Gary and I are devoted readers of news articles about people who come to grief in the backcountry. Trying to make up for a mistake by cutting cross-country instead of backtracking ranks high on the list of how hikers get into serious—and sometimes fatal—trouble. A few years after our Section I trip, an experienced outdoorsman decided to take a shortcut through California’s Big Sur wilderness in order to shorten his planned two-week, solo backpacking trip. He ended up stranded at the top of a 100-foot waterfall. Fortunately for him, campers below heard him yelling and got help. He had to be plucked from the inaccessible terrain by helicopter. A year earlier, another experienced hiker found himself off the trail in the Sierra Nevada’s Stanislaus National Forest. Rather than retrace his steps, he looked on the map for a shortcut, and thought he had found one in the shape of a dry streambed. The streambed was so rugged and steep, he eventually fell, ending up too badly injured to walk away. He staggered out days later. Gary had a simple rule to follow whenever we were unsure of where we were, whether on trail or off: Go back to where we were certain of our location, and then decide what to do. So it was back to Lake Harriet.
The fourth and fifth days brought only minor problems, like snow and cold. But on one particular day after we were halfway through, we couldn’t seem to get along with each other. At home, we simply would have avoided each other for a while. Unfortunately, this is not a solution in the backcountry. The interactions among groups of people who tackle stressful activities such as long backpacking trips, big wall climbs, and mountaineering expeditions are pretty intense. The stresses can bring people closer together as they learn to value each other’s strengths while becoming more tolerant of each other’s weaknesses. But it’s just as likely—probably more so—that the stresses will tear a group apart, or weaken it to the point that it doesn’t function adequately. We heard tales about couples who broke up on the trail, or even after finishing.
On our seventh day, when we left our frosty campsite at Miller Lake (at 9,550 feet above sea level) and headed for Glen Aulin High Camp, Mary and I were heading down a hill in thick woods a couple hundred feet ahead of Gary. Instead of focusing on the route, I had my mind on my grievances with my husband. I followed what I thought was the main trail, heading off to the right into a meadow. Gary spotted the correct trail, heard our voices, and realized we had gone the wrong way. He shouted for us to stop and to head back toward him. If we had been much farther apart, we might have gone our separate ways for an hour before realizing our mistake. As it was, we all stayed together (however unhappily) until we reached Glen Aulin.
Perhaps what truly foreshadowed our future PCT expedition was the particular stuffed animal Mary had set aside for this trip. We always allowed Mary to bring one stuffed animal on backpacking expeditions, and making the choice was a big deal for her. For this trip, Mary had originally selected a little stuffed porcupine. However, when we arrived at my father’s house in Minden, Nevada, to spend the night before starting, she discovered that my cousin’s son, Andrew, had left her a little stuffed Chihuahua that he had won a few days earlier at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Mary named it “Puffy” and immediately fell madly in love with it. When Carol dropped us off at Sonora Pass next morning, we learned that Mary had brought Puffy along, and wanted to bring both stuffed animals on the trip. At this age, she didn’t carry anything on backpacking trips, and Gary and I refused to add any more weight or bulk to our well-stuffed packs. This nearly precipitated a major argument just as we were ready to begin walking. At the last minute, Mary agreed to leave the porcupine behind and take only the Chihuahua.
Eight days later, we met my sister, Carol, and her husband, George, in Tuolumne Meadows at the end of our trip. As they walked down the trail to greet us, Carol whispered to George, “Get it out of your pocket.” George pulled out the porcupine and, with a shriek of joy, Mary rushed down the trail to retrieve her little friend. Two years later, it was again Puffy who got to accompany Mary on a big trip, the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail (by this point, Mary carried a full pack, including her “animal friend“). But in 2004, the little porcupine finally got his chance. Mary gave him his own trail name, “Cactus,” and carried him on the PCT.
With Section I successfully completed, we began seriously considering a PCT thru-hike. Both Gary and Mary insist it was my idea. (I was willing to take the credit during good days on the trail; on bad days, I was convinced one of them must have come up with such a crazy scheme.) Despite my supposed status as originator of the family thru-hike goal, I had many doubts about whether I could actually do it. When a friend who has known us for several years asked me at a book club dinner, “What will you do when Mary caves?” I assured her I was the weak link in this particular chain. I have always felt somewhat of an impostor among hardcore backpackers. Gary is the most competent person I know in backpacking, rock climbing, and mountaineering. He’s totally at home in the woods. And Mary is well on her way down the path trod by her father’s boots. Even before she set out to conquer the PCT, Mary was the youngest person to summit Mt. Shasta and to thru-hike the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail.
But I look at thru-hikers, especially the women who are strong enough and brave enough to hike long trails alone, and I think, “I could never do that.” I have to remind myself that I am strong and brave and skillful. I lived a full and occasionally adventuresome life on my own before Gary and I married. But sometimes I feel the way I did when I first joined Mensa, the high IQ society. For several weeks after I received the letter announcing I had qualified to join, I was convinced another letter would follow with an apology for their mistake. Months went by before I lost that nervous apprehension every time I checked the mailbox. Eventually, I attended a few Mensa gatherings and discovered I was as brainy as any other member. The same has been true of backpacking. I’ll read a trail journal by some woman who set out by herself when she was 60, or some man who went through the Sierra when every trail marker was buried under 15 feet of snow, and feel totally intimidated. And then I’ll meet those people at the Pacific Crest Trail kickoff or an American Long-Distance Hiking Association conference and realize that, hey, we have a lot in common.
Despite our ambitions, none of us was immune from worrying about whether we could—or should—try to thru-hike the PCT. I fretted about our ability to handle the physical challenges and, like many parents, nervously imagined how I would feel if Mary were to be seriously injured from a fall, bear attack, or lightning strike. Gary worried about the danger of one of us drowning during a stream crossing. He also worried how an independent-minded 10-year-old would behave when faced with day after day of discomfort, hard work, and enforced togetherness, aggravated by inadequate food and rest. Mary, aware of her father’s concern, mostly worried that the trip would be called off at the last minute. Gary was tempted several times to cancel it, but about six months before our projected start date, he made a commitment to go for it, no matter what.
Once we decided to do the trip, computer technology was a huge help in our preparations. Thanks to the internet, we could connect with experienced thru-hikers eager to weigh in on every aspect of the trail experience. Some long-trail veterans have journals online, and many of them are surprisingly personal. Many backpackers and trail fans participate in the PCT-L, an online forum that regularly hosts heated debates on everything from the best type of stove and fuel for long-distance hiking, to whether dogs should be taken on the trail. I conversed via email with a married couple in Pleasanton, California, near our home in Sunol, who completed the PCT in 2000. They were in their early 50s, just like Gary and me when we began. Marcia and Ken Powers went on to complete the Triple Crown: the PCT, the Continental Divide Trail (in 2002), and the Appalachian Trail (in 2003). And in 2005, they achieved the grand slam of long-trail backpacking when they finished the coast-to-coast, 4,900-mile American Discovery Trail. In the same way, I got in touch with a young man