Prologue. Why?

The Willapa school library was usually missing its copy of the June 1971 National Geographic while I was a middle schooler. I read and reread the cover story that followed four guys who walked from Mexico to Canada on the newly established Pacific Crest Trail so many times that it had become cemented in my head even more solidly than the twenty-third psalm.

I spent lunch periods revising gear checklists. I made backpacks from feed sacks and baling twine and carried canned peas and stuff through the woods for practice.  I’d walk up and down a logging road where truckers had painted mile markers on trees, gauging my speed and mileage so I could make PCT itineraries. I determined that when my first chance came to go, I would.

That determination to go never left. Every daydream, every time I wished I was somewhere else, it was hiking with those guys on the Nat Geo cover. It’s surprising and a little irritating that my life’s decisions and circumstances had me waiting four and half decades to make that plan a reality, but the chance came, and I am thankful for it. Extremely thankful. 

My wife was supportive and had reached a stage in her career where she could work part-time and be a full-time parent. We had a time window between caring for and burying parents, had some money saved up, my feet and legs were still working okay, and the country hadn't yet devolved into anarchy. I had postponed the trip forty-five consecutive seasons, and at my age I had seen enough to know that another postponement could very well make the trip forever impossible.

So why did I go? No longer was I a middle-schooler desperate for escape, but a late middle-aged guy going five months without a paycheck to walk 2,400 miles, sleep alone on the ground, and eat noodles. I wasn’t going to find myself out there, or find a new God, or a more enlightened meaning for life. I already knew where I fit in the world, and for all life’s profound questions, I already had workable answers. I was in a good place, and on a path that led, more or less, in the general direction of where I wanted to go.

Somehow though, my life’s pace had accelerated without my foot on the pedal. I had a full-time job and another job, a house remodel project, a working wife, and a kid in school. It was soothing, imagining myself out there hiking the Trail. Out there, I’d have but one thing to do; put my stuff in a bag and carry it north.

So I managed details, finished tasks, tied loose ends, made arrangements. I planned my entire itinerary for the trail, plotted GPS coordinates, and planned all the food items I would eat, when I would eat them, and when I would have them sent to post offices along the way. I researched the gear I would take, and what gear I’d have sent. I prepared thoroughly, so that when I got onto the trail, the only thing I’d have to do would be to pick up my bag and walk.

I would see a lot of country. Breathe a lot of air. Cover a lot of ground. Take a lot of pictures. See if north slope trees there looked like the ones here; if the birds sounded the same, if the lichens were the same color. And just to see what walking the Trail was like, really. The Trail had been in my mind for so long, that I was curious to see if it was the way I imagined it.

Or if the trail was more what that kid in Mrs. Hartwig’s library imagined so long ago. So that's it really, why I went. I finally went to find out. 

1. Sheila

Day 1, Mile 0

We live in Washington, in a small town about halfway between Seattle and Canada, and during the winter, get rained on a lot. Spring breaks often see the three of us, my wife and son and me, in Palm Springs to dry out, relax, and synthesize some vitamin D. But the 2018 trip would be different. The ticket I held was one-way. I would walk home.

Leaving work, rain, and home construction behind was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. But leaving my family wasn’t. The last couple weeks had been an event-filled and emotional whirlwind, and I knew that there would be time to process on the trail.  Besides a deep gratitude, I was still thinking about family and friends that had been to my send-off party. Other than family, who were obligated, there were a half-dozen people who told me that they loved me. It was humbling. 

My plan had been to take the Palm Springs Tram with my wife and son up the hill and to spend a last day together with them there at Mountain Station, before making an overnight hike from there towards Idyllwild to meet my three pen pals on the Pacific Crest Trail. But two of the people that I had planned to meet up with had already quit the trail and gone home, and the third, Sheila, had already been in Idyllwild a couple days and was less than willing to wait for me any longer. So, instead of a leisurely day with my family, and an easy overnight to acclimatize my lungs for breathing air at elevation, the trip started with a hurried rental car drive up the curvy roads to the Idyllwild trailhead, and a side trail that climbs 1,700 feet in a couple hours. There would be a lot of panting.

Sheila had wanted to meet me at the trailhead at noon, but we got there an hour earlier to have more private good-byes. My wife and son would be flying back home the next day, Matthew to finish third grade and Monica back to work and single parenthood for the next five and a half months. They assured me they would be fine, but still, it was difficult shouldering my backpack and putting it between us as I turned up the trail to leave.

The side trail reached the Pacific Crest Trail at Saddle Junction, 179 miles north of the trail’s start at the Mexican border. I wasn’t there long before my pen pal caught up to me. Sheila was happy to meet me and dropped her pack to give me a hug. She was as big around as my leg and was soaking wet. She doesn't like sun, and won't abide sunscreen products, so covers herself head to toe with Value Village attire. A floppy denim sun hat, a dark print shirt, brown corduroy pants, and woolen mittens. It was three in the afternoon, eighty degrees, and she had just climbed 1,700 feet. 

“I'm so happy to see you! I brought you a book," she said. She pulled a two-pound novel out of her pack and handed it to me.  

“Um, thanks so much. You remembered my favorite author. It's so thoughtful of you,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy carrying this on the trail.” I put it in my backpack, adding to the 12,480 grams that I had already put in there. I grabbed my backpack straps and heaved. “Mmmph,” I said, pretending it was too heavy to get off the ground.

“Oh, that's nothing," she said. "Here, lift up my pack."

It weighed close to fifty pounds. Incredible. "What do you have in here?" 

“Books, there was a great secondhand bookstore there. And good food. Most of your American food is so bad I won't eat it. Idyllwild had some good food stores, so I stocked up.”

“She must eat rocks and concrete,” I thought.

There were a few more miles and another 1,000 feet to climb to make the night's camp, so we headed up the trail, and I took my first steps north, towards home, on the Grand Trail.

Sheila and I had never hiked together; had never even met before, really. We’d found each other, along with the two that had already quit the trail, on an online message board for people of a certain age hoping to hike the PCT. I was curious to see what hiking with my pen pal would be like. 

“You must get rid of those walking sticks,” Sheila said. “I find them very distracting and annoying.”

 “They hold my tent up,” I said. 

“Then you will walk behind me.”

Sheila walked fast; no sticks, bent forward so her pack was almost parallel to the ground. She would raise her foot three or four inches higher than necessary for each step, and then slam it hard down. From behind, she looked angry.  

“Your panting is horrendous. It shows that your fitness level isn't where it needs to be if you are to be on the trail." 

I told her that I might be better when I developed a trail routine, and asked about hers, since it seemed to be working. 

“Sleep is important on the trail," she said. “I sleep till ten or so, pack camp and walk three miles before breakfast. Then I stop and make coffee for breakfast, triple shot espresso.  I won't drink weak coffee.  Then I walk till six or seven and make camp.”

We got to a campsite, though not the one I had coordinates for. “I must have level ground and cannot be disturbed by rustling or snoring. This will be my spot, and you will set your tent up over there.” Then she went off to explore.

In a few minutes, she returned and said, “Put your things back in your pack. We aren't where I thought we were, so we need to move up another mile or so.” 

A mile up the trail a group of hikers had tents up and were eating dinner.  Sheila wanted to introduce me to everyone, but I declined. I felt like being alone this first night out, so I told Sheila I'd move up the trail a bit and see her for coffee in the morning. It was a peaceful night. I had the campsite to myself, and laid back on my sleeping pad completely alone, and out of cell range. A look at a map showed that I couldn’t have missed my waypoints any more than I had. I was camped almost exactly halfway between the two nearest campsites that I had planned for myself. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I thought. There would have to be some improvisation to get back onto the program.

The next morning, I packed my stuff, and then killed a few hours waiting for Sheila to come make her coffee stop.  Waiting for people who are late getting out of bed just gravels me. “What the heck?” I thought.  “Millions of kindergartners have been put on school busses already, so what's the problem?”

“Those other hikers ruined my sleep,” she said when she got there. We talked about the wind warning from the weather forecast and how it would be best to 'get off the ridge' before night if possible. It would be a long day.

On the way down Fuller Ridge, I met a middle-aged friendly woman strolling down the trail. 

“Hi, I'm Glasses. This is my third time hiking the PCT. Last year I made it almost to Kennedy Meadows before I found out that I am allergic to mosquitoes. This time I will cover myself thoroughly with mud.” 

Glasses was a prodigious bestower of trail names and was keen to give me one. We talked some and it turned out that we had gone to the same school, not too many years apart. Her parents bought the dairy farm I grew up on, and for a time she lived in the house I had lived in. She knew my stepbrother and stepfather well. 

We chatted a bit about other people I hadn’t seen or heard from in forty years, who married who, who was doing what, that sort of thing. Glasses knew everything about all of them, as she’d stayed and lived her entire life in the town I’d left. It was weird, it was the first day I’d woken up on the trail, and there I was, being reminded of the people and events from my hometown that had made me so desperate to get away and onto the Trail in the first place. 

It was pleasant enough, but walking and chatting with Glasses made me realize that the best thing about my hometown still, for me, was the fact that I’d left it. 

“This was cool, running into you here, of all places. And thanks for the chat, filling me in,” I said. “Hey, this is only my second day on the trail, and I’m a little nervous. I feel like I need to scoot on out, make some more miles and get my tent up before the winds come.” 

“Oh, sure thing, everyone at their own pace. You know, this is amazing that we should meet out here and I believe that everything happens for a reason with all my heart, don't you think?”

“Can't argue with that,” I said. In my experience, people who believe that are continuously befuddled, disappointed, or in extreme cases, religious. 

“It was nice meeting you!” she called after me. “I will give you a trail name when we meet again!” 

 “Probably not,” I thought. Glasses was from a past I’d a long ago left behind me, and I didn’t especially want to see her again, so picked up the pace to put some distance between us. “How far does a guy have to go to keep the past behind him?” I wondered.

****************

“Why do you think I'm carrying this guitar to Canada?” He was an earnest looking, twenty-year-old kid with black hair and glasses, and a thin goatee. In addition to a loaded pack on his back, he had the handle of a guitar case in his hand. I thought about it a minute, because he seemed to really want an answer and I couldn't imagine that he wanted to hear the obvious.  

“Well, it's not like the damned thing is going to carry itself there,” I said. 

He beamed. “I've asked everyone I’ve met this same question, and so far, you're the only person to get it right. You couldn't imagine what most people say.”

It was ninety degrees, the wind was gusting to sixty, and we were halfway down a twenty-two-mile grade. I really could imagine what most people would say. I traded one of my sticks for the guitar, just to see what it was like to carry it for a quarter mile or so. Unsurprisingly, it sucked.

Getting down the ridge to the alluvial fan was brutal. There was supposed to be a cache of water bottles halfway down, but when I got there, it was empty. A lot of thirsty people trying to get off the ridge had been counting on that cache. When I finally reached the bottom of the ridge, a throng of unhappy people were milling around a water faucet. A metal sign bolted to a short post near the faucet read, “Provided by Snow Creek Water Association”. 

Several of the other hikers had matching, vertical cuts on their foreheads, many of them still bleeding. Another distressingly thirsty hiker arrived behind me, and when he saw the water faucet, quickly unshouldered his backpack, and stooped to lean it against the post.

“Stop!” yelled a woman out of the throng. But it was too late. A loud, ringing “Bwaang” came from the sign, which was perfectly positioned to slice foreheads open, and the new arrival quickly stood up, blood dribbling down a straight, thin line into an eyebrow.

“I've gotten a hotel room in Banning, but THERE'S NO UBER!” a wild-eyed guy with a bleeding forehead yelled at me through the wind. People looked shell-shocked; some were crying. Amidst the turmoil, guitar boy was strumming a new song he was making up on the spot. 

“I have walked twenty miles for water, sweet water, and I’ll walk another hundred for ice cream, Jesus I swear.” 

My feet hurt, but I walked another half mile up a paved service road to get away from the carnival, set up my tent, and got in out of the wind. I got a text from Sheila saying that she couldn't get off the ridge and that she was sheltering in place. She wanted me to text her back in the morning to see if she was still alive. I couldn’t tell if she was being overly dramatic, or if this was another example of Australian humor.  About eleven o'clock, a particularly nasty gust partially lifted me and my tent off the ground, flung my tent stakes into the desert, and dropped me, now encased in a violent tube of tent fabric, back onto the ground. It was like being beaten with hiking sticks inside a windsock during a hurricane. I've slept better. It wasn't so bad after I got most of the fluttery stuff underneath me, and I slept well, until my bladder woke me. 

Now, this was an interesting puzzle. The winds weren't constant; they'd blast from one direction, and then instantly blast from another.  So, there was no direction I could point without spray-painting myself with aerosolized urine. Nor could I get off my stuff without the wind blowing it out into the desert somewhere into the dark. Pressure was building, and I had to do something. I used a water bottle.

In the morning, the winds eased off a bit and I was able to video call my wife. 

“It looks windy there,” she said when she saw me. 

I told her about the night, showed her how I had to sleep on top of the tent, and the partially filled water bottle. 

“Are you going to keep drinking out of that? That's disgusting!” She switched her phone screen around to selfie-mirror mode, so she didn't have to see it. 

At my end, I was treated to a close-up view of her fingernail noodling away at an upper gumline. “It’s good to see you’re enjoying yourself out there,” her mouth said.

Packing up, I found most of my tent stakes. The tip of a hiking stick had broken off in a tent grommet, but other than that, everything was intact. That early in the morning, it was the perfect temperature for walking, so I left without Sheila, nine miles up the ridge. There was no sense in both of us walking through the desert in the heat of the day.

The people clustered around the water faucet looked like they had endured a rough night, except for one kid. “How do you like this?” he asked, brandishing an ice axe. 

“Why didn't you just mail it to yourself at Kennedy Meadows, Stupid?” asked a grouchy looking woman. 

The kid looked back to me and said, “Cougars, man. Cougars are gonna eat her man, and I've got this!” 

I told him that she was probably packing heat. 

“Man,” he said, backing away. “I'm walking down to the freeway and taking an Uber to the In-and-Out burger. Then I'm taking a big dump- the biggest, man.”

“THERE'S NO UBER!” yelled the wild-eyed man.  

Day 3, Miles.. 35

Where the trail crossed under the highway through a wash, there was a little stockpile of hiker treats from trail angels, and a message board with a couple Sharpies.  “Welcome to Cabazon,” said the message board. “This is your Lowest Elevation until you reach the Columbia River. Happy Trails and Good Luck!”

“Jesus is a Buddhist!” a guy calling himself Shenanigans had scrawled just below. 

“Dork,” I thought and took an apple. From there, the trail wound around a residential area and then up an arroyo towards the Mesa Wind Farm. This is one of the older, original wind farms, and their turbines are mounted atop skinny Eiffel tower-like derricks, rather than the modern tower tubes. When I looked closer, I noticed that some of the derricks had no turbines on top. 

A lot of them, actually. And an alarming number of the bare derricks were twisted or mangled on top, some bent over like candy canes. I passed a sign that read: “WARNING! WIND TURBINE AREA! BEWARE FLYING DEBRIS HAZARD!” The sign was liberally dented by shrapnel. 

It was late morning, and the heat was getting crazy again, over ninety degrees. I tried to imagine what it would be like sitting amongst the cacti and drinking a triple shot espresso. Insane, probably.

I knew I was getting close to the Whitewater Preserve, my day’s destination, when I started meeting nice-smelling people without backpacks on the trail. At one spot, called Canyon Overlook, I met a cheerful fifty-ish Japanese couple. They stood one behind the other, squarely in the center of the trail, a rock wall on one side and a sheer drop-off on the other. They were smiling, but not moving.  So, each in turn, I put my hands on their shoulders and gently pushed their backs up against the rock wall, then shuffled sideways, my backpack hanging out over empty space, to get around them. They never resisted, never said anything, and continued smiling at me the whole time.

The Whitewater Preserve is an old trout farm converted to a park, with wading pools and a camping area; a cool, shady piece of heaven in the desert. Camping for PCT hikers is free, so I set up in a shaded corner of a grassy field out of the way. There were restrooms with running water, so it was easy to have a shave. Then I went back to my tent in the corner to have a nap.  

“I'm Ryegrass. Is that your tent?” I looked up and there was a short guy who looked for all the world like John Muir. He stroked his beard. “Your tent is crooked and it's short,” he said.  

“So are you,” I thought, and told him about the hiking stick’s tip breaking off in the grommet. 

“Yes, beginners are always snapping their tips off.  It takes some experience to learn that you can't just jab them into everything as you walk along.” 

“I've had these over twenty years. And I wasn’t walking, I was sleeping,” I said.

“Well, you might figure it out if you stick with it. Hey, why do you have those carabiners on your pack? You could have saved a good ounce leaving them off. And you've shaved! You need to get used to having a beard, you'll see,” he said stroking his.

“Ryegrass, that beard of yours weighs more than my razor. Whatever do you do with that thing, strain noodles?” I asked.

He thought about it. “I think with it,” he said, and stroked his beard again.

“Well, that’s not what guys are usually accused of thinking with, but you know, you’ve got to go with whatever you got.”

Ryegrass huffed and left.  A little later Sheila stomped over. She was soaking wet with sweat and still wearing the megaton backpack. She shook a wool-mittened finger at me. 

“I have walked twenty-three miles through a hell desert to catch you. We will talk in the morning.” And then she stomped off.

Later, I saw the kid with the ice axe and asked how it went at In-and-Out.  

“Plugged it, man!” he said. “They’re gonna need a Roto-Rooter and a f-ing fire truck to salvage that thing, man!” We high-fived and I made dinner and went to bed.

In the morning, I bandaged and moleskinned my feet, had oatmeal, packed up, and went over towards Sheila’s tent, but Ryegrass intercepted me. 

“That woman hates you,” he said. “And she's crazy.” This seemed to bother him, as if he thought I should only be hated by rational people.

“Why are you all packed up and ready to go?” Sheila asked, irritated. “You know my schedule.”

“Yeah, I can't do that,” I said. “I'm going to have to get through the desert to the next water before it's too hot.” We decided that I'd go on ahead, but that we'd camp together that night.  

It’s nice to hike by yourself when you don’t feel too alone. I carry a GPS unit that can send and receive text messages even when I’m out of cell range, and I got a few satellite texts from my family back home. I found water and shade after about fifteen miles of desert, took the shoes and socks off my blistered feet, set up my tent, and stretched out in the sand next to it.  

Sheila arrived a few hours later. “Put your things back in your pack, I will not camp here,” she said. 

So I packed up and got behind her with my annoying hiking sticks and watched her high-stomping feet punish the trail ahead of me. 

Another mile or two up the trail she came across a spot she found more suitable.

“You will camp here, and I will camp there, but you must not snore, rustle, or wake me in the morning.  I'm going to explore now, and we will speak tonight.” 

She left, and I got my tent back up and my kitchen stuff together. While I was treating water, Brian, a civil engineer turned massage therapist, hiked in. 

“Hey Rick, mind if I join you tonight?”

“That'll be great,” I said, and pointed at the spot Sheila had picked for herself. Brian had his tent up and we were eating dinner and chatting when she came back.  

“This is Brian,” I said.

“I know who he is,” she said, hands on hips. “That’s my spot.”

We decided that I would leave early again without waking anyone but would stop when I got well out of the desert and back into timber. It's weird hiking up out of a desert into a forest, because the biomes can't decide where one should live and the other give way.  Cacti, manzanita, wild oak, and pine trees, all in the same spot. I looked at the vegetation, trying to see which plant communities were there first, and which the immigrants. But I couldn’t tell. 

When I got into good solid pine forest, it seemed to me that everything was coming together for a good bathroom break.

Because it's one of the first things my non-hiking friends ask about, I thought I’d write about it here early on and get it out of the way.

First, find a nice tree to lean against, and at its base, dig a four-inch diameter hole, about eight inches deep with your trowel, you know, large enough to drop a banana into. When this is done, that's it for the trowel. It only digs in clean dirt.

Next, collect some sticks and break them up into four-inch lengths. I like to have eight of them ready, four with bark on and four bare. If you elect to 'go barked', make sure that the bark is still on tight to the stick. It's bothersome when it comes off prematurely.  I like having the first four sticks barked, and the last four wrapped. 

If you take a wet-wipe and tear it lengthwise into four pieces, the pieces will be the perfect width to wrap the ends of your sticks with. Wrap these up so they look like tootsie pops and have them ready. I like having them all lined up for use from left to right.

Now, down with your shorts, squat down, and lean against the tree with your rear centered over the hole. You shouldn't be completely square against the tree, but should have one cheek harder against it than the other. This helps 'get the bomb bay doors' more open so to speak.

Now take a small pebble or stick, hold it directly under your third eye, and drop it. Observe where it goes. If it's in the hole, you're free to go. If it missed the hole or landed in your shorts, you may want to reposition before embarking on the main event.

When it's clean-up time, start with the barked spudgers first. Only use one end. They're disposable, so drop each one into the hole after use. The flagged sticks take a little more finesse. These need to be used with a twirling motion, and twirled only in the direction that serves to tighten the flags further. Spin them the wrong way, and the soiled flags will fall off onto your hand.

When you're finished, you should be able to wave a used little white flag before you drop it into the hole. If your last flag isn’t completely white, break more sticks and make more flags. When everything is satisfactory, use a bigger stick to fill and cover over the hole and to tamp it down. I like to leave the tamper stick on top of the spot and leaning against the tree in sort of an unnatural position. This signals to the alert hiker that 'this tree has been fed' and to take his trowel elsewhere. After all that, use the hand sanitizer and stow everything away.

Most people don't follow this protocol I suspect, so I never under any circumstances share or accept trail mix from other hikers. Who knows what's under their fingernails? The only person I'll share trail mix in the woods with is my son Matthew, a fellow adherent to the protocol. There's plenty of stuff under his fingernails, like any kid, don't get me wrong. But the stuff under his fingernails isn't that stuff, if you know what I mean.

********************

Once I was finished with all that, and everything stowed back in my pack, I decided to wait for Sheila by taking a nap. Not because I was really tired, but because my feet were hurting. Besides, it was cool in the shade.  I woke to stomping footsteps. It was Sheila. 

“This is just like home here,” I said, gesturing towards the trees. 

“I don't care, did you get water?”

“Yeah, about a quarter mile back.”  

“WHAT? Why didn't you stop there?”

It was jarring. I hadn’t seen anyone the entire day, nor spoken to nor heard from anyone, and I had rather enjoyed it. I’d been on the trail four days, and for the first time I had actually felt the simplicity of the Trail that I had come for. That day, up until that moment at least, all that I had done, and all that I had had to do, was to do what I had come to do. I’d simply put all my stuff in a bag and carried it north.

Sheila had more stuff in her bag, and she was schlepping it through the heat of the day. No wonder she was ill-tempered, I thought.

“You know?” I said. “We shouldn't hike together. You're not a morning person, you're grouchy at night, and here we are conversing at midday and you're being a butt.” 

“What's a butt?”

“I think the Australian term may be A-hole.” 

That was the last conversation Sheila and I had. I turned back to the trail and reshouldered my backpack, and left Sheila behind, who had taken hers off and was sitting on it. 

Sore feet or not, I pressed on alone and got back to my itinerary, making camp at the spot I had picked out while planning months before at home. I was finishing dinner when a fast and efficient looking guy came in. He got out his stove and made himself dinner in a matter of minutes. “There was a lady back there that told me to get her water. Why would she do that?” he asked.

“Meet all kinds out here, I guess.”

“Naw, PCT’ers are pretty good,” he said. “I did the Appalachian Trail and some of those people were terrible. On the AT, you're supposed to sleep in designated shelters, and when it rains, some of them just stuck their butts out under the eaves to crap. Seriously. They didn't want to get wet on their way to the outhouse.” 

He savored his noodles a minute. “I hated it, you know? Swore I'd never through-hike again. But then I was reading about how the PCT had a new system for getting permits, and for some reason I thought, 'Well, I better get one.' So now here I am." 

He finished his noodles, swung on his pack and left. He said he liked to hike another five or ten miles after dinner every night before setting up camp. “Bonus miles,” he called them. 

***********************

The next night's camp that I had picked out while planning the hike over the winter wasn't as cool in person as it looked from the Google Earth images. It was only six more miles to the highway to Big Bear, so I kept walking.  

At the highway was a cooler full of ice and cream soda. It was delicious.  I was just about to hit 'confirm' on the uber app when a white minivan pulled over and parked. A middle-aged man with gold rimmed glasses and a crewcut got out. “Any of you guys need a ride into town? I'm going for a short walk, and when I get back, I'll take you."

There were four of us there but only two of us were going into town, myself and a ponytailed guy that talked only about mushrooms. “It's the mycelium. I'm telling you it's the earth's internet. If only all of us humans ate more mushrooms, telepathy would be within our grasp.”

“Really?” I asked.  "What am I thinking right now?”

He looked at me. “You don't eat mushrooms like I do,” he said.

“Whoa! You ARE telepathic!” I told him.

The minivan guy came back. “My name is Norm. Who's going?”  

It was a seven-mile ride into town, and Norm gave me and the mushroom kid some local history. Half of the seats were out of the minivan, a perfect configuration for hauling hikers with backpacks. I asked Norm why he gave PCT hikers rides into town.

“Well, I didn't always,” Norm said. “But a couple years ago, my mother passed away on Mother's Day weekend. I didn't want to see anyone, or talk to anyone, or even to do anything with anyone, really. I grew up in Acton and the PCT goes through there, and when I was a kid, I’d see hikers going through. So I thought, 'the PCT is just up the road. I'll just go up there for a walk by myself'.

“And when I got there,” he said, “there were a couple of dirty and tired hikers that asked me for a ride to town. So I put off my walk and drove them. But when I got back to the trailhead for my hike, there were more hikers that wanted to get to town. I never got to walk that day, all day long I kept shuttling hikers and backpacks into town. And you know what? That kind of took some weight off my shoulders, feeling like I was doing something useful. So from then on, every evening I come up here for a stroll and to see if anyone needs a ride into town. 

“And you know what else?” he asked. “I never accept gas money or payment of any kind. I only require that my riders help a stranger somehow within the next two months.” 

There was silence a moment while the mushroom and I digested Norm's story. 

“Well shit, Norm,” I said. “You coulda’ told us that before we got in, you know.”

Norm took his eyes off the road a second to look at me. “Ha! I've got you,” he said. “Now when you do that kindness, and I know you will, tell them that 'Norm made me do it', you hear?”