The Walk to Canada

(Perhaps the first essay I ever wrote.)

The air at Benson lake is cold in the morning, even on August fifteenth. Wind blows across the water and into the krumholzed hemlock steadily throughout the night, bright stars like a white net above. When I open my eyes to the blue light of my tent I know morning has come and Neil will soon be awake, but I rest awhile longer not really wanting to hear the opening whine of his tent zipper. Sometimes in the sleepy quiet a stray chunk of granite hits the water and is registered by my ears, or a bow of hemlock drags across the tent roof. I pretend that Neil is an alarm clock I am trying to ignore, stealing a few more moments before the beginning of an early day.

At some point the illusion gives way and I am up fixing breakfast. The blowtorch roar of my stove displaces the quiet of the lake basin, and soon I am sipping a cup of hot coffee while Neil finishes off his food bag. Granola, milk powder, and dried fruit are followed by noodles, oil and soup mix. He wolfs all these down with equal parts relish and disdain; his stomach has become a hungry dog which he can hold at bay but not satisfy. His spoon scrapes around the plastic of his Tupperware bowl, procuring every last morsel of energy for the divine altar of digestion. I am eating some oatmeal and maybe a few raisins and almonds, fixated on the steam and smell of my coffee.

The sun peeks up over the ridge behind the lake. Its first orange rays light the steam from my coffee cup and the dark little trees behind me. The color of the lake turns from black to a cold green, and the wind seems to die at once. I hold my eyes out over the water and savor the cold which is still with us. Neil does the same and we sit in silence.

Both of us are wearing hats and gloves, and Neil has on a black pile jacket. My flimsy wool shirt doesn’t keep the heat very well and the cuffs have started to shred. The buttons have worn out their holes and several are missing. For the first time this summer, I envy someone else’s warm clothes—it must be a sign that autumn is around the corner.

The spell is broken as Neil’s stomach starts to gurgle again and my coffee goes cold. We pack up in silence, the only sounds are of nylon and metal rubbing and clanging. This morning packing is a well established ritual, and I follow my routine without thinking.

First the sleeping bag is bagged then stuffed into the bottom of the pack, blue nylon in black nylon in blue nylon. Then the tent is put away and the extra clothing packed above the sleeping bag. Food and cooking gear are tucked above the clothing and shelter. Toothbrush, candle lantern, journal, and maps are zipped into the top pocket. Water bottles are filled, shaken until dry and placed in side pockets. Anything wet—yesterday’s washed socks or sweaty damp shirt—is hung off the back to dry in the sun and wind.

On a warmer day the black wool shirt—smoky, tattered, and antiquated—is packed up with my hat. Soft, snug and synthetic, with its purple, red and blue panels, ear flaps and chin strap, my hat is everything backpacking gear has become, as modern as the shirt is outdated. The loud little stove, battered but reliable, is next to its fuel of refined gasoline. Everything was once a shade too bright, or too refined, but if it is mouse-nibbled, well-used, came to me free, or a little junky, I have a fondness for it.

“Forty days” I tell myself. That is how long I have had to prepare for packing up today. That is how long I have walked from the trailhead at Wapinitia Pass, Oregon. Forty mornings of hemming and hawing, of questioning the wisdom of a sleeping bag that heavy, or of carrying two bowls, a flashlight and a candle lantern. Forty mornings of sore shoulders, one tender ankle, innumerable cups of coffee. Forty mornings of the Pacific Crest Trail. Just as quickly, I wonder why I have to put a number to things. Why not think of time as the ground that wears down my boots, the sun that burns my face, or the sweat and shit that my lovingly chosen food becomes in the end?

“I wonder what sort of beer they’ll have at the park in Manning,” says Neil, breaking the silence with his concern. I look up from lacing my boots and think about that for a second. “Canada has got some good brews—Kokanee, Labatt’s, but they might be expensive,” he continues. Perhaps Neil, who has been out longer than I, tells time by his craving for a good beer. Still, numbers are the companion of all long distance hikers—miles, nights, dollars, states, days, Hershey bars.

Nothing remains to be put away and I resign myself to leaving the lake basin. The wind is gone and the sun strong, but the both of us keep our hats and warm clothes on, although I tuck my gloves away at the last minute. We hoist our packs and sway about, testing their balance. Shoe laces are checked, socks are pulled up and Neil is off, bound for the beer of Canada. I wait for a minute, taking in the light and the cold air, reluctant to leave. Over the rim of granite on the far side of the lake, snowy North Cascade peaks sit like Olympic gods, beautiful and impassive.

I don’t want to go back. Back to greasy food, Winne-bozos, bus rides, lawns, and whatever else is in store for us. Out of Olympus and down to the interstate. I try to convince myself that somehow today is a beginning, not an end, and that I could keep walking to the North Pole. My mind is calm, my body is strong, and my pack still has plenty of food. I struggle to feel some sort of finality—“the fortieth day”—but I am not ready to finish anything.

When I finished the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon, I was a wreck. Emaciated and exhausted, I rushed along the last day, stopping now and then to eat a package of ramen noodles. I can see myself clearly sitting in a clearcut, munching on raw pieces of noodle, my feet screaming at me, clothes wet and squishy, eyes glued to the trail, fixated on its end. It was like a pilgrimage; every step was bound toward the North, and my mind was relieved of burden. Pain deprivation and boredom were secondary to the sharp feel of purpose I felt. I walked out onto the highway completely spent and satisfied, too broke and hungry to walk the last section of trail to the Columbia River. That was three years ago.

Neil is running on that same sort of hunger and fatigue, his sights set firmly on Manning Park and the relief it will bring. Since we met three days ago, I have had a nickname for him: The Pilgrim. He has a habit of walking with his hands folded over his camera bag, as if in prayer, his eyes cast down, always down, to the trail. The clouds could spell out his name and he might never see it. Such is the way he has seen the 900 miles from Siskiyou pass.

We leave the lake shore, still a little chilly. Reluctantly I submit to the motion. Here and there larches seem to be yellowing, the sweet yearly act of submission. The beautiful death after the beautiful life, what more could there be? For us, there is the act of witness and the sound of footsteps clomping through the morning.

Neil walks ahead of me with a quick gait. He is all business now, expending the least amount of energy necessary to achieve the maximum distance. True to form, his head is bent and the swish of his dirty cotton pants is the loudest noise I hear.

His pack, an old Kelty, has seen better days. Bungee cords supplant missing straps and hold everything together. The original confident red and blue nylon packbag is fading from use. His boots are worn on the outside sole, feet turning slightly outward from miles of abuse. His once-white pants snag and droop over his long legs, and bunch up under a waist-belt that is covered with thick wrappings of frayed duct-tape, like the arms of a mummy.

Neil has done a lot of long-distance hiking. The Appalachian Trail and portions of the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail are all familiar to him. Like his pack, he is a little weathered, a little ragged around the edges. Like its contents, he is lean and efficient, cat-like. Day after day he walks a steady 20 miles, stopping rarely but suddenly when he gets hungry.

I am more of a dog, if anything. Capable of bursts of speed and lazy moping, I mostly walk a slow and steady pace. My pack is well supplied with food, extra chocolate even, but otherwise spare. Once I strived for 20 miles per day on the P.C.T., but not this summer. Something in me has changed and I do not envy Neil, Lou Reccow, and others I have met who rush along, slaves to their pace. When I feel up to it, I walk a 20 mile day; when I don’t, I spend lots of time looking about.

There is something telling in a hiker’s pace. Some people run themselves down, like wound up toys, only to need fresh urgency in the next day. Others find a grace in moving fast that suits them like a good pack. I met a hiker named John who ambled like a hungry bear, all strength and weight, and I could see in his body that speed was a kind of religion to him. He said that he had walked the California P.C.T.—about 1600 miles—in 65 days. That’s 25 miles per day if he never stopped once. I believed him.

There is a hiker ahead of Neil and me who has apparently turned the numbers game inside out. Since Snoqualmie I have seen Donnal’s trail register stories boasting of his lack of speed, and condemnations of people on a faster course, more extravagant diet, or longer hike. Reading his entries can be like talking to an overzealous religious convert. He tries very hard to promote his own carefully cultivated Way and leaves me feeling like I would rather be impure than suffer the burden of righteousness. I am happy that not everyone thinks of the trail as a race track, but I think that Donnal has missed something fundamental.

Let us have fast hikers and slow, ascetics and gourmet chefs, dawdling youngsters and speed-demon grandmas. Let there be a pace for each setter. But, please, preserve me from the competers and comparers; the dilettante gear freaks more concerned with Whisperlites than with babbling brooks; the peak-baggers with their collections of verbal bumperstickers. Sometimes I think the line between hiker and Winne-bozo is thinner than it once was.

The trail levels out above the lake basin, and cuts across a long slope. Avalanche chutes surrounded by thickets of alder become more numerous and more serious looking. The barren granite passes of yesterday are replaced by a hardy forest of hemlock and wet meadow.

At Castle Pass, we come upon a sign that sets us both to laughing: U.S. Border 3 miles, has been changed with a felt tipped pen to read: U.S./Canadian, EH? Border 3 miles. Nationality is not something I have thought about in a long while. For so many days the border has just meant an end to us rather than a crossing. The idea that past that point there will actually be Canada and Canadians is somehow a little surprising.

The air is warm enough to shed a layer of clothing now. Neil is completely out of food, but I break out the chocolate. “Oh, you don’t have to share that,” he says, drool forming at the corners of his mouth. I hand him a piece without mentioning that I’ve still got plenty.

We shoulder our packs and turn down a northwest facing ridge, still dark. The huckleberries are dying here and frost patches linger in the shade. The moist, woody smell of decay and the sound of breath in cold air are hypnotizing. Soon we will leave the subalpine and reenter the true forest.

A lush bowl of grass at the head of a creek makes for wet walking in the dew. Neil marches on ahead, hands together, head down. I slow and stop frequently, thinking “Larch, Hemlock, Silver Fir” or “Granite, Sedge, Woodpecker.” My pants are soaked.

I take pleasure in the number of miles I have walked. I count precisely: 495.2 from Wapinitia Pass to Benson Lake. I make averages out of the days and weeks, I compare these to other personal averages. I think about the P.C.T.’s length (2600+ miles), and what percentage of that I have hiked. I compare the lengths of other trails. I try to remember the number of National Forests I have passed through, the number of National Parks.

When I catch up to Neil he has come upon a hiker headed the other way. She is a curious looking woman dressed in green felt hat, parka and pants and a pair of purple shoes. Her pack is a beautiful old wooden trapper-style frame with a green canvas pack bag. I can’t help but stare—she looks like a giant leprechaun, right down to the twinkly eyes and cherubic smile. She says to Neil as I walk up “Ahh, it’s just a wee dawdle on down to the border now, for yee,” and tromps slowly past us. Neil and I exchange glances and continue on.

Steadily downward now the trail descends. According to our guidebook, several abrupt switchbacks will announce the final drop to Monument 78 and the Canadian border. We hike together, and I can feel the anticipation, any drop in the trail excites us, any climb brings resignation. I have eaten nothing but chocolate and I start to fantasize about the greasy grub at Manning Lodge. Just as I think it, Neil says, “We must be close now.”

Neil climbs a small ridge and lets out a laugh, “Look at this.”

When I catch up he is staring at the border below. I can tell it is the border because a ten foot wide wide swath of clearcut forest traverses the canyon below and continues over the next hill. The border has been shaved into the forest, as far east or west as we can see. “Wouldn’t you know it,” he says “I wonder which side got the trees?”

“I suppose that depends on which way they fell.”

The long-awaited switchbacks now deposit us on the border proper. The silver obelisque Monument 78 makes it official. I break out more chocolate and we munch it like kids, laughing and clapping each other on the back. A wooden post announces the end (or beginning, eh?) of the trail, and a signboard welcomes us to Manning Provincial Park.

Monument 78 is made of two pieces of heavy metal, constructed such that the top can be removed. Inside, passing hikers leave notes, messages, bits of inspiration, complaints. We hoist the top off and read through the year’s batch. Lou Reccow, the 64-year-old retired professor, has made it, cold, wet ,and awe-struck. He wonders what next, and I sense an impending post-trail depression. Donnal has left his usual self-righteous declaration—something like, “I made it, and I did it much better than you did.” Someone else claims that the wilderness is crying out for us to be reborn into Christ. Jim from Canada says, “Go Cubensis!”

We add our own thoughts. Trail registers make me somewhat nostalgic and this one is no exception. I think about Max and Linda whom I met early on. They were holed up inside their tent, hiding from the mosquitoes. Novice hikers, they had taken on the P.C.T as a big adventure—surely a much more heroic undertaking than my own. We traded stories and advice and walked together until White Pass where they called it quits.

I think about Lou and his note. A buoyant, hyperactive, retired professor, I have trouble picturing him here, cold rain dripping from his clothes and the quiet sadness of his note.

I am not struck with profound insights, nor born again into Christ. I feel no real breakthrough in my body or soul. All I can write is that I am finishing with a smile. I leave the glory and tears to those that require them and finish my chocolate.

From the border we hike on into British Columbia, with its bright red kilometer signs and well-graded path. Atop a ridge we hear car noise and know that soon we will see highway 3 through the trees. With a sigh, I realize that soon the Greyhound will carry me down that blacktop.

Soon Neil’s and my torn clothing, wild beards, and dirty backpacks will place us at the bottom of the social hierarchy. This is perhaps one of the most disorienting aspects of reentering civilization. As hikers, the P.C.T long-distance backpacker is revered along the trail. Day-trippers will look on with awe when one says, in response to the question, “Where did you come from?”

“Oh, about 500 miles back down the trail.”

The tatteredness, the dirt, they are like badges then. They are signs of having gone further than the weekender. It feels good to be sweaty and worn down, to revel in the cheap admiration.

But step out of the woods onto the outskirts of any highway town and all of a sudden people look at us a little sidelong. Vacationers in matching jumpsuits, transient truck drivers, mini-store employees, all look down on our shabbiness and general feral demeanor. The dusty backpack and worn out boots mark us as some sort of vagrant.

Here though, we are yet in our element.

A fire road heads sharply down and past outbuildings of the park proper. Confusing trails bring us down the Similkameen river, where families on horseback ride by and strollers wander along. I suggest we wade the river but Neil disagrees. Burnt out as he is, he cannot bring himself to abandon the last several hundred yards of willow covered trail.

We cross an old bridge and there we are: civilization. A vast green lawn and blacktop roads connect knick-knack shops, toilets, overpriced eateries, and tour buses. Stunned looking families amble about, the children screaming and pointing. Cars on the highway fly past at unbelievable speed.

“Hey, Let’s go get a beer before we have to face this,” says Neil.

What I really want is to turn back. Just splash across the Similkameen and head toward Mexico. But somehow my feet don’t respond to these commands, I see them moving over blacktop, and toward what looks like a trap. Grease trap, tourist trap, money trap. It is, in fact, the restaurant.

I manage to stop for a moment and try to collect the strangeness I feel while it is fresh. I am struck by aspen trees, planted over the perfect emerald lawn. They are just on the verge of turning yellow. I stare at them numbly, not wanting to go forward, not wanting to acknowledge all of this yet. It is as if I want to dictate my own emergence back into this. The little green leaves twist in the wind, not quite ready to die. I cannot really be sure if the edges are yellowing yet, or if I just imagine it.

I turn back to where I have come from, but it is just a dense green blur of trees. I cannot even make out where the trail runs through it. I am already gone.