Post Hike Decompression

13th-19th October

My appologies for not posting anything for a while, over a month infact, but I just haven't wanted to. The trail journal i kept was definitely a chore. At first I had time to write every day before going to bed every night, but as soon as the mileage started to go up, i was mostly unable to write anything due to the overwhelming fatigue that would engulf me when i climbed into my sleeping bag. Often at the end of each day i would write one word notes about what had happened that to to jog my memory later on, but that would be all i would write. This meant that once in town i could and would spend many hours infront of a computer trying to keep the blog up to date, it became a chore like any other. It is mostly for this reason that I haven't blog since i finished, but I will be bringing it up to date over the next few days.

My PCT adventure ended at the Snoqualamie Summit Pancake house, and i was equally glad and sad that it was over. I have yet to work out my exact total mileage, 'yet' being the operative word here, but i will hazard a guess at 2700 miles. It has been the adventure of a lifetime, but by the time i got to Snoqualamie Pass my body was ready for it to be over.

After several celebratory photos at the finish, Frosty, Golidlocks and myself got in the car and headed down the pass towards Seattle away from the Cscades and the Pacific Crest Trail, it was weird. An hour or so later we arrived at the house of Nightcrawler whose parents, Bob and Kelley, were putting us up for the night. Nightcrawler, and her fella Hercules, had both finished the trail a week before with Frosty and Goldilocks in Manning Park, and had been slowly recuperating ever since. A thru hiker that becomes a successful thru hiker is unbelivably tough, and after a few days off trail looks on first appearnce as good as new. I know however, that true recovery will take me weeks if not months. That night was a great way to end the adventure among good friends, and trail angels, and after a shower, a hot meal and a couple beers i was feeling tired but content. Nightcrawler and co were heading south to Santa Barbara the night morning, a 20 hour plus drive, so we said our goodbyes before heading to bed for my first off trail sleep in over 5 months.

The next morning after a lazy start, Frosty, Goldielocks and myself got back in the car for the 3 hour drive down to Vancouver (the US one not Canadian one) where Goldielocks´parent would be putting us all up for a few days. Over the next few days I slowly came to terms with the reality of not being on the trail, and was glad to have other hikers around me as we went through it together. Vancouver is located on the north side of the Columbia river and is in the sate of Washington, but for all intents and purposes is an outer suburb of the much larger city of Portland on the south side of the river. A substantial number of my hiking friends come from, or else live in Portland, and over those few days I managed to meet up with them a couple time to reminisce about the trail, and talk about readjustment back into the real world . One morning, myself, Mark and Ashleigh (I feel that we are no longer hikers we should revert to their other names)  headed across the river to have breakfast with Portlanders T-Rex, Chick-Chack and Starfox (not technically a Portlander but he´s part of this group so i've included him as a Portlander), AKAThyra, Angela and Ben respectively.  Along with my fellow members of PRT, these five, along with Thyra´s absent fella Rocky/Ben I would count among the true friends I made on trail. I started on the same day as the Portlanders, and had shared some of my favourite PCT experiences with them, the pre trail couple of days at Scout and Frodo´s, as well as the Kick Off event a week into the trail. With Angel and Ben I shared the Sierra High Route and Yosemite National Park, and with Thyra and Ben I endured the hardship that was Northern California from Lake Britton to Ashland in Orgeon, celebrating with them as we crossed the border together. I didn´t do any hiking with Mark and Ashleigh that i can think of, but I bumped into them all the way up the trail. The first time i remember them was at the Deep Creek hot springs when i offered them some of a canteloupe melon that one of PRT had kindly added to my rucksack, and at the end of the trail these two had slacked me during my arduous 200 mile road walk.  Weirdly though, Mark and Ashleigh had never met the Portlanders, I was the link between them all. As we sat and ate breakfast we came to the conclusion that the closest the two groups had been been to one another was at Kennedy Meadows, with a gap of only a couple hours or so if my memory serves me, but that was it. I still struggle to comprehend this.

A day or so later we met up again at the Kennedy School, a former secondary school in Portland that has been converted into a complex of bars and restaurants, it was very cool. We were joined at the Kennedy School by FunSize and Puppy, aka Grady and Caroline. I didn´t spend enough time hiking with Grady to know him well unfortunately, but he and Cuddles, the cellist who normally goes by the name Mark were among the most entertaining on trail. Caroline was definitely one of the most interesting person on trail by quite a long way. I met her first at Barrel Springs towards the end of the first week where I remember spending some time chattting to her as we waited out the hot hot sun of Southern California. I bumped into many times all the way up to Crater Lake in Oregon, where I hiked with her for a day before we parted ways on the rim of the former volcanoe. There are no 'weak' successful thru-hikers, but if i had to draw up a list of who i would consider the ´strongest' hikers she would certainly be in contention for the top spot, mentally and physically as there is no separation, in my mind at least, between male and female hikers, so I don´t make distinction, a strong hiker is a strong hiker. Puppy was living for the time being on a boat on the river, and was finding readjustment difficult. She was initially staying inside the boat, but found sleeping indoor to weird so now was sleeping on deck exposed to the elements. Such is the difficulty of readjustment. That evening I also managed to see Ben, formally Rocky, who hadn't been at the breakfast a couple of days before. The reason he hadn't been there is that he'd been at work. I literally could not fathom what that must have been like. Difficult, difficult lemon difficult i imagine. That evening was the last i spent with such a group of hikers, and i was racked by a bizarre mix of emotions as i fell to sleep back at Ashleigh's parents house later. Readjustment was going to be difficult for me too i had no doubt, but I was glad that i would be taking it slowly.

The next eveningI was set up to start the next leg of my adventure which would start out from San Diego, but in between Portland and there was a long, long bus ride. I said goodbye to Ashleigh and Mark, and was seen off at the Greyhound station by Angela and Ben as i got on the bus that would take me south. On the bus I slept as much as i could, and don´t remember a great deal of that first night, so i must have done a good job of sleeping through it. But I remember waking up sometime in the night to look out of the window and see the massive hulk that was Mt Shasta gleeming in the light of the moon. I tried to keep awake as we went past the sections of motorway that i passed all those weeksago, but I didn´t make i and sank back into inconsiousness lulled by the rhythmic rocking motion of the bus.

Later that day the bus made its way down through Southern California and as it did the terrain turned back into the scrub and chapparel that i remember so well. At some point on the outskirts of LA we must have been on section of it that i had already seen as i went on an excursion to an REI outlet from Agua Dulce the home of the Saufley´s and the Vasquez Rocks, but one piece of motorway and suburb looks much like the last so i don't remember. As we drove though I tried to crane my head back to get a glimpse of the San Gabriel mountains that I hiked through during that first month, but the low lying smog and haze obscured any such views unfortunately and i turned back to staring at the rivers of traffic snaking their way throughout the area like arteries pumping blood around the colossal urban area of LA.

Some more hours later I was off the bus in San Diego where it had all started for me. Before my bus journey i had thought about getting back in touch with Scout and Frodo to see if they would put me up for the night. I have no doubt that they would have done, but it wouldn´t have felt right somehow so i got a series of bus and trams across the city to the Shelter Island Marina, which would be my home for the next week as I prepared to start my next adventure.