway paralleled.  I went up to the first person I saw to ask about crashing on a lawn for the night.  Unfortunately, the first person I saw was a teenage girl, and an adult male made himself known when a rock whizzed by my head.  I thought “Uh-oh, he thinks some vagrant is hitting on his daughter.”

“Get away from my ****ing truck!” he yelled.  Um, OK.  I went a little farther down the road and found a patch of grass by the train tracks.  The next morning I woke up absolutely confident I would catch up to the others that day.  Alas, I was due for one more surprise.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

The purpose of Trail Tales.

How I Got My Trail Name – Entry 1.

We drove out from Connecticut to Donner Pass and a Ford Econoline van that belonged to Dave Hall, the person who came up with the idea to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in the first place.  We made the trip in 2 1/2 days with one close call in Nebraska.  I was driving at the time and decided, at night, that I would skip Lincoln and refuel somewhere on the other side of the state.  For a guy from Connecticut, I can tell you now that Nebraska is a very long state.  I finally found a gas station that was opened, 350 miles or so into the state, and rolled in on fumes at about 2:00 a.m.  We put 22 gallons into a 20 gallon tank.

Near where the Interstate crosses Donner Pass there is (was?) a turnoff where we pulled over for the night.  Ken and I slept on top of the van and ironed out some differences we had during the preparation phase.  Ken is the most experienced backpacker in the group but not a natural leader, he gets cranky easily.  Before falling asleep we admired the stars above — and the abundance of snow around us.  Our last call to weather stations out west at the beginning of May was very promising, the Sierra Nevada had a very light winter for snow.  Unfortunately, they got half of their snowfall for the year in May, in between the time of our last check-up and the moment we laid on top of the van contemplating the journey ahead of us.

The next day was spent at Clair Tappan Lodge near where we would begin our thru-hike.  Based on the feel of the lodge — wooden beams, fireplace, hot chocolate at hand and all — we could have been getting ready for a cross-country ski trip.   Um, except that we did not have skis or snowshoes or, well, any kind of foot gear that one might want for an adventure in snow.  In fact, Ken was wearing tennis shoes, since his relative flat arches did not take to boots well.  I was just a tad apprehensive that night.

We began our hike the next day, May 24th, 1977, heading north on a jeep road.  “Hey!” I’m thinking, “This is not so bad.”  We turned off the jeep road onto trail, though by that time we merely turned off a broad swath of snow to a more narrow one.  We climb our way up to around 7800 feet, enough altitude to induce headaches.  At least I had headaches.  Our two tenderfoots who had not thru-hiked before, Howie and Dan, looked too miserable to be thinking about headaches.  If each step was getting to be a struggle for me I could only imagine what was going on with them.

We had lunch at a stone shelter.  Unlike the AT, where shelters are spaced every 8 miles or so, this shelter would be only one of three along the entire 2600 mile trail.  Savitt had a thermometer on his pack that recorded the temperature inside the shelter at 29 degrees Fahrenheit.  That was the high point of the day in more ways than one.

We trudged up to 8000 feet to a ridge that afternoon.  At least it was supposed to be a ridge, all I saw was a dense fog settled on top of everlasting white.  No trail, no footprints, no visibility, but we had Ken Bell.  Ken kept leading us in what I would swear at times was the wrong direction, but we somehow came off the ridge where we were supposed to.  On the flip side, Ken was getting blitzed, perhaps because he was hiking in tennis shoes.  Ken could not focus on anything beyond which direction to go and it was up to us other two “experienced” hikers to keep the two tenderfoots going.

We made camp at dusk, a mile or two short of our intended destination, but we had been post-holing thirteen miles or more through snow for much of the day while adjusting to the altitude.  I doubt the tenderfoots or Ken could have gone further even if we were willing to hike into darkness.  Savitt and I shared a tent that night.  For most of the trip Savitt would be tenting with Dan, and I with Howie, so we could carry the full weight of the tents for the tenderfoots.  Yet Savitt and I were best friends.  He was, in fact, best man at my wedding.  We had to make an exception this one night to tent together and “compare notes.”

We were thinking similar things:  “What the HELL are we doing out here?”  But you have to understand that, between Savitt and I, that kind of question was just all part of the fun and games.  The worst things got, the more Savitt and I tended to joke about them.  There would be plenty more fuel for jokes coming up in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales

Handles that differ from our given names are typical here on the Internet.  Sometimes the handles are somewhat random or unplanned, sometimes they reflect some thought about our identities or what we wish them to be.  I typically use my given name, Kirk Sinclair, on the Internet.  Otherwise, I use a trail name bestowed on me during a backpacking adventure.  The next few entries will be about how I got my trail name, told as if we were hiking together on wilderness backpacking trails.

The idea for backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail came to us as we were driving a transport car back East from Seattle, Washington.  Dave Hall, Dave Beffa-Negrini (Savitt) and I had hiked the Appalachian Trail together the previous summer of ’75 and we were returning from a follow-up misadventure.  That is a story in itself, but I’ll save it for another rainy day.  We were driving on I80, passing spectacular falls in Oregon, when Dave Hall suggested we should hike the Pacific Crest Trail.  Savitt immediately jumped on the idea, while I recall my somewhat misguided claim:  “Ah, hiking one long-distance trail is enough for anybody.”

Not one to be deterred, Dave Hall started sending me National Geographic articles and other enticements to get me salivating over the prospects of backpacking amidst such wild beauty.  He knew what he was doing.  If this was going to be a group endeavor, an Expedition, he needed a base of operations that would attract a group.  Dave was an entrepreneur in New Hampshire (he later founded PC Connection); I was a college student at the University of Connecticut.  Dave wanted my “buy-in” to get an Expedition formed.

Well, I “bought in,” but soon afterwards Dave Hall “bought out.”  I became the de facto leader of an Expedition of five, four of whom completed the entire trail.  Besides Savitt there was Ken Bell, another member of our ’75 Expedition on the AT.  The two newbies were Dan Herlihy and my dorm mate, Howie Sandler.  Howie was coming along for just the summer.  There was also Sue Mitchell, who drove a support vehicle that we resupplied from every seven days or so.

Our Expedition would do a “flip-flop” from Donner Pass,  We would hike north starting on May 29th, 1977.  When we reached the Canadian border at the end of the summer we would drive back down to Donner Pass and hike south.  This well planned scenario was to minimize our backpacking in snow.  Of course, things don’t always go as planned, but I’ll save that for the next entry.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Crest Trail, Trail Tales