IG: @tylerhikes
The eyes were staring back at me, unmoving. It was 10 o'clock PM and I was off-trail desperately searching for a spring to replenish my empty water bladder. I felt the burn of the gaze before turning to see it. My stomach dropped. "Just a deer..." I hoped. Exhausted and parched, I clicked my trekking poles together and called out to my shadowy friend. "Don't mind me, just a human looking for the watering hole," I assured the woodland creature.
Pressing on I came to a pipe gate with a few tents nearby. "This must be the way to the spring," I thought. Opening the rusty gate created an ear-splitting creak that awoke my hiking kin. "Sorry about that gang, I'm the worst." It wasn't my goal to wake sleepy thru-hikers, but I felt safer with a gate now between me and the unknown megafauna in the woods behind me. I was also too thirsty to care.
Water! It's an afterthought at home or at work. Simply turn on the faucet and magically it appears. Do we ever think where it's even coming from? What a luxury! On a thru-hike water is absolutely vital. The elixir of life! Your options on-trail are to filter or treat water from lakes/ponds/streams, or to find natural springs. The west coast is enduring a historic five-year drought, so sometimes water is hard to come by.
My thirst now quenched, I returned to the trail to find my mysterious creature — just a deer. She scampered off into the new moon night and I looked down at my map. "Nine miles to go," I muttered. I was in the midst of my first double marathon, and I wasn't going to quit now.
You'll hear about hiker challenges while on-trail. The AT has the 4 State Challenge, hiking from Virginia through West Virginia, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania in a single day. There's the Desert Challenge in Southern California, walking for 24 hours straight through the Mojave. I was attempting a double marathon, 52.4 miles in a single go.
Jumping on the summit of Devils Peak in the Sky Lakes Wilderness.
Over the previous week I walked over lava fields, walked around the Three Sisters, summited Mount Thielsen, and jumped into the pristine blue waters of Crater Lake. I was feeling very alive when I arrived at Devils Peak in the evening of August 9th.
This would be my first night alone on trail since leaving Hart's Pass in northern Washington. I wasn't sure if camping on "Devils Peak" would be a good omen. Plus, I heard some conspicuous rockfall on the trail below the summit. I strapped on my backpack and walked a few minutes down the scree field when I remembered a quote from Billygoat... "Drink it all in.... You might not find yourself here again."
I turned around. I set my pack down. Unrolled my ground tarp, inflated my sleeping pad, and zipped myself into my sleeping bag. The summit of Devils Peak would be my resting place tonight.
Not sure if these selfies are as flattering as I imagined them to be.
Smoke filled the sky around me. Before I left Crater Lake, a west rim fire was developing. To the south, Northern California was burning. Views would be shrouded tonight. I turned to my maps. If there would ever be a chance to pull off the elusive double marathon, tomorrow would be my day. Callahan's Lodge was 80 miles away. The Oregon/California border was over 100 miles away. My birthday was coming up...
"What if I hiked four marathons in three days and jumped over the border at midnight on my birthday?"
A fun fact about me is that since the age of 20 I have spent part of each birthday in free fall. Instead of going to the bars at 21, I convinced my whole family to jump off the Green Bridge with me into the welcoming waters of the mighty Moose River back home. I usually jump at 11:59.59 so that I'm free fall at the moment I earn another lap around our sun. Jumping over the Oregon/California border on the Pacific Crest Trail seemed to be a romantic enough way to spend my 29th!
In free fall a few days earlier at Crater Lake National Park - The Awesome Principle prevails!
I cruised through the Sky Lakes Wilderness. I actually ran downhill when the tread was favorable to make up time lost in the morning light. I stopped to talk to NOBO's, but I was still traveling over 4 miles per hours downhill. Mount McLoughlin, which last night looked so far away in the southern sky, was behind me in the late-afternoon. One marathon down. One to go.
As I contoured around Brown Mountain I walked tediously over lava rock. It was tough on the soles of my feet, but too amazing to complain about. Walking on lava is amazing when you compare it to sitting at a desk.
I've completed two running marathons in my life. Those are physically and mentally exhausting. After walking from Canada to Mount McLoughlin in southern Oregon, a hiking marathon doesn't hurt that badly. It's the 2nd marathon that hurts.
Legs and lava rock.
My conversations with NOBOs became curt. I apologized to some of them and mentioned that I was attempting a double marathon, 52.4 miles. They let me go with their well wishes. I needed their encouragement. As I walked by I shouted my recommendations for camping sites, water sources, and free Wi-fi passwords at rest stops ahead. This was my way of saying, "thank you" for a premature southbound departure.
Darkness fell when I ate my Mountain House dehydrated meal. I added in a packet of Chicken Ramen for good measure. Headlamp on, I walked uphill. Stepping over fallen trees became a struggle. I could feel muscle fibers tearing as I stretched over the obstacles. Now this felt like the Rochester Marathon!
"Callouses be damned!" the blisters shouted. My feet ached and my legs quaked when I stopped to search for the piped spring at the top of the hill. Out of water, I hoped that the spring would be running. That's when encountered the deer and the squeaky fence. 9 miles to go... I'd be hiking past 1am to finish.
This was already my longest hike on the PCT when I made my descent. Any long-distance runner will say how important your mental state is during an endurance race. Good thing I never quit!
Onward I went, shuffling my feet at times, taking brief rests on logs and rocks near the trail. When I reached my final climb, I was nearly defeated.
The last ascent was the worst, but the thought of actually completing a double marathon propelled me forward. I turned on my music and selected, "Shuffle." In amazement, when I needed laughter the most, one of my friend's songs played loud and clear in the forest near Hyatt Lake. "New Girl in Town." Before leaving Rochester for the Pacific Crest Trail, my best buddy handed me a CD with all of his amazingly goofy music on it. "Just in case you need some inspiration," he half-jokingly quipped. If you watched my YouTube video, "A Hike of Ice and Fire," you've already heard his music if you played the video through the outro.
In my time of need, New Girl in Town brought a smile to my face. I made it over that last hill. I made it past mile 915 and crash landed on the side of the trail after surpassing the 52.4 mile mark.
I set a seemingly impossible goal, and I achieved it!
The morning after a double marathon
I hiked another marathon the next day. I wasn't sure if I could do it, but it happened. You can push your body to do incredible things if you really want something. I wanted the all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at Callahan's Lodge off of I-5.
On my birthday I woke up and hiked one more marathon to the Oregon/California border. Before my birthday expired, I jumped...
The jump at 11:59.59
... I landed in California.
Happy Belated Birthday!
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