Blistered Kind Of Love (36 page)

Diarmuid was an exception to the prevailing sentiment, though; he seemed to enjoy talking about the trail and its hikers.

“Catch-23 and Crazy Legs were here a couple days ago,” he announced, and then whispered, “so were Sunrise and Mirage.”

Sunrise and Mirage were an Israeli couple we'd initially met in Kennedy Meadows and then bumped into a few times in the Sierra. Now, according to Diarmuid, they were on the verge of breaking up. This didn't surprise me; I hadn't thought they were a particularly good match. Sunrise was no-nonsense; she'd served her mandatory Israeli military service driving tanks and had been driving Mirage hard all summer. Mirage, tall, lanky and brittle-looking, on the other hand, tried to take a leisurely approach to thru-hiking; he never appeared to be in a great hurry to get anywhere. This irritated Sunrise, and she'd often resort to verbal abuse to keep them moving, but Mirage's waifish ass was proving to be more difficult to move than an Israeli tank. Now, said Diarmuid, there was a new, unnamed love interest in Sunrise's eye and Mirage
might soon be heading home. Their ill-conceived umbilical cord had dried, frayed, and snapped. Meadow Ed's skepticism was justified; the thru-hiking business was tough on couplehood.

The evidence was continuing to mount and I was reminded of Dan White's story of love on the rocks, recounted in the
San Jose Mercury News
. In 1996 Dan and his girlfriend Rebecca set off to thru-hike the PCT. His expectations were high. “I thought of great dinners, fresh air and endless lust in the woods. I imagined Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields eating guavas and shacking up with abandon in
The Blue Lagoon
.” Well, it didn't work out quite so nicely for Dan and Rebecca; differences in hiking style, motivation, and appreciation of dirt all contributed to the downfall of their hike and their relationship. At the end of it all, Dan offered this advice to lovers on the trail: “Lighten the mood in any way you can. Rebecca and I did this with terms of endearment. I called her ‘Rat Face' and she called me ‘Fish Body.' ”

If playful nicknames were the key to success, Angela and I were on the right track. Sometime back I'd started calling her “Piggy Mouth”—in reference to her delicate but rapid style of food shoveling. In the Sierra this had been a highly contentious issue—the nightly ritual of speed slurping had turned dinners into races, and what started as a minor annoyance eventually became a bitter article of debate. Since then, I'd consistently made comments (perhaps some of them snide) about Angela's table manners and she grew increasingly resentful of the nitpicking. As it turns out, women don't appreciate having their eating habits questioned. Perhaps if I'd read
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
, I would have already known as much.

In his relationship guide, author John Gray, Ph.D., intimately explores the root causes of conflict between men and women. Of particular interest to clueless guys like me is Gray's chapter on “101 ways to score points with a woman.” After our summer on the Crest, I scanned the list with interest and while I wasn't surprised to see suggestions such as “If she is tired offer to make her some tea” (number eighty-three), and “Leave the bathroom seat down” (number 101) on the list, I was shocked that “Sarcastically call her ‘Chiggy the Piggy' ” was left off. And for that matter, so were “Demand larger portions of
food,” “Accuse her of starving you,” and “Compliment her on her burgeoning armpit stubble.” No
wonder
we'd ended up in an ugly food fight.

Despite the abundant practical advice I found on Gray's list, some of the suggestions just weren't applicable to relationships on the trail. For example, on the PCT it would be impossible for me to “Sharpen her knives in the kitchen” (number sixty-three) and extremely difficult, not to mention extraordinarily chilly, to “Wash before having sex” (number thirty-three).

Perhaps the reason why our calorie conflict ballooned into a larger argument about differences is better captured by a passage from the
Tao Te Ching
, said to be the world's oldest and most widely read book of wisdom. “All that is negative and injurious to your relationship is born of fear. Fear births jealousy, fuels anger, and prompts harsh words. The most difficult times contain the greatest fear. If you would live in love, do not be afraid.” My fear of wasting away and our mutual fear of failure drove us to fight and provoked harsh words. Eventually, and without supplemental reading, we'd reached a compromise. I was content to stuff a few extra supplies into our food bag as long as Angela made some acknowledgment of my greater caloric needs and a token modification to her high-speed consumptive technique. It was a simple (if not perfect) solution to the problem, and an example of how simple life on the trail can be. Now if only we could stop making simple things so complicated.

In reality, on any given day there were only so many choices for us to make—how far to travel, how fast to travel, where to camp, and which of three types of dehydrated meals to eat. It's just that the disagreements we
did
have were magnified by the physical and emotional stress of thru-hiking. Hence, after two months on the trail, Angela and I had bickered over many small incompatibilities, most of which stemmed from discrepancies in hiking style and physical endurance. But so far we'd been able to handle them all and in my opinion were doing quite well. Much better, I think, than many expected.

Angela's parents had been outwardly critical in the beginning, but there were also plenty of others who were doubtful, just more subtly so. My parents, despite being extremely emotionally and financially supportive, were
among these. In fact, it wasn't until just recently that they'd announced their intention to meet us on the trail—at Odell Lake Resort in Central Oregon. This was highly unusual, considering my mother's tendency to plan all vacations nine to thirty months in advance. Looking back, I'd recalled that as the start of our hike had drawn near, my parents' skepticism had become more tangible. I could vividly remember one evening in early May when they'd treated me to a humorous recollection of my family's outdoor heritage.

I suppose this topic came up as a warning; Ma and Pa weren't sure how far we would make it and wanted to go on record about the sordid history of the Ballard men and outdoor courtship. The reminiscences began with my Grandpa Bert, whom I remembered as a practical and frugal man. Grandpa was the sort of guy who considered a camping trip to be the perfect vacation and couldn't comprehend the sense of spending a night in an expensive hotel room. Unfortunately for Grandpa, Grandma Charlotte didn't share these sentiments—she was fond of classy hotels, fine restaurants, and indoor plumbing. Grandpa tried his best to convert her, first by arranging a car-camping honeymoon in Yellowstone National Park.

Even in such a memorable location, things got off on the wrong foot. Curled up in the backseat of Grandpa's Model A, the newlyweds were enjoying a romantic evening—that is, until the car started rocking violently from side to side. Gramps and Grammy may have been young and lustful at the time, but this was far more than either had bargained for. It turns out that Grandpa had had the clever idea of storing the food bag beneath the car and a bear had discovered that with a little wriggling he could claim the prize. In Grandma's opinion, poor Grandpa had failed to follow Gray's helpful tip number eighty-nine, “Create special time to be alone together.” An unfortunate precedent had been set, and from then on it became difficult for my grandfather to persuade his wife to go camping. Every so often, though, Grandma would humor him with a weekend outing. Such outings never went particularly well, and Grandma would consistently assert her preference for the indoors and her distaste for doing “number two” in the woods.

Grandpa, being a resourceful, inventive gent, put his mind to devising a
way to make his wife's outdoor experience more enjoyable. His solution was a multi-purpose campstool—a wooden seat with a circular hole in the middle. Placed over a cat hole, he was confident that this would remedy one of his wife's major objections to camping. It was a fine idea that resulted in a fine mess. When Grandma went to use her throne over the ditch, she collapsed the stool and was unceremoniously ditched. From then on, plumbing became a vacation prerequisite.

As if Grandpa Bert's ordeal wasn't enough, I was next regaled with my own father's story. His difficulties, like Grandpa's, began shortly after matrimony. My parents were planning a budget-conscious honeymoon and decided that a night of camping would be a good way to stretch their funds. My father generously offered the use of his tent. Dad had many fond memories of this “pup” tent and related boyhood adventures. The tent had been his shelter on many a chilly Midwestern fall night in the woods, near the cornfields. He'd bring along his little terrier, Tiny, and after an evening of exploration, they'd both crawl into the tent and snuggle into his sleeping bag. Buoyed by these childhood memories, Pops proudly pulled out his pup tent at a Cleveland area campground on his wedding night. After nearly ten years in the closet, this pup tent was going to help him make the transition from boy to man. There was only one small problem: Small indeed, was the pup tent. My mother was and still is an outdoorsy sort of gal, but nevertheless, it took only one look at the diminutive tent for her to doubt that her husband and a dog (even one named Tiny) could ever have fit in it. The newlyweds proceeded directly to a nearby motel.

I cut my parents short before being exposed to further historical amusement. It was clear that I was destined for misadventure, but Grandpa and Dad had made it through, so I supposed that I would, too.

We were sitting outside the Lake of the Woods resort, eating lunch. At an adjacent table a middle-aged man wearing a tank top that exposed sunburned
shoulders was talking to another man in khakis while gesturing at a two-hundred-foot red fir.

“You see that, Bill, you see that tree? If they had a tree like that in Illinois, they'd build a state park around it”

“No kidding,” said Bill.

“Yessiree, that's a giant redwood.”

“I'll be. I've heard of ‘em. They've got a big ol' one in Yellowstone. Name's General Sherwin.”

I nearly coughed up my sandwich. I glanced around to see if anyone else was following this conversation.

“Do you mean General Sherman?” said the first man.

“Yes, yes, that's right, General Sherman. Lives in Yellowstone.”

“Right-o.” They both seemed pleased. I didn't have the energy to tell them that there aren't any redwoods in Yellowstone National Park.

As much as I enjoyed the comfort of fast miles and frequent restaurant meals in southern Oregon, I missed wilderness isolation and found myself frequently longing for the serenity and solitude of the Sierra. Tourist banter was harmless and often entertaining, but the sounds of wind through trees, snowmelt over rocks, and feet through wet meadow grass were much more satisfying.

A day later we entered the peaceful woods of the Sky Lakes Wilderness. We set up camp not far from the banks of Island Lake and stared up and over red fir and mountain hemlock at the gentle 9,500-foot peak of Mount McLoughlin. Mist rose over the lake in the early morning, coalescing several feet off of its surface. The grove of trees on the lakes' small central island appeared to be floating in the fog. Only the looming visage of Mount McLoughlin reminded me that we were well below the stratosphere. I'd been warned about the swarms of mosquitoes often encountered in the Sky Lakes basin, but I saw only a few stragglers. The big skeeter hatch was evidently over, and we enjoyed this and more fir-sheltered lakes to follow without DEET immersion.

The next day, we made our way along the western edge of the Oregon Desert toward Crater Lake National Park. Buried underneath our feet, beneath
layers of pumice, was a network of streams and rivers. Seven thousand years ago, Mount Mazama, at the time 12,000 feet high, erupted, spreading volcanic matter over 350,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest. In the process, much of the surrounding landscape was drastically altered, and instead of striding through creek-fed meadows we traipsed over cinder and ash under sparse lodgepole and pioneer pine cover.

Next up was Crater Lake, the most incredible of the transformations brought on by Mount Mazama's eruption. The PCT, for equine-related reasons, gives the lake a wide berth. Neither Angela nor I had seen it before, so we followed the footsteps of many fellow hikers onto Rim Drive and to Rim Village at the lake's southern end. It was around eight in the morning when we arrived, and the tourist mecca of the Rim Village was coming to life. We approached a series of picnic benches outside the gift store and noticed two sleeping bag-covered lumps tucked into the bushes. A jut of blond hair protruded from the top of one of the sleeping bags. Several empty beer bottles sat on one of the tables. It was Casey and Toby.