Charissa obviously was proud of herself, as was her Dad. On top of an exposed spur extending west from Mt. Thielsen she set up her bivouac near our tent. There was no point in using the bug dome up on this wind blown spot, hostile to both mosquitos and untethered objects. The hard ground likewise made staking a tarp down difficult. Instead she used the tarp as a taco, ready to fold over her should the surrounding thunderstorms choose to move into our vicinity. Not a true bivouac, as she still had her sleeping bag, but enough of one to give her the feeling of braving and besting the elements.
The thunderstorms were courteous enough to allow us a grand showing of the sunset to the west, providing a false sense that those storms would venture no further west than Mt. Thielsen itself. The evening spectacle featured lightening, varied cloud texture and colors, even a rainbow arcing over the top of Mt. Thielsen. The sun setting below the horizon drove Cindy and me into our tent and Charissa into her “taco” just before the rain descended upon us. I checked with Charissa occasionally to see if she was doing OK. Though damp on the outside of her fiberfill bag, she was dry and warm inside, as she expressed to me with a hint of pride and enthusiasm.
Charissa was not the first Sinclair whose adventurous spirit was engaged by Mt. Thielsen. In 1977 the five of us, with the two “tenderfoots” now full-fledged hikers, left from this same spot to climb to the top of Mt. Thielsen. The PCT avoids going over the peaks of the Cascade mountains; we wanted to lay claim to having conquered at least one. Of course we left our sixty pound packs behind, probably in the vicinity of where Charissa set up her bivouac. One of my vivid memories from that trip was of the five of us scrambling with our hands and feet up the steep slopes of Thielsen. Part of that memory was the contentment we all felt at the end of the day, a day of average miles on the PCT in addition to bagging a Cascade peak.
I suppose we were lucky to be ignorant of what some well-publicized, long-distance authors tell budding thru-hikers these days, that carrying a heavy pack wears you down and erodes your enjoyment of the trail. True, a heavier pack means less miles per day to maintain enjoyment. For us I would say the comfort range was 18-23 miles per day. That range seems to be more like 25-30 miles per day with lightweight packing. Thus the “sacrifice” that resulted from using heavier packs, with our more durable and versatile external frames, was having to spend more days out in the wilderness hiking. Back then that did not seem like a sacrifice, before anyone knew better.
Instead we had a grand time the evening after our climb, recounting with unwearied joy the experience of scrambling up Mt. Thielsen in addition to our normal hiking day. Normal mileage back then might be paltry compared to today’s lightweight standards, but I suspect a body conditioned to carry a heavier pack finds that shedding such a pack to scramble that much easier. I wonder how many thru-hikers from the class of 2014 will scramble up Mt. Thielsen this year. I can account for at least five thru-hikers who did so in 1977.
