I considered my options as I floundered through loose sand toward the highway crossing. I could walk into Julian a few miles away and get water there, or I could press on to the cistern by the Third Gate in the hills ahead. Under the highway overpass I saw hundreds of gallon jugs and I walked toward them as a moth to flame. It was a giant water cache left there for thru-hikers by an anonymous person. Some of the caches along the PCT were in the same location year after year, some were only infrequently managed. As I sat down and flipped through the register full of thank you notes from the hikers ahead of me, I remembered that this cache had been mentioned in the water report. Beat from the miles and the heat, my mind wandered to blankness.
A few minutes later I realized I was staring at the register without comprehension. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even 5 p.m. yet and I’d covered almost forty miles. I poured half a liter of water into my hydration bladder. I couldn’t possibly go through that much in the next thirteen miles to the water tank at Third Gate . . . could I? It would be dark soon, and cooler. I chugged the water I’d just poured and replaced it with the same amount.
It was soon obvious that I had again misjudged my water needs. Five miles from the cache, my water was gone. I was drenched in sweat and my pack worked in conjunction with gravity to pull me backward at every stride. Everything felt like a fight. I hadn’t peed in hours.
I strained my eyes looking for the Third Gate until darkness fell. I had no water, but at least it was finally cool. I pulled my headlamp out of my pack and slipped it on—my first real night hike. Every few minutes, I nervously looked around for mountain lions, fearful of every noise. I became keenly aware of how lonely I was in this big, open landscape. I knew that my fear of them was irrational, that people who had hiked many more miles than me had never seen one. Yet, the elusive cat embodied my fear. They both lurked out of sight, pouncing only when they deemed their prey defenseless.
Has it really only been two days? It felt like it had been a week. Washington seemed like another planet. I imagined what my friends were doing in their daily routines right then—getting home from work, eating dinner, playing with their children. I couldn’t quite comprehend that others were proceeding through their days without real physical difficulties, when I was struggling. I finally stopped to pee: it was a deep orange.
I heard the familiar sound of two rattlesnakes to the left of the trail. I couldn’t see them, even when I panned my headlamp across the sand. I stood uncertain for about thirty seconds. Finally, I sprinted past the rattling. The noise died off and I returned to a walking pace. Soon, I reached the saddle by the Third Gate and scoped out the camping. I jumped each time I swung the beam of my headlamp into a new space and discovered a rattlesnake. First a rattlesnake coiled in a campsite. Then a rattlesnake on the edge of the trail. They seemed to be everywhere I looked.
Walking quickly, I descended from the PCT while sweeping my headlamp around, looking for the cover of the in-ground water cistern. Near it, I spotted a huge water cache. It only took a few seconds to decide on the fresh water right in front of me over scooping water out of the tank. A sweep of the area revealed it to be snake-free and I set up my tent, dragging a gallon jug inside with me. Then I drank and drank and drank.
CHAPTER 3
VICARIOUS ADVENTURER
Growing up, I was overweight, inactive, and introverted—a bookworm of the highest order, elementary school teachers would find my Nancy Drew books nested inside textbooks—my eyes glued to storylines rather than their instruction. Sometimes they took them away and lectured me about paying attention. Most of the time they let me be. I was reading at a college level by age nine and earning straight A grades. When I wasn’t reading, I was weaving my own adventure stories in longhand in piles of notebooks by my bed.
I read and I read. I traveled and journeyed and adventured with Madeleine L’Engle’s characters, with Nancy Drew, Huckleberry Finn, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and, eventually, into the worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien, Diana Gabaldon, and Lewis and Clark. Sacajawea was my own personal heroine. I felt a connection with her through my great-great-grandmother—an Anishinaabe woman whose faded tombstone bore the name “Elizabeth.” Through these books, I traveled from an early age through history and around the world without leaving the couch.
MICHIGAN / MAY 1992
“How far did you run, Anderson?” my fifth-grade gym teacher barked, looking up from his notebook, with a pen poised.
I sucked wind and tried to answer without gasping.
“All eight laps.”
I was a sweaty, hot mess. Most of the other kids were already heading back toward the brick school building, having finished the two-mile run in far less than the fifty minutes we had for gym. My two best friends were waiting for me by the chain-link fence, and probably had been for at least fifteen minutes.
“No, you didn’t.”
I stared at him in horror.
“What?”
“You didn’t. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not! I ran all eight!”
“Get out of my sight.”
Hot tears ran down my flushed face as I hurried to catch my friends. He didn’t believe me! It had been the hardest thing I’d ever done . . . and he didn’t believe me. I knew it was because I was fat. He knew I hated gym class and, more so, that I hated running. And fat girls can’t run two miles. Everyone knew that.
After school, I walked into the house and threw my backpack on the floor. The kitchen smelled deliciously like cornbread. I folded back the towel and cut a four-inch square right out of the middle of the dish of golden goodness. Still warm. I smeared it with honey and butter.
My mouth was full when my dad walked in.
“Have you been running laps around the house?”
I nodded, feeling incredibly stupid. Fat girls can’t run.
“Maybe try running on the road for a while. You’re wearing a path in the grass.” He started laughing.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be running around the house anymore.”
What was the point, anyway? I had run daily for a month, training in secret. Today was supposed to be the day I proved my potential athleticism. Or at least that I could do the bare minimum required to pass gym class. And it hadn’t mattered at all. Fat girls can’t run. Even when they did, no one believed them.
MICHIGAN / FEBRUARY 1993
“Yesterday’s participation was terrible!” Our sixth-grade gym teacher paced back and forth in front of us. I looked over at my friend and she shrugged.
“I’m embarrassed by you. All of you. I don’t know what to do to get you to take exercise seriously.”
I lost track of his tirade as I marveled at the ridiculousness of his tiedyed, zebra-striped balloon pants. He looked like one of the pro wrestlers my dad mocked on TV. How does he not know how idiotic he looks?
“So today we’re going to write. Yes, write. All athletes need to be able to spell out their goals.” He passed out sheets of paper and pencils.
I squirmed around, uncomfortable in my sweatpants. Just sitting still I was hot. My mom had bought them for me after I came home crying because I couldn’t handle being teased about my unshaven legs when I wore shorts to gym class. Why on earth did he have us get dressed for exercise if he was only going to have us write something? I took