The Cactus Eaters

by Dan White

  Some Jardi-Nazis considered tents, sleeping bags, and stoves to be “useless crap.” Instead, they slept under lightweight tarps tied to tree branches. They trained for months before setting foot on the PCT. To a Jardi-Nazi, taking shortcuts or alternative routes was treasonous. Real Jardi-Nazis would rather choke on a bungee cord than road-walk even a quarter mile off the trail or take a ride to the next junction. Jardi-Nazis had ways of figuring out if other hikers lied about their accomplishments. One method was to look at rain-proof trail journals posted alongside the PCT; trail walkers were careful to sign in at every journal to authenticate their hikes. Skip a journal, and people might call you a cheater. One young man who had avoided a snowbound section of the High Sierra by taking a Greyhound was known forever as Mister Bus Man.*

  Mark seemed anxious to share more details about the Jardi-Nazis but he had something else on his mind. “Look,” he said, “we’ll resume this conversation when I get back. I’m heading out to pick up Todd. He’s another hiker who just came in off the PCT. He’s gonna crash here. Is it okay with you guys?”

  “No problem,” I said, startled that there was a Pacific Crest hiker who had only just now reached Agua Dulce. “But that’s kind of weird. I thought we were the very last ones in the season.”

  Mark noticed my downcast expression. “Look,” he said, “you don’t have to read that book to hike the trail. Plenty of people hiked the PCT before Ray Jardine’s book came out.”

  Mark left me sitting cross-legged on his grandmother’s carpet, looking at the book and wondering why no one had told me about it beforehand. Why hadn’t anyone told me that there was such a thing as “backpacking technique”? Why hadn’t someone told me there was only one “right way” to do the trail?

  Somehow I pulled myself out of my trance. I had to be realistic. Reading the handbook now would only lead to impulsive, stupid mistakes. I put the book down and tried to stop thinking about it. Still, it was painful to think I’d be going out there without all the information I needed. I hoped, against reason, that this new guy, Todd, was not one of those goddamned Jardi-Nazis. In the state of mind I was in, meeting one of those cultists would probably derange me.

  The door burst open ten minutes later. It was Mark in the company of Todd, lean and muscular, with a Paul Bunyan beard, a black mustache, and a battered survival hat with a broad brim and a bandanna safety-pinned to the back to block the sun’s rays. This stranger was tall, with a leathery tan, sneakers instead of boots, and a trim pack, perfectly symmetrical; no bed rolls or food sacks noodling off of it. He was so full of vigor, taking giant steps across the carpet, that you would never suspect he’d slogged 454 miles from the Mexican border to get here. The man looked like he was returning from a spa weekend.

  “Good to meet you,” he said, heading toward me and Allison. “My name is Todd, but I call myself The Hydra, or Hydrox, like the cookie. Hydra is my trail name. I drink water all the time.” He beamed and shook my hand so painfully hard it was like getting Rolfed. Todd the Hydra looked out the window and smiled at the waves of heat rising off the asphalt road. “Quite warm out there,” he said with a chuckle. He was sleek with a buoyant frame and ropey muscles. He seemed to fill the room as he moved through it, casting long shadows on the floor. He took a deep breath and sighed at all the stereo equipment and stacks of country CDs, the fuzzy carpet, the big box of muesli on the counter, and the shaggy houseplants. “This place is a palace,” he said.

  Todd slid his pack off his shoulders and leaned it against the living room wall. He sat down on the carpet and pulled off his trail-battered sneakers. He got back up on his feet, taking massive strides in his ankle socks. What feet he had. Size-thirteen monsters, so big they reminded me of Bigfoot, feral humanoid of the Pacific Northwest. Allison watched him intently. I envied his strut, his way of loping through a room, making it his own. Then the door opened again and a woman—his girlfriend, I presumed—walked in and made my heart stop. She was carrying some of Todd’s gear and a shrink-wrapped platter of cookies. Her dark hair spilled to a crook in her back. She leaned forward to shake my hand. As she did, she arched her shoulders, and I could not help but notice the sun-browned cleavage pushing against her tank top. Shyly I asked for one of the cookies, which turned out, on further inspection, to be peanut-butter-and-chocolate Rice Krispies Treats. Todd handed me the platter. “Knock yourself out,” he said. While reaching for a gooey square, I noticed that his girlfriend had left a yellow Post-it message for Todd on top of the cookie pile. “You’re special,” it said.

  “I’m Elaine,” the woman said.

  “But I call her my Sweet Elaine,” Todd said, “because that’s what she is. She’s so sweet to me.”

  “I meet him at every trail stop.”

  “She sure does,” he said. “I tell you, she keeps my spirits up.”

  Sweet Elaine giggled, leaving no doubt that the two of them had Yoga-esque pretzel-contortionist grinder sex at every junction. I loved Allison, and sure, we had just as much sex as most other well-scrubbed suburban New England couples. Still, it was hard not to envy a man whose relationship with his girlfriend seemed to consist solely of baked goods and fornication. Allison asked Todd about the HYDRATE OR DIE sticker on his pack; we were not aware at the time that it was the logo of the CamelBak company, which makes backpacks with built-in water pouches.

  “Humans lose so much water out there and don’t even know it,” Todd said softly, his voice turning grave and low. “We’re the only mammals on the planet who can’t gauge our level of dehydration.” He pointed to the Jardine guidebook, open and dog-eared on the table. “That’s why you’ve got to drink all the time out there, and you should eat all the time, too. I eat three pounds a day on the trail. I eat like a horse.” To make room for all the food in his pack, Todd carried scant gear. He didn’t have a tent or sleeping bag, just a “bivy sack,” short for “bivouac sack,” which looked to me like a trash bag. He pulled this sack over himself to sleep at night, to keep out the elements. I wondered out loud if such a thing could work. “Good question,” he said, smiling. “It does keep me warm, for the most part, though I almost got hypothermia on Mount Baden Powell.” Todd pronounced hypothermia with slow satisfaction, as if recalling an especially tender cut of porterhouse.

  “So,” I blurted out, “are you a Jardi-Nazi?”

  There was silence for a moment. Todd raised his eyebrows, then shook his head and laughed. “Jardi-Nazi? Hmm. Would I call myself that? Hell, I don’t know. But I will tell you one thing. God bless the Jardi-Nazis. God bless ’em. I follow Ray Jardine’s advice to the last letter.”

  “Can you show me some of your gear?” I said meekly.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’d be glad to. Come here.” He fished out a white wrinkled garment. “Here, catch,” he said, tossing it in my direction. “That’s my white shirt for desert crossings. See the long sleeves? It keeps the ultraviolet rays out.” He reached in his pack and threw me two wrinkled balls of cotton material that were damp to the touch and smelled vaguely of garlic. “Those,” he said, “are trail socks.”

  Perhaps I was oversensitive, but there was something about his thunderous voice, his confidence, his smug assurance, and his method of tossing his gear at my chest that put me on edge. But Todd returned to my good graces when he asked if I might take his picture with Mark, Sweet Elaine, and Allison. I was so flattered by this request that I tried to cast aside my reservations about him. They all stood together, smiling widely, getting ready, but when I pulled out my camera, Todd’s smile faded. He’d already shown me his camera, a dinky little point-and-shoot that weighed only a few ounces. My Pentax K1000, a gift from my father, weighed three pounds. It had a fabric case, a cross-your-heart carrying strap, and an Ugly American 30-to-75-millimeter zoom lens that looked like one of those over-the-shoulder things they shot at Russian choppers in Afghanistan. Todd scratched his beard, stared at the camera, and frowned.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “That’s a big camera, my friend. Ho
w far do you guys think you’re really gonna get?”

  “Uh, far,” I said, trying to sound strong.

  “What do you guys want?” Todd said with an abruptness, and a change of tone, that took me by surprise. “Where do you really want to go?”

  I stood there, unable to come up with a snappy comeback.

  “Are you at a loss for words?” he said.

  Allison and I threw each other pained looks.

  During a lull in the conversation, when Todd was distracted talking to Mark, I took Allison aside and had a powwow with her outside, on the driveway.

  “I think he’s making fun of us,” I said.

  “Even out here,” she said, “you just can’t escape the macho thing, the whole he-man one-upsmanship thing.”

  “I don’t like his attitude,” I said. “I don’t like him acting as if he knows everything and we’re just a couple of over-packed slobs. Well, we’ll show Mr. Fancy Pants. We’ll pass his dehydrated keister on the side of a Mojave sandbank.”

  Allison smiled. “We have a mean streak that will serve us well,” she said. “And all he has is an ego as big as his feet.”

  Allison and I were gunning for Todd now. Outside the house, keeping our voices down, we broke into a little Pacific Crest Trail–style gangsta rap, a hiker’s variation on NWA’s “Gangsta Gangsta.” We substituted the N-word with hiker, or more specifically, hikah, because it sounded more gangsta-rap authentic.

  ’Cause we’re the type of hikahs that’s built to last

  If you fuck with us we’ll put a hiking boot in your ass.

  This exchange of lyrics cheered us up immensely. We were ready to go back inside and deal with Todd. He seemed to be waiting for us.

  “When are you guys leaving?”

  “The day after tomorrow,” Allison said. “Just as soon as I’m feeling better.”

  “Are you psyched?” Todd said, brightening. “Are you psyched?”

  Allison and I looked at each other and decided, tentatively, that maybe we were psyched.

  “Aw right,” Todd shouted, throwing a fist in the air. “Aw right!”

  As the sun turned to a murky sliver in the foothills above the house, Todd made out with Sweet Elaine in the kitchen behind a stack of muesli oat-cranberry cereal boxes. It was getting close to 10:00 P.M. When they emerged at last, messy-haired and flushed, Sweet Elaine was blushing, even in her ears. Todd kissed her again, gently, and said they had better turn in quickly because he was returning to the trail early the next morning.

  “Won’t the sun be bad then?” Allison said.

  “I’m prepared,” Todd said crisply, “to hike all day any day under most conditions. I wear the lightest garments possible. My sleeves block the sun. I don’t get sunburned.”

  “Do you have any insect repellent,” Allison said in a saucy tone, “or is carrying bug juice over-packing?”

  Todd just shook his head. “No bug juice. I don’t believe in putting chemicals on my body.”

  Allison laughed out loud and caught my eye. “You must get sucked dry, then,” she said. “If I were you, I’d use the bug juice.” She turned to me, throwing me a supportive look. I smiled back. Allison and I were a team. Todd smiled, too. He reached in his pack and pulled out a full-body suit made of mosquito-proof mesh. He’d sewn it himself.

  Sweet Elaine was lounging near Todd. She asked us if we’d done any other national scenic trails.

  Allison told her we’d done a brief overnight practice hike on the Connecticut section of the Appalachian Trail and that it was a disaster. “We ran out of water. We had to suck on oranges. It was a gnarly situation.”

  Sweet Elaine looked shocked. “You ran out of water on the AT? There’s so much water there. It’s like the ocean. The PCT is like a desert!”

  I blushed. Todd looked even more annoyed now. “You guys have any experience out there at all?” he said. “How far do you really think you’re gonna get?”

  “All the way,” I said. “All the way!” My words sounded hollow.

  “Well, you guys sure picked a weird place to start,” Todd said. He folded his maps and stuffed them in the side pocket of his shorts.

  Allison and I went off to sleep in the spare room. Todd and Sweet Elaine were offered the living room but declined. They walked out to the lawn in front of Mark’s grandmother’s house, draped themselves beneath Todd’s trail tarp and slept under the stars.

  * Jardine himself has disclaimed the notion that he is judgmental about other people’s backpacking techniques. He once remarked that he wrote the handbook simply “to stimulate other people’s thinking, where applicable,” and that he saw no “right or wrong” way of hiking and backpacking. “Anyone who enjoys the wilderness on foot…is doing it right.”

  Chapter 7

  In the Beginning

  The next morning, Todd left for the trail while Sweet Elaine drove back to Los Angeles. One day later, Allison said she felt a hundred percent better, and that all traces of the stomach bug had vanished. Mark drove us out to a place where the stables, dude ranches, and houses became more spread out, until there was nothing but dirt hills and crackling power lines. He was smiling hard now, and I wasn’t sure if he was confident in us all of a sudden or just happy to get us the hell out of his grandma’s bungalow.

  On either side of the foothills rose blocks of rough sandstone, orange and red in the morning light. In the distance through the blue haze were low mountains, bald on top, pink from the sun. Mark killed the truck’s motor near a ranch house with a sign reading, RED DUST RANCH. A steer skull hung from a wire on a wooden arch. Its teeth were broken. Mark stopped on a pullout overlooking a valley. Allison and I stood in our blue neon shorts. No sounds intruded except for the crunch of our Vasque Sundowner boots on gravel and a few crows cawing. Near the gravel pullout, I noticed a three-foot-wide footpath. A marker on the path’s edge, attached to a five-foot-tall post, read, PACIFIC CREST TRAIL. There was the PCT’s logo: shaggy pines and a snow-frosted mountain, but the land looked nothing like the picture on the marker, no snowcapped peaks, just a snakebitten valley the color of moleskin. The sign promised Eden. The scenery was straight out of Exodus.

  My pack was so heavy I rested it on the ground, propped it up against the passenger door of Mark’s truck, squatted down in the dirt, lowered my shoulders beneath the support straps, cinched the straps tight against my pouching gut and pushed with my legs until I was standing up. It felt as if I had just done an ass-buster crunch at the gym back in Torrington. It takes six million steps to get to Canada. That’s six million ass-buster crunches.

  Mark looked at me wistfully. “Maybe I didn’t take enough stuff out of that pack,” he said. “Are you comfortable?”

  “Extremely comfortable,” I said. “It’s an internal frame pack that distributes the weight so evenly you don’t even feel it.”

  “Really?” he said. “You’re leaning to one side.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  Allison shouldered her pack. She grabbed hold of her support straps, took out her sun reflector hat and put it on. The hat had a creased brow and floppy top. Allison had an expression of openness and expectation. She smiled at me.

  “Now, listen,” Mark said. “If something goes horribly wrong in the first hundred miles, try to get to a town somehow. Then call me up and I’ll come get you in my truck. My offer still stands after the first hundred miles—but it’d better be something really awful, and you’d better tell me about it in a really friendly voice.”

  Then he reached around my neck to borrow my camera. Smiling, he cupped his hands to frame the shot. The picture would have shown a fresh-faced couple, clothes pressed, packs clean. We probably wore expressions of fear and expectation as we stood by the sign and waved.

  But no one would ever see the picture.

  There was no film in the camera.

  Mark drove away in his truck, leaving Allison and me standing next to the Pacific Crest Trail marker. Allison’s hair was tied in a thick
ponytail, which stuck out from beneath her survival hat. Her white T-shirt was spotless, and so was her aquamarine sweatshirt made of synthetic fibers. Behind her, black mountains marched east across the broad valley, with a few foothills straggling just behind them. We would head north and cross the horizon line and the horizon beyond it until there were no horizons left. It was time to begin.

  It was 6:15 A.M. on June 17, nearly two months after most hikers start out on the Pacific Crest Trail. To our knowledge, we were the last through-hikers of the season. Ahead of us lay a 108-mile walk along the slopes of Liebre Mountain and down into the Mojave’s western edge. Soon the dust Mark’s truck kicked up, its diesel smell, and then, even the noise of it, were gone. It was just the two of us and the wind and the crows.

  Time to take our first steps. I wondered if Allison would throw up again. Perhaps I would strain my hamstring, or space junk would fall from the clouds and crush us. I made a mental inventory. Ten pounds of chocolate and fruit gummi creatures from Trader Joe’s, check. Twelve freeze-dried dinners, check. Artisan-quality salami, check. Velveeta and noodles, check. Allison did a few yoga-style stretches, pivoting and waving her arms. I did a halfhearted knee bend and left it at that. Stretching is for pussies. I looked at Allison. “And so it begins,” I said, and we were off like a thundering herd of tortoises.

  I took the first step. My boots crunched down on brittle grass. Then I took another step, over pebbles and loose earth. It seemed so cretinously simple. All you do is take one step and then another. “Repeat as often as necessary,” as it says on the Luden’s cough drop container. This was going to be a snap. My pack was lashed to my back, a purple sandbag, and I felt the weight of it, in spite of Mark’s efforts to trim it down, but I didn’t care. I just smiled and thought, “We’re gonna show everybody.” I took another step until I had taken 10 steps and it was still easy. In short order, I’d taken 25 steps. It pleased me to think there were now only 5,999,975 more steps remaining. In fact, I wondered if I had taken the first steps too quickly, without being mindful enough. I stopped in my tracks and breathed.