August 30
Miles: 0
Miles to Canada: 188.5
Listening to: Dirty Nice – This is Gonna Hurt
I woke up this morning and walked down the hall to the bathroom, and my hip still felt horrible, maybe even worse than yesterday. I could barely walk. I decided to get it checked out that morning before everyone got up, so I called the hospital and asked if my injury could likely be seen in the ER or urgent care. They told me that there wasn’t a long wait at the ER and that I could be seen quickly, so I walked the 0.4 miles to the hospital in Leavenworth.
The doctor looked at my leg and did an x-ray. The results of the X-ray didn’t show anything wrong with the bones or any kind of dislocation at that point, but he told me that the hospital didn’t have an MRI machine and my insurance wouldn’t cover it anyway without having done physical therapy first so he said he thought there was something going on with my hip flexor or possible labral tear, and all he could recommend at that point was rest, ice, antiinflammatories, physical therapy, and not hiking.
He said that he knew I probably wasn’t going to listen to that not hiking part – none of the PCT hikers he saw liked hearing that kind of medical advice this close to the Northern Terminus. He told me that if I was going to hike, I should at least go slow and not try to do too many miles per day, and if I could skip a section and take a few days to rest, that I should. He must have seen his fair share of PCT hikers who would crawl to the end of the trail if they had to. Me included.
I walked back to the Airbnb and I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do section K with them. There’s no way I can hike 25 miles a day, with these climbs, with my hip this bad. At this point, I’m done. I’m emotionally done with the trail. I’m physically done with the trail. I want to finish. I will finish, but I can’t hurt myself even more.
I decided to skip up to Stehekin – skipping about 100 miles but hiking the last 141 miles slowly and taking a few days off. Everyone will catch up to me towards the end of the trail, and we can finish together.
Bap had originally wanted to finish the trail on the 4th or 5th, but after doing the math everyone realized that that would be completely grueling and horrible and so they decided to touch the terminus on the 8th and finish at Hart’s Pass on the 9th as had we had originally discussed, and that lined with my plan as well and would give me the chance to rest for a couple days and then hike extremely slowly up to the Northern Terminus.
When I got back to the house we sat around and had breakfast and cooked eggs, potatoes, toast, coffee. It was really nice and we talked about the trail. I told them my general plan and offered to bring food to Stehekin for them since there wasn’t really too much in Stehekin in terms of resupply options and it would probably be really expensive.
Getting to Stehekin is no small feat. It requires taking two busses and a ferry and then to get to the trail from Stehekin requires either walking 8 miles, or taking a shuttle. For me to get to the terminus by September 9th and hike really slowly, I’ll have to take about 7 days of food. Stehekin is only accessible by ferry or plane. There’s a post office and a bakery and a lodge and that’s pretty much it. There’s no phone service. There’s no WiFi. There’s nothing.
After breakfast, we decided to walk around Leavenworth and go to a gear supply store to get a giant can of fuel. We’d fill up everyone’s cans using a flip fuel device which transfers fuel from one can to another. It works only if you have a temperature difference in the cans. I had one at one point, but I sent it home because I could never get it to work properly. You really have to freeze one can or put it in ice water and put the other one in the sun. But Warpaint filled up everyone’s cans successfully.
Warpaint was on a mission to get all our chores done early so we could hang out and relax. Our group is like herding 1000 cats around. It takes forever for us to get organized and get moving in a cohesive manner sometimes. Warpaint is usually the leader though. Both of his parents are military vets and he was a teacher. He knows how to give orders, but in a loving way. We had to stop for a beer, of course. Bap is the worst influence in that way. He always has to stop for a beer somewhere, and one beer often turns into more than one.
We walked around Leavenworth for a while and got a beer at one of the breweries. Warpaint is kind of our leader and he’s the one who tries to herd the cats most of the time and he wanted to get all the resupply done so that we could enjoy the rest of the day. So he kept urging everyone to go back to the house and then we could go to Safeway do our shopping buy food for dinner and just hang out for the rest of the day.
I took my backpack. We walked to Safeway. There were a few other hikers in there and we all grabbed shopping carts and did our own shopping. Sometimes I’d come down an aisle and Fonda or Bap would just crash their carts into mine, pretending we didn’t know each other, saying excuse me, excuse me. These boys are like little puppies. Always so playful. It’s so easy to be around them. I’m already sad, and already starting to miss them, even though we’re still together. I’m bummed I’m skipping to Stehekin though, it means less time with the tramily.
The end of the trail is starting to feel more and more real, and even though I try to compartmentalize my feelings, it’s starting to creep in now.
While walking back to the Airbnb, I found a little donkey toy just on the ground and we decided to name it Assley. So in addition to Ferdie, now we had Assley. Assley would go in someone’s bag tonight.
We went back to the house, packed our food and ate some of the leftovers from dinner the night before. We just kind of hung around the house for a while, but of course the boys wanted to go for a beer so we went out. Rocky was exhausted so she stayed home and slept.
We went up for a beer at one of the breweries and Bap, who is from Austria, complained about how inauthentic everything was. He loved to complain about how fake German everything was. It was kind of funny. We decided to go back to the house and watch a movie and we figured that maybe Rocky would join. Fonda wanted to have a cuddle puddle in the living room. Basically throwing tons of pillows and blankets on the ground and watching a movie all cuddled together.
Everyone in the tramily is very affectionate, and are big time huggers. Even the boys, which is so refreshing not to be around guys so macho, so emotionally stunted that they won’t even touch another man. There’s always lots of hugs and fist bumps between all of us, so many I love you guys.
As we were walking back, there was a dance party in the street with a mariachi band. There was a Mexican wedding going on. We were just kind of watching from the brewery, but then we decided to go over, and someone from the wedding party told us to come join them. So we danced in the street, and at one point we were dancing with the bride and groom which was hilarious. Some dirty hikers at the wedding. They didn’t care though. They thought it was funny. Those crazy gringos.
We went back to the house, and grabbed all of the blankets and pillows from every room and just threw them on the floor of the living room. We tried for maybe 45 minutes to try to figure out how to use the TV, but nothing would connect. We couldn’t cast anything from our phones. The smart TV section of the TV wasn’t working and we swore it was some kind of counterfeit Russian tv, and so we kind of gave up on the movie, but Warpaint had Lilo and Stitch on his phone so he literally just put his phone on the coffee table and we started watching. I’ve never seen Lilo & Stitch.
I was laying on the floor in between Fonda and Warpaint and at one point they said this line from the movie, Ohana means family. We don’t leave anyone behind. It was almost exactly what Warpaint had said to me the day before. He had once told me that Lilo and Stitch was one of his favorite movies, but I had never seen it before, but now I understand why it was his favorite movie, and that he really did live by those words.
We all started saying Awww!! when that line came on in the movie and I told them both how much I loved them and how happy I was that they came back for me, truly how much it had meant.
I fell asleep wrapped up in Fonda’s arms. It wasn’t a romantic thing. It wasn’t a sexual thing. It was just a cuddle puddle thing and it was so perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever just snuggled with a friend like that, and I definitely wouldn’t normally. I didn’t grow up in an affectionate house, and I’ve never been a hugger, or someone who felt comfortable with physical affection, except with partners. And only after I got to know them well and felt very comfortable. When I woke up, Roses said we looked like little puppies sleeping in a play pen. I guess I’m one of the puppies now too.
Fonda and Warpaint, these two men who came back for me on the trail, there’s a level of implicit trust and love that I have for both of them.
I’ve changed a lot on the trail, and this is probably just one of the many ways. I like it. I feel more free. Maybe I don’t need to be on guard all the time. I can trust that people have my back, that there are really good people out there. I can be carefree. I can be happy. I don’t need to worry all the time. I can be affectionate. I can just be one of the puppies in the pack.
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