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

other behind. I was no different. We had a long journey ahead.
    It was getting cold and windy and we were faced with an exposed climb to try to get to Burnt Rancheria Campground. I left word with a couple hikers to tell Dave that we were moving on. Dave ended up hiking until dark and made it to this last ravine. He had then attempted to set up camp on this incline for the first time in his 66 years. In the middle of the night his tent blew down and he spent the rest of the night keeping it erected. His troubles were just beginning.
    Ralph, St. Rick, and I headed up the mountain, trying to beat dark. Unlike a couple nights before, we made it to the campground just before dark. However, the wind dominated the landscape, and the three of us ended up pitching our tents hundreds of yards apart in the most bizarre places. Oh, how I missed the shelters of the AT.
    After 22 miles I reasoned I deserved a hot meal. I pulled out my old alcohol stove and tried to generate a flame. But one time after another, the cold wind harassed the modest flame my stove could generate. Hmm. So this is how all these forest fires get started out here? I finally gave up and ate cold food.
    This trail is going to take some getting used to.

Chapter 8
    Trout Lily
     
    “M an, you should have seen this Mexican dude,” she exclaimed. “He just came out of nowhere and started begging me for water.”
    “In spanish?” I asked.
    “No, perfect english,” she said in wonderment.
    “You should have asked him to hike with you,” I suggested.
    “I thought about it. I swear I did. But I don’t want to get in any shit with these border officials.”
    Some people just have star quality, pure and simple. This girl had it from the get-go. I say girl. She was 29, but probably got carded every time she ordered a beer due to her youthful bounciness.
    She was hot. Okay, everybody’s hot in the desert, right? No, she was the real deal. Great figure, a million dollar smile, a southern accent to make you swallow your heart, and—it also seemed like—cool as hell. I had seen her razzing around at the Kickoff (who hadn’t!) and wondered if she was a hiker or a partier. She was both.
    “I’m Trout Lily,” she introduced herself to her mostly male audience.
    “Where are you from?” I asked, resume talk being the domain of the lame and unimaginative.
    “Memphis, but I live in Hood River, Oregon.”
    “Wow, everybody I’m meeting is from Oregon.”
    “Yeah,” she laughed. “we’re all escapists.” Good line, even if it is true.
    “My parents were totally pissed when I told them about this,” she confided to this crowd of theretofore strangers. That quality of openness would serve her in good stead in the reigning trail culture.
    “I move back home to Memphis every few years, decide I can’t live there anymore, and then head off with my dog in my pickup truck to places like Asheville, Hood River, or Antarctica.”
    “Antarctica?” I exclaimed. “What the hell did you do there?”
    “Worked in the kitchen?”
    “Did you like it?”
    “It got boring,” she said. “All people did was drink and have sex.”
    “What’s so boring about that?”
    “I mean,” she laughed, “you just had to see it. They filled the jars in the men’s and women’s bathroom with condoms. The janitor told me she had to refill ‘em every morning.” So far, Trout Lilly was checking all the boxes of the perfect trail iconoclast.
    “Have you ever hiked before?” I asked.
    “Yeah, I did the AT a few years before.” That figured. I’d already spotted her on the trail a few times and wondered what she was up to. One place you’d see her jiving with people; the next time she’d be galloping along.
    “I’ve only done three miles today,” she said. “I’ve gotta’ get goin’.” That was her style—entertain a little while and then get on with it. She was bound to be a formidable presence.
    Everybody took a side trail at mile 44 to get to the Mount Laguna Post