At 4:30 AM it starts to rain. The sky was perfectly clear and sunny all day, but no matter, now the rain falls. Carrot gently shakes me awake and we put our packs in garbage bags, make sure nothing touches the edges of the shelter, inviting water in. I am annoyed, and then I am back to sleep.

We wake at 6:30, pretty late for us. We go through the morning motions and I learn that Carrot hasn’t slept well, for the third night in a row. She has a good attitude about her insomnia, though. “I’ll sleep tonight” she says. She said the same thing last night, too.

First thing, we climb. We climb for many miles and gain a few thousand feet and it is gentle, all things considered. I listen to a book about teenagers in New York in 1993, and I like it. In one of the chapters, the main character takes ecstasy and I wonder if I should take ecstasy too, sometime. You know, just for fun.

At lunch, we set up the shelter. It’s damp and soggy, needs a good dry out, and beyond that— the bugs are brave and carnivorous, definitely 100% here to suck our blood. In the shelter we take off our shirts and look at our food. Neither of us has enough, but we can ration well enough through tomorrow when we get to town. I eat dried chickpeas in ramen, spooning noodles into my mouth while I lay down. I play with Carrot’s baby duck colored hair, trying to pull the dead bugs out of her part. We are both absolutely covered in mosquito carcass. Parts of hair, folds of skin, in between our cracks: bugs, bugs, bugs.

After lunch, a sweet descent. We walk a pine needle covered forest path and we talk about things we have done before and things we hope to do in the future. We talk about trails, the ins and outs of this and that. Carrot has a beautiful brain and I like that she lets me into it.

We do a lot of remembering of when I hiked this section last year. In this exact section I got lost (on the PCT!!!! It honestly takes talent to get lost on the PCT.) my mistake forced me to hike an accidental 24 mile day, something I was absolutely NOT ready for. I burned a hole in my sleeping bag. My knees hurt so bad I hiked mostly 1 mile per hour, crying. And look at me now! I’m kinda damp and I roll my ankle a lot, but mostly I am fine.

We wanted to go 20.8 miles today, but we’re both starting to fade. We toy with the idea of going 18 or 19 instead and as soon as the plan crosses our minds, we’re in it. Our descent unceremoniously ends and we climb up 700 feet, switchback after switchback pulling us up and up and up. We’re zombies, suddenly exhausted with a mile left to climb. There are blow downs to crawl under and there is drizzle. I turn my brain off and just try to go, and eventually— somehow— we make it.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Puget Sound Salishand Columbia-Wenatchi land.

Coffee, oatmeal, deflate neoair, tape ankle, brush teeth, take the down shelter, stuff stuff in sacks, pack everything into packs. Put packs on, pull the straps tight, go. Every morning is almost exactly the same.

Last night if didn’t rain, and today, I don’t think it will either. The sky is thick with mist, but i have faith— it will clear.

I worry about my ankle. It’s sore and large, looks like it maybe has an extra ball floating around in there. Did I grow a new bone? From twisting and turning and prodding?

We climb and we descend, we climb and we descend. At lunch, the bugs are a thick cloud, flying as hard and fast as they can at our mouths, our noses, our eyes. They crave all of our exposed wet spots and it is truly disgusting how few fucks they give. The bugs are both primal and carnal, our orifices are their singular points of focus.

At lunch, we set up the shelter to avoid them. The shelter is a green house and we take off our shirts in the balmy warm. I eat vegan cheez-it’s and we talk about our past relationships and our gender presentations. Do straight people on trail talk about this stuff? Probably relationships yes, gender expressions no. I am so grateful to be queer. We talk about all the most interesting stuff.

After lunch I hike our 9 mile descent with laser like Beyoncé focus. It’s my turn to carry the shelter, it is my goal to get to camp before Carrot and have it ready to dive in before the mosquitos are too thick. I have shooting calf pain, a new curiosity of the body. I have not quite enough food for this section. But the sun is out and soon the shelter is set up and we’re eating dinner in the gloaming. There have been hardly any days without rain in the past three weeks and I don’t care WHAT is going on, nothing can steal this thunder.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Puget Sound Salishand Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I wake up and I am wet, but also warm. I eat two bars and some chips for breakfast, two other hikers wander by and give me fuel and so my coffee is piping hot. I’m almost to town, if I hustle I can be there by noon. I am 10000% over being isolated and soaked in the woods, and I’m going to make it happen.

My pack feels like it weighs twice as much on account of its complete saturation. I am stressed by my wet quilt, my wet electronics bag, my wet steripen. I tell myself Skykomish awaits, that I’ll shower and eat and dry out there. The state of my stuff doesn’t matter so much now, I just have to go.

And so I do. I race to Carrot and food and a clean, dry bed. I find her in front of our motel room, smiling in a soft shirt covered in ferns and with hair bleached like the sun. She brought me Indian food in shelf stable pouches, kombucha, baked tofu, iced coffee and salad greens. She carried two huge heavy grocery bags on two busses, complained not even once. She kisses me outside the restaurant, in the hiker lounge at our motel, in the train museum, at the deli, at the post office where I send my microspikes home, in our bed. We touch one another very softly all over and then we take a zero. Bogwitch joins us again, full of their own stories of struggle and rain in the mountains and I am full and dry and content.

Tomorrow, we hike.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Puget Sound Salish and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I am motivated today. In Guthook it says there is reception on a particular climb, one that I can get to right after an initial descent. I missed the rain last night, my shoes are dry. It is not very cold. Today I want to go 20.4 miles.

I heat water for breakfast and coffee and just before it boils, I run out of fuel. In Stehekin they only had the small containers, I doubted it would last the entirety of this section, and it turns out it didn’t. Well.

It’s okay though. My coffee is hot, I think I have enough food for this section even if I don’t cook, this will be a Fun! New! Adventure! in figuring it out as I go.

I pack up quick and as soon as I take my first step it starts to sprinkle. I feel confident that the rain will stop, so I put on Beyoncé, go as fast as I can, and ignore it. I’m going to RECEPTION! To book a room for a zero, to call Carrot, to waste valuable hiking time on my phone.

Except I can’t. One thing about southbounding is that some of the notes in Guthook are in reverse. When a hiker writes “Good Verizon reception at the top of this climb!” What they actually mean in sobo translation is that the reception can be found at the top of the descent. But I didn’t look there. In fact, I went so fast down the descent that it didn’t even cross my mind. I’d had such high hopes, too. Damnit.

It’s 9AM and I am seven miles in. The thought of connection motivated me, I have been very alone since Bogwitch left and now I don’t know what to do with myself. I hike dragging my poles behind me, finish my first climb of the day like Charlie Brown. I really was hoping to talk to….someone.

I plan to dry my shelter out at lunch, and I plan to take lunch at the bottom of my next descent. It’s warmer down there at 3000 feet than it is up here at 5000, and while I do feel confident that the sun is starting to break through, I’m never sure how long it will stay.

The further down I go, the thicker the mosquito cloud becomes. I am running past them, eager to get to the tent site where I’m set on drying my things, but when I arrive there’s just throngs of bugs, swarming me all over. I set my shelter up, and hide inside while it dries out. I note that it has rained almost every single day of this section, which has made it exponentially more difficult. I don’t understand how northbounders do Washington in September. When would one dry out their things? How would they avoid hypothermia?!

I eat quick because the bugs are small and sneaky and are getting in my shelter despite the bug netting. I start my third climb of the day and I listen to podcasts, one of which is Strange Magic. In this particular episode the host says “Magic loves a void” and I think that’s true. My whole life has been a void this year and I’m pretty sure magic is happening? Who knows.

In the last five miles of my day, the air grows thick and wooly and it starts to mist. I am headed toward the outlet of Lake Janus, the 20.4 mile mark from where I woke up and I am determined. I think I can make it!

Mist turns to hard rain and I am dripping water from the sleeves of my raincoat, the brim of my hat. My hands are too wet to operate my phone and so instead of obsessively checking my progress, I just go. I’ll get there when I get there.

The trail is thick mud and I slip and slide on down, almost falling and catching myself again and again and again. When I reach the campsite at Lake Janus there is a stumbling drunk guy smack in the middle and it is a soaked bog. The bugs are thick and they go for my eyes, my nose, my mouth.

I hike on. Down the way I find a site that’s not much better but does lack a drunk guy. Once I get my shelter up, I feel confused on the order to do things. The tent is soaked. The ground is soaked. I am soaked.

Slowly, I go one step at a time. I strip off all of my clothes and try to dry off with the bandana I typically use to blow my nose. I lay trash bags underneath me and I wipe those down too. I blow up my neoair. I put on more dry clothing. I get in my sleeping bag. I eat three bars for dinner on account of the lack of fuel.The rain comes down in torrents and I worry. What if my site becomes more of a puddle than it already is? I feel like I am on the titanic, watching the water rise.

Drops fall hard on the outside of my tent and they blast drops of condensation down on my face from the inside. Last night I wrapped all of my food in my trash bags, the ones I’m using as a floor, as extra mouse protection, which tonight I cannot do. I worry about getting so wet I won’t be able to recover. I worry about mice. I wonder if I should hike the last 9.6 miles into town right now, but then what? That means maybe 4-5 more hours of hiking in the rain. Skykomish is a 14 mile hitch. I’ll be drenched. No one will be driving. I stay where I am, in the puddle. Is this the magic I was after?

I know, when I wake up, everything will be so wet I won’t be able to believe it. I know my first few miles will be freezing and hellish. I also know that tomorrow, I’ll shower. I’ll wash all of my clothes, which inexplicably all smell like urine. I’ll see Carrot, who will join me hiking for the rest of Washington. I’ll stop using this stupid shelter without a floor, won’t need trash bags for under my neoair or to worry so hard about mice or be so lonely.

Tomorrow is close.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I’ve slept in my leggings, my bra, my short sleeved shirt, my long sleeved shirt, my puffy, my raincoat (it dried), my warm hat, both my hoods up, my gloves and two pairs of socks. I wake up bubbly and warm, like I am the filling of a pie. Inexplicably, I am very happy.

Let me tell you about the people in my bubble. I wouldn’t call them a trail family exactly, we’re not quite that, but we are definitely together.

There’s Dave, a middle aged guy whomst always lets everyone go ahead of him on the climbs and who talks a lot about his kids. He is from Vancouver, Washington and really, really nice. I like Dave because he is not my dad, but a dad nonetheless and he seems to be doing a pretty good job at that. Who has a dad?! Almost no one I know.

There’s three kids, boys, age 22. They’re from the Midwest and they LOVE weed, like really love it, maybe more than I can ever hope to love anything. One of the three decided to hop on the trip last minute and for some reason doesn’t have the Guthook app at all, is just wandering the trail hoping for the best. The other two hike significantly faster than this one kid and occasionally he will stop and ask me where we are or how far we’ve gone. I worry near constantly about this kid but I’m not his mommy and he isn’t really asking me to be. I try to let it go.

Oceana is one of the few women of color I’ve seen on the PCT at all. She is a quick hiker, sometimes tries to get me to go as far or as fast as her, but I physically cannot. She flies past me on the hills and says things like “just gotta power up this bad boy as fast as I can!!!’” (it turns out as fast as I can power up a mountain is actually extremely slow.)

Lastly, there’s Naomi and Hannah. Naomi and Hannah share a tent, though I do not think they’re gay. They’re 18 and SO pumped, SO alive, SO happy to be on the PCT. When conditions are miserable N & H are just happy to be out here. They’re vegan and one of them stick and poked the woman symbol on her index finger. They’re south bounding because they needed to graduate high school before they started, thus making a North bound trip impossible with the weather window.

I love them.

Today all of us wake up wet and set out separately. I am the first to go and I moisten myself entirely on reaching ferns that cascade water into my socks, my shorts, my pack, my hat. I go on like this for 7 miles, watching the sky.

Sun sun sun sun sun sun I whisper to myself. My shit needs to dry out and to do that I need the sun.

The sun comes. Oceana and I whoop wildly at the sight of the sun and we yardsale our things and gently squeeze them in ecstasy as they dry. Is there anything so nice dry sun warmed things? I challenge you to give me an example.

Once my things are dry I slog my way through a giant climb. I keep telling myself that the first two days of this section are the hardest, but the truth is, the whole thing is bananas and requires mental fortitude. I climb while listening to a murder mysery. I climb while eating a dust that was once a vegan gluten free nutrigrain bar. I climb despite the fact that I don’t fucking feel like climbing.

Sometimes, snow covers the trail and I lose it momentarily. Sometimes, there are blow downs to crawl under or over. Sometimes it’s just loamy forest trail, the kind that feels extremely pleasant under your feet.

I am in good spirits but I am tired. I’d planned to go 21 miles again today, but I see there is a single tent site at mile 17. I decide I will leave it up to the fates. If the one site is open, I’ll camp. If it’s not, I’ll forge on.

By the time I arrive to the one site, it is six PM and it is not open. I shrug a little, neither happy nor sad and I move forward. Sun dappled forest envelops me, with its wet and wiley ways and by 7:30 I am exhausted, eating beans happily, cozy in my tent.

Today was a good day.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I wake up to socked in moist, a woolen sweater of fog. I know I want to be up and out quick, that I want to go 21 miles, that today is my first full day hiking alone.

I feel warmth between my legs and discover I’ve gotten my period, right on time. I clean my diva cup with a wet wipe, get into child’s pose to insert it and twist and twist and twist, trying to get a seal to form to my cervix. By the the time it does, I have blood up to my knuckles and dribbled all over my neoair. I clean that with wet wipes, too.

I am sullen. I eat my breakfast while condensation rains down on me and I try to pump myself up. I am hiking the most beautiful section of the most beautiful trail on Earth! I have legions of people who love and support me! I am warm, for now, and mostly dry too!

My first eight miles is a blissful descent. My brain keeps wandering to the fact that I camped at 5800 feet, that I’m going down to 2000 feet, and that I’ll come back up to 5700 to camp again tonight. I try not to think about it. This is just the way of Washington. complaining doesn’t help.

I roll my ankle and want to scream.

At the bottom of my descent it’s warm and balmy, though still grey. I use this as my chance to dry out my things, knowing that it’s not likely to get any nicer today, just based on the fact that I’m going right back up to the top of frigid mountains, and that the sky is thick with threatening rain clouds.

I eat, grumpy. My tent doesn’t dry, but does become dryer than it was. Same for my quilt. Four people pass me and I worry about camping spots, keenly aware of the amount of people in my bubble vs. the amount of campsites available. I pack my things up, having eaten just a little. I mentally prepare for a 13 mile climb.

The climb eats every last bit of my morale. Dripping wet shoulder high ferns car wash my soggy body, until I am soaked to the bone. The switchbacks are relentless, leading me up and up and up- most of the gain happening in the last mile. I want water, but I’m too cold to drink it. I want food, but my fingers are numb and I can no longer work the zippers on my hip belt pockets to grab a bar.

I reach camp, see my friend Oceana, whomst I also camped near last night, and I nearly cry. Setting my shelter up with my numb hands takes nearly 30 minutes, but then I am inside, in my damp quilt and every single one of my layers. I commit to not leaving the tent for the rest of the night. If i have to pee I’ll do it in a god damn ziplock, I shit you not. Once settled, I am cold, but not too cold- and sad, but not too sad.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping for sun.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I sleep well on my second night in Stehekin, on my tiny plot of perfectly flat land near the picnic table. I wake up smiling, eat snacks in my sleeping bag. I slowly pack my bag, cramming everything as hard as possible to accommodate the six day food carry for our next section. My pack is going to be heavy, but I’m going to be well fed.

Bogwitch and I board the shuttle to our trailhead and as it pulls away, I say goodbye to my last shreds of internet for the next almost-week. The internet is a dumb energy suck that leaves me sad and lonely much of the time, but it’s also how I connect to my community, my lover, my bank account, my dog sitter. It’s been sort of wonderful to have no access to the internet and also sort of terrible- kind of like a lot of things with thru hiking.

The shuttle stops at the bakery, I get my last muffin and my last iced coffee and then we head to the High Bridge ranger station. Clean hikers file out of the shuttle and dirty hikers file in, excited for their own showers and laundry and overpriced Stehekin chips and beer. Just before the bus takes off I meet Trooper, another queer southbounder who woke at 2AM to hike a 17 mile day to catch this shuttle into town. She tells me her whole trail family is queer. She talks about her experiences and it’s like she’s hiking a different trail. I feel jealous.

The climb from the Ranger Station is twenty miles long and has many thousands of feet of elevation gain. I thought I’d get some Sudafed in Stehekin for my sinuses, but they only had DayQuil, which I’ve taken and makes me feel fuzzy as I climb. I stumble up the hill, do my best to zone out to an audiobook called Normal People, which it turns out I hate. Bogwitch is ahead of me and just as I reach the halfway point of my climb I find them, looking alarmed. It turns out they left their rain jacket in Stehekin, and it’s not really safe to hike without one. They’ll have to turn back, Carrot is meeting me in Skykomish on the 11th so I cannot. We’ll both have to hike this section by ourselves.

Well.

Bogwitch turns back and powers downhill. I continue my trudge and can’t tell how I feel. Determined? Exhausted? Excited? I’ve never hiked alone before, and this seems like a very safe testing ground, a challenge where I can be both solo and surrounded by a lot of people if it gets too hard.

I think of the queers taking their rest in Stehekin. I think of Bogwitch with them. I think of Carrot meeting me in Skykomish. I’ll just be alone for a few days really. I’ll be ok. I wanted to hike the PCT right? This is a part of the experience, the aloneness. I’m with the nature!!!! Still sucks though. I just can’t help it.

I roll my ankle hard and fall down. I pick myself up and brush away the dirt and want to cry. Theres nothing to do but keep walking.

The air briefly turns gauzy, threatening rain— but it passes. The mosquitos briefly grow thick, sliding in between my eyes and the lenses of my glasses. That, too, passes.

I climb. The climb goes from gentle to steep to brutal. I trip on rocks. I miss so many comforts it’s hard to even keep the list straight. I go up 5000 feet in elevation. The air is so much colder up here.

At last, I find my campsite. There’s a lot of people I don’t know and they all make jokes. It was a hard day, our bodies hurt, we all moan in pain. I feel like I don’t belong in a way, but in another way, I feel like belonging is a myth, maybe no one feels like they really belong. What is belonging anyway? That’s another question for another time, and for now- I sleep.

—

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama and Columbia-Wenatchi land.