TRAVELER
ald’s and grocery stores couldn’t stand to be within ten feet of me. Finding comfort in the most bazaar of locales, finding love where I wasn’t looking, but ultimately, finding that change I was looking for. Change came in the course of landscape
Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail
by Sean Jansen
“Give me a hug man!” I said to my friend Tommy, teary-eyed as we
reached Monument 78, the northern terminus and finish line for a northbound Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker. Approaching the terminus my friend Kayla was right in front of me and Tommy was only about 20 yards beyond that. We had checked the maps at the last water source and knew we only had five miles to go.
“Often throughout the Sierra and North Cascade sections, we had to take our shoes off and wade through icy water. But let me tell you that it always felt great to take your shoes off.”
It started pouring rain. It slowed our descent. The three of us were dead quiet. We could hear every raindrop. An hour and a half went by un- eventfully. But suddenly there was a large clear- ing ahead. Tommy reached a switchback at the start of the clearing, turned and looked at us with a big Cheshire grin, bouncing up and down with his backpack on, waving his hiker poles in the air saying, “I can see it, I can see
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it!” Kayla didn’t want to believe him because he is such a jokester, but your eyes don’t lie when you see it for yourself. Tommy took off running, Kayla sung her way dancing to the monument, and I was in complete shock. I didn’t think it was real, 2,650.10 miles and 180 days and it was all over. It was never a vacation. It was never a so-
journ, or a journey, trip, excursion, or trek. It was simply a dream. I had to do it. My youth of salt-crusted obsession started to weigh thin while the population of my local line-ups did the opposite. Traveling didn’t seem worthy to someone who had been to 27 countries before turning 27. I was bored, bored with my life, it just seemed like repetition. I needed to break free and set loose a person that was trapped and in need of escaping. And when a friend re- minded me of the trail, I couldn’t think of any- thing better than to be in nature, to spend up to 150 days in a sleeping bag, and to stink to unfathomable levels where people at McDon-
and trail, but more importantly, I changed. And to say the trail changed me is as night and day as summer and winter. Change inside, change outside, change in appearance. Change emotionally, physically, and mentally. If there is a single word to describe the trail, it is, “change.” The trail changes you as much as it changes elevation. And in looking at the total elevation differences throughout the trail, it was evident something life altering was going to happen. I could tell you about how gorgeous the
trail is, and try to use a variety of words from my thesaurus to impress you, but there is some- thing very special to be said about what it takes to wake up after a day that gave you six new blisters, a sun-burnt forehead, and a headache reminiscent of a hangover without the alcohol ... about watching that sunrise come up over a Joshua tree in Southern California when you should have already been walking if you wanted to get somewhere before the sun decided to make a roast of you … or carrying eight liters of water for a 38-mile dry section in 90-degree heat … or simply freezing in a tent at 9,000 feet because you laughed at the fact a storm was going to bring rain to Southern California and you ended up shivering while it snowed. These are the things that summed up a Southern Cal- ifornia trail in a nutshell, insanely gorgeous and super surprising. But after walking through my backyard, I
was now at the door of the Sierras itching to open it, and the only way to describe what I saw when I opened that door is nothing short of breathtaking.
The Sierras When my muscles started to hurt more
than usual, and I wished I could literally buy oxygen, I knew I had made it to the Sierras. The Sierras meant granite peaks, extreme alti- tude, and a view that HD wouldn’t know
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The awkward border crossing from Oregon into Washington. “We had to dodge two-way traffic while crossing the bridge over the Columbia River. Fun, but a bit sketchy as well”.
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