Blistered Kind Of Love (45 page)

We saw Daris for the last time just north of Stehekin, Washington. After losing both Fish and Ryan, she had gone home to Canada to take care of some logistics before continuing her hike. She finished on October 3 after switching directions (to beat the impending bad weather) and heading southbound from the border. She's now studying forestry in British Columbia and hopes to eventually complete the CDT—with her dog.

Fish finished the California PCT, but then returned to Florida for business reasons. Ryan reached Canada without him on October 4.

Crazy Legs and Catch-23 stumbled upon the Canadian border on September 30 after 147 days, having achieved their goal of hiking one percent (twenty-seven miles) of the trail while intoxicated. The next day they returned home to Seattle to recover from the hangover. Catch-23 claims he never experienced any re-entry shock. “I just adjusted the couch in front of the TV and then adjusted my ass to the couch, and hey, I was readjusted.” Later he would adjust himself to teaching English in Japan for six months. We don't know what Casey is doing, but are pretty sure it's something crazy.

Fallingwater (Ron) completed the trail on September 14, sans Drip (Brandon), who had to return home in time for the first day of high school. And while Drip is now too fully immersed in being a teenager to do much hiking, his father continues the fine family tradition, hiking portions of the CDT and designing lightweight packs, tarps, and tents.

Chris and Stacey got off the trail in Cascade Locks after finishing 2,150 miles. They have since broken up.

Five months after completing the PCT, J. B. asked his girlfriend to marry him. The couple now lives in Los Angeles. They're hoping to hike the AT together in the near future. Kimmo eventually returned to Finland. He remains committed to endurance feats and is training to swim from Finland to Sweden, across the Gulf of Bothnia. Work on the JourneyFilm Crew documentary continues.

Trail angels Bob, Meadow Ed, Donna and Jeff, and Don and Helen are still going strong. Pat and Paul's Hiker's Oasis was forced to move after Kamp Anza RV Park became a “resort.” The Oasis now operates about a mile from its original location. Paul is installing outdoor showers for hikers and Pat's roses, after being transplanted, continue to bloom. Vermilion Valley Resort maintains its hiker-friendly status but sadly without one of the hikers' dear friends: Butch Wiggs committed suicide in January 2001. He is sorely missed.

Duffy graduated from medical school in May of 2001 and has since moved on to complete his training in Emergency Medicine. Angela continues to write, for herself and for others. After getting married in May 2001, we headed cross-country (by car, not by foot) to make our home in Northern
California, just an hour and a half drive from where the PCT meets the shores of Echo Lake. Over weekends and extended weekends we're slowly filling in the missing pieces of our PCT thru-hike. On such excursions we are now attached, as Meadow Ed would say, “by an umbilical cord” to a third hiking companion—a gender-confused Labrador retriever named Gary. She loves chili mac, too.

Ballard, Chris.
Hoops Nation: A Guide to America's Best Pickup Basketball
. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998

Bane, Michael.
Trail Safe: Averting Threatening Human Behavior in the Outdoors
. Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2000

Berger, Karen.
Advanced Backpacking: A Trailside Guide
. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998

———.
Hiking the Triple Crown: How to Hike America's Longest Trails
. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 2001

Berger, Karen, and Daniel R. Smith.
Along the Pacific Crest Trail
. Englewood, Colo.: Westcliffe Publishers, 1998

———.
The Pacific Crest Trail: A Hiker's Companion
. Woodstock, Vt.: The Countryman Press, 2000

Bryson, Bill.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
. New York: Broadway Books, 1998

Croot, Leslie.
Pacific Crest Trail Town Guide
. Sacramento: Pacific Crest Trail Association, 2002

Go, Ben.
Pacific Crest Trail Data Book
. Sacramento: Pacific Crest Trail Association, 2001

Gray, William R.
The Pacific Crest Trail
. Washington: The National Geographic Society, 1975

Hall, Adrienne.
Woman's Guide: Backpacking
. Camden, Maine: Ragged Mountain Press, 1998

Herrero, Stephen.
Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance
. New York: The Lyons Press, 1985

Jardine, Ray.
Beyond Backpacking: Ray Jardine's Guide to Lightweight Hiking
. Arizona City, Ariz.: AdventureLore Press, 1992

———.
The Pacific Crest Trail Hiker's Handbook
. LaPine, Ore.: AdventureLore Press, 1992

Jenkins, Peter.
A Walk Across America
. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1979

Meyer, Kathleen.
How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1989

Muir, John.
My First Summer in the Sierra
. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1998

Pelton, Robert Young.
Come Back Alive: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Disasters, Kidnappings, Animal Attacks, and Other Nasty Perils of Modern Travel
. New York: Doubleday, 1999

Rawicz, Slavomir.
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
. New York: Nick Lyons Books, 1956

Ryback, Eric.
The High Adventure of Eric Ryback: Canada to Mexico on Foot
. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1971

Schaffer, Jeff, and Andy Selters.
The Pacific Crest Trail: Oregon and Washington
. Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2000

Schaffer, Jeff, and Thomas Winnett, Ben Schifrin, and Ruby Johnson Jenkins.
The Pacific Crest Trail: Northern California
. Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2003

———.
The Pacific Crest Trail: Southern California
. Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2003

Angela Ballard
has written articles about hiking, health, and business for
Men's Health
and other publications, as well as
GORP.com
. Prior to focusing on freelance writing in 2001, Angela worked at Medical Broadcasting Company in Philadelphia, where she wrote about health and medicine for the Internet. Today she is editor of the Pacific Crest Trail Association's
Communicator
magazine and writes extensively for the Trust for Public Land and other outdoor-related publications.

Raised in Westchester County, New York, Angela's favorite childhood toys were a stuffed lamb named Lamby, and a crying baby doll named Victoria. But even though her bedroom was filled with dolls and papered in pink flowers, Angela climbed trees with the best of them (i.e., her big brothers). This meant that, more often than not, she could be found (or conveniently not found) playing in the woods, where she built forts and snacked on wild onions. Still, the Pacific Crest Trail fare of jerky and raisins came as quite a shock. She adapted, though, and even now can sometimes be caught eating food she's dropped in the dirt.

Parenthood is Angela and Duffy's latest long-distance adventure. They welcomed their daughter, Hayley, into the world in 2005.

 

 

Duffy Ballard
grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco and attended Marin Academy high school. Later he moved to Philadelphia to attend Haverford College, meet Angela, major in Political Science, and play three years of extremely average Division III basketball. After college, Duffy remained in Philadelphia for medical school and, in 2001, graduated with an M.D. and a master's degree in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. Soon afterward he and Angela were married and moved cross-country to Sacramento. After he completed his residency in Emergency Medicine there, he became a practicing emergency physician in San Rafael, California.

Duffy has always enjoyed camping, especially if someone has had the forethought to bring along a cooler of beer. Having his wife and daughter along is nice, too. It would be even nicer if they could carry the beer.

Initiated in 1990, this ongoing award is given for unpublished books by first-time authors that meet The Mountaineers' general criteria for non-fiction adventure narratives. Submitted proposals are automatically considered for this additional $2500 grant. The award program commemorates the late Barbara Savage, author of the book,
Miles from Nowhere
, published by The Mountaineers Books in 1983.

Barbara was killed in a cycling accident shortly before the book's publication; the story of Barbara and Larry Savage's two-year, 23,000-mile, round-the-world bicycle adventure continues, however, to embrace a wide readership and to generate letters from readers who have come to know Barbara through her book. The author's husband, Larry Savage, created this award in cooperation with The Mountaineers Books by donating royalties to encourage adventure writing in the genre of
Miles from Nowhere
.

THE AWARD

The author of a winning manuscript will receive a cash award, a guaranteed advance against royalties, and publication by The Mountaineers Books.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

The winning manuscript will be a compelling non-fiction account of a personal, muscle-powered outdoor adventure. It will vividly convey a sense of the risks, joys, hardships, disappointments, triumphs, moments of humor, and
accidents of fate that are inevitably a part of such a journey. It will recognize the fact that we are all, like it or not, unwitting adventurers in a strange landscape.

The entry may have more than one author, but anthologies or collections are not acceptable. More than one entry may be submitted.

SELECTION PROCESS

There is no established deadline for submitting manuscripts for consideration for the award. Grant money will be awarded at the sole discretion of the acquisitions editors and management team of The Mountaineers Books.

For more information, contact: The Barbara Savage Miles from Nowhere Memorial Award, The Mountaineers Books, 1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98134; (206) 223-6303;
[email protected]

 

 

Miles From Nowhere:

A Round-the-World Bicycle Adventure,
Barbara Savage
. A funny, honest, poignant account of the Savages' two-year, 23,000-mile, 25-country bicycle tour and the people, cultures, and personal challenges along the way.

Craving more adventure?
Complete your library with all the
Barbara Savage Award Winners: