While helping out the Lyons Pride trail crew I worked and chatted for a bit with Mike, an older man like myself who had recently hiked the PCT. We got on the topic of the book Wild, a hot topic along the trail as the book is credited/blamed for drastically increasing thru-hiking traffic this year and projected into next. An ironic consequence, since the author herself only hiked a section.
I don’t read books about long-distance hiking because I much rather be a part of such journeys rather than reading about them. In the case of books like Wild and Bryson’s Into the Woods about his Appalachian Trail follies there is the disincentive of the books not truly reflecting an actual long-distance hiker’s journey. Mike was quite down on Wild in fact, claiming that he wished he did not waste his time reading it.
I came to the defense of the author on one point: even real long-distance hikers can do stupid things. I felt compelled to make this case considering we were close to the Castle Crags, the place where I came closest to death. Upon sharing my stupidity Mike in turn came to my defense, saying: “That was actually courageous in a way.” Nope. I appreciate Mike trying to put a good face on it but what we did in the Crags was just plain foolhardy, the dumbest decision of many I made on the trail.
This hit home to me all the more on the next day when Cindy and I got a full view of the crags hiking down towards Interstate 5. For those who have seen the Castle Crags, or who know a bit about climbing, you will need no convincing of our stupidity. For anyone else I will endeavor to convince you.
In 1977 there was not yet a permanent PCT trail heading north from Interstate 5. The guidebook referred to a proposed PCT, temporary PCT, alternate PCT and one other trail with an adjective I can’t recall. The two tenderfoots Dan and Howie (though at this point three weeks in they were moving beyond tenderfoot status) decided to do what any rational hiker would do, follow a trail listed in the guidebook. Meanwhile, the three “experienced” hikers, who prided ourselves on being hiking machines with some justification, observed that the shortest path between two points is a straight line and it did not matter to us that the formidable cliffs known as the Castle Crags lay in between.
The route we chose would have called for ropes, as would any route through the Crags, and the absence of 75 pound packs at the start of an 11 day stretch. Are you getting the picture now? A full account of what happened next has been my most popular trail story, shared with a hundred or more hikers on various monotonous sections of trail. Here’s an abridged version.
About a third of the way up the Crags Savitt became stuck and Ken lost his glasses. I tried a new route up to Savitt to help him out, toe-jamming my way up a crack in the cliff face. My toes slip out; for a moment I’m hanging with my 75 pound pack by a couple of fingers; in the greatest panic in my life I screamed out “Help!”; in perhaps the greatest panic of his life Savitt yelled: “I’d do anything I could for you buddy, but I’m stuck!”; my fingers give out but by some miracle I do a 270 spin to nail a landing on a perpendicular ledge I spotted below.
There was a 2 foot dwarf pine on the ledge. I complimented the dumbest thing I ever did with the dumbest thing I ever said. I threw my pack off by the dwarf pine and declared: “I’m camping here!” Savitt replied: “That’s fine for you but I’m still stuck up here!” In the next sequence of events I get out a rope to toss to Savitt for lowering his pack; an updraft sails the rope up above his head; Savitt takes tent poles out from his tent attached to his frame behind his head and pieces them together to hook the rope; Savitt lowers his pack to me, then is able to climb down; Ken finds his glasses and we send him to fetch rangers for a rescue.
That’s really only a third of the story. Added to that is the predicament of Dan and Howie, who had no idea what happened to the “experienced” hikers of the group who, by the way, were carrying all the tents. Also part of the story is my stay with Doc Thompson, who stitched me up after I was brought to the Weed hospital.
I’ll just close with our rescue from the cliffs. After mopping up all the blood on my leg with my spare underwear Savitt and I leisurely sat on the ledge, legs dangling over the cliff, passing the time away playing cards. When the rangers came we expected a good scolding but what they did was worse. They hardly acknowledged us as they set up the belays to get us down, but kept chuckling among themselves at the absurdity of our situation, discussing the proper ranking of this with other yahoos they rescued. Unlike Mike from the trail crew they failed to see any courageous element in what we did. As I looked once again at the formidable Castle Crags from a distance, I agreed with the rangers.
There’s Wild and there’s Stupid. Sometimes they are the same.
