Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail by Bill Walker Read Free Book Online

pounds, and quickly earned him the trail name, ‘Lighten Up’.
    A pattern soon developed. Ralph, St. Rick, and I would hike a couple miles, notice Dave wasn’t back there, and stop for a rest. When Dave would arrive huffing and puffing fifteen minutes later, the four of us would head on. But only three of us would be rested.
    These breaks did afford us a chance to view a few of our new colleagues. An athletic-looking redheaded girl in her thirties that I had seen at the Kickoff came by.
    “Excuse me,” I playfully said, “but the three of us are all out of water. Could we borrow some of yours?”
    “No,” she immediately barked out and quickly jumped into a fighting crouch. “Me do kung-fu.” The short, squatty guy trailing behind her must have appreciated it because he broke into a delirious laugh. He named her Kung-Fu, and she dubbed him Giggles. Both names stuck all the way.
    We soon passed Kung-Fu alone on the side of the trail.
    “How about coming along to help us not get lost,” I suggested.
    “Well, I’ll hike with you for awhile,” she said grudgingly. These women out here sure were a different breed from what I had grown up with in the Deep South. In place of charm and subtle calculation, you often got bluntness and fierce independence.
    Perhaps trying to assert my own self, I bolted ahead of the group down a long, sandy straightaway.
    “Skywalker, Skywalker,” they all suddenly were shouting. Oh God, snake! I started frantically high-stepping as fast as I could for about twenty yards. But they all kept screaming my name. I turned around and looked at the ground, but saw nothing. Instead, all my amused comrades were pointing to the fork in the trail I had just missed. Be careful. Rattlesnakes were bound to give anybody this side of Huck Finn the creeps. But the lack of landmarks in the desert probably makes getting lost the greater threat. Every year there are hikers that pick up the trail names Wrongway or Backtrack.
    The trail angels and hiking community, having spoiled us at the Kickoff, apparently decided to slowly wean us. When we got to Kitchen Creek Road at mile ten, a couple of trail angels from the Kickoff had pulled up in vans. Coolers full of ice-cold drinks and snacks were laid out for us.
    The best part, though, came when a guy named Hector interrupted my reclining reverie. “You’re next, Skywalker.” Hector was famous in PCT circles as The Foot Doctor. He had me soak them in some concoction for a few minutes and then propped them up in his lap to examine them.
    “Wonderful calluses,” he said approvingly. “These things can take some punishment.”
    Heck, telling a hiker he has great foot calluses at the beginning of a twenty-six hundred mile hike, is the greatest possible benediction.

     
    The vague, Hollywood-inspired image many of us had of the desert was of a hot, flat cakewalk. Immediately, we received a jolt, however. The trail wound its way almost three thousand feet up a mountain. The sun was dipping below the horizon when we got near the top.
    “I believe everybody is headed to Cibbet Flats,” St. Rick said. That sounded pretty good—lots of people. Dave should be able to make it there. And Cibbet Flats should be flat. Right? Not even close. When we turned the corner, there was a hiker’s version of a mob scene. Worse yet, Cibbet Flats was a ravine, with a filthy-looking stream bisecting its banks. Nonetheless, people were planning to stay here, and the least angular spots were already dotted with pitched tents and sleeping bags.
    “I’m gonna’ give this a miss,” St. Rick said in British parlance.
    “Oh wow,” I moaned. “This is Dave’s first time ever camping, and we’re already leaving him behind.”
    “Yeah, I feel bad, too,” agreed Ralph.
    “First night out here—you two guys abandon him and he gets eaten by a cougar,” St. Rick piped in with his very correct English accent. But as I had long known, long-distance hikers do habitually leave each