PCT Thru-hiker

        When I returned to my car at the top of Cook and Green Pass after a 12-mile hike partially on the Pacific Crest Trail the other day, a young PCT thru-hiker (Mexico to Canada) was sitting at the campsite there. He told me he had injured his leg and needed a ride to town, where he would "hang out for a few days and let the leg heal." I suggested he spend the night at my house, and I would take him to Ashland the next day, where he could find a motel to stay in.

    So after an hour's ride Nibbler (his trail name, because he was always nibbling on a block of cheese) found himself standing at the door of a lovely house in the Siskiyou Mountains.

   Taking off my shoes just inside the door, I asked him to do the same. 

    He took off his shoes, then said, "My socks are dirty, too."

   I turned to look. They were streaked black with dirt. I suggested he leave them outside.

    He took off his socks. He said, "My feet are pretty dirty."

    I turned to look. Indeed they were! I started to tell him to leave them outside, too, but told him instead to walk around the house to the bathroom door on the deck. There I gave him a towel and offered him a shower.

    What a change after no telling how many weeks or months on the trail! A shower. A good big helping of a tuna-melt casserole, which he wolfed down so fast I gave him the rest of it, too. A real bed, with clean sheets. Total luxury.

    For his part, he was a charming guest. He cleaned the kitchen after dinner, made his own bed, and entertained me with stories about the trail. 

    I learned, for instance, that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail these days is as much a social as a wilderness experience. Because you are basically hiking the same route in the same time frame as the people you start with, they become your trail family.

    I have long been curious how PCT hikers keep their pack weight low. Did they, for instance, carry tents?

   Some did, Nibbler said. Some use tarps, some just bivy sacks. Some people don't carry rain gear. Some cut the belts off their backpacks to lighten the load. He himself had cut the strap off his headlamp and velcroed the lamp to his hat. Some people, he said, considered headlamps extraneous, but he sometimes walked after dark to escape the heat and thought a headlamp a necessity.

    I asked about bear canisters. He said people carry them where they are required, as in the high Sierra, and then get rid of them. When I asked how campers keep bears out of their food, he said most people sleep with their food in the tent.

    I was aghast. A bear that smells food wouldn't hesitate a minute to rip into a tent. Weren't the hikers taking a huge risk? 

    Well, he said, there are so many people at the campsites that the bears don't come around.

    That many people?

    Everyone has their luxury item, he said. I pointed to my Kindle—that was mine, I said. (I didn't mention the camp dress.) He said his was an extra pair of socks.

    The next morning, on my way to a hike on Mt. Ashland, I left him, refreshed and well fed, in front of the Columbus Hotel in Ashland. He would stay there a few days, then rejoin his trail family farther up the trail when his leg felt better.

    A few days later, on another hike, I saw a thru-hiker with a big pack. "Smart girl," I thought.