Read Online Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail by Bill Walker - Free Book Online
Authors: Bill Walker
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modified version of walking on coals, and turned hikers into kangaroos. But instead of my shoes stretching as I had hoped, it was my feet.
It was becoming more and more clear that I had a serious problem. I was alternating between one and two pairs of socks, trying band-aids, mole skin, duct tape, elevating them on breaks, you name it. For good or for bad, I was even trying different ways of taking steps. But my feet honestly felt like a furnace. This was alarming. Hot and moist are the perfect breeding conditions for blisters.
Actually, all kinds of people were having foot problems. One girl picked up the name Blister Sister, and another guy was called Dead Man Walking due to the blisters ringing his feet.
“It’s knees that knock people off the AT,” hiking veteran Too Obtuse said. “But feet are what knock people off the PCT.” However, it wasn’t my feet that were the problem. They had held up fabulously on the AT. It had to be the shoes. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to find any size 15 trail shoes in any of these backwater trail towns.
I took a side trail to the tiny resort of Warner Springs, hoping for a miracle. I ran into several hikers, in an air-conditioned restaurant there. Afterwards, as several of us were limping through a parking lot, St. Rick noted, “Gosh, mates. We’re supposed to be walking to Canada, but people can barely make it through the bloody parking lot.”
Trout Lily and I headed out of Warner Springs in the late afternoon, hoping to make several miles before dark. After several miles, we came to the banks of Agua Caliente Creek.
“Looks like a perfect place to camp,” I said.
But Trout Lily was dubious. “I don’t know if I should keep goin’ or stay here,” she said.
“There’s a climb out of here,” I said. “You might get stuck on a ridge.”
“I haven’t done enough miles,” she muttered. For all her scintillating qualities, she seemed to be genuinely insecure. I left her alone and intentionally set up my tent well apart from hers.
By the Book showed up at dark. As his trail name might suggest, he was one of these people who had delved into every imaginable minutiae of equipment and trail planning. One nice thing about having Trout Lily around was I knew he’d train his total attention on her, and I’d be spared a seminar on all these mind-numbing topics.
This was a phenomenon I’d see over and over along the trails. By the Book was a pudgy, non-descript, middle-aged man with ruddy cheeks and the least likely possible suitor (with the possible exception of me!) of Trout Lily. Yet he was on her like a metal to a magnet for the rest of the night until she finally pleaded fatigue and went to sleep. There’s something about the trail that demands the release of infatuation with members of the opposite sex, even when lust is out of the question. It was up to the precious few women out here to put up with it. Many, of course, played it to their advantage, and Trout Lily could do that with the best of ‘em. But sometimes it apparently just became too much for them.
The very next night, after a big group of males plus Trout Lily had hiked twenty miles and finally gotten to our intended campsite, Trout Lily simply announced, “I’m going on.” Everybody seemed to get the message, because nobody offered to join her. There wasn’t much of anywhere for her to camp, according to the map. Indeed, when she did finally camp her tent blew down several times during what turned out to be a miserable evening. But at least it got her the hell away from us!
The British have a core contradiction in their character. As an island nation they can be annoyingly insular. Yet that same island nation had once ruled over the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Centuries of this have made the British both competent in foreign affairs, as well as arrogant. They really do understand foreign cultures better than most Americans do. And it drives them crazy to have to
It was becoming more and more clear that I had a serious problem. I was alternating between one and two pairs of socks, trying band-aids, mole skin, duct tape, elevating them on breaks, you name it. For good or for bad, I was even trying different ways of taking steps. But my feet honestly felt like a furnace. This was alarming. Hot and moist are the perfect breeding conditions for blisters.
Actually, all kinds of people were having foot problems. One girl picked up the name Blister Sister, and another guy was called Dead Man Walking due to the blisters ringing his feet.
“It’s knees that knock people off the AT,” hiking veteran Too Obtuse said. “But feet are what knock people off the PCT.” However, it wasn’t my feet that were the problem. They had held up fabulously on the AT. It had to be the shoes. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to find any size 15 trail shoes in any of these backwater trail towns.
I took a side trail to the tiny resort of Warner Springs, hoping for a miracle. I ran into several hikers, in an air-conditioned restaurant there. Afterwards, as several of us were limping through a parking lot, St. Rick noted, “Gosh, mates. We’re supposed to be walking to Canada, but people can barely make it through the bloody parking lot.”
Trout Lily and I headed out of Warner Springs in the late afternoon, hoping to make several miles before dark. After several miles, we came to the banks of Agua Caliente Creek.
“Looks like a perfect place to camp,” I said.
But Trout Lily was dubious. “I don’t know if I should keep goin’ or stay here,” she said.
“There’s a climb out of here,” I said. “You might get stuck on a ridge.”
“I haven’t done enough miles,” she muttered. For all her scintillating qualities, she seemed to be genuinely insecure. I left her alone and intentionally set up my tent well apart from hers.
By the Book showed up at dark. As his trail name might suggest, he was one of these people who had delved into every imaginable minutiae of equipment and trail planning. One nice thing about having Trout Lily around was I knew he’d train his total attention on her, and I’d be spared a seminar on all these mind-numbing topics.
This was a phenomenon I’d see over and over along the trails. By the Book was a pudgy, non-descript, middle-aged man with ruddy cheeks and the least likely possible suitor (with the possible exception of me!) of Trout Lily. Yet he was on her like a metal to a magnet for the rest of the night until she finally pleaded fatigue and went to sleep. There’s something about the trail that demands the release of infatuation with members of the opposite sex, even when lust is out of the question. It was up to the precious few women out here to put up with it. Many, of course, played it to their advantage, and Trout Lily could do that with the best of ‘em. But sometimes it apparently just became too much for them.
The very next night, after a big group of males plus Trout Lily had hiked twenty miles and finally gotten to our intended campsite, Trout Lily simply announced, “I’m going on.” Everybody seemed to get the message, because nobody offered to join her. There wasn’t much of anywhere for her to camp, according to the map. Indeed, when she did finally camp her tent blew down several times during what turned out to be a miserable evening. But at least it got her the hell away from us!
The British have a core contradiction in their character. As an island nation they can be annoyingly insular. Yet that same island nation had once ruled over the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Centuries of this have made the British both competent in foreign affairs, as well as arrogant. They really do understand foreign cultures better than most Americans do. And it drives them crazy to have to
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