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August 12 - August 16, 2020
Mailing-food-ahead hikers risked wondering three months into their hike, “What the heck was I thinking?� That Top Ramen, those granola bars you thought you’d always love—eventually you can’t stand the sight of them. The supply-as-you-go hikers risked having to survive on peanut butter and hot dog buns for days if a small-town convenience store ran low on supplies. Two Swiss hikers mailed all of their PCT food ahead, including three different breakfasts that they planned to rotate. By the Oregon border, they’d grown to loathe one. They cussed at it in English and a mix of German and French.
“The trail always wins.� This, in sum, was his commentary on the three of us eating in an outhouse. But Tony didn’t mean “winning� in the sense of an athletic contest. The corollary wasn’t “The hiker always loses.� Far from it. Looking at Frodo and me in the corner, Tony explained, “I heard an Appalachian Trail guru speak once. He said, ‘We stop expecting the trail to be what we want and we start accepting the trail as it is.’�
That trail breaks you down until you’re sniveling in your tent crushed by the thunder and lightning and your aching feet. You worry for miles and miles about some big river crossing ahead. You lose sleep about the snow-covered passes that you know are in your path. But still to this day, I have never felt stronger or more elated.
