Alley lets me use her shelter and it is paisley and very tall and has a FLOOR. My shelter has no floor, and therefor each night I obsessively worry about mice and how to keep them out. Without the mouse loop playing in my brain, I sleep like the dead.

At first I wake up at six, but then I decide not to. I pull my beanie down over my eyes and sleep until 8:00 AM instead. Usually I’ve been hiking for 1-2 hours by 8:00AM and when I do decide to wake up for real, I feel fucking incredible.

Slowly, I get out of my tent. Bogwitch and Meredith and Alley join me, and slowly, we eat breakfast. We drink coffee. We debate between staying here, at Whatum Lake, or going down to Lost Lake where it’s ten degrees warmer. Alley brought floaties and so we decide to go where it’s warm enough to float. We make avocado toast for me and the rest eat sausage and eggs cooked over open flame in a cast iron skillet. There is no rush to anything, we have plenty of time. I listen more than I talk, a new thing I’m trying out. Bogwitch was thinking they’d go but instead, they decide to stay. I feel happy.

At Lost Lake, I bob in the water, not too far from the shore. Denver and Denver’s chihuahua Rodney show up and I bury my face in soft dog fur, sniff tiny frito feet. We all eat chips and drink wine in the warm sun.

We talk about who in the group could be catagorized as baby and who could be catagorized as Daddy. Everyone is Daddy except me, it turns out– including Rodney the dog. Pisces is always baby though, there’s no shame in that. I don’t make the rules, I just show up to play the game.

The day grows long and I grow sunburned only on the tops of my feet and the crease where my bathing suit meets my belly button. We go back to our campsite and make veggie burgers and meat burgers over the fire and I make mine a double patty with chips between each layer of pea protein patty and bun. I am still hungry when I’m done, but I’m hungry so often now that it feels more annoying than satisfying to eat at all.

We build a fire and my exhaustion is thick, I have trouble keeping my head up. I excuse myself and crawl into my quilt listening to the group talk about starting a massage train. Fleetwood Mac softly plays on the Bluetooth speaker, and they start playing Never Have I Ever. Alley says “Never have I ever shit in the woods” and I drift off, wondering if I could count the amount of times I did exactly that, even if I tried.

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook land.

I don’t sleep well. I crave an actual bed so much on trail, but the city is loud and it’s hard to sleep. I pack my car, I make the bed. This home base in Portland has been a place I return to a lot in the past few months. My old roommates and friends have been evicted, they’re out on the fifteenth. I’m probably never going to stay in this house again.

Today I get a ride to the trail in my own car from Vanessa who lives in New York, who I never get to see. We hike together for a few miles and then she has to turn around to make a lunch date and I am hit with a loneliness so profound I could cry. I don’t want my time with my friend to end, and I don’t want to stop hiking and turn back with her either. It’s confusing being a person sometimes. 

I hike the infamous climb out of the Columbia Gorge and I am certainly not fast, but I am steady. I start at 712 feet elevation, and climb up to 4,110. I stop to eat a muffin. I stop to drink some water. I feel every feeling ever, in rapid succession. Carrot is on the Olympic peninsula. I am hiking Oregon. My stomach is spasming, sending wave after wave of nausea. I miss her so much. I know time apart does us good. I wonder if I’m fucking up, I haven’t really cultivated a trail family and beyond Bogwitch, I don’t feel connected to anyone. It’s fine not to connect but is it fine to feel so alone? I think maybe I don’t want to hike Oregon after all. I don’t know what I’d do instead. 

The climb ends and I fly. I figure if I want to make it to camp, the camp where a small group of friends has promised to meet me, I’m going to have to hike hard. It’s five PM. I have six miles to go. I decide I’ll try to get there by seven. 

It rains and mists, but it’s low key enough to ignore. I walk through the Eagle Creek burn and there are scads of wildflower and fern amongst the charred husks. 

A mile away from camp, I see Alley in the distance. Alley offers me a beer and my stomach clenches. I decline and we walk the last little bit chatting about feelings and evictions and tacos and camp. Meredith and Bogwitch are waiting. We’re going to grill corn over open flame. 

I’m so happy I could cry.  

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook land.

Dear readers,

It is on these days that my tendonitis returns, but now in a different spot on the same foot. I am on a stretch of trail that I hiked last year, and I have diarrhea every day. I get off trail at Panther Creek and go to Portland for a few days to regroup. Carrot goes to Alaska for her own adventure. I am going to continue on in Oregon, at least I think so? Bogwitch shall cronch forth with me, but TBQH Bogwitch is FAST and I’m not sure I can keep up. I have a lot of methods of KT taping under my belt for the tendonitis. I’m gonna give the diarrhea one more day before I worry about it too much. I’m packing my boxes for Oregon. I am a swirl of very small injury and emotion. The blog will pick up at the Washington/Oregon border!

I mention all of this to say: some thru hikers have a lot of *~feelings~* when people skip miles. I truly don’t give a shit either way, but I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that I skipped about 35 miles into Cascade Locks because my body and mind felt just a little shitty, I missed the comforts of one of my homes, I’d hiked this stretch before, and I have a lot of logistical concerns to take care of from my last minute decision to hike Oregon. I’m sure you understand!

And really, thank you so much for reading. It honestly means a lot.

Muffy

I post on Instagram to find a ride back to the PCT. Tempest messages me, says she has the day free, that she’d love to help a hiker out. She reads my blog and loves Carrot’s book. She can leave at 1. I’m so fucking lucky.

I errand on overdrive. I go to brunch, I eat a breakfast sandwich and a small vegan quiche and take two blackberry handpies to go. I go to REI, I go to Walgreens. I charge my electronics, willing them to charge faster, knowing they generally need overnight. I refill my food bag with things I actually like. I shove everything deep down into my bag. I’m ready by 1:50, Tempest is patient. Like I said, I’m lucky.

Our drive is so nice. I’m shy and stranger weary but Tempest is great. She has a nice dog and brings snacks and is smart and fun. The two hour drive flies, and then there we are, at a big nice campsite in the gloaming, surrounded in a ring of trees and a cute and moderate amount of mosquitos, nothing that stresses me because I compare it to what I have seen before, which was a mosquito mafia here to fuck my ass UP.

Portland was nice but I’m happy to be on trail, could kiss the ground under my feet. Over and over again I’ve said I’m not committed to hiking the whole trail, and still that’s very true. I can’t imagine not being home come September, but I also can’t imagine not being right here, right now.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.

I toss and turn all night, finally acquiescing and watching Netflix on my phone until 2AM. I am watching Tales of the City, and I didn’t realize how hungry I was for queer representation until I saw people like people I know were on TV, all shiny and beautiful and queer and trans. I am so grateful for this sort of thing but also I’m still so tired. I’d rather be asleep than watching queer dramas unfold, and that’s really saying a lot.

I fall asleep at two AM, under the starlit glow of Mt. Adams. At 5AM I wake up, 100%. I blearily rub my eyes and prepare a double Via, knowing I can’t caffeine away a three hour night of sleep but also not having any other options.

I want to reach the shuttle into Trout Lake at 11. I am 14.5 miles away from town, I am hiking by six AM. I have five miles to go 14.5 miles and so I do. I know my body can do this. Even with my 25 mile day yesterday, even with 3 hours of sleep. I go through undulating forest, and thick mist turns to rain. It is a light rain, I’m going into town today, I don’t even care. I just go.

I text with Monica. I get it in my head that I can go to Portland and I can’t stop thinking about it. I can see my friends. I can lift my bad mood. I can eat a lot of vegan food.

I get to the trailhead to reach the shuttle just before 11, but it turns out the shuttle is at 11:30. I hitch into town instead, bust into the Trout Lake General Store blurry eyed and asking for a shower. I get four dollars of quarters and take the most transcendent 10 minute shower of my life. I scratch away the dirt on my legs, my arms, my face. I’m reborn when I’m done, meander back to the store a totally different person.

I get a huckleberry smoothie and an iced coffee. I eat fries, I eat a salad. I get my box and give away almost everything in it. I packed myself the same food for the entirety of Washington. This is my last box and I hate it all.

Monica shows up with Chipotle for me and it’s packed so heavy with food, I could scream with delight. I eat every bite, and Monica and I talk about firing our respective therapists in the last few months. I fired mine because she said it was a problem to identify as a survivor, when I could be identifying as a thriver. Why can’t I be both?!

We eat ice cream, bringing our friend Tik Tok along. Tik tok might join me for some of Oregon, and I am getting excited thinking about what Oregon will be like. I’ve hiked Washington, but never seen the PCT in Oregon. I hear it’s rolling hills, the least elevation gain and loss on the whole trail, is a lot of nice forest that’s beautiful (though compared to Washington maybe a little boring.) I see my friends Becky and Brenna and they are incredibly high and make a lot of astute observations about, like, life, mannnn. They’re blasted out of their gourds and full of truths that hit the target like arrows out of their mouths.

I go to bed so fucking grateful for my friends, and really full of beans and ice cream. I also go to bed longing to hike. I wish I could conflate Portland and the PCT, have every nice luxury right at the base of the mountain.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.

I have PMS, which gives me a special combo of lonely when I’m by myself and irritated at the smallest perceived slight in a crowd. I decide maybe I’ll hike somewhere close to 25 miles today, not to try to shake it, exactly. Just to try to at least get somewhere with my bad mood.

Today, Carrot wants to do her own thing. She has PMS too, probably her own unique combo of irritations and emotions. We know from experience that when we spend every waking second with one another, we end up fighting. We know space will do us good. It’s still hard though, just deciding we’ll walk separate for some time. We do it anyway, because it is the right thing to do.

The terrain is merciful and my body feels good. I listen to a podcast about multi level marketing companies, how much of a scam they are, and how much they fuck people over. While I do think MLMs take advantage of folks, I also see so many parallels with starting my own non MLM business. Capitalism is such a fucking sham, no matter how you slice it! I broke the part of myself that was a workaholic by driving myself into the ground and I feel a little judgmental of my past self. Why did I spend so much money that I didn’t have trying to make a business? Why did I think that working so much would make me more valuable?

I eat bars as I walk through the forest, I eat potato chips for lunch. Tomorrow we’re getting to town. I have enough food, but as usual my last day of eating is going to be strange. Dried chickpeas. Candied ginger. Peanut butter cups. That’s kind of it. Oh well I think, remembering how I ate all of my favorite stuff first, just like I always do. Guess that’s how it goes.

I am roasted by the sun, a crispy tator tot flying down the trail. I do hike 25 ish miles, a little more actually. But at the end of the day I still feel lonely, useless, restless, sad. Sometimes you really can’t outhike your heart. That’s just how it is.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land

I wake up groggy. I sip my coffee silently, I eat my breakfast noodles silently. We discuss summiting Old Snowy, try to decide if it’s worth it to take the steep alternate. We’re not sure now, so agree to decide when we get there. There’s positives and negatives to both options.

I have the best pooping spot I’ve had on trail so far I think, it’s private and sandy, easy to dig a cat hole in. I can tell the day is going to be hot because at seven AM, I am warm. I want to motivate to walk as far as I can before it’s actually hot.

First, there is sun dappled forest. It’s gentle climb on gentle tread and I feel happy there in the shade of pine trees. With time, the climb goes rocky and exposed, and then it goes steep. There’s beautiful fresh snow melt water everywhere, and I greedily drink as I go to try to regulate my temperature and even out my breath as I ascend. I lose morale, I go really slow. Bogwitch and Carrot are far ahead and I try to be gentle with myself. It’s hot, exposed and steep. It’s ok if it’s hard.

At the junction for the alternate, Carrot says she surveyed at least five shell shocked north bounders who described the snow fields past the knife’s edge as dangerous ice, a single misstep offering the potential to really injure a hiker. Old snowy may be steep, but is snow free. We decide to climb.

Bogwitch and Carrot get ahead, and I climb slowly, put on a podcast and try to pretend I’m not suffering as much as I am. At the top there is the option to go up to the eroded summit, but there’s also the option to go back down to the PCT without climbing further. Carrot and Bogwitch are headed toward the summit. They left me a note and when I get to it, they are just ahead. Carrot said that they were going to the top, I could come if I wanted and suddenly I feel very very alone. It’s okay with me if I need to go slow, but I hate feeling like I’m chasing people who don’t want to wait for me. I feel abandoned and salty, the most petulant child version of myself. I follow them toward the summit for a little while, and when they say they’re coming back down, I turn on my heels and descend before I even make it to the top. I’m telling myself that my pace is a drag on everyone else. I’m telling myself my friends don’t care if I’m around.

Bogwitch and Carrot stop for lunch at the junction and I am too upset to join. I hike down the hill, leaving the alternate and rejoining the traditional PCT. I am so mad at myself today, so frustrated that I’m not as fast as the people around me.

Carrot finds me and we talk. I tell her my feelings and she hears me out, we hug in a moss patch next to a stream. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t enjoy Goat Rocks as much as I wanted to. Some say this is their favorite stretch of the whole PCT, and here I am sulking. I guess our brains don’t always do what we want them to, though. (Do they ever do what we want them to?!) What can you do?

Eventually, the terrain chills. There are still some exposed patches but there is also shady forest, incredible wild flowers and Mt. Adams in the distance. I go back to my podcast and try to pick up the pace – we have seven more miles and now that it’s cooling off, I’m getting a second wind.

Four miles later, I run into Carrot going Northbound and am momentarily confused. She says she’s looking for a campsite, Bogwitch’s foot hurts, we should probably camp early. Not a single one of us is bummed. It’s been so hot, we’re all exhausted. We find a nice flat alcove in the forest, cram all three of us into one little site. We eat as much as we can, again I get to finish Carrot’s dinner, and at last- we sleep.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.

I am anxious to leave town. I wake up at 5:30, then 6, then 7 and still no one else is awake. I decide to get coffee.

At the coffee shop I stare out the window. I feel like I’ve been laying in bed for days and I am bored of myself. I am irritable today, tired of town and resting and spending money. It is very stressful to hike with limited finances, but it is a stress I chose. I try not to beat myself up.

Back at the Inn, I shower. I try to rinse my bad attitude away, use my little bottle of Doctor Bronner’s and shave my legs. At least I’m not hungry anymore? After two and a half days of eating as much as I possibly can and moving very little, I no longer feel ravenous and feral. I grab onto that positive thought and cling to it like a raft boat.

After the shower, I am cleansed. Bogwitch and Carrot are awake, eating and scrolling and packing up their bags. We finish our morning chores and find a hitch within ten minutes, a nice lady who says their family moved to Packwood because there aren’t any cops. She’s a baker and is making rice crispy treats en masse for a high school kid’s cross country running camp. She says they eat so many it borders on disgusting, but she looks really proud when she says it.

White pass is a frenzy of resupply unboxing, fries, and other hikers. On trail, it’s easy to feel like their aren’t many others out here, but at the white pass Chevron Station, the truth comes out. There are a LOT of us, and we’re all here, marveling at the food we’ve sent ourselves and the discarded food we rescue from the hiker box.

Finally, we hike. It’s noon already, usually a recipe for a hard hiking day for me, but I’m so happy to be back on trail that I feel gloriously lighthearted. The terrain is gentle sun dappled forest, then a gorgeous exposed ridge with golden sun but hardly any heat. We go up six miles, we go down six miles. I feel happy and chatty and above all my muscles feel FULL of glycogen. God bless carbs! and bless the vegan and gluten free burgers and pizza available at white pass. I honestly believe having a giant influx of calories over my rest days is saving my ass right now and I am grateful, grateful, grateful.

My tendon doesn’t hurt at all. Carrot is too full to finish her dinner and I get to eat the cast offs, which pleases me greatly.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.