June 23, 2017
Bishop Zero Day
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 49
Woke up, everyone hung over. Many pairs of sunglasses being worn indoors. In the wild evening before, somehow a planning meeting had been scheduled for today at 10am. I think it went something like: Chris asking me if we should have a planning meeting, me saying yeah that sounds reasonable and then very seriously communicating to everyone that we would be planning the next phase of the Sierra tomorrow at 10am.
I sent the word out and we met at the Looney Bean (suuuuper cute coffee shop with good food). Almost immediately, we had to move it to the hostel. Twelve hungover hikers roasting in the death heat of sidewalk + direct sunlight, trying to plan a route through the mountains. After five minutes of us staring at each other, Chris suggested we move to the hostel.
“I don’t think we can have this meeting here,” he said.
We slogged the few blocks back to the hostel and sat at a few tables in the shaded, grassy front yard. Right next to a pile of puke. Someone had even more fun at my birthday than I did.
The meeting moved forward, balancing trying to come up with a plan and keeping the hostel owner’s dog from nibbling on the barf pile.
And as we came up with our plan, I heard stories of what the conditions ahead would be like. And felt the confidence about the trail ahead melt away. Glen pass was completely snow covered and the descent was steep and treacherous. The rivers were far more swollen than we had seen. It was peak snow melt right now. Other hikers walked by and saw our planning meeting and leaned in to inquire. When they realized we were going back out, they told us stories about other hikers getting swept downstream in rivers, slipping on mountain passes. Trying to re-enter over the well-traveled Kearsarge pass only to bail out at the rarely-traveled and difficult-to-navigate Bishop pass a few days later. We should wait, they said. Or skip the Sierra altogether and come back later in the season. Droves of hikers were making these plans in Bishop. Wait a few weeks in Bishop for the snow to melt. Skip the Sierra for now. Flip up to Washington and hike south. Flip up to Truckee and hike north. Get off trail altogether. A swarm of hiker bees eager to share their opinions, thoughts, intentions, fears.
There was a group from our trail family who decided to skip the Sierra for now. Justin, Sara, Ben, Rise, Shine, Gary, Land Mammal, Dana, and Cake. They’d flip up to Truckee, hike the rest of the trail and come back to the Sierra after hiking everything else.
I felt compelled to make the attempt on the next section. To put eyes on it. But holy shit, my stomach was churning with a mad ferocity. My brain bounced all over the place, from ‘we can do this’ to ‘why the fuck are we doing this’ to ‘am I actually doing this’ and ‘Jesus we need to get out of Bishop and just go do this’.
To put the pressure on, everyone decided to leave tomorrow. We had expected two zero days in Bishop, but half the group had already been there for two days and was anxious to get back on trail. So, we could pack everything into one day—grocery shopping, deciding if we’d get new gear, laundry, packing everything, mailing stuff home—or go out into the wilderness just me and Alex. The second option sounded like the ‘certain death’ option. So we rallied to figure our shit out. Calmly moving forward with to-do’s as, under the surface, my stress was through the roof. I figured I just wouldn’t eat today.
Alex and I ran most of our errands and then went to sit for a bit at the laundromat with Colten, Flame and Sam. We still needed to buy lighter gear. A tent, sleeping bag, and pack for Alex were on the list. As we sat in the laundromat, bopping conversation around between bits of quiet reflection on what we were about to go do, my breathing got real shallow. I started choking up and then had some kind of a hiker breakdown, crying and confiding in my laundromat band of friends how absolutely fucking petrified I was of going back out into the Sierra. I felt like I was being irresponsible with my life. My parents spent all this energy getting me to this point without me being fucked up and if I just went out into the wilderness and died, i would feel so horrible. Going and screwing it all up, wasting all that time on getting me to 29 and then I make irresponsible decisions with my life and throw it all away because I don’t know when to quit. And what if we go put $1,000 worth of gear on a credit card and then decide the trail is too dangerous and bail out three days from now? What a waste of money!
It was at this point that Colten said simply: “Well, it’s not like it’s the last time you’ll ever go hiking.”
Huh. He was right. I’d use the gear again. Maybe not in the Sierra, but I’d use it again for camping.
Flame chimed in. She had just gotten an new pack, so Alex could use her old pack through the Sierra if he wanted. Then we wouldn’t have to buy one!
Sam didn’t have anything to say, because Sam had walked out of the laundromat after Colten started talking. Some kind of urgent errand.
I recovered, and Alex and I headed to the gear shop. We bought a tent and a sleeping bag. Mailed home Phil’s pack, ten-pound-tent and heavy-duty sleeping bag. Goodbye gear from the 1990’s, you were great but way too fucking heavy.
Headed back to the hostel to packaged up our food. As I was in the dining room sorting cheez-it's and M&Ms and jerky and seaweed snacks, Sam came in and asked if I had seen Alex. Yeah, I think he’s in the bathroom. Sam had bandages on his legs. It looked weird, but I didn’t ask. Just assumed he had some kind of ointment on his legs to help with muscle soreness. He left the dining room to go find Alex.
They walked in and pulled me into the dining room. Sam started telling me a story about me, earlier today, when I was having a panic attack at the laundromat. He told me about the speech I made last night, and reminded me that I knew I could do this. I could make it through the mountains. And then he pulled the bandages off his legs.
Holy. Shit.
On one leg, read ‘Aut Vincere’
The other, ‘Aut mori’
Tattoed. On his fucking legs. My family motto that I had used as a rallying cry last night.
We were going through the fucking Sierra. Come hell or high water. We were doing this. Together
I spent the rest of the day oscillating between 1. internal nausea, swimming in the churn of my stomach and 2. trying to externally prepare to leave tomorrow. Talking to anyone or listening to anyone didn’t make me feel better, because the only thing anyone talked about is how fucking dangerous it was and how we were insane for going back out.
I finished off the evening by forcing myself to eat tacos, distracted by The Goonies and Spaceballs.
I went to bed exhausted, but compelled to get the F out of Bishop. The toxic town where hikers decide the fate of their trail and try to propaganda others into joining them.