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PCT SUCCESS Liz Krol and Simon Willis have completed the Pacific Crest
Trail. I confess; I crunch candy.
I don't know if this reveals a deep personality disorder or whether it's
significant that Liz is entirely oposite, devouring hers slowly, savouring
each sugary sweet. She even yells at me if I fail to treat quality, dark
chocolate with the respect she insists it deserves And this was the
dilemma we faced as the snow fell on the final section of the Pacific Crest
Trail, the achingly beautiful North Cascades. Do we linger and savour a
landscape, which grew more beautiful with each dusting of snow, or should we
dash for the finish, crunch through the power, and finally end this five
month walk? We could not decide.
In the end, as we've now done on many occasions, we delegated the decision to
our legs which by now have developed minds of their own. If they feel fit
enough to hike big miles, the rest of us goes along with them. We've little
choice really. The legs said crunch.
So on our final full day hiking the Pacific Crest Trail we covered more than
thirty miles. It is an exhilarating finish. The trail sweeps up to its
highest point in Washington State where I just know that every thru-hiker
will have turned and looked back at the terrain through which they'd walked.
The view is of spectacular jagged pillars of rock, arguably more impressive
even than the Sierra as these are seen almost at eye level from a trail that
stays high and snakes around their contours. But the thru-hiker
sees more than this. His or her mind's eye gazes back across the volcanoes of
Oregon, peers through dust and heat of the Southern California desert, and
comes to rest on the dark forbidding fence at the Mexican border -- 2,658
miles and more than 341,000 ft of climbing away. Turning North again,
it's downhill to the border where a simple wooden monument marks the end of
the trail. Standing alongside is a small silver version of the Washington
Monument, the true border marker between the US and Canada. That's when we
realised it's all over. Except it's not.
Perversely, the terminus is not at the end! Another eight miles of hiking lies
ahead, some of it quite tough, but looking back I can hardly remember a step
of it. My legs kept walking, but my mind had already finished. In the following few
days I spoke to several PCT hikers about those last few days. Many described
a sense of anti-climax, almost numbness, certainly not the elation they felt
they ought to be experiencing. We empathize. This is a confusing time for us.
We don't know whether we're sad a wonderful adventure and simple, nomadic way
of life is over, or whether we're delighted that we don't have to walk thirty
miles today. It will take time before our deeper reactions to this trail
surface. For now we're
struggling to cope with a loud Vancouver hostel and airline timetables, a
struggle ameliorated by a generous exchange rate. And what are we buying?
Why, maps and equipment, of course. We're already planning our next
adventure. Simon Willis flew
with America Airline and is sending his dispatches using pocketmail.com |
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