cathieandrandy

Cathie and Randy Cummins are thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2007. Over 2600 miles from Mexico to Canada, the PCT follows the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range through scenic and remote terrain. Each year about 300 people attempt this long distance thru-hike and around 180 complete the journey. The Pacific Crest Trail is America’s grandest long distance hiking adventure.

A lot of planning, preparation, and thought have gone into this trip. We will try to answer some of the questions people have been asking here, but also be sure to check out the “Fruitcake and Nutz” page for more information about us, and the “Gear Heads” page for more information about – well, I guess that’s obvious.

In October we attended the Appalachian Long Distance Hiker Association annual gathering in West Virginia with our friend Mike Ching. The ALDHA is a community of people who love long distance hiking, be it on the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail or anywhere else. Not just for hikers, among this group you will also find the ‘Trail Angels’ whose logistical support is invaluable to long distance hikers. ALDHA meets each year for a weekend extravaganza in which there is ample opportunity to share knowledge, swap stories, and see old friends. We attended a four-hour PCT planning seminar with experienced hikers, and moderated by Jackie McDonnell (Yogi) who has authored a popular PCT planning guide. And we met others destined to be members of the PCT Class of ’07 - all of us a bit nervous in the company of those who have already succeeded.Our thru-hiker permits came in February. We had learned from the Yahoo PCT Group that prospective thru-hikers were getting different colors, and there was speculation about the significance of that. There doesn’t seem to be any. But Cathie’s is green and Randy’s is pink and both are so flimsy they will have to be laminated, or they won’t survive in our packs. Buggers, that will make them heavier! We also have to carry California fire permits and, at the end, special permits to enter Canada on foot, and our passports to get back home.

Pre-trip physical conditioning requires motivation and what constitutes motivation varies from one person to another. For Fruitcake, the possibility she might die on the PCT, is a pretty significant motivational factor that translates into: Running 5 miles every other day, weight training on alternate days, and Pilates almost daily. As time went by, additional motivational factors emerged: It feels so good when you stop, her knees stopped hurting on long hikes, and she likes how she fits into her clothes. She also loves the compliments from Nutz.

Nutz is doing the weight training and the Pilates (believe it!) but isn’t a runner.

Together we’ve been doing 20 mile day hikes on most weekends since early January. On the advice of other folks who have already hiked the PCT, we are planning a 9 day hike just before flying out to California. That will get us ready both physically and mentally, better prepared to do long days right from the beginning, long days made necessary because of the scarcity of water. After that shake-down hike, we will have three whole days for R&R (rest and repacking).

We leave Thursday, April 19th on a Southwest Airlines flight out of Dulles, with one stop in Chicago, arriving in San Diego at about 2:30 pm. From the airport, we’ll take a bus, then a trolley to La Mesa, where we will stay in a motel, probably visit the grocery for a few more food items, and send our travel clothes home, with a “Wash Me” note addressed to our daughter Heather. We will travel by trolley and then by bus to Campo on April 20th and begin our hike north from the Mexican border in the cool hours of the late afternoon. It will probably be just us, maybe one or two other thru-hikers, and perhaps a few immigrants as the shadows grow dark. No concerns here, by the way. We haven’t seen or heard any reports of incidents between immigrants and hikers.

We’d like to mention that Cathie’s mom, Bobbie, has always given her a good luck charm to wear as a necklace on every long hike, including the two halves of the Appalachian Trail in 1997 and 1998, and the Long Trail in 2006. So far, so good. She continued the tradition with a Christmas gift to both Cathie and Randy this year. Cathie received a necklace and Randy, a silver stone, each with the Celtic rune which looks like the letter R. Its meaning is “journey, pilgrimage, change, destiny, quest, progress, life lessons.” As a charm, it is used for “protection of travelers, to ease or bring about change, and to reconnect.” The rune symbol R represents the path of a person’s life and how it intersects and interacts with others. This certainly applies to a thru-hike, in which the people you meet along the way become an important part of your journey. Cathie has already worn her R on training hikes, and is impressed with its magical power. Laugh, if you like folks, but she is serious, and won’t be without it on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Weather-wise, as of this writing, it looks like heavy precipitation persists in the Pacific Northwest. There were rain and mudslides last summer and fall, and this winter there has been lots of snow. What this means for PCT thru-hikers is that starting in Canada and hiking south is probably not an option, though we were not planning this, anyway. The snow in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington now won’t be much of an issue for us by the time we get there in August and September, though some of the original trail has been destroyed, and detours onto other trails will be necessary.

On the other hand, so far this year the High Sierra has had significantly less than average snow fall. We might expect that passage through the High Sierra will be easier than it was for thru-hikers in 2005 and 2006. Thru-hikers go through the High Sierra early in the hiking season, before typical backpackers might want to plan a hike in the area. On the down side, this also means southern California may be even drier than usual, and we may have difficulty finding water. People talk about good years and bad years to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. We can’t worry about that. There are just different years.

Years ago, when I was in college, Dan Fogelberg’s songs were a preference of mine. I heard this one again on “The Bridge” on Sirius Radio this week, and I can’t get the chorus out of my head. Here are the lyrics:

Love when you can;
Cry when you have to . . .
Be you who must
That’s a part of the plan.
Await your arrival
With simple survival
And one day we’ll all understand . . .

(Dan Fogelberg: Part of the Plan © 1975)

It made me think of thru-hiking. So many people ask: What is it like? What do I think about? Hiking mile upon mile, day after day?

I don’t believe that I actually “think” all that much. I just am. It’s quite enough just to be there, present in the moment, without too much else complicating your existence. It’s an opportunity to just be myself with no expectations other than simple striving, simple survival. On the PCT, there will be much to love, and times when I am beaten down to tears, but I’ll push on, knowing there is something different right around the bend. And maybe someday, I will understand why I have a passion for long distance hiking.

You live very simply on the trail. Strangers quickly become your friends, and they know you during challenging times. They know you, wearing the same mismatched clothes day after day, without that morning shower, with hat hair, with no make up. They learn who you are and how you are, not what you are. They aren’t concerned about your accomplishments in society and the work-a-day world. Those don’t matter. There is nothing to hide behind.

Fruitcake
March 16, 2007

“What she said”
Nutz
March 18, 2007