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.

I sleep poorly and wake up with a pounding headache. Next to me is a gently resting Carrot, soft shirt draped over her eyes. She’s awake too, and she’s trying not to be.

Eventually, Carrot springs into action. She makes me coffee and heats me leftovers from the night before, both of which she serves me in bed. I eat cookies while she cooks. I’m so hungry, I can’t wait.

Carrot and I talk about miles and speed. She reminds me that this time last year, I took my very first backpacking trip. When I attempted to hike Washington, I’d roll into camp at eight PM, exhausted and weeping. I’m a much stronger hiker now, and I feel good about that fact.

Bogwitch, Carrot and I move slow, lazily driving ourselves 1.7 miles down the road, because it gives us a shorter day and because it’s good to keep ego about mileage right sized. Once we get there, we walk two miles with the chihuahuas, passing group after group of young teens on a trip with leaders in their mid 20s. Their packs are huge and one of the smallest ones falls over with the weight.

Carrot turns back, we’ll see her at Steven’s Pass, in just about a week. Bogwitch and I forge on, our plan to go about 13 miles today, to camp at the last listed campsite before Stehekin, to shuttle in the following morning for a nero, AKA a day where one hikes hardly at all. We could go to Stehekin tonight, but it’s the Fourth of July, we don’t know if the shuttle is running at all, if there will be enough campsites, if we’d even make it considering our late start and how generally shitty I feel today.

We walk. We walk and we feel bad, Bogwitch with a sore tendon and a tender ankle, me with whatever weird sinus thing I have going on. Is it an infection? Allergies? I’ve had a consistent headache, a face stuffed full of cotton, a throat that just feels weird. I don’t have a runny nose or a cough or itchy eyes. I’ve felt just 10-45% not good since I started hiking, never bad enough to stop but never great enough to feel awesome.

Bogwitch gets ahead of me and I’m hiking at a snail’s pace. I put on an audiobook, check my GPS track, put on some music, check again. Each time I check it feels like I’ve been hiking for eleventy billion years and it turns out I’ve gone less than a mile. I’m mad at my slowness today, but I think again about that whole right sized ego thing. Maybe this is fine I think. Don’t want to get too big for my britches.

By 3:00PM I’ve see a bear, a growse, and a snake, but almost no PCT hikers. The small bubble of hikers around us is mostly middle aged men, dudes I’ve seen mansplain and take up too much space and tell woman after woman to “be careful” as if we’re not hiking the same fucking trail, as if the PCT were truly dangerous. I am not interested in them, but in their absence I feel lonely. It’s a holiday. People are with their families. All the hikers have probably hitched to Winthrop or booked it to Stehekin. And here Bogwitch and I are, hiking grumpy and alone.

We hit camp at 4:00 PM and I feel such a sense of profound emptiness I could cry. We check our Guthook app, just for fun. We toy with the idea of busting our asses to get to Stehekin tonight. We’re not sure we’ll make the last shuttle at 6:15, if it’s running at all. We worry the campsite will be full, crowded with tourists or fireworks. We consider that we’re both tired, exhausted really.

And yet….

We want to go anyway, and so we do.

Bogwitch and I hike those five miles as fast as we possibly can. They fly up the hills and I fly on the descents. I shovel chips into my mouth as I walk, letting the dust of the crumbs give me a gentle yellow beard. I pant. We race. And somehow…we make it.

At 6:15 we’re on the shuttle. At 7:30 we’re in Stehekin. by 8:00 we’ve picked our campsites on the lawn in front of the ranger station. By 10:00 we’re ready to be asleep.

—

📍This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Nlaka’pamux, Syilx/Okanagan, and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

It rains steadily all night, but somehow this morning is the only one so far without condensation. Sunkist’s new working theory is that it’s because there was a breeze, which seems as plausible as anything else. We’ll crack this condensation code yet!

21 miles from where I stand, Carrot is waiting in her van. She says she’ll cook us rice noodles with cabbage and beans and olive oil and sea salt, that I can sleep in her van bed with her. I haven’t hiked 21 miles in a while, certainly not on this trip yet, but I am MOTIVATED and so by 6:45AM I am completely packed and ready to go. Let’s do this.

First we finish the steep descent we started yesterday. The descent is full of lush greenery that wants to gently moisten us to death. Two miles in, I am completely soaked from the waist down, though the sun is shining bright. My shoes squeak as I walk, and I try not to let it touch me. Carrot. Van. Dogs. Cabbage. Noodles. Beans. What’s a little water?

The descent ends and we start to climb. We climb 2500 feet in four miles which at times has felt like not too much, but today feels brutal. I stop frequently, on account of not being able to breathe. Each time I rest I grow discouraged, but then I look up and see I am held in the belly of the bowl that is the Cascades. It’s so beautiful here, there aren’t even words. I try to take pictures and they pale in comparison. It’s sad, the human need to capture immensity, how we’ll fail over and over again.

At time top of the climb it is cold with socked in fog. Bogwitch and I set our shelters up to dry and I sit inside of mine, merrily eating vegan cheez-it’s and cough drops, on account of my weird throat. I drink hot emergency and eat a bar. I pack up my shelter, noting that it’s all downhill from here and I decide to crush.

Downhill turns out to be rolling hills. On the upswings my energy peters out, but on the downhills I jog. I listen to Beyoncé’s Homecoming and I cry thinking about black excellence and Beyoncé’s dedication to highlighting it. I feel fucking great.

Three and a half miles from camp, I have to shit. This hiking experience is weird, there are too many people to poop and I often end up holding it. I set out to find a private place, try to dig cat hole after cat hole and am continuously greeted with other people’s turds. There is just no glamorizing this situation and I am grossed out that humans have to shit at all. Damnit I think, finally finding a turd free zone to dig a hole. Why do people have to be so fucking gross?

My last miles are the gentlest of forest and I am running. A dude tries to keep my pace and cannot, which pleases me greatly, not for ego’s sake, but because I’m not trying to chat. At Rainy Pass I pee in the pit toilet and throw away my trash and at last, I see Carrot’s van in the distance.

“Carrrrottttt!” I yell. “Hi!!!!”

—

📍This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Nlaka’pamux, Syilx/Okanagan, and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

I wake at 5:30 and I listen to Carrot and Bogwitch sleep. The dogs stir in their little beds. Carrot sighs a small sigh and rises to take them out.

With this, the wheels of the day are set in motion. I open the curtains and we start to pack our bags. I have a meticulous system: sleeping bag in its own trash compactor bag, in case it rains. Another trash compactor bag with my food bag, which contains my pot, stove, and spork, then my shelter and neoair, my bag of clothes, my ditty bag full of electronic things and toiletries. I stuff one hip belt pocket with sunscreen, SPF chapstick, my ziplock wallet and my headphones. I stuff the other with bars and a small baggie full of Wavy Lays. I drink a lot of cold brew and eat a vast bowl of Chex and almond milk and banana. We all do a lot of this and that, and then we are ready to go.

I feel strange on the drive back to Hart’s Pass. Do I want to hike the whole PCT? I’m still not committed to anything past Washington but I feel a lot of pressure to make a plan, figure it out, shit or get off the pot. I’ve never once played anything by ear and I don’t love the process, but what can you do? I have no idea what plan will guarantee the best combo of fun and personal growth! But who does really?!

Carrot drives us to the bottom of the road to Hart’s Pass and we try to hitch our way up. The road is sketchy and also crowded so why NOT avoid putting Carrot’s van through the ringer again? Not too much time passes and some old climber guys let us in. They’re going to Hart’s Pass too, going to bag a peak.

The men ask too many questions and I start to feel tired. The drop us at our ridge, where we see a huge group of hikers around a roaring fire, all talking and drinking tea. Broken Toe, a PCT hiker of yesteryear is set up there, with a van he built out and firewood and an entire custom made drawer full of tea. He tries to convince to stay, but I know if I sit down we’ll never hike. We wave goodbye and I feel a little wistful. He’s making roasted vegetables for dinner tonight. Hiking is sometimes all about denying myself things.

We climb up and up and up into the misty cascades. I am stunned and I am also thirsty, because I forgot to check guthook and there’s very little water in the first ten miles after Hart’s Pass. Bogwitch and I hit an actually large and slippery snow patch and I use my microspikes for the first time. I listen to the news, hear stories of Customs and Border Patrol running a Facebook group that hosts memes that depict Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sucking President fuck face’s stupid dick. The Fourth of July is just around the corner and I couldn’t feel less patriotic.

6.4 miles in, we finally gather water and I eat vegan cheese it’s on the bank of the river. I am sad while I clean my chafe, a well of grump while I try to ground into the Earth, feel myself strong and solid like a tree, like a rock, like a forest creature, all welcomed and warmed in the late afternoon summer light.

We descend over 1000 feet in 1.5 miles to our campsite ten miles in. I make a pot of bean and noodle soup, explore my Guthook app, see that tomorrow we’ll need to go 21 miles. I feel dismayed. I remind myself that though it’s early in the journey, I can totally hike 21 miles, that Carrot has graciously agreed to make us dinner at rainy pass just as soon as we arrive.

I hunker down into my shelter, blow up my neoair and burrow into my quilt just as it starts to rain. Myself and my gear are 100% dry, and I am grateful for our timing, so happy we didn’t push longer today to make tomorrow shorter.

21 miles will be just fine I think. 21 miles will be just fine.

—

📍This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Nlaka’pamux, Syilx/Okanagan, and Columbia-Wenatchi land.

Bogwitch, Carrot and I wake up well rested and it feels fucking incredible. We eat cereal and almond milk and berries and tasty bites and fresh greens and cookies and jalapeño potato chips and brown rice pasta with marinara and kale and baked tofu. I drink kombucha and limeade and ginger beer and iced coffee and massive bottles of sparking water. We go to the weed store and I use weed salve samples on all of my aches and pains and they….disappear. But I am a lightweight, and so suddenly I am very, very high.

We talk about trauma but on account of the weed, the trauma feels funny instead of nightmarish, which is all one can hope for, really. Behind our motel there is a river and we meander down, find a hammock and some chairs and stick our feet in the water. It’s too cold to swim, but I content myself watching the tiny rapids, a hummingbird, a deer. I am happy, so happy with my snacks and my people and the dogs and the drugs. I know happiness is often clouded by anxiety for me, but this one is pure, complete and absolute.

I let it wash over me again and again and I am grateful.

—

📍This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Nlaka’pamux, Syilx/Okanagan, and Columbia-Wenatchi land.