Wilderness Backpacking Trails

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

I’m as guilty of engulfing myself in electronic entertainment as the next person; yet from my backpacking adventures I know of a superb entertainment form lost to most of modern culture:  storytelling.  When you backpack mile after mile, day after day, you find yourself in need of passing the time.  Since the climb to the next pass takes awhile, we learned to make stories last.  Take, for example, the story of how I got my one and only trail name, Diggerfoot.  I could explain this to you in one or two paragraphs, which is what you want if you are in a rush to watch your favorite TV show.  Instead, I’m going to recount this and other “Trail Tales” as if we are hiking on the Appalachian Trail together.

In addition to Trail Tales, this site will feature wilderness photography from a variety of backpacking trails, usually posted on weekends, along with occasional features on backpacking equipment.  I hope you find yourself well-entertained.

Technorati Tags: Trail Tales

Civilization is the cause and nature the answer to some of the problems we face.  Understanding natural rights, natural belonging and natural learning will restore a natural balance to our lives.  I have 15,000+ miles worth of tales and photography from wilderness backpacking trails for conveying a message of natural balance.

Technorati Tags: Natural Balance, Nature Photography, Trail Tales