Luke Dellar, age twelve, is weary of his flip-flop life. He flies to his father's house in San Diego one month and back to his mother's house in Seattle the next. He's even more tired of taking pills for his hyperactivity that has worsened since his parent's divorce. A solution to his flip-flopping, pill-popping life? Run away and hike the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2650 mile, five-month journey from the Mexican border to the Canadian border.
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Part One: The Desert
1. Mountain Lion
“Go away! Get out of here!”
Only the thin nylon of my tent separated me from the mountain lion. With a deep purr, the huge cat prowled around my shelter. The flickering flames of my campfire cast its silhouette against the slanted orange walls. I was terrified. I shivered both from fright and the cold mountain air.
“Get! Get!” I shouted. “I’m not afraid of you!”
I placed my thumb on the button of my emergency beacon. Pressing it would send a distress signal, and rescuers would be here before dawn. But they would recognize me. They’d know my real name…Luke Dellar…and age…twelve. They would know I was the runaway boy from San Diego, and my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail would be over.
The wild cat hissed.
"Go away! Leave me alone!"
Minutes before, I'd been sitting by the fire, tying knots. The undergrowth rustled, and I directed my headlamp toward the sound. The ray of light reflected off the cat’s golden eyes.
“What are you doing out there?” I shouted. “What do you want?”
My thumb stayed poised on the button. What could I do? If the cougar clawed through the nylon, I had only a pocketknife to protect me. I banged the knife on my cooking pot, but the beast kept circling the tent.
Motionless, I waited. With every breath steam shot from my mouth and froze on the tent walls.
“You still there, lion?” I said. “Or did you run away, scaredy cat?”
Scuffling footsteps came from the trail. Through the nylon, I saw two light beams.
“Knots, is that you?” someone called. “What are you yelling at?”
I recognized the English accent. “Granite! There’s a mountain lion out there.”
Two people laughed.
“Nothing out here, Knots, but a warm campfire.”
I knew the second voice as well. Sprinkle was a Canadian woman Granite had met in Sierra City.
“Come on out, Knots,” Granite called. “Enjoy your fire with us.”
Slowly I unzipped the mosquito netting and pulled aside the tent flap. Not a sign of the mountain lion. The two thru-hikers sat by the fire holding their palms toward the warmth.
“The lion was stalking me!” I said. “It walked around and around my tent.”
Again the couple laughed.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Bigfoot you saw, Knots?” Granite said. “No panther would come into a campsite with a fire blazing.”
“Hope you don’t mind us sharing your site tonight,” said Sprinkle. “We’ve hiked twenty-five miles today.”
“We’ll cowboy camp here by the fire,” Granite said.
I crawled out of my tent, looking into the trees. Cowboy camping was a trail term for sleeping out in the open without a tent.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “I’m telling you, Granite, a huge mountain lion, as tall as my tent, was just here. It’s probably watching us now.”
Granite held out a Ziploc bag full of peanuts, chocolate bits, and raisins. “Have some trail mix, Knots.”
Seeing how unconcerned Granite and Sprinkle were, I began doubting what I’d seen and heard. Had a mountain lion really been in my campsite? Maybe it was just the wind and the shadow of a waving pine bough.
That’s when I aimed my headlamp toward the base of my tent and dropped to my knees.
“Look here,” I said.
Granite stood and saw them, too. “Bloody ‘ell,” he said.
In the dust were paw prints over four inches long.
2. Plans
I was a flip-flop kid. Fridays leaving inbound on plane. Fridays leaving outbound on plane. For two years, that was how my life worked. On the first Friday of the month, I flew from my mom’s house in Seattle to my dad’s in San Diego. The next month, I flip-flopped and flew back to Washington. That meant I had two bedrooms, two computers, and two closets full of clothes. I attended two schools and rooted for two baseball teams, the Mariners and Padres. I saw it not as two separate lives, but as two half lives that didn’t make a whole. Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Month after month. Making friends was hard. No one wanted a half-time friend. Some days I forgot where I was. My parents were proud of their divorce agreement. No courts. No cost. No asking for my opinion about the arrangement.
When did I first get the idea to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail? At my mom’s house while reading blogs online. The blog of a Swedish woman named Boo Boo caught my interest. The day’s entry was titled Day 151 Mile 2302 Goat Rocks Wilderness.
I had backpacked in the Goat Rocks in Washington with my parents. But Boo Boo had hiked there from the Mexican border along a single trail, the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. After some Googling, I learned the PCT was 2650 miles long and ran the width of the United States border to border. It took about five months to hike the entire length. The trail was established in 1968, and since then only 3416 people had hiked the whole way. Anyone who attempts the feat is called a thru-hiker.
Boo Boo, like most thru-hikers, started her hike in late April. Timing was important. She hiked through the southern deserts before the summer’s heat arrived and reached the Sierra Mountains in July after the snow melted. Now, in late September, she was hiking through the Northern Cascades before the snow fell again.
My thoughts turned. A thru-hike? Why couldn’t I do it? I had plenty of backpacking experience. I had gone on many camping trips with my parents. I knew first-aid, how to build a fire, and all the wilderness survival stuff.
Not only would a thru-hike be a break from my flip-flop life, but I also had something to prove. Something major. If I went hiking for five months on the PCT, I’d prove the pills weren’t needed. The pills that numbed my mind. The small round green things that made me sleepy and sluggish.
My teachers and parents saw the pills as a treatment for my hyperactivity, my antsiness. But I knew a better solution. It always worked. I just needed to move. I needed to walk, climb, leap, and wander around. Isn’t that what I’d be doing on a thru-hike? I’d be moving all the time, all day, every day. My mind was set. Good-bye to this flip-flopping, pill-popping life. I was going to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail.
For the next seven months, I prepared for the hike. Flip-flop. Flip flop. While in Seattle I ordered gear online from REI Outfitters. Lists of the lightweight equipment I needed appeared on many thru-hiker blogs. The packages were delivered to my house before mom came home from her nursing job.
In San Diego, I studied maps and read PCT guidebooks. Knowing water sources and resupply towns along the trail was crucial. I also jogged five miles a day and hiked around the block with a backpack full of rocks. Of the five hundred people who attempt a thru-hike each year, only about twenty percent make it all the way. Most fail from being out of shape.
My flip-flop life made the getaway easy. On May 1 when I flew to San Diego, instead of taking the bus from the airport to my dad’s house, I would catch a bus to Campo, California, two hours away at the start of the Pacific Crest Trail.
My flight south was a speedy version of my hike in reverse. Out the airplane window, Mount Rainier loomed. Minutes later, we passed over the Columbia River and Mount Hood.
“See you in August,” I said.
The Oregon Cascades, still shrouded in snow, came next. Crater Lake in Southern Oregon appeared as a round blue circle and Mount Shasta in Northern California, an inverted ice-cream cone.
“I’ll pass you in late July.”
Next my biggest challenge, the High Sierra, appeared out the window as a lumpy white blanket.
“May your snow be gone by the time I reach you in June,” I said.
When the plane landed in San Diego, I found the bus to Campo. Before boarding, I took the green bottle of pills from my pocket. I tossed it into a trashcan.
“Now get moving, Lukas,” I told myself. “All you need to do is move.”
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Chapters
Part One: The Desert
1. The Mountain Lion
2. Plans
My Gear List
3. Beginning
4. Soldiers
5. Day Two
6. Trail Magic
7. Records
8. Idyllwild
9. Hills and Windmills
10. The Accident
11. The Mojave
12. Kennedy Meadows
Part Two: The High Sierra
13. Climbing
14. Forester Pass
15. More Passes
16. Mammoth Lakes
17. Tuolumne Meadows
18. Mosquitoes and Bears
19. Donner Summit
20. Sierra City
21. Deputy Johnson
Part Three: Northern California
22. A Storm
23. Fire
24. Pancake Challenge
25. A Story
Part Four: Oregon
26. Ashland
27. Rain
28. Crater Lake
29. Capture
30. Rescue
31. To Santiam Pass
32. Sick Days
33. Mount Hood
34. Bridge of the Gods
Part Five: Washington
35. The Knife's Edge
36. Legend
37. Snow
38. A Surprise
39. White Out
40. Avalanche
41. The End
42. Back Home
Gear List
Item...........................Weight (oz)
* one person tent….. 21
* sleeping bag….. 22
* backpack….. 29
* sleeping pad….. 12
* cat food can alcohol stove….. 1.6
* bottle of alcohol….. 8.6
* metal cup….. 1.2
* 2 water bottles….. 1.6
* water filter….. 4.7
*cooking pot….. 8.4
* spork….. .7
* matches….. .3
* garbage bags (5)….. .6
* stuff sack…. .7
* toilet paper….. 1.2
* plastic trowel….. .8
* emergency beacon….. 4
* first aid kit….. 9
* underpants….. 1.5
* long pants….. 8.6
* long sleeve shirt….. 4.6
* extra socks….. 1.8
* fleece cap….. 2.6
* bandana….. 1.2
* flip-flops for camp….. 6
* trail shoes….. 27.8
* t-shirt….. 3.2
* sun hat….. 3.7
* nylon jacket….. 8.3
* Swiss army knife….. 2.3
* head net….. 1
* headlamp and extra batteries….. 4.7
* toothbrush and soap….. 1.2
* Deet (bug spray)….. 1.2
* hiking poles….. 12.5
* PCT guide book and maps….. 7.8
* notebook and pen….. 3.4
* rope (for tying knots)….. 1.5
total—………………..11 pounds 3oz
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