I just found something I wrote back in September last year on my very first solo backpacking trip (with Marble but no other humans). I found it in a text message I sent to myself. I didn’t have a journal but had decided to write this information down. I wasn’t blogging yet and hadn’t yet decided to hike the PCT. I don’t remember why I wrote this or what I was planning on doing with it, but I obviously felt strongly enough to type this out:
I went backpacking with my dog to Summit Lake, and lay awake all night scared out of my mind. Even with a 50+ pound dog laying next to me. Even with a knife. I was afraid.
I spent the first night at Summit Lake alone. I mean ALONE. I counted 5 cars in the trail head parking lot when I started the trail up to the lake, and I encountered 5 groups of people coming down as I was going up. Theoretically, there was no other human being near me for 20+ miles unless they came from one of the other trail heads. I was inside a low cloud, and the forest was silent. There were no birds, no wind, nothing. Silence. It was eerie. I couldn’t even see the lake when I was standing right next to it, that’s how foggy it was. I hung my bear bag after dinner and didn’t think about it again. Worst case if something ate my food overnight, I could just hike back down in the morning and go home early. It was so quiet, I figured I’d probably even hear a bear approaching. I didn’t sleep well though. Even though the sky cleared up and the stars were unlike anything I normally see, I didn’t feel calm and at ease.
Every time I thought I heard a noise, my brain filled in the blanks and assigned a human thing that the noise could be. My tent was set up on a ridge away from the main trail. Someone would have to go very out of their way to get to my campsite, but alone in the dark silence, I was still afraid of people finding me. At 4am, I heard gunshots in the distance. Someone hunting? Someone shooting bears? Shooting humans? Because of the silence and being in a lake basin, noise traveled and echoed and I couldn’t tell how far away the noise really was. It could have been miles away. It could have been a hundred feet away.
I didn’t sleep well, kept waking up, making sure my knife was next to me. I finally fell asleep and woke up exhausted. It was not a relaxing night. In the morning around 9, I heard the first day hikers walking on the trails. I heard a group of women’s voices and somehow it reassured me that I was finally not alone, even though ironically, the whole reason I even came out here was to be completely and utterly alone. My increasingly introverted tendencies screaming for relief away from everyone.
Even so far out here away from people, I realize how on guard I am all the time when it comes to men. How even instances where nothing really happened, can still be terrifying, although men would never know the true impact of their behavior, would just find it funny, or they wouldn’t care at all. I would always choose to encounter a bear over a man in the woods. Hands down without any doubt.
On my next solo backpacking trip, maybe I’ll start carrying bear spray to protect myself, just for peace of mind, ironically, not to be used on actual bears. On the second day, the fog cleared up, and I hiked the loop around the lake, taking note of where other people who had arrived that morning had decided to camp. Paranoid? Probably. But if I’m going to take precautions like carrying first aid kits, water purifying tablets and hanging bear bags, maybe it’s not that ridiculous to carry some sort of device to ward off my biggest animal threat – men.
I camped at mile 11 in a place on the farout app that mentioned 3 camp spots. There were 3 of us already here, but that didn’t stop a group of like 10 guys from cramming in anyway. They set up their tents right next to mine and of course proceeded to snore the entire night. It’s 2:46am and I can’t sleep because there are like 4 different people snoring and in such ways that I can’t even pretend they’re the sweet little snores of a tiny innocent dog.
One guy pitched his tent right next to mine and has been snoring in ways that it sounds like he’s choking to death, and then moaning, and then more choking, waking up, rolling around on his crinkly mat, snoring, farting, waking himself up. Dude please see a doctor. I threw sand at his tent a few times and he sort of stopped, but then it starts up again. I think my tent neighbor Kelly is not amused either. She keeps sighing angrily. I hear you girl.
I need to get the hell out of the bubble. I think back to how freaked out I was at Summit Lake about the silence, but I’ll take it now. There were a few campsites that weren’t on the farout app but truly only had space for 1 tent and from now on, those are the kinds of campsites I’m going to aim for. I’m actually so annoyed right now I’m considering packing up and hiking in the dark just to get away. Its only night 2 though, I’m not brave enough for that yet. I have to wait to sunrise. I was planning on making a hot breakfast, but granola bars will need to suffice if that means I can get away faster.
This particular group of guys came in last night after I was already in my tent and I didn’t get out to greet them because I was tired, it was raining and cold, and one of them was saying the most obnoxious things to a Canadian (possibly the Durston tent guy but I don’t know) about how he had antifreeze in his blood because he was Canadian among other things related to Greenland. Freaking Americans. I’m an American, but still. Bad vibes. The rest of this group’s conversations were one upping each other about gear and hiking but simultaneously bragging about their apathy about planning for the PCT while smoking a ton of weed that wafted into my tent. NOPE. Boy(s) BYE.
I wonder if tramilies have feuds or enemy clans. Not that I’m even in a tramily, and at this rate, maybe I don’t want one if this many people on the trail seem to snore, but if I were, I would probably declare this particular pack of boys to be my enemies. The enemy of my sleep and peace.
I start to go feral when I can’t sleep well, and especially after longer periods of time – I’m on night 2 now of being disturbed by snoring assholes setting up their tents way too close to mine without even asking either. Rude. I don’t get hangry, but I get the equivalent version of that over lack of sleep and being around snoring assholes is going to turn me into an asshole too. For context, ear plugs hurt my ears and I can’t sleep very well with them in.
My trail bestie Jenna who is a day ahead of me now texted me asking if I was going to make it to Lake Morena if I wanted to crash at her cabin. She’s leaving there tomorrow but maybe a cabin would be nice for a night. Peace and quiet in a cabin. Glorious.
I had actually written a whole thing based on that excerpt above about my fears about men on the trail but decided not to post it because it was quite personal. I don’t know if I want to share the entire thing, but I’ll share this one story – being in San Diego reminiscing with one of my classmates was so fun, and also so sad in a way because we had an experience on a study abroad trip in China that was so terrifying and I had completely forgotten about it.
Long story short, we were traveling to Hong Kong and stayed in Shenzhen at a hotel the night before, which was also the night before my birthday. We went across the street with ~10 classmates to a bar/club that was totally empty except for us, sitting in a booth, and some Italian guys in their 50s at the bar. My friend and I went to the bar to get some drinks and she wanted to buy me a shot for my birthday. We were mid 20s at the time. The bartender poured us shots and the next thing either of us remembered was waking up in our hotel room on our beds, fully clothed, even with our shoes still on. One of our classmates was sleeping in a chair against the wall. He had stayed there all night to make sure we were alright.
Those men at the bar and/or the bartender had drugged us and I don’t think they realized we weren’t there alone. I fully believe they were intending to do something horrific to us and thank you dear Jesus that our classmates had intervened and got us out of there. Anyway, the reason that story is so horrifying to me is that I had completely forgotten about it because it’s not even my worst story about men. I could write a book.
Part of me fears being alone in the wilderness in close proximity to men because they are dangerous. Part of me wants the solitude. Another part of me wants to scream shut the fuck up at the top of my lungs at all these snoring people.
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