Start: 1451.5
Stop: 1447.1
Today’s miles: technically 9.9, but ZERO
Total PCT miles: 70.4
My watch started vibrating at 4:30am, and I woke up to wind whipping through my tent and howling like coyotes. It was cold, and dark..Except the moon was still out and there was a glow from the snow surrounding me. It really messes with your head that something that can be so dangerous and utterly petrifying can also be so beautiful.
I took my synthroid and decided to wait until the sky was a little more bright before getting up. At 5:15, I snagged my food and made breakfast, while turning on my cellphone for the first time since the evening before. When it came alive, I still had 100% battery, and my battery pack still had the hopeful 1 charge left. I didn’t immediately have service. I popped up and walked around my little snow free haven until all my notifications started digging. I already had palpitations.
I don’t know what I thought I’d find on that Facebook post, maybe nothing at all or a few “good lucks” but I was immediately overwhelmed. There were over 12 comments, at length.. and those were just the ones that would load. While I was skimming through, I was watching my charge drop, I was already at 98%. Shit. The long comments I just screen shot and went on to the next. When I thought I had pictures of them all, I quickly turned my airplane mode back on. Then went to read them from my pictures.
I saw one with a phone number in it, from a man named Mark, telling me I was supported and that if I needed him to, he’d come get me. He also said to message him on my garmin if I lost service and to keep him updated on my choice, so they’d know I was safe. One of the other men, Jay, said that there was a large group of hikers maybe a day behind me, and they should be catching up to me today, if I could be patient and wait for them, I could proceed with new friends instead of alone.
There were others, offering support, and love, and many saying there’s no shame in turning around and going back the way I came, if it meant my safety and my life, (I just don’t know that they realized I was petrified to go back, too.) I started to cry a little, reading these.
Then, one of the guys that went through about 10 days before me responded a very long message. He gave advice. Said everything I needed to know about getting over the section I was so concerned about. Then he said, “assess your situation. Food? Do you have enough? Stamina? Do you have any injuries keeping you from hiking normal?” And then he said, “no shame in backtracking, pushing forward will be a risk if you don’t have the power to keep your phone and map going.”
I took a deep breath, packed everything, got my microspikes on, loaded my pack on my back, and started walking to the snow. I looked up at the vertical climb I hadn’t touched yet, pulled my phone out, 96% battery, and turned around and starting climbing up the tree branches and limbs sticking out of the snow that I had scrambled down yesterday. I hadn’t fully decided until that moment which way I really thought I should go, but I knew I couldn’t sit still, and watching my battery disappear before my eyes meant I needed to get a move on. Now.
Using my GPS on the FarOut app, I decided to attempt to go back the road, the one I got most of the way on and backtracked to the trail yesterday. At least today, that crazy bluff would be a climb to from this side, and I already knew I could at least survive everything on the other side.. I just had to get there. I got off track at least 5-6 times just in this small section. I got so excited to see footprints ahead that I rushed to get to them, only to realize they were bearprints, and they were fresh, AND they were headed perfectly on route with the road. Crap.
I detoured purposefully to the trees opposite of those tracks. When I was up on the next bluff, the opposite side of the same one I’m pretty sure I called Andrea from yesterday during my meltdown, I tried for service. I actually had 3 bars! Heck yeah! I texted Mark, from that post. I told him I was backtracking to that road junction and planning to take the forest service roads down to highway 89. I let him know, too, that my phone for some reason wasn’t loading the whole road, I guess since it wasn’t Trail, and asked if he could help me confirm the exact road I needed to make sure I was on.
He immediately responded! He was going to get maps out and make sure I took the right road (these are all currently dirt roads covered in snow), and he comforted me by saying many other hikers have bailed from where I am, so he knew that the service roads would safely get me to 89, and that he’d go sweep up and down 89 until he found me. My god, what an Angel on earth! I thanked him and said I’d message him from my garmin once I got to the junction, I was a mile away still. He agreed and said he’d update me on the maps then too, and update my post on FB of my decision, so people wouldn’t be worried.
Off I went. I was still scared. Still a bit shaky, but eventually found my own footprints from yesterday when I turned around! I knew I was going to be ok, as long as I kept taking good safe steps. I kid you not, after 2 and a half days of seeing no other living being besides a few birds and a deer, I had a hiker coming my way. Cowbell! He camped one night with Andrea and I! He didn’t even have on microspikes! Wow!
We chatted a minute, he said more hikers were coming, and while the terrain sucked, he found it less stressful than the sierras. Humph. Part of me immediately thought, dammit, I should have just waited. I told him I was bailing and he didn’t outwardly judge me like I was judging myself. Oh well, I damn sure wasn’t turning around now when I was less than half a mile from the road and only had an estimated 5 miles down to get to the highway. My poor nervous system was already on the fritz.
We carried on our separate ways, and less than 10 minutes later, a man came up behind me! He’s a Danish man hiking a section, and today is his day 3! He crossed over grizzly peak and said he camped on the other side of that peak from me! Literally “less than a kilometer at most, but I slept on snow, I liked your dry spot when I passed it this morning.” SERIOUSLY!?
He did say it was treacherous and he was glad that part was over, but was also cheerful and appeared completely unafraid. We hiked together a bit, ran into a friend of cowbell’s, who also hated the road but agreed the trail was way worse. I had to keep reminding myself that just because we all ran into each other at 10 in the morning, does not mean I would have definitely seen them and would have been able to cross with them. What if they somehow found a safer, lower elevation route from where I found myself stuck yesterday? Hindsight, sure, but I wouldn’t have been able to guarantee I’d have found them.
When I got to the crossing, I messaged Mark and started my watch tracking so I could guesstimate better on how close I was getting to the highway. Poptart, who I hiked a lot of the AT with, did the PCT last year and just so happened to leave a very detailed comment explaining the roads to get down for the HWY, so even if Mark hadn’t come through and confirmed with me, Poptart’s comment would have gotten me on the correct path. Funny how things like that work out!
The first 2 miles were snow covered, but every half mile or so it became less drifty and more “road like.” Once I hit that stretch of road without snow, or at least, not completely blanketed in snow, I physically felt the relief wash over my entire body. I knew I was safe, I was out of what I felt was immediate life threatening danger, even if saying that now feels a bit dramatic.. I was truly fearful of dying up there.
Not 5-10 minutes after my flood of relief, the aches and pains started to appear. My right ankle throbbed to the point I was walking funny on my right foot. My arms ached from hauling this body and pack around up and down, lifting myself in a panic out of tree wells and through downed trees and whatnot. The scrapes on my legs stung, and then I noticed many were actively bleeding-not like to death, by any means.. but tiny trickles dripping down in multiple spots. Hmmm. I guess all that Adrenaline does make every ache and unnecessary to survival pain pipe down.
I messaged Mark when I heard cars, and then the road had a bit of an incline (it was an actual hard packed dirt road by now). I limp and huff up the little hill only to see a silver sliver up ahead: THE HIGHWAY! Cars were flying by on the 2 lane PAVED road! I made it! When I got to the intersection, I dropped everything and sat down. I was in the process of pulling off my socks and shoes when Mark pulled up. Man, I was so happy to see this stranger. Someone I was seeing for the first time but who had the ability to make me feel so safe and cared for-via text no less! I definitely fought back tears.
He offered me a Gatorade and he started driving me to Dunsmuir, California. My new pack was waiting for me at a motel there. On the ride, he was telling me about how my post touched him because it was so honest and vulnerable, that he and the other trail angels were up worried about me, and trying many different avenues to get information to me. They reached out to other hikers they knew were nearby, to see if they could get to me, so I wouldn’t be alone. He said he was so relieved when I said I was bailing and coming out-because he personally had picked up almost 10 hikers that bailed, too, and knew hikers that made it acros, all of which said they should have turned around before finding themselves face to face with that mess.
He dropped me off at my motel, with promises to keep in touch. Mom had already called the motel and got me a reservation for tonight, since I wasn’t planning on making it here for another 2 days, minimum. (Thanks, mom, I love you!). They let me check in immediately. I showered using their soaps and winced the whole time. Everything stung or hurt, and even after washing for a solid 20 minutes, I still felt dirty, but was too exhausted to continue standing there.
I put on my rain gear and gave the motel attendant the rest of my clothes for them to wash for me. It was $10 cash, and as long as I didn’t have to go anywhere to do it, I didn’t care. I sat outside on the patio chairs, knowing if I went inside I’d collapse. I checked that FB post and responded to the people kind enough to leave comments there. Many were “please let us know when you’re safe,” and “knowing when to bail is an act of valor!” And Mark’s update that I was backtracking and safe, and that he was in contact with me. This whole community coming together for me just blows my mind. Even now I’m tearing up over it. How willing these strangers were to drop everything to make sure I got out of a sticky situation safely just really makes me grateful.
One hiker who did successfully make it through wrote, “I can come to you and we can hike out together, just let me know soon.” I wish I had seen that, because then I realized before she hiked on, she was sitting there waiting to see if she needed to come back to help me.. over something many keep calling dangerous and unsafe. We’ve been in contact today, too.. as we both don’t know where to go from here and maybe will hike together.. but I’m too damn worn out and overwhelmed to even pretend I could make a game plan today.
My current game plan: order pizza to be delivered. Get my clean clothes back. Eat. Pass out. I’ve talked to mom, I’ve bought an overpriced drink from the motel lobby, and that’s all I have in me to do today. C’mon pizza!
