Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail

by Bill Walker

  “God, it would be suicidal for me,” I said.

  “Aw, what the hell,” he said undeterred, and began making his way down the hill.

  The first three were well built, but hopped out like ants the minute they hit the water. But when Attila landed, it was like he had jumped on a burning stove he was up and out of there so fast.

  Their Sierra adventures continued when they got their clothes back on. We rounded a turn in the trail and were confronted with an especially steep descent down a snowy slope. However, there was a narrow path going straight down the hill where hikers had obviously glissaded (slide on your butt).

  “I love to glissade!” Yogi had declared in her handbook. “It’s also not very smart.”

  CanaDoug glissades furiously down forrester’s Pass, while I stand there more confused than ever.

  Nonetheless, CanaDoug went barreling down as he emitted some incomprehensible Canadian scream of ecstasy. Everybody immediately followed. Then it was my turn again. Unlike the black ice back at Forrester Pass, glissading was not something I absolutely had to do. So I began trying to sidestep down the bank of snow which ended up being not only exhausting, but fraught with its own perils. I was to quickly find out the Sierras had so many snow fields, it was necessary that I learn a controlled glissade.

  Finally, we made it down to a flat enough area to take a long break. It was the seventh day out from Kennedy Meadows and the remaining pickings in my bear canister were slim indeed. Donovan had known I was running especially low on food.

  “Hey Skywalker,” he had asked yesterday, “Do you want this Ramen side?”

  I had meekly accepted it, and savored every bite of the cold, hard noodles. Now I was within a day of resupply, and relieved about having successfully cleared Mount Whitney and Forrester Pass. Buying Donovan something in recompense when we got to a trail town simply wouldn’t be the same as out here.

  “How about this Power Bar?” I asked Dononvan.

  “Well, if you’re sure you don’t need it,” he said. I wanted it, but didn’t absolutely need it. So I tossed it to him.

  That night CanaDoug, Donovan, Josephine, and I camped in some open field after having descended 3,000 feet from Forrester’s Pass. Our spirited conversation got cut short, however, as freezing rain, then snow, drove us into our tents.

  What we had to do next was actually quite disheartening, in the scheme of things. To get to the trail town of Independence to resupply—which was absolutely essential—we had to take a side trail nine miles down a 2,500 foot descent. Of course, we would have to do the same thing in reverse after re-supplying, which meant 18 miles of walking and 5,000 feet of descents and ascents without making one inch of forward progress on the actual PCT.

  Despite this, morale was high all around as town and hot food lay immediately ahead.

  Chapter 21

  Scott Williamson

  PCT Superstar

  “You just missed Scott Williamson,” No Pain said.

  “Dammit,” I anguished. “How fast was he going?”

  “Not that much faster than everybody else,” he said, surprised.

  “Would he talk to anybody?”

  “A little bit,” No Pain said. “But he cut out pretty quickly.”

  Later in the day I came upon Backtrack.

  “Guess who was at our campsite last night,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Scott Williamson.”

  “What time did he get there?” I asked.

  “Right at dark.”

  “Did he take time to eat?” I wondered.

  “A little bit,” Backtrack said. “I gave him a Fig Newton.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He came off as pretty normal,” Backtrack said. “He talked about these green onions he pulls off trees.”

  “Did he have a tent?” I asked.

  “No, he just threw his sleeping bag down right by the trail. He was gone by 5:00 this morning.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  Any intense endeavor is bounds to have its legends. The PCT is no exception. Scott Williamson is probably too young to be considered a legend. But he is hands-down the star of the trail.

  On January 20th, 1996, 24 year-old Scott Williamson wasn’t even supposed to be on duty. But the liquor store where he worked was short-handed, and he agreed to fill in. Late in the afternoon, a strange-looking man in a hooded sweatshirt entered the store and approached the counter. He kept rocking back and forth, and looked nervous. Scott soon found out why.

  The man pulled a gun out and fired a bullet straight into the left side of Scott’s face. Scott turned and ran to the back of the store, but the door was locked. He managed to bang it open with his shoulder and flee, while his assailant pursued and fired six more rounds at him. Some people in a nearby parking lot helped him get to the hospital where he was given morphine, and told his salivary gland might never function again. He had missed being paralyzed by ¼ inch. Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be the turning point in his life.

  The PCT held out an especial allure for Scott. It had only a tiny fraction of the number of thru-hikers that the AT had at that point. Scott proceeded to thru-hike the PCT year after year—twelve times in total. But that wasn’t all. When he got to the Canadian border, he habitually turned around and tried to walk all the way back to Mexico in the same year. For most hikers (including this one!), the idea of arriving in Canada and then trying to reverse one’s steps for the last 2,663 miles would be not only impossible, but utterly repugnant. In fact, nobody had ever completed such a yo-yo before.

  The PCT’s specific geography (late-melting summer snow in the Sierras, followed by new snow in the early fall) makes a yo-yo enormously complicated, even for a hiker of Scott’s caliber. On multiple occasions, Scott was racing back south from Canada only to get caught in the snow in late October in the High Sierra. Each time he had to bail out to save his life. But this was to become an Ahab-like pursuit, and he only intensified his determination.

  In October, 2004, it seemed like he was just a little bit ahead of schedule as he approached the critical Forrester’s Pass. But snow clouds—and another disappointment—loomed on the horizon. This time, however, old Lady Luck smiled on him. Two hours after he cleared Forrester’s Pass, the heavens opened up. Two climbers were killed in that snowstorm and several hiking groups were stranded and had to be rescued. Scott had to endure three straight days of heavy snowfall, but had cleared all the major mountain passes. On Nov. 18, 2004, he arrived at the Mexican border to complete his 5,320 mile journey.

  Now, in 2009 he was attempting to break David Horton’s PCT speed record of 66 days from Mexico to Canada. At the Kickoff, they had shown us a video of Scott hiking in the High Sierra.

  “I keep bleeding out of my ears at the end of the day,” he reported. In other words, he punishes himself out there into a zone that other thru-hikers are unfamiliar with. But he has another key asset, as well; he is one of the greatest minimalists ever.

  The base weight of his backpack (everything but food and water) is only 8½ pounds. He has cut straps and everything remotely superfluous out of it, and doesn’t carry a stove or a bear cannister through the High Sierra. The one area that he doesn’t skimp on is food. “Some people are able to do the PCT on Ramen and Snickers bars,” he said. “But I avoid sugar on the trail because sugar highs and crashes affect my hiking rhythms.” Typically, a couple hours before he quits hiking, he puts some dehydrated refried beans in water, and mixes in some tortilla chips. Better yet, he augments his diet on the trail by foraging for wild onions and berries.

  When Scott comes racing into trail towns to resupply, he’s given the rock-star treatment. In fact, he’s been forced to master the politician’s art of showing interest in everybody that wants to talk to him, but effecting quick breakaways.

  “When I first started doing it, it was just something I enjoyed,” Scott recalls. “But as time goes by, I’ve found it gives people inspiration.” That’s abo
ut as bold of a comment as you’re gonna get from someone who is universally described as down-toearth and humble.

  Unfortunately, hiking is a lifestyle, but not a livelihood. In order to pursue his passion, Scott works hard in the off-season as a logger and construction worker.

  “I don’t own a home, I drive derelict vehicles. I have to work on every weekend. But the sacrifices I’ve made to get on that trail have been well worth it.”

  Needless to say, after missing Scott at Kearsage Pass, I never caught a glimpse of him. He went on to break the PCT speed record by hiking the entire 2,663 miles in 65 days and 8 hours. Better yet, he did it unsupported by any van—unlike previous record holders—and even refused rides into town to resupply. And he wasn’t a hog about basking in the glory, either. Another fleet-footed, ferociously determined hiker named Adam Bradley asked to accompany Scott on the record-setting journey, and they stayed together the whole way. Better yet, upon completion who was amongst the first people the two new record holders called? None other than David Horton, the previous record holder. No, it wasn’t a taunting message of one-upsmanship, but more like artists discussing their work.

  A rebuttal would be welcome from anyone with alternative information. But my research didn’t yield anything to contradict the conclusion that Scott Williamson is the greatest long-distance hiker of all time.

  Chapter 22

  CanaDoug—Snow Maven

  You’ve got to know your body. Pure and simple.

  CanaDoug and I stood at the foot of Glen Pass after having climbed 2,500 feet back up to the PCT at Kearsage Pass.

  “I think I’ll just camp right here,” CanaDoug said to my surprise.

  “But we were going over Glen Pass today,” I said.

  “It’s too late,” he said. “It’ll take hours to get over.”

  Standing there setting up their tent was a twosome I hadn’t seen before—Lauren and Pat. I really wanted to hike on. But here were three hikers of my ilk who thought it was too late to clear Glen Pass. I decided to respect their judgment.

  The problem was that Pat and Lauren—and now CanaDoug—were camped on a rocky bluff with little room for my unfortunate-sized two-person tent. We were up here, too. I knew exactly how my body would react—use up lots of energy trying to stay warm, but with limited success.

  “I’m going back a mile or two,” I announced.

  “Yeah, right,” CanaDoug said.

  “No,” I maintained, “it’ll be warmer. There was a perfect spot to camp back there.” I picked up my stuff and, to everybody’s amazement, started back down and south.

  I got back down to where I had been just an hour ago, set up my tent, and placed my bear canister the obligatory fifty yards away from my tent. The canister was your worst enemy by day, but your best friend at night. Neither bears nor mice could get in there in any conceivable way. That was especially fortunate for this area, which was notoriously bear dense.

  The rangers at a nearby ranger’s station had recently attempted to supply the station with provisions for a few weeks. The experiment ended up stillborn, however. The first night after the station was supplied, a bear had ripped the metal roof right off the station before going in and demolishing every single bit of the food. Kinda’ brings up the old saying—if you don’t succeed at first, don’t try again.

  I urinated a ring around my tent, which reputedly helps repel bears. Then, I got in for what ended up being a rare good night’s sleep in my tent, proving I did know a little something about my fickle body. At first light, I headed off and retraced the terrain I had given back late yesterday. Surprisingly, CanaDoug had already torn out of there, along with Pat.

  Lauren and I slashed through the snowy switchbacks and banks to get up to the top of Glen Pass.

  “Hey, this isn’t so bad,” I said, relieved when we cleared the summit.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said. “It’s not that steep.”

  It was a wide snowfield to be sure, and there were two sets of hiker footprints, running at various angles. We followed the lower set of prints, which required staying in a crouch for a few hundred yards. But it proved to be more demanding, than harrowing. Finally, we came to a steep chute where CanaDoug and everybody had obviously glissaded. After roiling my quads for the last hour, the logic of glissading became overwhelming.

  “Have you done this, yet?” I asked Lauren.

  “Yeah, just stay on your butt and make sure your head doesn’t flip around while you’re sliding.”

  “Ladies first.” Lauren slid down the steep chute, and I followed without great form—but without incident, and we were at the bottom of Glen Pass.

  All these snowy passes had multiple lakes and snow at the bottom formed from the runoff, and Glen Pass was no exception. You knew you were going to be off the trail for sizable distances. The challenge was to not get too lost and stay in the vicinity of the trail. Once the snow gave way at lower elevations you could relocate the actual PCT.

  But patience was not my forte in the snow. I habitually hurried in these situations. Snow, rocks, hurrying and very long legs are a recipe for getting bitch-slapped up against these rocks. I kept marking up my shins, while anxiously searching for the trail in the snows of the Sierra.

  It just didn’t make any sense.

  “Words cannot describe how bad the mosquitoes can be on the PCT,” Yogi had written in her guidebook.

  Some hikers practically bowed-up like pugilists when I asked about the bugs in the Sierras. Why? When the AT had reached higher elevations in New Hampshire and Maine, bugs had been completely absent. Now here we traveling consistently over 10,000 feet, and the bugs had people in virtually a state of shock.

  But then it began to make perfect sense. The ubiquity of these bugs is a product of the clear snow melt. PCT hikers arrive in the Sierra Nevada in late June, right at the height of the melt. Consequently, we’re greeted not just by roaring, crashing streams, but also by swarms of miniature, blood-sucking monsters.

  Pat, Lauren, and I walked parallel to Woods Creek, with its white rapids tumbling towards us from the north. Very inspiring. Better yet, streams from all different directions seemed to be flowing into it. The story we had heard was that there were afternoons in the High Sierras in which you ford more streams than you do on the entire Appalachian Trail. This must have been one of those days. Quickly, I figured out it only made sense to keep my shoes and socks on, instead of changing them out each time.

  Meanwhile, the bugs were agonizing and getting worse.

  “These things intimidate me,” I anguished. “You know why?”

  “Because they’re everywhere,” Lauren said.

  “Because they’re so easy to kill,”

  It was true. There was no sport to it at all. Someone told me that each bug lives a couple weeks. During that time they attack and blood-suck like there is no tomorrow. They just landed on your arms and put the straw to you. It was no problem to slap and kill them at any time. They seemed perfectly willing to accept death for just one last coveted drink of us.

  Lush meadows and heavily bushy areas were the worst. We passed up some camp spots that were otherwise perfect. Finally, we made it to a rocky, promontory overlooking a creek. Although PCT regulations forbid camping within 100 feet of a water source, we camped there, thinking the open air might head off bugs. Hardly. I was only able to eat just a few bites while anxiously scurrying around, before practically diving into the safe haven of my tent.

  CanaDoug didn’t seem to harbor the anti-American resentments or chip-on-the-shoulder syndrome we so often see in our northern cousins. But, at the end of the day, he was a Canadian to the core.

  “Do you want to share a room?” he had asked me back in Independence.

  I had hesitated before finally answering, “Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to this night for eight days. I’m gonna’ stay alone.” A rare trace of un-pleasantry had flashed across his face. Deciding to get a single room had seemed like just one more decision, amongst the
countless decisions you face as a long-distance hiker. But my impression was that to CanaDoug, this was a breach of faith. Canadians are more communitarian than Americans. Perhaps I had violated some cultural taboo. Whatever the case, he hadn’t been treating me the same way since.

  Now, we were approaching Mather Pass together. As was our custom, he led and I followed. Since “the incident” in Independence he had instituted a new custom of blasting fart after fart right up at me. We were outdoors and they were harmless, to be sure. But it was done in a disrespectful way, as opposed to the usually playful hiker flatulence (Yes, I know this all sounds a bit esoteric!). He also had newly established his ‘500 foot rule’. For each increase of 500 feet in elevation he would stop, lay down, and take a cigar and food break. Of course, this was all completely his prerogative. But it only made sense to have a hiking partner getting through these snowy mountain passes in the Sierras. He knew this, and seemed like he was enjoying throwing me off balance a little bit.

  “Wow.” I said looking at the steep granite wall over to our left as we zeroed in on Mather Pass. “That had better not be it.”

  “We’ll see,” CanaDoug said.

  The day before we had debriefed several southbounders coming off Mather Pass about what lay ahead for us.

  “It’s a bit gnarly,” a couple of them had reported. The way they furrowed their brows worried me. I would soon come to hate this word, gnarly, even more than the word sketchy.

  The trail turned right and I breathed a minor sigh of relief. But then to my consternation, the trail bent sharply left and we were headed straight at the granite wall. Mather Pass was on a shelf a few hundred feet above us. Between here and there were nothing but rock scree and snow.

  “So this is what those assholes meant by gnarly, huh?” I angrily bitched. It was impossible to find the actual PCT. It was buried in the snow somewhere, but who knew where.