[pct-l] Illegal Marijuana

[jolson at olc.edu (Jeffrey Olson)]

All kidding aside...

This summer I hitched down into Trout Lake.  I'd spent the night at a 
gorgeous camp (near a bridge over a really excellently flowing creek).  
I'd set up my SD ultralightyear and was enjoying snacking on dinner when 
a couple old guys (I'm 53 and they were at least 55, but they looked 
it!!!) cruised into camp and set up 15' from me. 

One of the things that I hate when doing a long hike is having to camp 
with someone else around.  there are all sorts of social obligations 
that come along with camping in close proximity that I'm simply not 
interested in.  When I get to camp I go to bed, eat, read, and fall 
asleep.  Socializing is not my forte in camp on the trail.

I remember finding a camp at a spring somewhere in in southern 
washington or northern oregon and setting up and drying clothes and 
getting warm.  I went to bed and was half asleep when Recess, Cedar and 
Skittles quietly made their way to the spring and camp.  They set up, 
got in their tents, wrote in their journals by artifical light, and went 
to sleep. 

I got up the next morning at dawn and was on the trail before first 
light, and felt almost parental as I light-stepped by their tents, only 
a couple feet away, to get back to the trail.  We all marvelled later 
when we met at Ramona Falls or some place like that they hadn't bothered 
me and I hadn't bothered them.  This is the rock-bottom-base-line of 
sharing on the trail.  What else happens happens... 

What's funny is that Monty and Dave - I forget his trailname - walked by 
really involved in a conversation about where the kickoff should be 
held.  I know that only a couple people on the list have actually met 
WArner Springs Monty.  Genuiness and caring is what I carried away from 
my couple short contacts with him. 

At another camp - Lava Spring in Oregon - I was in bed, reading, having 
already eaten and ready to conk out by seven, when a couple and their 
little dog descended the trail from the south, wandered around, and set 
up not 30' from me.  There were countless flat spots where they would 
have been out of sight/mind.  But no, they set up so that I could hear 
every word. 

The guy had had a rough day, and was moaning, literally.  His girlfriend 
had the kind of voice where she was used to coping with his personality 
that was so patronizing I about barfed as I lay in my tent trying to 
ignore them.  This was the only time I got pissed on the trail this 
summer.  This couple had no sense of the world outside their pain and 
weird relationship.  (I hope they're not on the listserv!!!)

I am an earlier riser on the trail and was long gone before the old guys 
woke up.  I got to Road 88 about 6:30 and began to hitchhike.  What was 
funny is that there were no cars to put my thumb in front of and shame 
into stopping to pick me up.  I spent two hours standing by the side of 
the road, watching the sun get higher in the sky and no one came by.  No 
one. 

I began to walk toward Trout Lake, 12 miles down the road.  I figured 
this would be a good time to see just how fast I walk on even surfaces.  
I walk three miles an hour. (What's amazing to me, is this is the pace I 
hike at on the regular PCT grade)  I would have arrived in Trout Lake 
sometime around 1PM. 

Hiking on the road is different from hiking on the trail.  There were 
mileage signs for one, so I could see how many minutes it took me to go 
a mile - generally about 19.  I was so conscious, so awake and aware 
within the act of walking I had to cope with heart palpitations.  
Super-consciousness in the moment tends to slow time down and when 
you're walking, this is not a desireable feature of living!!!  This was 
a microcosm of what I was experiencing on the trail, a sense of 
elongation, that all I was doing was putting one foot in front of the 
other, heading to???  High anxiety... 

I noticed that Busch beer was the beer of choice of those who threw 
their cans out of their pickups. Coors was a close second, with Budlight 
a close third.  I just wish that there had been pickups driving by.  
 From the time I left the intersection of the trail with the road and 
when I was finally picked up, nine miles down the road, seven cars had 
passed.  Most had swerved to avoid hitting me.  I particularly remember 
the face of one old guy with a big gut who had to "work" to turn the 
wheel so that he entered the other lane to avoid me on the non-existent 
shoulder, brush pushing me into the traffic lane.  His effort was 
heroic, and I thanked him. 

Speaking of big guts...

I've gained most of the weight back I lost while hiking for 700 miles.  
One of the differences I noticed when I was down to 235 pounds was that 
when I leaned over while sitting down to tie my shoes I no longer tied 
them so the knot was on the inside.  I figure that fat people, like me 
:-)  can't really lean over and tie their shoes from the top down.  We 
need to lean over and reach our laces and tie our shoes so that the knot 
is is on the INSIDE of our shoes.  This bugged me for the first month of 
hiking.  When I got down in weight and was able to sit on a log and lean 
over and tie my shoes so the knot was on the outside, I felt so 
fulfilled....  When I'm hyperaware I find myself looking at people's 
shoes to see where the knot is.  I generally affirm my hypothesis - fat 
people tie their shoes so the knots are on the inside of the shoe... 

I'd about given up getting a ride.  I'd hiked by a part of the road, 
three miles outside of Trout Lake, where they were logging the 100 yard 
wide strip left to shield tourists from the ravages of clearcutting.  I 
walked by the machine that does everything.  He stopped his operation 
while I walked by on the road.  I felt like he was honoring me when I 
knew that it was insurance requirements that determined what he did.  
His cab was blacked out with sunscreening, and I knew he was air 
conditioned.  It was ugly, really, really ugly...

Finally, a fellow in a old Bronco with no roof stopped.  He had long 
gray hair and beard.  I damn near stumbled into his car with thanks to a 
larger reality.  And there, lo and behold, was Warner Springs Monty.  He 
was hitching into Trout Lake to resupply as well.  WE shared a bit of 
our experience and headed our different directions when we got into 
Trout Lake. 

One of the things I would change about hiking this summer is how much 
time I spent with people.  I tended to avoid them.  I liked the two hour 
talk and that's it.  I stayed away from "The Wave" pretty well.  I was 
out to deal with my own demons, which I knew couldn't be seen, met, and 
dealt with if I were in a group of people.  i wasn't out on the trail to 
hike from A to B.  I was there to let my own demons emerge and see what 
they looked like.  Most people were out to simply hike the trail. 

I think the next time I do a long walk - perhaps next summer!!! - I want 
to see if the loose confederation model will work for me.  My  ultimate 
dream is to find a woman that likes to hike as much as I.  I found one 
in the early 90s, and we spend 30 days on the PCT, Lassen to South 
Tahoe, before I blew out an ACL.  Not a loose confederation, but the 
deepening of a relationship, the 24/7 contact and physical/emotional 
pain - the experience that builds relationships... 

I kept wanting to ask the honeymooners/newlyweds (they never became 
individuals for me) what was going on with them.   The boat people were 
removed, in their own world.  I loved talking with Stick-girl and Bump.  
They helped me leave the trail for good, or at least a month...

I met one couple an hour from the end of their thru-hike and I was a 
stranger.  I empathized, felt, sympathized, celebrated, etc.  They 
simply looked at my response as a validation, minor albeit...

The experience of hiking as a couple is not to be exceeded, at least in 
my experience. 

The old Bronco without a top arrived in Trout Lake and dropped Monty and 
me off at the store.  I headed over to the post office and picked up my 
resupply package.  I found a concrete wall behind the post office and 
culled and added and groaned and got real.  The real part was that I 
wasn't going to hike from there to the border.  I was going to hitchhike 
to Cascade Locks.  That felt good. 

Once I had my food packed and ready to go I walked to the burger joint 
near the Y.  A couple 20 something guys, dirty, skinny, with packs, were 
there with pints and burgers.  I sat down and a beautiful young woman 
came out and took my order.  She was primally aware of the two guys, and 
they were in damn near worship space.  Nothing was said - it was all 
visuals...

The two guys and I started talking and over the next half hour I went 
from the status of being some old guy to a peer.  The fellow who did 
most of the talking was a brewmaster from a brewery that was one of the 
few in the northwest that made organic India Pale Ale (my beer of 
choice!).  I'd order a couple beers and was slowly mellowing as we 
talked.  When all our food was done and we'd done telling our stories, 
the brewmaster, assistant actually, asked if I wanted to move over into 
the willows by the creek that ran by the burger joint and get high. 

I was so honored.  I'm 53.  This guy was 25.  He saw his way across the 
age divide to offer to share getting high.  This was about 1PM or so, 
and my day had been long already.  I wanted to hitch to the Gorge and 
find a motel room and let my body heal.  I hadn't smoked pot in a while, 
and knew that hitchhiking while high on pot at 53 would have been like 
hitching on LSD when I was 23. 

I thanked the guy, ruing that I was so small/uptight in my way at that 
moment.  In retrospect, being really high on good pot wouldn't have made 
a whit of difference to my getting to Cascade Locks.  I might have been 
a little more paranoid, but the rides would have been the same... 

So, the end of the story is that illegal marijuana is everywhere, and 
each of us has to make a choice in regards to our use of it. 

Jeffrey Olson
Martin, SD