Monday, September 7, 2015

Trail Life Transcendentalism

By Tyler Socash
IG: @tylerhikes

"Trail Life, what's it all about?!  How is it different from life in the Real World?!"

First thought: nature is actually the real world.  Nowadays, we humans mainly exist in a modernized world.  This is completely fine, as I also love the comforts of the Internet and other ancillary services the Internet brings our civilization.  Lexical semantics aside, how is my thru-hike different from the life I left behind?  Surely, it is different.  "How so?"  I'll tell you! 

Hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, any long-distance trail, requires work and dedication.  Much like a classic job, I feel like I'm at work all day!  It begins exactly the same in each world...  I wake up, and the sun rises in the east.  

Suddenly I'm reminded of subtle differences.  I automatically orient myself.  Birds are chirping.  Muscles and blisters ache (especially during the first month).  The sky is beautiful.  It's time to fill my pot with water.  Ignite the pocket rocket.  I really hope that I'm awake before my hiking companions so I don't have to rush.  Keep eyes closed while the water comes to a boil.  Consume oatmeal (100 days of oatmeal - not tired of it yet).  Remain in sleeping bag while the sun heats the part of the world that I happen to exist on.  Conclude oatmeal consumption (which also included bits of chocolate and crushed Pop-Tarts – I cannot withold such details). 

Deflate air out of Thermarest NeoAir sleeping pad.  Once the insulation is gone, you hit the point of no return.  You must get up.  Sometimes I can still see my breath.  Sometimes I'm too hot.  Either way, you can't hike in a 20-degree sleeping bag (read: any sleeping bag).  Begrudgingly remove clammy feet from sleeping bag.  Stuff sleeping bag into its proper sack.  Repeat with Thermarest pad.  Don we now our gay apparel.  By that I mean two things: socks and boots. 

Really quick... The Pacific Crest Trail, and possibly everything west of the Continental Divide, is so unbelievably dry.  Even arid.  I will one day (on the Appalachian Trail) pine for these mornings.  My feet never get wet out here. 

Clothing adjustments are made, and all sleeping materials are stored in their respective places in and on my Osprey backpack.  Cooking items and food are neatly crammed into their spots.  And I venture off having failed yet again to brush my teeth.  

This is probably when you expect me to talk about the views.  I can't do that yet because it's the morning and I'm in desperate need of locating my outdoor restroom.  Extract poop trowel (which I have named "Bette Midler") and toilet paper from pack.  Be discreet.  Find a spot far from trails and water sources.  Dig a 6-8 inch cathole.  What?... This is what you're reading this blog for, right?!  This is educational.  Also, you quickly realize that your bathroom view is phenomenal.  Crap, I wasn't supposed to mention the views yet!

Jumping back into the modernized world...  Wake up in a dark apartment.  Rub eyes and curse mildly.  You shouldn't have gone to Dragonfly last night.  Turn on shower.  Water magically appears. There's no need to step all the way in.  Just lean in, getting your hair damp enough so that the co-workers will think you actually took a proper shower, though we all know there's no time for that.  Utilize toilet that flushes excessive amounts of clean water down the drain.  You notice the views: floor tiles cracking, someone's hair collecting in lumps on the wall somehow, how many dead ladybugs are going to collect in the storm window prison? These views are sub-optimal.  Feign washing your hands because who's watching anyway?  Venture off downstairs after clumsily putting on dress clothes, having failed yet again to brush your teeth. 

Downstairs is a kitchen.  It can have anything you want in it.  You just have to buy it from Wegmans sometime that week.  Despite unlimited options, breakfast doesn't change too much over the course of your life.  Although you keep forgetting to buy Fruity Pebbles and there is a pang of regret as you throw last night's leftovers in a bag and sulk towards the door, understanding that breakfast will again consist of coffee at work anyway. 

Hiking world: The commute begins!  Crisp air.  More birds now, the chirping escalates.  Friends are ahead of you and behind you.  The path traveled is different than yesterday.  The commute is ever-changing, ever-stimulating.  Still heading towards an unfathomable goal far, far away.  The light overtakes the darkness.  You see it in canyon walls, on treetops, on distant mountains.  The sun, the big yellow celestial object that creates enough energy to power all chlorophyll-based plants on Earth and which will one day power the needs of our fossil fuel-dependent world, rises ever higher.  Stars seem to vanish.  You try to pick out a last constellation before daylight steals them away.  You notice Polaris getting lower in the sky as you progress southward.  Allow your mind to be blown as your realize you've walked more than 10 degrees of latitude towards the Equator.   You see animal tracks on the trail.  You see little mammals and plants beneath the old growth.  Everything is alive.  A mother grouse protects its chicks as you approach.  A mother doe teaches it's fawn how to hop away as you draw near.  You realize that animals have feelings.  You realize that your struggle to survive out here is like theirs, only you're wearing synthetics purchased from REI or from the Internet.  

"You're alive, the trees are living too!" - a hand-painted sign reads outside of Quincy, CA.  A 6th grader.  Smart kid. 

You're out of water.  You come to a spring.  It's a spring so you can probably drink it without filtering.  Sweet.  Little flowers that you've been seeing throughout this section of trail grow near the source.  It's always cold.  Tastes great. 

Back to the "Real World":  The commute sucks.  It sucks and it consumes your life.  Most Americans spend as much time in traffic per year as they spend time on vacation.  Surprise!  I walk to the bus stop and make it just in time.  We meander surface streets, seeming to miss every green light on the way.  You have no friends in front of you nor behind you.  Every human in their own box of steel is a hindrance to your free coffee at work. The freeway traffic doesn't look any better as we go cross the overpass.  You see a hundred cars during those 8 seconds, and that's just one view of one highway at one time of day on one part of the planet.  The gas companies really don't want biking to catch on in America.  The 4-mile route to work takes nearly an hour in morning traffic.  Time is money.  Take a swig of water from your Smart Water bottle, which literally belittles people who drink water that comes from the ground (read the fine print).  You arrive at work just in time to get on the Internet.

Nature: If you're on Washington's PCT, you might find yourself at a lake or looking out at endless jagged mountains.  Maybe you take off the 30-pound pack and swim (always better than the lean-in shower back home).  "You'll never regret a lake swim!" a John Muir Trail hiker once told me.  Half Jesus and Mantis lived by that principle. 

If you're in Oregon, no doubt you're eyeing up the next great sentinel on the horizon.  Will you make it to Three Fingered Jack today?  Will you summit Mount Thielsen?  Will you scream when you jump into Crater Lake?

If you're in California in the Sierras your mind is blown and you already know that your life has reached a pinnacle of happiness.  Maybe you're also glad to be in the backcountry of a National Park.  Also, it's lunchtime and you get to eat all the Nutella you want because you burn 5,000 calories a day easy and you're going to walk 40,000 steps or more. 

Your Job: Thank goodness it's lunchtime because that email train took a lot out of you.  Lunch at work was always super fun for me.  I can't be cynical here.  I miss my colleagues.  I miss many aspects of my old life.  It's just hard to compete with the wilderness.  You'll see why in about two seconds. 

Trail:  Maybe today you'll hike naked?  My new trail friend named Huck hiked without pants once. Now my southbound crew, affectionately known as the "Wrong Way Gang," will go pants-less for a stretch.  We call this "Hucking." 

Maybe today you'll swim nude?  Why not?  You're on the Pacific Crest Trail and it's a liberating feeling!  The trail is more Wild than you thought...  (See what I did there?)

Maybe you'll try to break the "1.Poo Challenge?"  In this challenge, you have to follow Leave No Trace Princples and take a proper restroom break while also hiking 1.2 miles — all in under 20 minutes.

Silly stuff, but all a part of trail life. 

To be fair, sometimes I'm cold, nervous, and frequently bedraggled out here.  Netflix and a night in can sound tempting when the conditions worsen.  The trail can surely tax you physically, emotionally, and mentally.  Luckily the good times greatly outnumber the tough. 

Work: 5pm finally arrives.  Return home in the same hellacious traffic.  Your friends are too tired to do anything except go to Dragonfly for a few drinks.  Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll have a Kickball League of Rochester game before you end up a Dragonfly.  Maybe you'll go to the gym, which seems rather silly once you know how much of a workout walking in nature can be.  But you at least have to workout for 30 minutes... You ate that Nutella, after all. 

Trail: The darkness takes back the sky.  The sunsets are sensational.  You never tire of a summer of sunsets.  Your bedroom is different – and approximately 22 miles further away than where you started the day.  Sometimes you sleep on a mountain pass, other times along a serene lakeshore.  The constellations return.  You think about the cycle of the moon.  There are so many stars.  The universe is huge.  You didn't go on the Internet today.  You didn't see your reflection in a mirror.  You didn't drink tap water.  You have no idea when water will be available again.  Your bed is the ground.  Your friends are camping nearby.  Or maybe you had a day of solitude, which is tough to get in a world with nearly 8 billion people and projecting towards 11 billion in 30 years.  

You saw stuff like this today:




Work Life... Thru-hikers or not we all work!  Raising families or raising hell.  Jobs.  Vocations.  In Latin "vocation" means calling. It just so happens that my job right now is staying alive on a thru-hike, which also begins to feel more and more like a calling.  Perhaps you think of it more of a big naked journey now?  That's OK, Cheryl Strayed gets that too.  Thru-hiking is hard.  It takes sacrifice.  So does having a job.  They are both valid.

The day ends exactly the same in each world... the sun sets in the west, and I go to bed exhausted. 

Do we work to live or live to work?  I don't know, this is just a blog!  


If you like moving pictures more, here's my quest into the top part of the High Sierra: http://youtu.be/YK1bamw2iCk

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

The Two Towers

By: Tyler Socash
IG: @tylerhikes

"Every day on trail has been the best day of my life."  That's what I've been telling everyone I meet.  Day-hikers, people who give me hitches, store clerks, the guy who just interrupted my blog post on the porch of the Sierra City General Store, they all get the same message.  (Delivered with genuine enthusiasm!). It's true, thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail has been the most beautiful and singularly the most arduous undertaking of my life.  I wake up everyday excited to still be on trail.  The views just keep on coming...

Yesterday was no exception.  It was the next greatest day of my life.  I'll always remember yesterday as The Day of the Two Towers.  

August ended in a memorable way.  I woke up at Lookout Rock and hiked past a National Scenic River - the Middle Branch of the Feather River.  I finished memorizing The Lorax, which took me 2 weeks to perfect.  Finally, I hiked around the base of Pilot Peak.  I intended to go another 6 miles that day, but I noticed an intriguing structure at the summit...

The old firetower atop Pilot Peak. 

A firetower!  As I rounded the base of Pilot Peak, I wondered if I could bushwhack up to the summit.  "That would be an awesome place to spend my last night in August," I thought.  Here are a few views from the ascent...

Cool rock formations.  Erosion is neat. 

This part was a bunch of rock-hopping. 

The route up became exceptionally steep.  I found an old cable that was intentionally stretched up a scree field to assist hikers approaching from the Pacific Crest Trail.  By the looks of it, the cable was decades old.  It reminded me of the cable route up Gothics in the Adirondack High Peaks, which made me think of my friend Joe and my hiking friends back home.  

Topping out on the summit took a lot of effort.  I thought that I might have pulled my hamstring as I surged uphill.  Gingerly, I crested to discover that the watch tower was in bad shape.  Decrepit.  Almost menacing-looking, like the two towers from The Lord of the Rings

The interior was gutted.  Glass was strewn about the base of the tower.  Precarious steps led me to the overlook. Banisters were missing, as were some of the floorboards!  I could think of no better place to spend the night. 

On the stable portion of the tower. 

Nighttime came with its surprises.  This was the first time I remember seeing city lights from the trail.  To the SSW I thought I was viewing the endless sprawl of Greater Sacramento.  It was an interesting sight. 

And then came the mice.  I truly hope that I did not contract hantavirus.  They got into my shoes, they ruined my water bladder, and one of them ate my trekking pole handles.

It was fun, Pilot Peak, but as dawn struck it was time to walk towards Mexico.  The trail led to the southeast.  On the horizon I spied a sharp peak.  I imagined that it was the Sierra Buttes, and in 30 miles I would be there!

Today was the first day that I felt like I was in the Sierras.  Technically I am in the transition zone between the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevadas.  It's a transition zone because geologists can't seem to delineate where one range ends and the other begins!  As I marched into the Sierra Buttes, I saw stuff like this:

Ooo, Ahhh!  Neat!

This looks Sierra-ish to me!

I have a strong opinions regarding wilderness.  

1) There's not enough of it.  Once again, only 2.7% of the contiguous United States is preserved as Federal wilderness.  That means over 97% of our country can be paved, and a lot of it already is!

2) Nature's inimitable beauty is unsurpassable. 

3) The Sierra Buttes should be re-classified as wilderness.  

As of right now, the Sierra Buttes region is within the Tahoe National Forest.  "National Forest" is basically a code name for "where we will log and build lots of roads."

I was thoroughly enjoying the Sierra Buttes, I was having the greatest day of my life!  The only thing that tarnished my experience were the dirt bikes.  Lots of dirt bikes.  Lots of roads and dirt bikes. 

This reminded me of a Lewis C.K. bit that my friend Patrick played for me.  God comes back to Earth to discover that oil is spilled everywhere...

...That if you believe that God gave you the Earth and God created the Earth for you, why would you not be – have to look after it? Why the f@#% – why would you not think that when he came back he would go ‘What the f@#% did you do? I gave this to you motherf@#%er are you crazy? The polar bears are brown! What did you – what did you do to the polar bears??? Did you shit all over every polar bear? What did you – Who did this? Who spilled this shit? Who spilled this? Come over – did you f@#%ing spill this? What is that?’

'...it's oil... it's just some oil... I didn't mean to spill it...'

'Well why did you take it out of the f@#%ing ground???’

'...Cuz I wanted to go faster?...'

The dirt bikes kicked dirt up everywhere.  Imagine that!  The ringing of their engines could be heard around every corner.  Mechanized vehicles aren't permitted on the PCT, yet I saw their tracks in the dirt throughout the section.  It was less than ideal, but I still got to see stuff like this:

The Sierra Buttes!

These rock!

Our country doesn't need more roads.  We have 4 million miles of those.  We don't need to drill the Arctic Ocean for oil — seems kind of desperate, doesn't it?
We need more wilderness areas, especially with global human population projecting to grow to 11 billion by 2100.  I select the Sierra Buttes as an exceptional candidate to preserve!  It was one of my favorite places on the entire Pacific Crest Trail! 

Upon closer inspection, the Sierra Buttes had a lookout tower on the summit pinnacle.  There was a road (of course) to the summit, and I thought, "Why not spend back-to-back nights at two towers!?!"

The summit of the Sierra Buttes

After hiking 30 miles, why not add an additional 1,300ft climb to get atop the 8,587ft. pinnacle?!  The view from the top made me shake at the knees...

"Is this safe?!?"

Would you climb this?

Don't look down!  It was a vertical drop that would make you queasy.

Two Towers, One Day!  America!

Just another day on the PCT!  It was another great one.  This will be on my list of places to return to someday.  

Seeing the dirt bikes, the endless Sacremento light pollution, and rickety summit towers made me appreciate the 24 wilderness areas that I've seen thus far even more.  I've been spoiled out here!  So much beauty!  This blog has been a platform for me to share this natural beauty, but I also see it as an opptunity to suggest that more wild and open spaces would benefit our nation – and the globe. 

The Once-ler said it best.  
"Unless someone like you 
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It's not."

When the next opportunity presents itself to support wilderness protection near you, vote for the wilderness! 

The two towers were cool, but I'm eagerly awaiting the pristine Sierra wilderness regions ahead!  Wish me luck!

Also, I'm starting a video series on YouTube called, "A Hike of Ice and Fire." Search for my second installment of the series, A Cascade of Kings, via a simple google search.  Yes, these are Game of Thrones references, as I'm reading more than just Dr. Seuss on trail for inspiration. Just about to start A Clash of Kings, and I know I'm late to the game but I'm a little shocked about Lord Eddard.  What gives, Joffrey!?!

- "Future Dad"