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