Just Off the Trail

Date: still Mon 9/10

Arriving in Manning Park, we hiked down the road, making a large U around a deep river ditch and hillside to round back up to the Manning Park Lodge. Tonight, we’d sleep in a bed.

Entering the lodge, Avatar, Dirty Money, and Trash Queen were all in the reception area, having finished earlier that day. It was so great to see familiar faces and we all congratulated each other and talked about our last day on the trail. Colder and wetter than we would have liked, but a wonderful memory nonetheless. Bad weather always seems to make for the best stories later. For now, we were anxious to warm up, hot showers waiting.

Up in our room, we stripped off our wet clothes, starting a laundry pile. Our wet, stinky shoes went straight in the trash, one that was outside of our room. Thank you for your service, but you stink. Get out of the vicinity of my nose. We wouldn’t need them again. There was no new pair waiting at the post office. Such a strange feeling as we cleaned through our gear. Instead of rinsing water bottles, they went in the recycling. There was no immediate need to clean and restock our packs, only a purge of trash and repack of the gear. This time it would only be going home.

In the shower, I rinsed off the layers of grime from our last three days, having to sit on the tub floor to really scrub my feet down, the shower water pouring on me from above. Dirty water circled down the drain. We had been so ready to finish in the past few weeks, so ready to stop walking, so ready to get to that border. We had enjoyed the journey entirely, but quite frankly, were ready to stop walking all day, every day. Washington was beyond beautiful, but we didn’t want to experience any more of its fall weather. Now I sat on the tub floor the last time, watching the last of my PCT dirt swirl down the drain. Goodbye trail, thanks for everything.

All showered up, we did the logical thing: we hit the hot tub. In between the stroll down memory lane all day, we’d been thinking about this hot tub. It was indoors and it was really truly very hot, unlike some of the other “hot” tubs we’d visited along the trail. I sunk in. This was nice. I thought about all the poor suckers that had to hike south from the border, rather than into Canada. Still out there in the rain. Man that sucks. I was so happy to be in this hot tub. Wasn’t I?

While we would have also liked to be greeted to Canada by a warm meal, the restaurant at Manning Park Resort had closed at 8pm, just as we’d arrived, so no celebratory dinner for us. Cooked food would have to wait until breakfast. Hungry though, we did the unthinkable: making trail dinners in our hotel room. I prepared my last Knorr pasta side, mixing in a package of tuna. One last trail meal, from the warmth of a hotel bed. Not so bad.

It’s crazy. As we marched toward the border for the last weeks, days, hours, we were so ready for the end of the journey. We’d loved the adventure and enjoyed the challenge, but were ready for the border. Ready for the finish. Maybe it was the poor weather on our last day on the trail, but the best way to describe our arrival at the border was probably: anticlimactic. We marched into that clearing with the border monument and … that was it? After nearly five months of epic adventure … the trail is… over… I guess? Shouldn’t there be more excitement? More exhilaration?

Part of this feeling I think came from an inability to process the overwhelming number of emotions that you have when a long journey ends in a single step. But, in large part, I think this subdued feeling was also because it was never about the trail. The trail was amazing – the landscapes, the scenery, the high mountains, the desert, the alpine lakes, and rushing river crossings. It was all stunning. But really, the journey was little about the trail itself. As I recently discussed with another trail friend – Aardvark – the trail was just a beautiful medium for an unconventional gathering of disparate souls. So many different people, so many different reasons for being on the trail, all of us willing to strip ourselves to the basics and head into the wilderness. It was about the people that we met along the trail.

*With Squishy, just over a day before South Lake Tahoe, CA.*

It was about Squishy, Rainman, LOL, Dead Zone, Pilgrim, Megs, Old Timer, and the remarkable number of others that we met along the way – hiking and leapfrogging with, sharing sunsets and meals with, mosquito misery and alpine lakes, milkshakes and burgers, laughs and memories. While there was a small group of hikers at the border when we finished, none of those we shared the most with were there, which I think deflated the finish experience a bit. If the trail had ended with a massive gathering of all those we had met and shared the experience with along the way, I think it would have been far more exhilarating.

*LOL, me, and Squishy, freezing our butts off in our Hawaiian shirts at Casa de Luna.*

I remember when we arrived to the 500 mile mark with Squishy and LOL, all dancing around like fools to the “walk five hundred miles” lyrics of I’m Gonna Be by The Proclaimers. This was not that. As it was, we had walked 500 miles several times over, but the finish was slightly underwhelming without our friends. There were no fireworks, only a complicated bundle of emotions that our brain was not yet able to process. Shawn largely felt the same way: happy to be finished but not as excited at the end as expected.

*With Frizz, Spooked, Megs, and Mowgli in Mt Shasta, California.*

During our first week on the trail, we had met a hiker named 12%. We would later learn that he was something of a PCT icon, having hiked almost all of the PCT several times over, some years skipping around and doing various sections, sometimes even hopping between the PCT and the AT to hike with different people he’d met on each trail. All this hiking, but he’d never actually completed a full thru hike of the PCT and was not motivated by this goal whatsoever. He felt that the pride of this type of accomplishment was more of a personal thing, and he just wasn’t that motivated by it. He didn’t care about ever finishing a full thru hike of the PCT. If it happened, it happened, but his motivation was more in meeting the people and jumping around the trail to join different groups of hikers he enjoyed being with. By the end of the trail, I could understand his mentality completely. Though we are happy with completing our thru hike, the challenge and accomplishment of finishing was an internal pride, the real joy of the trail was all of the people we met and friendships made. So many beautiful landscapes, but the best stories and memories always included people.

*With Medhi at Snoqualmie Pass, Washington.*

Of course, it’s not to be overlooked that we had each other along this journey, which made it all the more amazing in its own right. We shared the sunsets, the swims, the climbs, and a host of other memories that won’t soon be forgotten. We challenged ourselves together, we grew together, we grew closer. We couldn’t have done it without each other. I mean, in a sense we could, but I don’t know that we would have. Certainly it wouldn’t have been the same. Shawn’s experience would have been about a month shorter, for sure 😂 In all seriousness though, to experience this together was amazing. Something we’ll have forever.

Snuggling under the warm covers, I was happy with the fact that we’d finished the hike, but far more satisfied with all the friendships we’d made along the way. Lifelong friends from a shared journey. The trail provided amazing people – from other hikers to trail angels, the wonderful people in trail towns, and those that stop to give hitches to stinky hikers. Thank you, PCT, for introducing us to all these wonderful people, for the challenge, the adventure, and the love.

Unfortunately, we have far fewer pics of people from along the trail than we’d like, but this is a very small collection of some of the hikers we met along the way: