PNT Diary: Section 1

It's not quarantine, it's an infinite zero day

I have never watched so many commercials in my life. I got the van back from the garage on Sunday, but I still haven’t found my laptop charger. A person can only listen to so many podcasts, and my computer takes approximately one thousand years to charge off the alternate cord, so I’ve been relying on cable TV. Hooboy. I have opinions about MasterChef now. The channel surfing definitely gives me a zero day vibe, especially considering that I’m hunkered down in a hotel suite for the month of April. It’s been constantly raining and cold, so I’m just pretending I’m in Chama, NM again - I came out of the mountains there during an ice storm and ended up staying three days. I guess there’s something to be grateful for; if I’ve gotta be stuck, at least it’s not in Chama again. That hotel had a tube TV! And for some reason, a carpeted bathroom? Enough of the CDT digressions - let’s get into the PNT.

Just like last time, I’m including clarifying notes in italic brackets where necessary. Non-italicised parenthesis are original to the text, which I now find kind of hilarious. Who includes parentheticals in their own diary?? Me, apparently.

---

6/23: didn’t get caught stealthing. However, lost my tent stake in deep undergrowth. This after pathetically failing to set up my tent the night before. Started the day in a grumpy, dehydrated funk. Contemplated interpersonal strife + the anxiety that I’m deeply disordered in an obvious way. Walking w/o headphones soothes some, but still felt headachey + gross, brain foggy. Saw a moose 1mi west of Gable Creek Camp when I paused for breath, a beautiful big male. Made really good time + had a short 13.3mi permit goal, so took an extraordinarily long break by Gros Ventre Falls. Smoked some of the joint [I found this MASSIVE pre-roll in a hiker box the day before, like it was the size of damn cigar]. Mistake! Waaayyyyy too strong. Immediately triggered intense social paranoia, compounded by indecisive weather. Ran across 2 other hikers + felt really stupid wearing my shitty disposable poncho in the sun. Turned corner into valley - absolutely staggering cinematic view. Like going into Mordor, with rainclouds clustered between 2 large symmetric pillars jutting from the valley walls. Followed moose tracks + one bear print through mud, but saw nothing. Some bear scat in camp + other hikers reported seeing moose this AM. Yikes. Hung food but maybe not as vigilantly as I should have. Got to camp around 12:40pm, after a few wet carwashy miles in steady but light rain. Ate an extravagant lunch, half my cheese + a whole elk sausage + fritos. Had to wear headnet and alternate bites under net, the bugs are INSANE. Set up tent and grabbed water just in time, pm rain really came down after that. Using pencil as alt. tent stake, working ok so far. Listened to On Trails [audiobook by Robert Moor] to self-soothe while too stoned, put me in a good, contemplative mood. Laid in bed + listened to rain and felt peaceful. There may not be electricity in Polebridge. Or mail. So I may be stuck carrying shoes longer, but I feel ok about it. [I found birkenstock sandals in my size in the same East Glacier hiker box, and the opportunity was too good to pass up, those are expensive! But heavy. I still own them.] Having no rain jacket sucks.

6/23, later: I have mastered the art of one-handed mosquito catching.

6/23, again: There is a truly absurd amount of slugs under the vestibule. Do they like to be out of the rain?

adventurousmagpie

SLUGS! So. Many. Fucking. Slugs. Prior to this hike I had nothing in particular against slugs, aside from a general aversion to touching slimy invertebrates. However, once you have evicted no fewer than 21 slugs from your shoes, and flicked countless others off your tent (only to watch them crawl back inexorably like the world's smallest and most harmless zombie horde), mild disgust gives way to a passionate and irrational hatred. Met up with a trail work crew at this campsite and the lead informed me that not only do they like to crawl into one's shoes and tent to get away from aforementioned sleet and hail, they also like to get together and mate in this kind of weather. There was a goddamn slug orgy in my shoes! They are *literally* fucking slugs. The nice thing about being alone at my next campsite was, I could have a little toddler-style temper tantrum about the slugs without anybody hearing me. "I hate slugs!" I yelled at the mountain. "Why are there so many slugs!? And why do they want to fuck in my shoes?! WHYYYYY!!!" I stamped my feet. A slug, which I had not seen, burst under the sole of my shoe.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#pnt #slugorgy #why #hikerproblems #altras #thruhike #pnt19 #slugs #yuck

June 29, 2019

6/24: Wet & cold all day. Slept in too late - still made camp by 7pm tho + didn’t get going til after 10 this morning. Stoney Indian Pass was gorgeous but hypothermic. Puzzle going up and down, like Mather Pass tucked around a corner. Backside of pass, trail vanishes off a series of cliff edges. Followed grizzly tracks down - thx grizz! Lots of wordy thoughts while hiking but too cold + tired now to remember exactly/record them. Labyrinthine series of cliffs. Remember for later - warm, sheepy goodness (smell, merino). Wonder what the Stoneys called themselves. Met trail crew last night, don’t forget. Also, many predator tracks. Felt kinship with early hominids. No mozzies at camp but still too many slugs. Bad tent pitch tonight, very cold and wet.

6/24, later: hiker hunger kicked in. Thought about how I’ve been starving for weeks. Associate exes with particular meals - how I always fall in love over food. Not quite true but poetric. Kinda weird not to meet other hikers yet. PCT was social + CDT I wasn’t alone much. E Glacier gave the illusion of company. [East Glacier is also a stop on the CDT]. Polebridge tomorrow. Wonder what it’s like.

I was experimenting during this time with using my instagram as a mini-blog, but only managed to write one long entry. Here it is:

adventurousmagpie

Day 2: Stoney Indian Pass to Hawksbill Camp. After my futile battle against the horny slug invasion, I awoke to another overcast and drizzly morning. Today's permit only allowed me a 20 mile day between camps, so I didn't get moving til after 10am, hoping for a break in the weather or at least for the temperature to rise a little. The approach to Stoney is dramatic and wild to behold, especially with thunderheads roiling above, but also very misleading and tricky to navigate. My fellow PCT alumni - it's like a sub-alpine Mather Pass, tucked behind two curving and seemingly impenetrable rock walls. Except, being below treeline, you can see even LESS of the route. In order to go west over the pass, one actually has to make a wide, steep U-turn until you're facing *southeast*, where the cirque opens into the next west-curving valley. Finding the pass proved to be the easy part, however. The "western" descent was a steep series of decaying sedimentary cliffs, buried in just enough snow to obscure the trail and make footing treacherous. I crept gingerly along the cliff edges, trying to find the smallest and safest spots to jump down without hurtling myself over the next edge. By this point it was pushing 1pm, I had a shiver I couldn't shake, and I was seriously concerned about the potential hailstorm brewing above me. I cursed and tiptoed, growing colder and wetter and more frustrated, and I tried to imagine how the Stoney people had ever found their way across this labyrinth without aid of maps or GPS. Then I spotted them - fresh grizzly footprints in the snow, neatly dodging up and around the cliff step I had just clumsily stumbled down. So THAT'S how you do it! I have no idea how I didn't run into that grizz - with the precipitation as it was, the tracks had to have been just hours old, maybe even less. I followed the giant pawprints, which deftly wove between the worst scrambles and the thickest Krumholz groves, not once hesitating or backtracking. Mama bear knew exactly where she was going, and I was grateful for her expertise. I was also grateful not to meet the bear. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#pnt #pnt19 #glaciernationalpark #gnp #mountaineeringfordummies

June 29, 2019

6/25: Polebridge! And finally a sunny day! Carwashy as fuck, so I was soaking wet all day anyway - or all morning, anyhow. Brown Pass was super chill, finally feeling into my stride. Easy 3mph lope. Trying not to get too competitive or in my head this time, There’s nobody to impress. Literally, actually nobody. I have never been so alone at the beginning of a hike before. Not missing company yet, though definitely narrating to an imaginary audience to amuse myself. Right now two [illegible] Montanans are debating whether vodka is gluten-free, wtf? haha.

Anyway, today was a pleasant if occasionally muddy/carwashy cruise. A bit of foot-soreness at first, just muscular acclimation, but later, some skin pain from wearing dampish socks for too long. Lots of tourists as I approached Bowman Lake, and the corresponding wide, easy path. Had to walk a mile back on the roadwalk cause I left my ice-axe near the trash at the car campground, oops. Happy I found it, some srs bzns mountains coming up. Bartender is an ex-PCT hiker, super sweet girl who’s letting me charge devices. Feeling mildly sunburned + overexerted from the roadwalk. Steak salad + beer, ahh. Time to collect my food drop. So nice that this town doesn’t have cell service - I feel no desire to connect to the outside world just yet. No need for a shower or many town comforts aside from more food. I feel perfectly adapted and at home on trail, and I don’t want to disturb this peace with other concerns just now.

6/25, later: Somehow ran into a failed Whistler hookup OUT HERE? HORRIFYING. Also felt so awkward in town. At least Czech store clerk gave me free sandwiches. Drank too much, slightly. Weird whistler throwback, Czech people & the Kiwi. Can’t wait to be alone on trail again. Camped on F/S road a couple miles out of town. Might be short on food except for the sandwiches. Actually uncomfortably full right now. Also, vultures.

adventurousmagpie

Leaving Polebridge, I had just enough time to spot the giant birds and think, "are those vultu-" before the smell hit me. Oh yes, they were vultures. And they were feeding on something very big, very close, and very, very dead. I put five miles between myself and the corpse before bed, just to be on the safe side. Bears aren't above a little scavenging, and turkey vultures are surprisingly huge. I couldn't see the dead thing, but there were ten or fifteen huge birds, flying lazy circles above my head whenever the trail took me too close to their personal space.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
#vulture #scavenger #thruhike #pnt19 #pnt #wildlife

June 29, 2019

6/26: 10x10, or close enough. Yay! [hiker-speak, ten miles by 10am]. Bit of a roadwalk out of town, but a nice one as far as RWs go. Stopped for a phone charge + rest break where the trail resumes. CDT vibes for sure. Meatball sandwich made a great breakfast. Maybe lost my knife tho :(
In Eureka, remember to buy - new knife, waterproof compression sack for sleeping bag, tent pegs, rain jacket. Also, bigger ziplocks or organization bag if they have one in dyneema, and maybe hipbelt pockets? Srs bzns mtns coming up. I set a fairly conservative mileage goal for today, but the Guthook elev. profile is on a counterintuitive scale so I’m making better time than I thought. Might do a 30 plus if the actually trail-y part of today’s trail isn’t too tough. Bugs are getting a bit bad, time to dig a cathole and then get moving.

6/26, PM: not quite sure how many miles hiked today - numbers were slippery. Small amount of trail-less bushwhack today. Fun but slow, and steep up these mtns. Met 2 other hikers, P & D. Nice folks, first PNTers I’ve met. Leapfrogged & then passed them. They’re definitely not setting an ambitious pace. Gorgeous but hard ridgewalk this afternoon. Was thinking how the PNT is like the CDT’s little sibling - similar features, different order. Very diverse paths. My daydreams don’t resolve at the end of the day when I set out to write them down. Oh well. Maybe it’s best to leave them ephemeral and just enjoy the experience. Been practicing being gentle with myself abt. mileage, speed etc. I have nothing to prove to anyone. Been thinking abt. T a lot, which is absurd. Keep reminding myself that the construction in my head has very little relationship to the actual man - I’ve just constructed an idealized interlocutor & lover to fill some void, and I’ve put his face on it. I fantasize about being part of a community too, about being loved + secure + free to be goofy and playful with people. I wonder how I can make those joyful fantasies (abt. friendship) come true. I want PLAY in my life, and emotional intimacy. Not really sex.

6/27: many kinds of thoughts, terrain and weather today. Holed up in Stahl Lookout with heavy weather rolling in. Glad to have 4 walls + a roof, made a nice fire. Was thinking on the ridgewalk here about loneliness vs aloneness, inspired maybe by the passage about freedom vs security + how you always sacrifice something in On Trails. My life (hiking, etc) is a way to make the loneliness I always feel into freedom - a choice, rather than solitary confinement. The hunt is it’s own reward - seek and ye shall find, except paradoxically, what I seek is the end of seeking. Which I may just have to arbitrarily initiate. Begin to build instead of wander. Thoughts were more coherent on trail, of course. Maybe I should start voice recording? Anyway, first trail where I’m truly alone mentally as well as physically. Mood + energy level seems to fluctuate as much as the weather. Got rain, hot sun, hail + wind today. Felt totally sapped for no reason several times - need to eat more, or more strategically. Anyway. All this Alone, without a psychological tether to a partner or home - it’s been good. I don’t feel pulled in two directions at once, or feel yearning for cell service or contact. Been leaning on audio heavily to manage mood and energy, but the moments I choose to be present are very clarifying. Mind, body, soul. All aligned to the same purpose. This fire is very pleasant and it’s just for me! To please myself. I’m recapturing some of the sweet freedom I felt on my bike trip, I think. The revelatory and centering experience of self-reliance + autonomy, rather than feeling arbitrarily seperated.

Need to remember sunglasses, knife, water bottles in town. Also, need to seam-seal tent. Lots to do. 25.5 to Eureka tomorrow, may overnight at trail angel’s to shower + manage hygiene and rest tasks + then have a whole zero for errands. A 25 should be doable. Nice to get out of the PCT mindset of miles, miles, miles, and move into the puzzle-solving exploratory mode demanded by this trail. It is slower tho. Feeling competent and strong, even if my body + energy sometimes do not want to cooperate for no good reason. Still practicing being gentle with myself. Dark now, fire is going out. Time to sleep. Oh yeah, met another couple with HUGE packs + maybe offended them. M & K. They seem like they do yoga.

adventurousmagpie

Mmmmm, trail food. This bar somehow managed to be unpleasantly greasy, chewy, dry, sticky, and crunchy all at the same time. A new low! I ate the whole thing. #hikerhunger .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#trailfood #technicallyedible #thruhike #pnt #pnt19

June 29, 2019

---

That’s that for now. In a nice bit of symmetry, this hotel room also has a fireplace and it’s starting to go out in the present moment too. It’s 2am and I’m not yet sleepy, but I suppose it’s time to make an effort in that direction. Talk to you soon!

-Magpie