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schoolteacher. Her shoulder-length brown hair bordered full, rose-colored cheeks and wild, hungry-looking eyes. She car- ried a small backpack, loaded with a beat-up sleeping bag, a one-person tent, a Therm-a-Rest, a wispy rain jacket and wool baselayers, a compact headlamp, 6 liters of water, and snack food pre-portioned into small meals. The next morning, June 8, 2013, Barney, Sandy, and Anish piled into the Manns’ Prius at 5 a.m., and drove the 75 miles to the trailhead in Campo, California, near the Mexican border. Nobody spoke as they pulled up to the monu- ment, four weathered pillars of wood at the start of the PCT. More than 2,500 trail miles—crossing desert, forest, canyons, and mountain after moun- tain—lie between this spot and Canada. As Anish had told the Manns, she planned to hike that dis- tance faster than anybody ever had. She gathered her belongings while Sandy took a few photos and said goodbye. “She seemed very confident, but there was no braggadocio,” Sandy recalls. At 6:27 a.m., Anish signed the trail register: Well, here goes. To Canada. –Anish. In the previous two months, hundreds of hik- ers had signed the register. But Anish wasn’t like them, and none of them knew she was coming. In time, everyone on the trail would know her name. She wasn’t like the rest of them. ¶ They knew that. And they’d all be hoping to catch sight of her.

It was June 7, for one, much later than the others had come. Temperatures in the Sonoran Desert, BY HER SECOND DAY on the trail, 2-inch blis- ters bulged off both her ankles. The arid heat the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, dried out her sinuses, causing her nose to drip were spiking at 1200F. The hundreds ahead of a steady patter of blood into the dust. But she stopped only to dump sand from her sneakers. her had started their hikes as early as March. She didn’t have a moment to spare. Now there were the stragglers and the maybe- Anish knew from the start that every minute of the two months she planned to be out there gonna-make-its, and there was her. ¶ Barney and would matter. At the time, the self-supported Sandy Mann have seen all types in the nine years speed record was held by Scott Williamson, a man who’d made a career out of setting and break- they’ve been offering their San Diego-area home ing PCT records. Williamson thru-hiked the PCT as a PCT staging ground. At mile zero, most of in 64 days, 11 hours, and 19 minutes in 2011. That their guests are fresh-faced and clean-clothed, attempt bested his previous record by a single day. At the pinnacle of athleticism, endurance their boots unscuffed, their pride and plans intact. records are won a few steps at a time. And almost They range from the scared and ill-equipped to entirely, they’re held by men (see Fleet of Foot, next page). the bullheaded and eager, and they carry nervous Indeed, in 2013 there wasn’t even a known laughter about them like a weather system. “In the speed record for women on the PCT. The simple fact that Anish would be first would have given late season, we get two kinds of hikers,” Barney her license to set her target comfortably slower says. “They either really know what they’re doing than the men’s record, but she wanted to mea- sure herself by the same bar: to be the fastest, or they don’t know what they’re doing at all. We no asterisk, no separate column. Yet this wasn’t make sure they have our phone number because a women’s empowerment thing. “I figured I’d go for the record that did exist,” she later explained. they’re probably not going to make it very far.” “My motivation wasn’t coming from a competi- tive place. I just wanted to see what I could do for myself. I wanted to see what was possible.” What was possible? Could she set her mind free She didn’t say much when she arrived. How do you tell strang- by pushing herself so hard and so long that the effort drowned ers that you’re hiking to free your soul? She just busied herself the voices that had been nagging her as long as she could organizing her pack and devouring a worn copy of Yogi’s PCT remember? Handbook. Most hikers go by their given names at this point, but Anish was born Heather she referred to herself simply as Anish (pronounced ah-NISH). Anderson, the daughter of Heather “Anish” Anderson in She wore a white, collared shirt, a knee-length skirt, and trail a former Navy man turned the forest near her Bellingham, running shoes, giving her the look of a sneaker-commuting farm and factory worker and Washington home. his wife, a social worker, in rural Michigan. She was sharp at aca- “No,” she responded, a little confused. “I’m Anish.” demics, but struggled with her weight. By third grade, her peers It seemed like a weird question. But thanks to word of mouth labeled her “the smart, fat one” and exiled her to the margins of on the trail—partly from chatter on social media, partly from grade-school society. hiker-to-hiker gossip—many thru-hikers had heard about Anish. “Heather was very shy as a kid, always in the back or apart They knew little, just a few shadowy details. Some knew that from the main crowd,” says Darcie Schueller, a childhood friend. she’d hiked the Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and “She hated having her pictures taken and would scowl or frown Pacific Crest Trail (the Triple Crown of hiking) once before, but in all of them.” without fanfare and at an unremarkable pace. Anyone who dug Heather turned to exploring the woods behind her house deep online might have discovered that she’d started running alone. The deep forest intrigued her, but she was scared, too— ultramarathons recently, but again, without raising any heads. of wild animals, of getting lost, Mostly, they just knew two things: She was attempting to break of never being found—so she’d Scott Williamson’s hallowed speed record, and only a lucky bring her dog and her dad’s ham- few had seen her. One day, word on the trail was that she was mer. Out there among the cedars en route, but by the next day she was already gone. So early and oaks, she found a sense of on, thru-hikers took to calling her by another name: Anish the belonging she hadn’t known Ghost. Or simply, the Ghost. before. There was no judgment By 6 a.m. the next morning, when Hiker Heaven’s owner out there. She was free. went to raise the garage door and open for the regular breakfast hustle, the ghost was gone. BEYOND A DOZEN or so day- hikers, Anish saw almost no one BY THE TIME she was in high school, Heather was using food until the second week of her hike. as a crutch. She passed other tents, but under “I hated my body and myself,” she says. “I consoled myself by the veil of darkness. The most eating bowls full of Oreos and milk as though they were cereal. common experience others had But somewhere deep inside, I knew I was capable of doing of Anish was footsteps in the night. something more.” At mile 454, a collection of trailers and canvas tents make When she graduated in 2000, she carried 200 pounds on her up a place called Hiker Heaven, an unlikely paradise for trail- 5’8” frame, and could barely summit a flight of stairs without seasoned trekkers who arrive to wash laundry, drink beer, sucking wind. She felt alone. She felt like she deserved to be. check email, and gorge on burgers and fries. Hikers gather on During her freshman year at Indiana’s Anderson University, hay bales around the campfire, swapping stories about the trials she signed on for a Grand Canyon summer with a program of the first four weeks. called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. She’s not sure It was dark when Anish arrived, just 10 days and 12 hours what motivated her, but something clicked. She felt transfixed into her hike. She dropped her gear and went to the garage to by the canyon’s depth. It made the world feel bigger, like there get loaner clothes so she could shower and do laundry. Another was a place for her in it. “I remember not feeling scared any- thru-hiker approached and asked her, “Are you the Ghost?” more,” she says now. Her roommates invited her on a hike down the Bright Angel Trail. Though she felt familiar self- doubt, she decided to go for it. In 1150F heat, most of the group decided to turn back partway, but one girl, who was tall, slender, and FLEET OF FOOT athletic, was set on making it to Indian Garden. And There’s no official keeper of long-trail speed records, but the website fastest- Heather was set on being that kind of girl, if only she knowntime.proboards.com collects honor-code submissions. could break free of the one she already was. On the way back up, she ran out of food and water Appalachian Trail Wonderland Trail, WA Colorado Trail and nearly succumbed to dehydration. Leaning

against the canyon wall, letting the mules pass her 2,180 miles 95 miles 500 miles by, she felt like her heart might give up. Then she Jennifer Kyle Scott Supported Supported Supported determined that she wasn’t going to quit. “I knew I Pharr Davis, 46 days, Scaggs, 20 hours, 53 Jaime, 8 days, 7 hours, couldn’t stop, couldn’t give up. No matter how hor- 11 hours, 10 minutes minutes (2006) 40 minutes (2013) rible it was, it had to be done,” she says. “I had to (2011) Richard Shawn Unsupported Unsupported dig deep and I’d never had to do that before.” It was Matt Kressler, 27 hours, 16 Forry, 10 days, 19 hours, Self-supported* baptism by suffering, and by the time she climbed Kirk, 58 days, 9 hours, minutes (2013) 5 minutes (2012) out, she was new. 40 minutes (2013) “Once I recovered from that hike, I realized I John Muir Trail, CA Long Trail, VT wanted to do it again. Removing all the pain from it,

Pacific Crest Trail descending through the layers of the canyon made 223 miles 271 miles a huge impression on me,” she says. “I lost my heart 2,650 miles Hal Koerner Jonathan Supported Supported and soul to it right away.” Josh Gar- and Mike Wolfe, 3 days, Basham, 4 days, 12 Supported She logged 150 miles in the Grand Canyon that rett, 59 days, 8 hours, 12 hours, 41 minutes hours, 46 minutes summer and, instead of Oreos, she devoured trail, 14 minutes (2013) (2013) (2009) ultimately losing 70 pounds and gaining confidence Bret Travis Self-supported Unsupported Unsupported over the next few years. The day after she graduated Heather Anderson, Maune, 3 days, 14 Wildeboer, 6 days, college, in May 2003, she handed her diploma to her 60 days, 17 hours, 12 hours, 13 minutes 17 hours, 25 minutes parents, got a ride to Springer Mountain in Georgia, minutes (2013) (2009) (2010) and hiked the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. Along the way she started calling herself Anishinaabe, Self-supported means thru-hiker style: no pre-arranged support, and walking in after her family’s Native American heritage. Anish, and* out of towns for resupply. Unsupported means carrying everything at once. SIGHTINGS OF THE GHOST for short. Impressions of those who spotted Anish along her 2,650-mile journey By 2007, she finished the Triple Crown, married from Mexico to Canada. fellow PCT thru-hiker Remy Levin, and got a job in Bellingham, Washington, designing ebooks at a Linda Barton software company. And that’s where the story is MILE 2,650 supposed to end: girl finds herself, marries boy, lives “She ate some food and talked and happily ever after. But that’s not what happened. talked, as though also starved for conversation. It was dark, so it was That life meant saying goodbye to the woman hard to see what she looked like, who had slept outside for hundreds of nights, hiked but I sure could smell her. It was not alone for thousands of miles, and fallen in love with unexpected, but it was very strong.” the sound of her own footsteps. It meant saying goodbye to Anish, and Heather wasn’t ready. She wrote on her blog: Why am I not like other people Chris “Freefall” Sanderson I know? Why can’t I be happy with the things that MILE 2,155 made my parents, my friends, my siblings happy? “She was really gaunt, almost like Gollum She tried to be content with life’s ordinary things— from Lord of the Rings. Her calves were hairy and ripped.” a 9-to-5 job, a marriage, a home. But none of it was enough. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt lost again. In 2012, after five years of marriage, Remy was happy to settle down and Heather the polar oppo- site. They divorced. Soon after, either in crisis or recovering from it, she quit her job, sold all of her Ed “Eeyore” Jarrett belongings, and bought a one-way bus ticket to MILE 1,605 Ashland, Oregon, and the trailhead to her comfort “She was surprised when I greeted her by zone: the PCT in Oregon and Washington. It was name. Other than being dirty, she seemed to the one place she knew she could be herself again, be in good spirits.” where she could find Anish. Clint “Lint” Bunting “I was very broken in a lot of personal ways,” she MILE 1,423 Cat “Faucet” Jenks says. “I was unhappy in my job, in my relationship. I “She looked like an extremely MILE 1,289 knew I needed to leave, but it was also hard to go. So fit homeless lady, and the “She seemed happy and upbeat, definitely in her element.” much of my life felt unstable.” zebra-print dress added a touch of rock-n-roll, so she On the trail, she moved at her own pace, and at also resembled a grubby last, she felt in control of motion and emotion; stabil- Courtney Love.” ity reclaimed. “Trails and the wilderness have this amazing capacity to heal. They are for you what- ever you need them to be,” she says. “When I went through Oregon, I bawled and screamed and cried about what my life had become. But by the time I finished that 1,000-mile hike, I was happy again.” Before she even crossed the Oregon-Washington border, she decided to attempt a speed record the Donna Saufley, trail angel following year. “It wasn’t about being the fastest. It MILE 454.4 was more the personal push,” she says. “For years, I “She looked like she’d put in a full day on the always wondered, ‘How fast could I do one of these trail, but she also looked strong.” trails?’ It had been stewing for a long time and the time was right to finally find out.” Sandy “Frodo” Mann, trail angel MILE 0 “It felt like she was gathering herself. Coiling.” SPEED HIKING IS AN EXERCISE in self-denial. There’s irony in moving fast through scenery that makes most people want to slow down, take it all in. But the singleness of purpose, the surrender to discomfort and suffering, is its own reward. Jenks and her boyfriend, Harry “Sharkbite” Hamlin, were eating Day after day, Anish rose before 5 a.m. and began to walk energy bars on a trailside boulder when a woman in a zebra- within minutes. She’d sometimes fall asleep mid-stride, a quick print dress came whirling around the bend. blink of the eye that would send her into a brief, semi-conscious When thru-hikers meet on the trail, they usually talk food, state. She stopped only for a few seconds when the hourly alarm shared acquaintances, and weather, then say goodbye, promis- on her watch reminded her to grab food from her pack. ing to pass messages back or look for each other up the way. She didn’t move particularly fast—roughly 3 mph—but she This year, something else was going on, and Jenks and Hamlin walked. And walked. By 11 p.m., with her legs nearly crumpled had been on the lookout for Anish. They imagined a grizzled underneath her, she’d pitch her tent on whatever surface she woman with concrete for legs, intimidating even just in myth. could find and gulp down a protein shake. She’d punch in a jour- They weren’t expecting a scrawny hiker in a zebra dress, nal entry on her phone, staring at a sticker on the case that read, which Anish had recently purchased at a thrift store in Sierra “Never, never, never give up.” City for $1. And her pack looked too light for a self-supported By early July, she’d caught the main wave of northbounders, thru-hiker. Could that be her? But as Anish got closer to them, passing many who’d started weeks before her. Near Belden, they saw her focus and had no doubt. California, around the 1,289-mile mark, thru-hiker Cat “Faucet” They tried to grill her about her pace, but the conversation was brief. Anish had to push on. “See you cashier, race director, tulip farmer, free- guys up the trail,” she hollered, already lance writer. (Kevin says he understands past them. that the trail may always come before him: “Yeah, right!” Jenks called after her. “She is for the wilderness and the wilder- A few miles ahead, nearing the trail’s ness is for her.”) midpoint, thru-hiker Craig “OTC” Giffen, a Later that day, in California’s MacArthur- husky guy with a long beard and shaggy Burney Falls Memorial State Park, she met hair, was walking the trail when a woman up with veteran Triple Crowner Clint “Lint” trotted past, nodding a quiet hello. He Bunting, a strong mass of a man with tatts initially mistook her for a dayhiker—her covering permanent trail legs. pack was so small and she seemed to Bunting has seen a lot of things on a lot bounce along the trail, a rarity among of trails, but when Anish caught him, her haggard long-distance hikers. time- and energy-saving tricks still took Giffen had heard of Anish’s record him by surprise. She pees standing up, attempt in a PCT email blast. By now, for one, hitching her zebra dress up to her she was logging consistent 45-plus-mile waist to avoid squatting and putting pres- days, and the trail community had taken sure on her legs. notice. So when she appeared out of For three days, they passed the miles. nowhere on the trail beside him, Giffen It was the longest interaction Anish had quickly connected the dots. “You must with another person for her entire hike. be Anish,” he said. Bunting said he enjoyed her company, and He was in awe of the fact that she was could tell she was happy to have his, but he hiking the trail just like he was—without got the sense she was fighting something. help or pre-arranged support, walking She’d go silent for miles at a stretch, staring into and out of towns for resupplies— at the horizon like a finish line she had yet only much, much faster. Giffen had been to reach. at it for 82 days, Anish for 31. “It was kind Anish left him at a road crossing out- of like running into Keith Richards on the side Etna, California. He was out of food street,” he said later. “No use asking him if and beelined for a burger. She had more he likes playing the guitar.” miles to go and wrote in her journal, I’m He trailed behind her for the remain- constantly amazed at the transformation ing few miles to Belden Town, then from athlete into machine. My body has joined her in devouring fish and chips. become a calories-in, miles-out machine. But instead of a post-meal siesta, even a Only my mind can stop me now. short one, Anish stood up and said qui- etly, “I’m going to squeeze in a few more miles tonight.” With that, the restaurant’s NEAR THE 2,000-MILE MARK, in door swung shut, the ghost departed into Oregon’s Diamond Peak Wilderness, the the night, and Giffen never saw her again. dizzy spells hit. Her legs cramped, her In the afterglow of his celebrity meet- vision went fuzzy, and twice, she col- ing, Giffen tried to replicate Anish’s pace. lapsed into the dirt. Her body was giving The effort nearly broke him after just up. For the first time, the prospect of not three days. Anish was moving so fast. finishing entered her mind. Inside I am a mush of self-doubt, fear, and uncertainty, she confessed in her journal. AROUND MILE 1,350, just north of Hiking more than 40 miles a day for Mt. Lassen, the towering chunk of vol- weeks on end is an Olympian feat, to canic granite that overlooks translucent say the least, but there are no cheering alpine lakes, mossy forests, and marks the crowds on the PCT. No supportive family entrance to the Cascades, Anish turned members to prop you up. 32. It was a celebratory day—she’d crossed At Big Lake Youth Camp in Sisters, the halfway point of her hike—and one Oregon, Anish sat for four hours and that made her reflect, thoughts scribbled cried. She could forgive herself for not set- across her journal. ting a record, but not finishing the hike? No man can ever fully have my heart, Unacceptable. “I decided that even if I for I am already wedded to the moun- didn’t break this record, I was going to fin- tains, to the wild places. It is there and ish this hike,” she later said. “If I were to there alone that I am whole, contented quit, it would feel good for a few minutes and at bliss. It is the beauty of the land that and then I’d be devastated.” has me so enthralled that the miles fly by But why? She’d already hiked the Triple effortlessly. Crown and its 7,000 confidence-boosting Sounds like the opening lines of a loner’s miles. But this hike was different. By push- manifesto, but Anish always knew she’d ing herself to see what was possible, she have to return to the civilized world. To could finally win the inner fight, she could the cabin in Washington she shares with make the lost girl she once was disappear her boyfriend, Kevin, and the constellation completely. of part-time jobs that now support her— I wonder daily what I am thinking by taking on a task so huge. Who am I to think that I can do this? The truth is, I don’t know if I can or not, she wrote in her journal. Whether I succeed in the ultimate goal or not, I will push myself beyond my current limits and find a stronger, braver woman in the process. She added lots of protein to her diet and the dizziness went away. She crossed Oregon in nine and a half days, marching toward her home state. The cheerful, bouncing hiker was gone; this was a slugfest now, and she moved with brute-like intensity. In late July, at mile 2,150 near Cascade Locks on the Oregon- Washington border, Chris “Freefall” Sanderson, a thru-hiker and friend of Anish’s, spotted her booking down the trail. He knew she was coming—everyone did, and now they wanted to make sure they saw her. “The thing that really struck me was how focused she was,” Sanderson says. “She was on a mission.” She looked gaunt, her legs hairy and muscular, a sharp jaw- bone replacing her once ruddy and full cheeks. She’d dropped 20 pounds from her 145-pound frame. They walked 7 nonstop miles together to Cascade Locks—it was the fastest stretch of trail Sanderson had hiked in ages. In town, Anish took a quick shower, resupplied her pack with military-like precision, and got back on the trail to do another 14 miles before bed. She anticipated dropping her mileage for the final stretch, as the terrain through Washington is some of the most challenging on the trail. Instead, she added more, rising earlier and walking up to 50 miles each day. “There’s a feeling you get to toward the end—in ultrarunning, we call it smelling the barn,” she says. “You think you’re already at your limit, but there’s something inside that can go even more.” Just over 60 miles from the Canadian border, Anish’s boy- friend, Kevin, surprised her at Rainy Pass. She spent just 30 min- utes with him, then pushed on to keep hiking into the night. “I will be at the Canadian border by midnight tomorrow night,” she told Kevin. He planned to travel by car to meet her at the end. “I could tell she was tired—I could see it,” Kevin says. “But she had this look on her face that said, ‘I’m getting this done.’” The next morning, on August 7, she rose, once again, before dawn. It was her 60th day on the trail and she hoped it would be her last. She paused for no one on that final day. To other hikers, she was an ethereal blur in an animal-print dress. Her singular focus had led her here, outside her own head. She discovered what was possible, but she knew it couldn’t last. She knew the lightness and freedom she’d built up would fade as soon as she reached the final trail marker. On the last few miles, before she even knew what she was doing, her pace built into a run. Darkness set in and she began to fly downhill. Her limbs lost feeling—numb to the branches scratching her body. When she tripped and slammed her knee on a rock, she just stood and continued, as free as she’d ever felt. She reached Monument 78, the northern terminus of the PCT, at 11:42 p.m., 60 days, 17 hours, and 12 minutes after she started, smashing the record by four days. She heaved open the metal casing, adding one last note to the register: Anish was here. Did she find what she was looking for? No doubt a stronger, braver woman walked away from the monument that night, but this was a woman who knew that her hike would never really be done, that her transformation was ongoing, and always would be. “I live somewhere else, but my home is on the trail,” she says. She’d expected to find Kevin waiting nearby, but she found only darkness. A little ways up the trail, Kevin and another friend were asleep in tents, their vigil abandoned. A noise jolted them awake, a primal yell that was part human, part animal. Part ghost. ■

Megan Michelson is the freeskiing editor at ESPN.com.

N I CAN’T STOP STOP CAN’T reasonably be cast as God in a movie. amovie. in God as cast be reasonably could man The whorls. white tiny of mist a bounteous is untrimmed, likewise long beard, his and hat, khaki broad his of rim the from down cascading gray of tangle unruly an is 2004, since untrimmed hair, His itself. Tyvek of for shelter. ascrap only using tree, pine atowering beneath slumbered Goat Billy Pass, Donner on California’s chill autumn the escaping lodge, a comfy inside beds warm in slept fanatics trail younger as West, Association- Hiking Distance Long American the of ing gather annual an At most. itthan in comfortable more Goat No, Billy nature. out in being enjoys who backpacker another just not He is year. a days 150 roughly hiked he has 49, age at retiring since ever old and, years 77 He is times. additional two route the of most and times eight PCT the of length entire the hiked has Maine, from conductor railroad a retired Goat, Billy trailhead. Pass Rainy to visitors welcomes that sign wooden large the beside however, standing skeptically. window, car out the Now, Death.” of Ilook Trail the onto stepping are guys “You us, telling grandiose, he waxed pass, 4,800-foot the to road up a mountain us Monte drove named angel trail a as earlier, And weather. It’s hypothermia above. tains moun sharp-ridged steep, the of creases the snow in of PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB STEFKO BY BOB PHOTOGRAPHY on athru-hike with no end. For almost three decades, George “Billy Goat” Woodard been has In many ways, Billy Goat looks as old as weather weather old as as looks Goat Billy ways, many In outside, is history PCT in hiker venerated most The the middle of August, there are still patches patches still are there August, of middle the now, Even Park—and it’s cold. in National Cascades North of fogs shifting the and firs the and pines the Trail—way up in Crest Pacific the of terminus northern the of shy We’re miles 66 just Washington. T’S RAINING AT RAINY PASS, AT RAINY RAINING T’S OW is is nature. Or at least he’s least at Or nature. By Bill Donahue By - - distant peak. “This is where I belong, out on the trail.” out on the I belong, where is “This peak. distant a past wafting clouds out at gazing out,” he says, came we glad “I’m so rejoices. Goat Billy trees, the in gap alittle to come we when and boots our under soft is dirt The light. afternoon late the in glistening ferns damp amid striding woods, cool the in Trail, Crest Pacific lifting!” are clouds day. “The on asummer who’s confined akid been like he says “Look!” change. afaint he detects soon and longingly, almost though, window, out the peers Goat abeer. Billy drink to a place find might we shower. ahot if Iwonder and room hotel a about thinking I’m already downhill, riding we’re as Monte’s and in car, We there.” back right get cation indi an be might “that disappointed, says, Goat Billy England. New northern of tions inflec distinct the bearing yelp reedy and awise voice his says, Goat Billy situation,” of kind this for respect alot of got “I’ve nearby? Honda idles but heated tered bat whose Monte, to goodbye say we Should afternoon. the in four at now, a storm, hike in 40-mile four-day, planned our commence to it’s prudent whether deciding rain, the into out, palm his holding and sign trailhead the sheltering roof small the beneath He’s standing Canada’s a long waaay awaaay. because play and sing and talk and We’ll walk today. there get won’t we but Canada, to way It’s along ditty: signature his into breaks he spontaneously trail, on the Sometimes springing. and coiling calves gamey kled, wrin his in muscles the see can you him behind walking that so jaunty, and He’s 5’7’’, fellow,well. only aslight A few minutes later, Billy Goat and I are out on the out on the Iare and Goat Billy later, minutes A few “Well,” distance. the in reverberates thunder of A clap singing. not is Goat Billy Pass, now, Rainy at Right as Goat Billy about boyish something is But there

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- - - -

PHOTO BY TK on it and gave it to him. him. to it gave and it on name his stitched company thatthe is, backpack; “signature” ULA Ohm a uses Goat Billy THRU-HIKER AWARDS

OR MANY PCT HIKERS, it’s hard to imagine the us. What happens when he must stop? To his fans, the man embodies all that’s great Billy Goat has trail without Billy Goat. “I’ve known him for two We’re climbing now, gaining 2,000 feet over 5 miles on our about thru-hiking. He’s out there year after year never chased trail decades,” says a hiker who goes by the trail name way to 6,800-foot Cutthroat Pass, and the sun has escaped because he loves life on the trail. He’s not trying records, but with F 47,700 miles (to Weathercarrot, and who has spent much of his own adult life the clouds. We walk very slowly, a little more than a mile an to break speed records or tell others how to hike. date), he’s one of hiking and volunteering on the PCT and AT. “Why is he such hour. It’s possible that I, being a long-legged guy 25 years Casual trailside conversations have left many the world’s most a legend? First, there’s the way his personality, demeanor, his junior, push the pace slightly. Three miles in, as we near with the impression that he’s simply the PCT’s prolific hikers. and passion capture the spirit of the community so beauti- treeline at dusk, he collapses trailside, complaining of chest gentle and beloved grandfather. But his trail fully. And then there’s his sheer persistence. When you wander pains. For a moment he just sits there, gasping, his head persona belies a complex backstory. around as long as he has, you start to span several different pressed to his knees. “Four years ago, this never would have George Woodard grew up in northern Maine, eras, with changing communities.” happened,” he says. “I might just have to give up on my effort within sight of Katahdin. He spent his winters Indeed, he’s been roaming the PCT for so long that he’s to hike the PCT. I’m feeling weak and dizzy. Oh, I just can’t sledding in the remote hills and cross-coun- become a character known only by his trail name. (Which was do it anymore!” try skiing through rolling farm fields. It sounds bestowed on him when a friend saw him scramble up a steep Back in Monte’s car, Billy Goat’s bad heart had been an idyllic, but to Billy Goat, his childhood was slope and said, “There goes Billy Goat.’’) As he puts it himself, abstraction. Now it dawns on me that he could die in my pres- forlorn and painfully working class. “We didn’t “Thirty years ago I was George Woodard. Then slowly, gradu- ence. “If anything happens,” I ask, “what do you want me to do?” have much of anything,” he says of his family. ally, I became Billy Goat.” Billy Goat peers up for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know,” “We didn’t have indoor plumbing. One house we But of course the number of mountain streams he’ll bound he finally says. “I don’t know.” moved into, we put in electricity, and we thought across, hopping from rock to rock, is ever dwindling. The man I came on this hike expecting a sage who could answer all that was a big deal. And there was nothing to is fragile these days. Three years ago, Billy Goat underwent of life’s challenges with unflappable calm. He’s a legend, yes, do—no clubs, no Boy Scouts, nowhere to go after quadruple bypass surgery. He’s had diabetes for more than but he’s also human. school. When I was 10 or 12 years old, I figured two decades. And in 2013, a kidney stone lodged itself in his Eventually, Billy Goat musters enough energy to set up his the rest of the world was just one big city. I wanted innards, painfully, forcing him to abandon the PCT and rush tent. Then, as he rests, two twenty-something lads cruise by, to run away.” to the VA hospital in Seattle, stopping every so often to vomit. hauling heavy packs, busily chatting away as they wing north Billy Goat says that he wasn’t comfortable at The incident caused a gap in his PCT legacy, a 9.5-mile section through the fading light. “Just listen to those young horses,” home, in part because his mother was intrusive that he wanted to hike out and back on that trip. He still needs Billy Goat says. “Those fellows are going to make it all the way and possessed of “an anxiety and nervous disorder” to complete that section twice to say that he’s done the trail’s to Canada before nightfall.” that also afflicts him and his son Toby Woodard, northernmost 100 miles 10 times. On this 2016 hike, we start 46, who lives in Maine. Toby says simply, “She hen- at Rainy Pass so he can knock off that missing link before pecked him to death and he couldn’t wait to get out tackling a longer section to the south. HEN YOU HIKE WITH Billy Goat, you are of there. Something really bad happened with his Filling such gaps is an arcane personal goal, but one that constantly reminded of his celebrity. Young mother. He didn’t even go to her funeral, and to matters greatly to a man whose trail logs chronicle nearly W women in particular bathe him in adoration. this day he won’t talk about it.” every step in his last 28 years of full-time long-distance At Rainy Pass, a hiker named Hatchet, taking shelter in her When Billy Goat was 17, he followed his uncle hiking. Most thru-hikers complete one long trail, savor the tent, beckoned us over to share some grapes she’d bought into the railroad business. He worked as a brake- achievement, and move on with life. A few chase the Triple in town. Then, shyly, faltering, she asked, “Are you—are man in the boonies of Millinocket, Maine, on Crown. But what drives a person to spend nearly half his life you Billy Goat?” Another hiker we met, trail name Miss tracks used mainly by a nearby paper mill. It was on the trail, year after year after year? I’ve come along to Washington, reminisced aloud about a chance Billy Goat cold work—a matter of digging the switches out of witness Billy Goat cement his PCT legacy and to find out why sighting she’d made a few summers earlier. “You were eating the snow at 3 a.m.—and his colleagues were hard- this unrelenting hiker keeps going—and how he contends a pickle,” she said. bitten old guys whom he regarded as trapped. with the slowing down and the falling apart that awaits all of “Isn’t that something?” Billy Goat responded warmly. One man kept telling Billy Goat that as soon as he retired, he was going to Florida with his wife. “He’d never been there,” Billy Goat says, “and as he was driving down there, he died. He died somewhere in North Carolina. I decided, ‘That’s not going to happen to me.’” To that end, Billy Goat left his job at age 20 and joined the army. He served two years in Germany during the Cold War. When he left the military, he traveled the world, at one point taking a passenger ship from Egypt to Hong if I don’t move around, I can get depressed.” Kong and enjoying a day-long detour in Sri Billy Goat’s marriage ended in 1976. Afterward Lanka with two young Pakistani women. “We his son, Toby, lived with him full time for two rode around in a taxi cab and saw elephants in years. Billy Goat was confident that hiking would the river, and rubber trees and forests. I felt so be good for his son, but his efforts were met with lucky,” he remembers. “I kept thinking, ‘I have mixed success. When he was 14, Toby suffered three sisters back in Maine and they wouldn’t from a condition that caused insufficient carti- even know how to change trains in Chicago.’” lage in his growing knees, yet Billy Goat expected After that, Billy Goat’s life might have him to hike 76 miles over five days—solo. “In the blossomed into a hippie daydream. It’s easy to morning,” Toby wrote in a recent essay, “I have to imagine him growing long hair and escaping to use my hands and arms to pull myself upright, a mountain meadow. But he didn’t. In 1962, he then walk for up to an hour like Frankenstein with went back to the railroad, and by the early ’70s he my knees locked.” Eventually, at age 17, after three was making a staggering $40,000 a year—more summers of hiking section by section—mostly with than $200,000 in today’s dollars. He was married Billy Goat—Toby completed every mile of the AT. with two children. He owned a brand new house But he still didn’t feel he’d satisfied his dad. “Even in New Hampshire and drove a 1972 Plymouth into my thirties,” says Toby, who says he suffers Satellite. But he couldn’t enjoy the American from chronic depression, “I was still trying to dream. “I wish I knew how to make myself happy please my father.” back then,” he says. He hadn’t yet realized what is Billy Goat’s daughter, April Woodard, who is now his life’s guiding principle: “If I get too bored, 48 and an artist in rural Massachusetts, likewise O anything eat Goat Billy see I never together days two first our during and breakfast, his of repeat exact an is snack single-item The package. the from directly it, eating begins and Cheese Jack Monterey Shurfine of block out a1-pound pulls and pack Trail’s nothing but one big party.” but one big party.” Trail’s nothing Crest Pacific the like pot, smoke and beer drink to want just day. “They that later abreak during he them,” of says front in what’s no idea have Wild. memoir, Strayed’s Cheryl of publication 2012 the since PCT the on up washed have that seekers soul ill-equipped of profusion the by appalled He is standards. has he and man, arailroad of rectitude the with work done.” I’ve days 14-hour many how and morning, the in five out before I started times how many see to “and he says, back,” look to “It’s interesting archives. handwritten bare-bones his into grated inte be will data the all Ultimately, are. stops rest our of how long each record He’ll anotebook. in hike, we distance the with along time, departure this down write he will Later, uphill. walking commence we as watch his at glancing says, Goat element. his in alegend with audience aprivate getting Iam, how privileged of I’m aware and chilly, air the and gray a pale is trees the and rocks on the light The backpack. his harder he finds life to be.” to life he finds harder the trail, the longer he’s off hiking—the is nism mecha coping His incommunicative. very times some and brooding often up, he was growing were we when “and adds, she for my dad,” thing areal are anxiety and Depression campfire. a good make how to know “you’d says, she better him,” “With demanding. as dad her describes Billy Goat circle it, just so no one can dispute his his dispute no one can so just it, circle Goat Billy that Isuggest rock. the at arrive we turnoff, Lakes Snowy the before just meadow open an in finally, and ridge exposed an traverse then and pass alower to switchbacks the descend We conversation. prolonged from refraining slowly, Pass Cutthroat climbs Goat Billy back. and spot the to We’re 2013. in hiking around turn to Goat Billy forced stone kidney the where away, 5miles than now less rock, unnamed He’s out not for awander. intent. primal of a kind with always, he walks, and plants, these of names the learning in no interest but has see, we flowers - wild purple the in He delights above. drifting clouds the is most about he thinks what me that he tells along, hike we As landscape. the into fits sleep.” and walk and eat “is me, “All Ido,” he tells abook. bring he doesn’t and streams) the trusts (he filter water no He carries food. ready-to-eat for opting stove, a He have doesn’t pack. 12-pound his in carries Goat Billy how by little I’m awed while the all and block, the of dwindling the by time of passage As he speaks, Billy Goat fishes into his back his into fishes Goat Billy he speaks, As his job. He approaches Goat’s Billy is Hiking Billy “Six-thirty-three,” We packs. our shoulder Our goal on the second day is to reach the reach to is day second on the goal Our Goat Billy way the to quality animal There’s an outside his tent, rummaging around in in around rummaging tent, his outside already is Goat Billy dawn. at awake N THE SECOND DAY SECOND N THE but

that cheese. I’m able to mark the mark I’m to able cheese. that “I see a lot of hikers who who hikers alot of see “I of our hike, I hike, our of - - - - T phone numbers in his travels. his in phone numbers scores he still if Iask one afternoon and moments, these in angel an as He’s by?” go do you sweet “And name what he asks, as asmile, with alight face his confidingly, forward bends habitually he Goat, Billy as him hailing approach, women When smooth. He’s charming, hikers. other with are.” my troubles all what forget I just out here, get I When trail. on the here, right above—“is blue sky the and nearby mountains towering the at tures pokey. ges hokey My alot of cure”—he just was “It therapist. the of speaking he says, exercises,” breathing do these me to wanted woman “This one visit. after but he balked counseling, chiatric out it,” of he says. myself pull to seem Ican’t and donothing and around lie just “I in. sets depression his me, he tells month, a than more for he lingers if and Syracuse, in room.” alot of abig with have old house I too. here, him having it’s “and nice says, she him,” enjoy “I helping Goat. Billy him calls else, everyone like appointments—and doctor’s his all to him nies accompa who underwriter insurance old retired name) a 72-year- is trail her by only go to prefers (she Amoeba friend.” good a“very as he describes this tree here and eat a little cheese,” he says. cheese,” alittle eat and here tree this under down sit to I’m going think “I pack. his off slips and stops Goat Billy then and mile another years.” me for three plaguing was one “that “Well,”saunter. he says, aslow, at self-satisfied moving so, he does and it, reached have to claim That’s easy to see just by watching him interact interact him watching by just see to easy That’s psy try to Goat Billy coaxed 2014,In Amoeba he’s when house the leaves rarely Goat Billy We turn around without pausing and hike for hike and pausing without around We turn HESE DAYS, WHEN HESE renting a room in the home of a woman home awoman of the in aroom renting York, New Syracuse, in hat his hangs Goat he’s not hiking, Billy Billy he’s hiking, not - - - dayhike in 1976. in dayhike Canyon rim-to-rim Grand a after exhausted totally 1987; in Georgia thru-hike in southbound AT a 1985; finishing in Pennsylvania Furnace shelter in the AT’s Windsor Toby son at his and Goat Billy top: Clockwise from

PHOTOS BY COURTESY OF BILLY GOAT (3) A want to die anywhere.” anywhere.” die to want bad.” be not might say, “here up here.” die to Idon’t want out astorm. wait can you where this, like places for looking “I’m always says, Goat Billy and ridge exposed on an rocks overhanging some Pennsylvania to Virginia. from stretching Trail Heritage Potomac the as well as Wisconsin, in Trail Age Ice the on sights his He has heart. his to congenial more ones flatter to trails mountainous from transitioning himself see He can make: to hiking.” keep to want just I old. be to I don’t want walkers. and canes and great-grandchildren had They fat. and bald and old just were they there, everyone and reunion, school high my 60th to went just “I discomfort. stiff with he says that,” about think to don’t“I like hike? old to too he is when like look life his would What salve. only his be might companionship companionship.” for is look you what want to mess that up. When you get older, I guess older, get you Iguess up. When that mess to want wouldn’t “I he says. Syracuse,” in going situation her. agood got “I’ve he needs that he admits and “ladyfriend,” his her calling Amoeba, of fondly He speaks path. playboy the down far so goes me acall.” “give him, told she Oregon,” Ashland, through going you’re “If ever earlier. days two just abus for waiting while 60s her in do! I with stores of vigor and bounce in my younger my younger in bounce and vigor of stores with I’m impatient, that see he can together, day third our of afternoon the in acreek by lunch we when so And feeling. how Iam to attuned he seems my show, but running in no interest He has instruction. with in leaping from refrains and bemused and sanguine he remains up my tent, setting I bungle Even when judgment. casts he never knowledge, outdoor less far and pack aborrowed with I’m hiking though And Goat. Billy about lightness unwavering a nearly my son.’” be do. you You’ll always what ‘It matter me, doesn’t “He’s told years. the over mellowed has Goat Billy Toby a week. says times phone several on the talk Toby, men to now closer two The son. his grown he’s years recent in me that He tells positive.” are I’m out here when Ihave memories the All with. worked I’ve people hikers, other members, family years: the over known “People I’ve he says, about, shoes. clomp our of steady the sound only the speaking, without walk we time the of most and above, mountains on the gleam glaciers The cloudless. and It’s sunny Chelan. Lake long, skinny of tip the at Stehekin, “I don’t see it that way,” Billy Goat says. “I don’t “I says. way,” Goat itthat don’t“I see Billy I die,” to aplace pick to had you if “But Iguess day, pass we second our of end Toward the willing is Goat Billy one concession is There when atime imagine to Goat Billy get to I try For all his bluster, I sense that Billy Goat only only Goat Billy that Isense bluster, his For all do! “I glee. with rising voice his do,”“I he says, Perhaps because I’m not his son, Isense son, I’m his not because Perhaps he’s what thinking Goat Billy I ask When ” He tells a story about meeting a woman awoman meeting about astory ” He tells FTER RETURNING TO along the PCT, toward the village of village the PCT, toward the along miles—downhill for 20 south hike we Rainy Pass, Pass, Rainy

After his 2016 PCT hike, Billy Goat kept going on Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail.

legs. He proposes that I go ahead and meet him As we make our way down the road toward the in Stehekin. boat dock, I try not to worry about him. The man I do. I hike solo for 10 miles and then, per Billy himself is in high spirits, particularly after a bus Goat’s recommendation, I dine at the Stehekin pulls up and a young woman steps out, tall and Ranch, receiving a cool reception as I skulk into lean and blonde. She sets her pack down next to the line for the buffet. “You can only fill your plate our picnic table and speaks in a voice that’s calm once,” the server says, eyeing me warily. and familiar, as though she just awoke from a The next morning, I repeat this line to Billy nap in the next room. “Hi, Billy Goat,” she says Goat and he rolls his head back, cackling with with a southern accent. delight. “Oh,” he says, “they’ve seen old Billy Goat When I leave, the woman is sitting at Billy one too many times.” Goat’s table, marveling that he drinks straight We’re in Stehekin’s sole campground, on the from mountain streams. “You don’t purify?” she shore of the lake, enjoying peaches I bought just says. “That’s awesome! I’m not there yet.” down the street at a garden stand. The day is Thirteen days later I get a phone call. Billy growing hot, and after a while Billy Goat leans Goat. He made it out of the woods; now he’s back on the picnic table and savors the warmth sitting in a Motel 6 in Wenatchee, Washington. of the wood on his back as he gazes up into the “I’ve been eating for two or three hours straight,” pines. “I sure do like it here in Stehekin,” he says. he rejoices. “Cheese, bread, pickles, pears, nuts. I realize I’m going to miss him. In an hour, I’ll And now I’m just about to dip my feet in the take a ferry down the lake, toward civilization, as bathtub. Oh, what a luxury this place is! Oh, it’s he preps for his next adventure—108 miles south just wonderful!” along the PCT to Stevens Pass, Washington. After The next morning, he boards an Amtrak collecting resupply boxes, he’ll set off carrying 12 train. He rides for almost two days and then days of food along a remote section of trail. meets a friend in St. Paul and gets a ride east I look at his slight frame and know that he could into the wilds of Wisconsin. The Ice Age Trail die between Stehekin and Stevens Pass. I envision lays before him now, gentle and rolling and him passing out alone in the woods, then just lying lined with maples and cedars. Fall is coming there, unnoticed, until the bears and the wolves and the leaves will soon be changing. But hiking get to him and he becomes, finally, one with the season is not over. n soil and the trees and the mountains. He’s taking a risk. But Billy Goat is who he is because he makes Bill Donahue lives in New Hampshire, where he decisions we’re trained to regard as audaciously is halfway through hiking the state’s 48 4,000- wrong—like hitchhiking after the age of 70. foot peaks. A

Man On California’s Mt. Baldy, Sam Kim found spirit, grace, and fulfillment summit after summit after summit. BY WILL COCKRELL and

His

Mountain S 10,064-foot Mt. Baldy, the tallest peak in Los Angeles Angeles Los in peak tallest the Baldy, Mt. 10,064-foot climbed had Sam that. at one potent most the even not and amountain. climb to who’d church someone skip to Catholic every-Sunday an from evangelist, to enthusiast hiking from evolve him watched had grandchildren five and children, four wife, His life. his in thing important most the become slowly had Mountain. of Iron base the to ing return reverse, in he’d drive later, the do hours 24 than less And Angeles. Los across back drive two-hour nearly for the car his in jumped then light, first at descent his continued night, the stayed cabin, abandoned comfortable perfectly a across stumbled had but signal, a cell without benighted him. with angry being remember doesn’t Sunny frame. mountain-made awiry, over draped blue jacket oversized slightly his and did, always he which straight, standing 5’5” was He be. to age considered he as casual and loose as were time if as door front the through strode he noon, after alittle enough, sure And, home. way waited. do—they to them wanted have would Sam what did Sunny and David so And him. to happening anything imagine to impossible it was that so much so mountains, of the creature ayear-round was He birthday. 76th his before goal the reach to on course was he of times, dozens summited already having And year. single a in times 100 Mountain Iron climb to vowed he when one city. of the edge northern on the sprawl L.A.’s halt to enough imposing range amountain Gabriels, San the in dayhike toughest the many by considered it is trip, round- miles 15 and StairMaster, up arock-strewn ascent a 7,200-foot With Mountain. Iron was obsession current home. come always had he And America. in lives better seek who of those grit the with it all through come He had County. Angeles Los in trails difficult most on the and birthday 60th his after of them many feet, of vertical millions hiked had and gunpoint, at robbed been of 1992, riots L.A. the survived had Sam was. father his tough how himself reminding by anxiety the fight to tried hadn’t. He him. from heard had he if see to friends of Sam’s one call to enough worried was Sunny mail. voice to straight going was phone his morning next The calling. without home returned hadn’t he time first the it was sunrise—but at trail the hit could he that so car his in sleep sometimes would overnight—he out stayed Indeed, Iron Mountain was only one of his obsessions, obsessions, of one his only was Mountain Iron Indeed, mountains the to dedication Sam’s decades, two Over he’d become that Korean in her to explained Sam on his was he say to road the from called Sam Finally, no it surprised and goals grand set to known was Sam his 75, age At got. he older the miles more clocked Sam parents, his from away miles afew just lived who David, climbing mountains? mountains? climbing doing Sam’s of age aman was world the same. the all worried David son his and Sunny wife his but hours, empty. remained sat normally car Sam’s where Angeles of Los neighborhood City Culver the in driveway the and dawn, into faded had AM WASAM LATE. It wasn’t the first time Sam had Sam time first the It wasn’t odd keep to for Sam unusual It wasn’t night night, into slipped had Evening What in What - California. trails across the on met he with other hikers hephotos took with selfies and memory cards Sam filled page: Opposite together. California Southern over high country all the explored Sam and Sunny S does it mean?’” does What that? do to need you do “‘Why recalls. David ‘why?’” birthday. 80th his before times 1,000 Baldy climb he’d to vowed And Mountain. Iron on foot set even he time the by times 300 nearly County, staffed. staffed. store convenience the keep to order in on Sundays mass to going alternated Sunny and He flock. the to people new ing welcom himself busied and Koreatown, in Church Agnes St. at ministry lay of the head became 50s, his in baptized was Sam story.) for this David son her through memories and thoughts her translate to chose and English little speaks 80s, her in now (Sunny, comforting. sound to began church in her join to invitations her and 20s her in Catholic became Sunny wife his but religion, up without grew He him. broke nearly That head. his at pointed agun had Sam day the than scarier none robbery, occasional the by punctuated aroutine was It straight. years for nine aweek, days aday, seven hours 15 register cash the manned Sunny and Sam but city, the of part adangerous in time adangerous It was Koreatown. of Vermont Avenue, south and of Venice Boulevard corner on the store convenience and station agas opened Sunny and Sam Together, 1988. in citizenship attaining later home, adopted his in remain could he so resigned Sam. became he So Angeles. Los in population American Korean- growing the served that branch American an ing manag a position offered was he capital, Korean South the “The first time he told me about his goal, my reaction was was reaction my goal, his about me told he time first “The Business was good, but after a decade without a break, a break, without a decade after but good, was Business power. ahigher through strength seek to began Sam he expired, transfer job his when later, years Three Seoul, and a father of four. After 17 years working in in working 17 years of four. After a father and Seoul, of Bank for the manager awell-respected old, years 43 Kim, Doo Seuk as arrived he 1981, in America to AM WAS EXPERT AM AN at uphill climbs. When he came came he When climbs. uphill at - -

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVID KIM S manifestation of all three. His eldest grandson Brandon was 6 when Sam first first Sam 6when was Brandon grandson eldest His three. of all manifestation physical the was Hiking identity. Korean his to central and life Sam’s in stones touch the were integrity and strength, Tradition, mountains: the in learned he’d on what pass to opportunity an saw he however, grandchildren, his In own. summits. his to husband her left she older, get and to seemed she only on, got years the as But together.” . . . always shop gift the at store, the together—at always were we married, were we since “Ever laughing. says do,” Sunny to wanted always he what fun—it’s was “It closed. eyes her with summit the to walk probably could she says and herself times hundred acouple least at Baldy climbed has who Sunny, was companion heaven.” our this of considered sort we guess “I says. Tufts up on churches,” given or less more both Ihad and “Sam grounds. stomping than more shared Sam and he But 70s. early his in even outdoorsman, impressive an is Tufts Bullet. lab black his with cabin asmall in trailhead Baldy the above just lived who driver, truck locals. the to himself endeared he sonality, per outgoing an and repetition brute Through Canyon. Baldy in community grid hikers.” other to talking and food sharing just for hours, there stayed he “Sometimes says. David of Baldy,” summit the at happiest was father my think really “I Him. loved he much how God show to way anew found had he that David told Heeventually wilderness. the in alternative an finding was scandals—he abuse sexual like things referencing often “hypocrisies,” its call would he what religion—and orthodox with disenchanted becoming was Sam that time same count). the At true the kept (only Sam times 300 roughly Baldy climbed had father his that estimates David of 2013, end the By Baldy. Mt. to ages where else. He was home. was He else. where any hadn’t he like peace and there freedom Hefound ascents. accumulating etly steep switchbacks and returned to hike to its summit every chance he got, qui got, he chance every summit its to hike to returned and switchbacks steep mountain’s the with bond instant an felt He love. in fell he that Hut Trail, Ski less-forgiving— less-traveled—and the via top the to 7,June hiked he 2007, when at church.” than more mountains the in spirit God’s felt he say to began “He says. David life,” his mountains. the in for answers looking went he So reflect. to inspiration little but community found he church, In inward. for looking time little left Dream American of the pursuit relentless His answers. than life his about questions more had Sam 70, neared he as But strength. lung and quad do they as toughness mental much as require that slogs uphill long toward gravitating Gabriels, San the in had he moment free every ing lived. he where countryside the around galloping spent childhood own his about reminisced often Sam and pride of national expression an was try coun native his in 92). page Hiking (see weekend every hikers ethusiastic with up fill Seoul around trails the and mountains is country of the percent Seventy outdoors. the with relationship a special have Koreans listen, would who anyone city. the beyond hills the hiking about daydream to Hebegan past. his with reconnect to Sam time—compelled leisure calm—and newfound Their hours. business all at store the staff personally to obligated felt longer no They studios. film famous for its it weren’t if boring as described be might that of L.A. apart Burbank, in shop agift opened and store convenience the sold Sunny and He violence. the and tension, the toil, of the weary grew Sam Sam invited his children to join him, but they were busy with families of their of their families with busy were they but him, join to children his invited Sam hiking regular only his locals, other and Tufts know to got Sam while But and Marine aformer Tufts, Dick named aman to liking aparticular He took off- quirky the to extended mountaintop on the found Sam camaraderie The daily—pilgrim weekly—sometimes his making continued he Meanwhile, Sam first hiked to the summit of Mt. Baldy in early 2000. But it wasn’t until until it wasn’t But 2000. early in Baldy of Mt. summit the to hiked first Sam on reflect to time his became this and person spiritual avery was father “My - spend began He retired. Sam shop, gift the opening after years 13 69, age At tell would Sam As holidays. and on weekends trail the hitting out started He Baekdu-daegan Trail. Sam later wrote a guidebook about the trail. the about aguidebook wrote later Sam Trail. Baekdu-daegan 450-mile the hike section to Korea to back trips annual making began two the 2008, in year, next The side. his by Sunny with often hiking, to fully self AM ENTERED A NEW, ENTERED AM freer phase in his life. He was finally able to give him give to able finally was He life. his in phase freer ------Sam, Brandon; 1,000 times; 3-28-11.” 3-28-11.” times; 1,000 Brandon; Sam, To Cabin; Baldy Mt. Tufts “Dick moment: the memorate com to jar the date and sign Brandon and Dick, he, that insisted Sam himself. milestone the reach to Sam inspired example His amemento. as jar candy antique an Brandon gave 1,000—and than of Baldy—more top the to been had he times many how mentioned Tufts home. drive their before Tufts Dick friend his to hello say to stopping time this mountain, the to back him brought grandfather his felt.” he happiness same that of ataste us gave He me. to gave ever grandfather my gift est great the are hikes] “[These wrote: Brandon of Koreans.” spirit indomitable “the as to refer would Sam what ebrated cel they Mountain, of Iron top the to Brandon brought Sam when later, years Three of Baldy. top the to him brought While it was a typically ambitious proclamation for Sam, for Sam, proclamation ambitious atypically it was While 2010, in climb Baldy Mt. first Brandon’s after year One - - - snowstorm. a in summit the off hikers lost two these led trailhead; Sam near the Baldy Tufts’s cabin Dick friend his his grandsons at and Sam snow; of under a blanket Baldy Mt. of face top: The north from Clockwise Sam’s home near the coast. But visible never means acces means never visible But coast. the near home Sam’s Baldy. as it simply knows hump summit wind-scoured bare, seen—its even to—or been has who anyone But Antonio. San Mt. as known properly is summit highest range’s The parking area and obscure views of the summits above. summits of the views obscure and area parking gravel the shade pines lodgepole Giant on foot. is continue to way only the there, From Flats. Manker at it dead-ends later 5miles then Baldy, of Mt. village mountain small the through it passes First, trailhead. the to it climbs as rows nar and steepens that aravine following south, the from of concrete. labyrinth stop-and-go a60-mile navigate to have would he there, hike to went he time Each L.A. in sible The San Gabriels are so big, they can easily be seen from from seen be easily can they big, so are Gabriels San The It’s an unforgiving, nearly 4,000-foot ascent over 4.5 4.5 over ascent 4,000-foot nearly unforgiving, It’s an mountain of the base the to way its snakes road A single T with this promise. this with through follow to intended he that idea no had Sam to closest those Even Mountain. on Iron effort his begin to yet had Sam Korea; South in project hiking their finished just only had Sunny and Sam room. Brandon’s in jar candy the saw later he when cance signifi the registered barely David ing of snow for much of the winter. winter. of for the much of snow ing frost athick holding peaks the with miles, adozen just over feet, 10,000 to level sea near up from shoot Gabriels San the stops, city the where Right ern border of Los Angeles. Angeles. of Los border ern north the along east-west runs that spine 1,000-square-mile ARE GABRIELS SAN HE a hulking, ahulking, - - - - -

PHOTO BY JAMES W. YOUNG (MT. BALDY) Lakes’ local paper, local Lakes’ Mammoth in featured were Sunny and he when 2014, in accomplishments for his news the made first He Baldy. of Mt. Spirit the him calling started People hikers. other captivated routine his and conditions all in and hours all at off set to known up there.” guy crazy some was there said also they lost, were they said and called they when that is thing funny The him. follow wouldn’t they that but safety to down them lead to offered he said “Sam recalls. Farrow lazy,’” just they’re injured, not they’re worry, ‘Don’t English, broken his in me, tells “Sam mountain. on the anyone seen had he if Sam asked Farrow 2a.m. at Sam into ran he dark, after mountain on the high stuck gotten had who hikers lost for four looking for aselfie”. him with summit the to return we that condition: one under would, he said He down. back us guide would he if him asked “I says. snow,” in Pontz covered were eyelashes up. “His way on his was who Sam, ted died.” battery phone my cold so it was And faces. our pounded sleet mph and 40 over gusted “Winds remembers. Pontz us,” engulfed “Clouds weather. the had so arrived, they time the However, by top. the it to make fact in did partner climbing his and Pontz storm. approaching an by consumed was summit the before ascent an in sneak to trying were friend a and times—Pontz 250 Baldy climbed Sam year same 2016—the November plaque. summit the beside break awind as serves that rocks of pile the until yards, hundred few final for the underfoot dust and It’sother. rock the in desert the and direction one in sea the toward stretch views the and acid in soaked look junipers spaced thinly gnarled, the top, the Nearing steps. chopping began and down heads their put just They ascent. gentlest the find to trying time ahead. looms Bowl Baldy of amphitheater scree-covered steep, the and thin trees the cabin, green old 80-year- the At Hut. Ski Antonio Club’s San Sierra the up toward and trail Road Baldy main the from away zags Hut Trail Ski steeper the in, 1mile Just road. fire gentle on out adeceptively starts route the kiosk, map the Beyond top. the to miles times. Whatever he walked into that day wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen. seen. hadn’t he anything wasn’t day that into walked he Whatever times. conditions.” whiteout and snow, rain, hard: down coming be it would feet 10,000 at that means that house, my outside storm the hear I can if and Road, of Baldy bottom the at Claremont, in lived “I recalls. Farrow Deputy horrific,” it was evening by and bad, really was “It ugly. turned weather the hike, his began he after Shortly descending. clouds with sunset, before hours acouple Hut Trail Ski up the off set and noon after that trailhead Flats Manker the up at Heparked out. thin to freeways the for usual than longer 7, 2017, April waited of Friday, Sam morning the On that. son. his greet to time in Angeles Los to back driving before morning following the it again climbed then night, that trailhead the at car his in day, slept previous the Baldy climbed he hiking, any miss to want didn’t he because But airport. the up at family his and him on picking set was Sam and physical risk. the outweighed far fulfillment spiritual his that idea the with terms to come had them. with apicture take could he if and ages, names, awesome. is guy old this Damn, think, and smile infectious I’d his at look time “And every on Baldy: times dozen a half Sam into ran he said on socalhiker.net author One mountain.” of the saint patron the is He forward. push to me encouraged he and Baldy up Mt. time first my was “It wrote. onecommenter amazing,” is Kim “Mr. sightings. Sam with up lit boards message and him about posted bloggers Local community. hiking California Southern the among growing was legend his Not surprisingly, him. Mountaineer.” a78-year-old Sam, meet You’ll probably Baldy? Mt. By the end of 2016, Sam had climbed Baldy more than 750 times. He was was He times. 750 than more Baldy climbed had Sam of 2016, end the By was Rescue and Search of West Valley Farrow Richard Deputy when Once, spot he panic, to beginning was Pontz as just down, starting after steps A few late In Pontz. of Ethan life the saved Sam that summit, on the here, It was any waste didn’t mountain of the third top on the trail the built who Those Nevertheless, Sam had climbed Baldy in extreme conditions before, many many before, conditions extreme in Baldy climbed had Sam Nevertheless, after day the of course, day, and, following the again Baldy to returned Sam Europe in vacation a family from return to due of 2017, was David spring the In They acceptance. in a lesson was quest Sam’s friends, and family for his As about segment ashort aired KTLA affiliate CW local year, same that Later The Sheet ran a story titled: “Hiking “Hiking titled: a story ran Times L.A. the 2016, . In ” Almost all of those he met recall Sam asking their their asking Sam recall met he of those all ” Almost - - couldn’t believe it.” believe couldn’t just “I says. he for afriend,” searching were we individual, for an searching just weren’t we for Sam, search to had we “When desk. Farrow’s on Deputy It landed report. persons amissing file to center visitor the at stopped he morning, Bullet. with Hut Trail Ski up the off set and a backpack, grabbed shoes, running up his laced ately immedi also He there. was Cruiser Land white Sam’s that confirmed Tufts area. parking the in car dad’s his see could he if him ask to Tufts Dick way, phoned he the On Baldy. Mt. toward driving began immediately He sank. heart his driveway, empty the noticed he moment The house. ents’ hike.” another do to morning next the again leaving him picture even could “I says. home,” David planet. on the human other any almost than better Baldy knew who someone also but birthday, 80th his nearing hiker asolo Hewas ability. vulner his and invincibility Sam’s about emotions dueling off fending bed, to went both they Finally, him. from heard had she if over, asking and over mother his called David home. came always He again. mountain up the headed already was and car his in or slept mountain, the near somewhere down bunked had he day. perhaps Or that plans other had just father his thought David again, once But, hadn’t. He returned. had Sam if see to mother his called He cold.” was he if Iwondered but ried, wor I wasn’t evening. that him about thinking I remember When David arrived in the village of Mt. Baldy that that Baldy of Mt. village the in arrived David When par his by drove and sunrise up before woke David come would he thought I still asleep, I fell as “Even Sam. from word no still was there Saturday, late By L.A. in skies sunny to morning next up the woke David “And says. David afternoon,” that rained it had noticed “I - - - - South Korea. South in and California hiked together Sunny and Sam the Baldy summit; at children their and Heather and Davidchildren Whitney; Sam’s Mt. of summit seen here at the his grandsons, onto passed Sam value a family was Hiking top: from Clockwise

PHOTOS BY TK S the helicopter had spotted a body, face down on the trail on the down abody, face spotted had helicopter the that saying radio on his acall got Farrow trail—Deputy the up off set Sam after days four full afternoon—a on Tuesday 2p.m. At unit. alpine trained aspecially including for Sam, looking mountain the scouring were Rescue and Search for amiracle. hoped and name father’s their shouted first—they Kenneth’s and ascent 15th David’s be would what top—for the toward way their made Kenneth and David As post. command the at remained mother their while search, the join to allowed finally were brother younger his and David Village. Baldy Mt. in arrived father. his about word for any nearby waited David Hut while Ski Club Sierra the toward out fanned volunteers trained or so 30 Instead, tion. sta fire the at remain to for David safer be it would insisted crew SAR the But father. for his search help to Baldy climb to than more nothing wanted however, David Sunday, That By Monday, more than 50 members of West Valley of West Valley members 50 Monday, than more By Kenneth son other her and Sunny morning, next The sons had been up Mt. Baldy more times than he had. had. he than times more Baldy up Mt. been had sons young two his Even guy. “outdoorsy” an really never was he says aphysician, is who David, but more, hike AM HAD ALWAYS TRIED to encourage his son David to to David son his encourage to - - father. his for search the during Baldy of on the summit son Kenneth rests (top); Sam’s died day before he selfie, taken the The final summit

PHOTOS BY TK less north side of the mountain, about 2,000 feet below the A month after Sam’s death, 200 summit. There was no mistaking the blue jacket. people whose Sam was found in a steep, rocky bowl, which would have lives he touched been rimed in snow and ice the last day he climbed Baldy. “I returned to Baldy’s summit to honestly believe that when he began descending, he simply celebrate the man didn’t turn far enough,” Farrow says. “He lost his bearing, and his mountain. ended up just slipping and going down that chute.” The medical examiner suggested Sam likely died before his body came to rest. Everyone from Sam’s family to Deputy Farrow are quick to point out one thing they are all certain of: Sam summited that day. At the time of his death at age 78, he had climbed Baldy more than 800 times and was on track to reach 1,000 by his 80th birthday. But despite Sam’s own obsession with setting goals, numbers are not what defined him. Every climb mattered. That’s something those left behind take comfort in. They may never fully understand what drove him to the top of that mountain again and again, but Sam did. Dick Tufts misses his friend but sees the poetry of Sam dying while doing what he loved. “I still feel like he is around me at times,” he says, “especially when I’m out there on the trail.” Since his father’s death, David has hiked Mt. Baldy nine more times, and says he will continue to do so every Father’s Day. “It’s the ultimate tribute and it makes me feel closer to him,” he explains. “The cemetery where he is buried is only a couple miles from where I live, but when I go there it doesn’t seem like he’s there. He’s on Baldy.”

L.A.-based writer Will Cockrell climbed Mt. Baldy while reporting this story. It was his first summit. Like many hikers, Aubrey Sacco walked into the Himalayas with the joyful excitement of a pilgrim entering the Promised Land. But PHOTO BY ANDREW BYDLON BY PHOTO she encountered a dark side of Nepal all trekkers should know about. Now her family can’t rest until they know how she vanished.

by tracy ross PHOTO BY ANDREW BYDLON BY PHOTO the police, and the Nepali Army. With the help of be trusted. By his fifth day on the trail, he can’t force down one more bowl a translator, Paul questions locals, calls for Aubrey, of bland rice and gritty lentils. His hip feels like it will tear through the scar and searches—above the river, in the woods, in left by the operation. He continues to search, as do others, but not a single dark caves within the woods. shred of evidence regarding his only daughter turns up. On June 6, he and Between May 4 and July 1, some 200 people will Crofton leave Langtang, and Crofton flies home to Colorado. Paul remains scour the vast alpine valley that slopes steeply toward in Kathmandu, scheduling interviews, meeting with the police and embassy the Tibetan border. By air, by foot, and officials. In mid-June, he Skypes Connie to tell her, through a choke, that he by rope they search the main Langtang will not be delivering on his promise to bring Aubrey home. trail, both sides of the bloated, rushing As his crowded Lufthansa jet climbs river, all smaller paths, and remote above the Himalayas, Paul looks down The first day’s walk up central monasteries tucked in the hills. on the vast alpine kingdom. He sees An American named Scott MacLen- billowing white clouds, miles of lush Nepal’s Langtang Valley de- nan joins the search. He led medical jungle, ice-encrusted mountains. He trips in Langtang for a decade, and knows Aubrey is out there, some- livers exactly what a trekker tells Paul that he suspects Aubrey fell where, and that he has failed her. He victim to the young Army soldiers turns his entire body into the window might hope for: suspension who act as rangers in Nepal’s national so no one can see, and weeps. parks, and who have a reputation for bridges draped with prayer abusing women. “None of the girls who ever worked for me in my medi- IN RECENT YEARS, Langtang Na- flags, lush hillsides where cal clinic would stay the night because tional Park, just 20 miles north of Kath- it was next to an Army post,” he says. mandu, has gained popularity as the white langur monkeys swing Then again, it could have been the less-crowded, easy-access alternative river, as some locals suggest. The trail to the Everest and Annapurna regions. from larch trees, a glacier-fed hugs the steep banks in places and On a weeklong journey up the Lang- crosses the churning water numerous tang Valley, trekkers climb toward the river pouring out of the Hima- times. Aubrey wouldn’t be the only Tibetan border and the towering Hi- trekker to fall victim to Nepal’s treach- malayas. The track passes shaded for- layas. It makes most hikers feel erous terrain. ests and scattered farms, offering occa- But everyone has a theory. During sional views of fin-shaped, 23,711-foot 21,085-foot Langshisa-ri rises above the foothills in Langtang (top); searchers posted missing-persons like skipping. It makes Paul the initial search and in the coming Langtang Lirung. Almost all trekkers fliers with Aubrey’s photo, like this one on a bridge over the Langtang River. months, local Tamang villagers and stop in Kyanjin Gompa, at 9,800 feet, to Sacco feel like vomiting. others offer a bewildering number taste the famed local yak cheese. Brightly colored stucco teahouses in the made an impression. The soldier later reported of ideas. Some say they saw Aubrey Buddhist villages along the way offer cheap beds and a steady supply of dal that Aubrey signed the trekkers’ register, beamed board a helicopter in Langtang Village. bhat—all-you-can-eat rice, lentil soup, meat, and curried vegetables. An- her wide, toothy smile, walked through the check- Others blame hunters who walk at cient stone monasteries welcome visitors who want to witness a way of life point, and waved. Paul, a wiry, 57-year-old father of three, left his home in Greeley, Colo- night, killing animals and people. One Dutch ex-pat, that hasn’t changed in centuries. It’s no wonder Aubrey—who majored in Hiking north, Aubrey passed sun-drenched hill- rado, nine days earlier, after his 23-year-old daughter, Aubrey, failed to who runs a rescue organization in Pokhara, claims Eastern philosophy—chose to hike there. sides, mist-filled hollows, and farms ringed by wild return from a weeklong trek in Langtang National Park. She’d been trav- Aubrey’s death was sacrificial, the work of witches When she arrived in Nepal, Aubrey was nearing the end of a post-college marijuana plants. She also would have encountered a eling in Asia for five months, keeping in near-constant contact with her who worship Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. Sev- adventure, during which she’d made a point of going beyond the beaten steady stream of people—porters hunkered beneath parents, when she started a solo hike in Langtang on April 21, 2010. A eral Nepali men blame Aubrey, saying she must have path. In Sri Lanka, she’d searched for octopus in the Indian Ocean with a rice and fuel, trekking guides with clients, and villag- week passed, and a few days later her worried mother, Connie, contact- acted “too free and frank,” inviting her own rape and boy she had a crush on. Later, she volunteered at an orphanage and stud- ers dressed in colorful kirtans and hand-me-down ed the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. Embassy officials told her that civil murder. Or she’s being held by lamas in a remote ied yoga at an ashram in sweltering Mysore, India. Afterward, to escape the puffies. The porters, carrying loads twice their body unrest—a Maoist uprising—might have delayed Aubrey in the moun- monastery. Or she was abducted by sex traffickers heat, she traveled to Darjeeling, India. weight, likely wouldn’t have acknowledged her. But tains. But worry turned to panic after another three days passed with no and spirited away to Pakistan. A teenage Tamang It was there, from a hostel rooftop, that she gazed at the vast, white Hi- the compact Tamang women, themselves carrying word. On May 16, Paul flew to Kathmandu, vowing to bring his daughter psychic claims that three boys buried her beneath malayas for the first time and decided she must visit Nepal. A two-day bulky loads, would likely have smiled back if she home. With his elder son, Crofton, then 25, he joined a search already in a pile of rocks, where the forest transitions to dun- journey to Kathmandu, a day of renting gear, and a seven-hour bus ride to smiled at them. And everyone who knows Aubrey progress. Now, as Paul hikes through the idyllic scenery, limping because colored tundra. If she was assaulted, it wouldn’t be the trailhead, and Aubrey was at the start of a life-list trek any backpacker agrees the odds are good she smiled. This was a girl of a recent surgery, he bounces between the sharp horror of imagining the first time a lone female trekker was attacked. would covet. who, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, orga- Aubrey lying dead at the bottom of a cliff and the bright hope that he’ll The possibilities would make anyone dizzy. Paul It was April, one of the best seasons for trekking in Langtang because the nized a Campus Dance Day, and who was known by simply stumble upon her, walking down the trail. is a business lawyer and judge, accustomed to order days reach the 70s and rhododendrons paint the hillsides red, pink, and her friends as “Aubrey Glitter” for her habit of carry- The physical pain doesn’t stop him, though it slows him down. Weeks and predictable rules. All he can think is Why, Au- purple. The roaring Langtang River, swollen with snowmelt, pours over falls ing a bottle of the stuff and sprinkling it on people, to earlier, he underwent hip surgery, and now the joint grinds in the socket. brey? Why did you come here? He can’t see the epic and crashes around giant boulders. Walking down a two-track road, Aubrey remind them to live life to the fullest. He fears it will pop out, paralyzing him in the muddy forest. Yet for days he mountains that drew her. Where she was excited by arrived at a simple, open-air checkpost staffed by a Nepali military police- Her exuberance had been unleashed in college, hobbles amid searchers from the U.S. Embassy, local villages, guide services, an exotic culture, he sees primitive people who can’t PHOTOS BY BERNARD CASTELEIN / NPL MINDEN PICTURES (TOP); TRACY ROSS woman. Despite the thousands of people who pass through yearly, Aubrey where she frequently went to raves. But Amanda Left to right: Aubrey Sacco in Mysore, India, where she volunteered at an orphanage and taught kids the Hokey Pokey; Lama Hotel, the village where disputed ac counts place Aubrey on the last day she was seen; an Army checkpost en route to Langtang National Park.

Sacco, Aubrey’s best friend and future sister- in-law (she married Crofton in 2011), says she changed in Asia. When Aubrey called her from In- dia, says Amanda, she could tell the party girl was gone. “She didn’t need all of that to feel energized an d h appy.” In Langtang, she must have had plenty of zip. By 10 a.m., she’d covered a distance that usually takes four hours, arriving at the Namaste teahouse, a red, blocky building above the river. She may have sat on the sun-warmed deck overlooking the water, marveling at her surroundings. While lingering there, she met a young trekking guide, Renzin Dorjee Yonzan, who grew up girls reported being sexually assaulted by the soldiers their daughter return. But when they tried stopping Aubrey in Langtang Valley and guided tourists during breaks from his studies at a manning a checkpost in Ghora Tabela, near where again, she summoned the voice that indicated, on this one, According to the U.S. Kathmandu university. Aubrey disappeared. Later, two American women she was the authority. Embassy, dozens of West- Locals say Aubrey and Renzin hit it off. They talked for hours—about were attacked in the same region in separate inci- “Guys,” she said. “Don’t worry. It’s a national park. It’s travel, volunteering, and the local Tamang culture. At one point, Renzin dents, one in 2011 and the other in 2012. teahouse trekking. It’s safe.” ern trekkers have vanished gave Aubrey a book—Ethnic Groups in Nepal. Later, they retired to separate If the Nepali police keep records of exactly how rooms, and then, say some, to the same room. Only the two of them know many female trekkers have been the victims of vio- on popular trekking routes what happened between the parchment-thin walls of the Namaste. But the lent crime, they won’t say (the police didn’t respond AFTER SAYING GOODBYE to Renzin and leaving Namaste, in the last decade. following morning, after hugging to repeated requests for information for this story). Aubrey continued hiking alone, ascending the valley. Here, and promising to meet again in For that matter, it’s hard to determine how many she may have seen other people—a smattering of trekkers, the Kathmandu two weeks later, Ren- trekkers, male or female, have gone missing over the ubiquitous porters, Tamang families in trail shoes donated by zin hiked down the valley, while years, whatever the reason. Tourists in Nepal come travelers. The path narrows above Namaste and then crosses Aubrey went up. from dozens of countries, meaning news about them the Langtang River on a suspension bridge. From there the gets scattered across the globe. According to Chris- track switchbacks up a steep, soft-dirt hillside, where a person topher Patch, Deputy Consular Chief at the U.S. Em- could slip and tumble into the churning rapids. But Aubrey didn’t slip, ac- checkpost (near where the French girls reported be- NEARLY FOUR YEARS after bassy when Aubrey disappeared, dozens of Western cording to witnesses who saw her at another village several hours up the ing assaulted by soldiers). But Aubrey didn’t sign Aubrey Sacco left the Namaste trekkers have vanished on popular trekking routes in trail. (National parks in Nepal are not empty wilderness areas.) At Lama this mandatory register either. Somewhere between teahouse, any would-be trekker the last decade. That’s an alarming number for any- Hotel—actually a town of a half-dozen teahouses flanked by a vegetable Lama Hotel and Ghora Tabela, she disappeared. who Googles images of Langtang one contemplating a trip in Nepal. garden, prayer flags, and a tent platform overlooking the deep, shadowy val- The Saccos learned what had occurred at Lama National Park to get a preview Paul and Connie knew none of this when Aubrey ley—she may have aired her feet, or layered up against the cold air coming Hotel from Ramesh BK, a local kayaking guide who of the scenery will see Aubrey at called from Darjeeling to tell them she intended to off the silver river. Locals later reported seeing her eating a pizza, drinking a questioned villagers in the weeks after Paul’s initial the top of the page. She’s smiling, trek solo in Langtang. By Connie’s own admission, Coke, and holding the book Renzin had given her. search. When nothing came of the information her shoulder-length brown hair disheveled. She’s wearing a blue halter she couldn’t have located Nepal on a map back then. In the Sherpa Lodge, according to locals, Aubrey sat down at a long through official channels, Paul returned to Nepal top, her round, expressive face pressed close to a yellow dog. In another Still, they tried to dissuade Aubrey from going. Paul wooden table. Three young men, in their late teens and early 20s, struck up with Connie and their younger son, Morgan, in July photo, she’s sitting on a rooftop, wearing a bright orange skirt and strum- was scheduled for hip surgery on the same day Au- a conversation. At first it was lighthearted. But when Aubrey said that she 2011. Again, they trekked up the Langtang Valley. ming a guitar. Go ahead and Google it: It’s eerie to see her smiling there, brey wanted to start her hike. Connie pleaded, “Can’t wanted to continue to the next village, Riverside, the atmosphere allegedly Inside the dim, hazy Sherpa Lodge, the Saccos ques- amid the snowcapped peaks and colorful prayer flags, as if she’s still in you at least wait until Dad is out of surgery? What if turned sour. It was early afternoon, and the men told Aubrey that Riverside tioned the owner, the cook, and one of the boys, Tasi the park today. something happens?” was too far for her to trek to safely so late in the day. But this was Aubrey, Gurung. According to BK, all three had confirmed But the Google search doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t show the other On the desk in Aubrey’s room, Connie kept a who in her journal described herself as a “strong traveling woman.” On the seeing Aubrey a year earlier. But now their stories young women whose lives were ended, or profoundly altered, during treks in clock counting down the days until Aubrey’s return table she’d spread out her map. When the men tried stopping her again, she changed. The owner and cook claimed never to have or near Langtang National Park. In 2005, Frenchwoman Celine Henry and (she was scheduled to fly back from Sri Lanka on stood up, pointed up the valley, and said, “Riverside is only an hour from seen Aubrey. Tasi Gurung said, “We don’t remember German Sabine Gruneklee vanished five weeks apart. Investigators found May 22). Near the light switch in Aubrey’s room, here. Don’t lie to me.” And she left. seeing this girl, but if we had known she was going to blood, clothing, and pages from both of their passports in a hiking park called Connie hung a map dotted with pushpins, each The walk from Lama Hotel to Riverside usually takes about two hours for go missing, we wouldn’t have let her leave.” Nagarjun Forest, on the southernmost edge of the Langtang-Helambu trek. marking one of the towns or cities in Southeast Asia a reasonably fit person. When trekkers reach a teahouse there, they’re en- When the Saccos tried questioning the cook Police told the Nepali Times that they felt certain a serial killer was “raping that Aubrey had visited. Red thread linked the pins couraged to sign a register. But Aubrey left no signature at Riverside. There’s again, Connie says the owner’s wife screamed, “Don’t women, killing them, and burying them.” Yet no killer was found. together, like a mandala calling her home. Yet an- no evidence she ever made it. Did she decide to go farther? The next village, answer!”

In April 2010, just days before Aubrey arrived in Langtang, three French other thread would stand between them and seeing PHOTOS BY AUBREY SACCO (LEFT); TRACY ROSS (2) Ghora Tabela, is another two hours beyond. It’s also the location of an Army Paul and Connie felt betrayed. Angry. But mostly, Paul says he felt shock. Who are these people ANSWERS DON’T COME EASILY in Ne- culprits be caught, I wondered? Were the authorities really as unhelpful as who would intentionally hamper our investi- pal. And it’s not just a culture clash between the Saccos and others said they were? gation? he thought. Who would intentionally East and West. The country is still recover- I enlisted the help of Pemba Sherpa, a Boulder, Colorado-based Ne- stop parents from finding their daughter? ing from a 10-year civil war that ended in pali business owner and guide, and in late October 2012, we arrived in Were the villagers lying? Maybe. Maybe 2006. During that time, thousands were Kathmandu. We drove 30 miles into Langtang, averaging just 10 mph on they were afraid. It’s possible they remem- killed in skirmishes between Communist a rough dirt road chopped and broken from landslides. In the town of bered an incident from 2000, in which a Brit- Maoists and the Nepali Army. According Dhunche, on the outskirts of the park, I followed a police officer named ish trekker was found dead in the Langtang to Human Rights Asia, an estimated 1,400 Sudeep Ghiri into a low brick building. In an unlit room, I sat on a River and the fishermen who reported it men, women, and children were marched threadbare couch covered in a floral bedsheet. were imprisoned for a decade. As a woman out of their homes—and out of existence. “Lena who?” he asked, when I inquired searching on behalf of the Saccos told CNN, Nearly all remain missing—likely tor- about Sessions, and recounted the details of “All the villagers in the Langtang area say tured and murdered—and distrust of the her attack. that [the fishermen] didn’t do anything, and that the government runs deep. The U.S. State Department had an active travel About Aubrey he said, “Yes. Of course. people who did it were never caught.” warning for Nepal until 2011. “But travel warnings don’t mean ‘don’t We send her family condolences. We are Back in Kathmandu, the police assured the Saccos come,’” says Patch, the embassy official. “They just mean ‘be aware of sad for their loss. But you must know this that they’d re-interviewed the young men, the cook, what’s happening.’” is a dangerous place. In the time she disap- and Renzin Dorjee. According to a spokesman for But what is happening, exactly? Has this hiker’s paradise become a dan- peared it is rainy season. You can see big the Nepali Army, each soldier at Ghora Tabela was ger zone? The U.S. State Department offers a very clear answer. Since before falls into the river. So that time you can questioned multiple times (including those on leave 2010, it has warned strongly against solo trekking due to the increase in see the accident is high in this area. We are during Aubrey’s disappearance), and troops searched assaults on trekkers. On its Nepal page, it serves up a caution that reads, in still doing searching and have cultivated the area three times between 2010 and 2012. But in part: “Solo trekking can be dangerous, and the lack of available immedi- some agents. But since this case is a little the chaos that has defined Nepal’s political situation ate assistance has contributed to injuries and deaths, while also making bit... very... old, if you ask the people [from for years, the Saccos kept learning that their contacts one more vulnerable to criminals. Although it is not prohibited by local the Lama area] they will say, ‘That’s enough.’” had been fired, jailed, or promoted. Plus, in a devel- law, the Government of Nepal has reiterated its strong recommendation When I asked him what he thinks hap- oping country like Nepal, police investigations are against solo trekking. In separate incidents in the last several years, a num- pened to Debbie Maveau, he sat back and chronically underfunded. ber of foreign women (including U.S. citizens) on popular trails have been said, “I don’t know. I can’t say. But her The Saccos might have given up. Other families attacked and seriously injured while trekking alone.” body, we found it two weeks after. It was had abandoned their searches when confronted with Indeed, the Nepali Ministry of Tourism tried to implement a ban on solo a sloping area. Her head was down [below Nepali soldiers, near the Namaste teahouse in Langtang National Park, resume the search for the same roadblocks. Rachel Crowter, whose brother trekking last year (it has issued warnings and temporary bans in the past). her]. And you know this is a national park, Aubrey in fall 2012 (top). Paul and Connie Sacco at their home in Greeley, Colorado Julien Wynne disappeared in the Everest region in The measure ultimately failed, but the Ministry strongly recommends that and lots of wild animals. Maybe, because 2008, says her family searched for a year before stop- all solo trekkers hire a guide (about $20/day). of the gravity...” ping. “I do not see what else we can do,” Crowter But it’s important to keep some perspective. These warnings are meant to I stared at Ghiri. Maybe gravity pulled her head off her body? Dawa MORE THAN THREE years after Aubrey vanished, says. “The whole Nepali government and system are help trekkers increase safety, not scare them away. More than 100,000 foreign Sherpa, managing director for Asian Trekking, later showed me pictures of Paul and Connie keep her cell number live so they corrupt. There is no one to investigate. It leaves our hikers visit Nepal every year, and the vast majority of them enjoy exactly the Debbie’s corpse. Her left arm is missing. One hiking boot is gone. Her skull can call, hear her voice, and leave tender, tearful mes- family feeling totally frustrated and helpless.” kind of experience they hoped for: majestic scenery, friendly people, exotic lies 13 inches from her neck. sages. It’s a poignant symbol of their grief, but also of But at home in Colorado, the Saccos went back culture. But that also can create a false sense of security. Do many Westerners No arrests have been made. their hope that she’s still out there, among the living. to work. They forged relationships with ex-FBI simply believe Nepali villages aren’t subject to the same human problems that I spent the next five days hiking up and down the Langtang Valley, “You know, I’ve been looking for Aubrey a long agents and former members of the Nepali Army. plague our own cities? (Though by any measure, the violent crime rate is lower walking over the same ground Aubrey covered. In the stretch of trail time now,” Paul tells me when I return from Nepal Twice, they sent a private investigator to Nepal to than in the U.S.) And are the missing trekkers throughout Nepal victims of vi- where she disappeared, it would have been exceptionally difficult—with- and describe the Army’s fruitless search. “As you conduct interviews. olence, or of hazards found in mountains everywhere? Patch says the embassy out being drunk, or having been pushed—to fall in the river, 200 feet know, all leads are on the table. But ... I’ve come to “It isn’t just that we miss Aubrey or want to punish believes most have succumbed in natural accidents, like falling into a river or below. Over and over, villagers told me that they knew nothing about believe ... that your family will surprise you. I almost the people who may have harmed her,” says Paul. “It’s crevasse. Whatever the dangers, do we contribute to the problem because we Aubrey and they wished people would stop asking. Two young girls gig- don’t want to say this. But I think there’s a chance an unending belief that the answers are there, and like to imagine a Buddhist haven immune to worldly concerns? Aubrey isn’t gled, then turned bitter, saying they didn’t care anymore that this girl that Aubrey made herself disappear. At the time she that we are very close to finding them.” the only trekker who has said, “Don’t worry. It’s teahouse trekking.” had vanished. At the top of the valley, on day three, we met two young left, she was very disgruntled with Western culture. Two of the most recent attacks occurred just months after Aubrey soldiers, one in a black Adidas sweatsuit, one in a uniform and red scarf. She dreadfully did not want to live trapped in a life disappeared, also in Langtang National Park. In December 2011, The uniformed soldier said, “Look. When that girl went missing, we did like ours. She’d been reading a lot of Osho [an Indian 23-year-old American Lena Sessions was assaulted while hiking everything we could. We went in a helicopter. The Army searched. If a guru] and another spiritual leader, Mooji [Jamaican near a popular shrine in the Helambu region. As her attacker at- Nepali went missing in America, would your Army look?” Anthony Paul Moo-Young]. Mooji says you have to But what is happening, tempted to rape her, she grabbed his knife and ran, narrowly escap- But the search for Aubrey did continue. The pressure applied by the leave your family to find true enlightenment. There’s ing. Five months later, in May 2012, another 23-year-old, Belgian Saccos appeared to be paying off. At the Namaste teahouse, we encoun- a chance she just traipsed off and renounced her old exactly? Has this hiker’s Debbie Maveau, hiked into the same region, disappeared, and was tered a large troop of soldiers hiking up the trail. They wore camo and life, which is possible but hard to believe. If that did found 10 days later—decapitated. carried AK-47s. A pair of search dogs nosed the sharp-edged stone steps happen, I would forgive her. But our relationship paradise become a danger Five months after Maveau’s death, I embarked on my own trek leading to the patio. They confirmed to me the search was for Aubrey. would never be the same.” zone? in Langtang. I had been following the search for Aubrey, and that More than two years after she disappeared, 76 soldiers were back on the Could Aubrey have vanished of her own accord?

led me to the unsolved attacks on female trekkers. Why couldn’t the PHOTOS BY TRACY ROSS (TOP); HESHPHOTO case, looking for her. It didn’t seem right. This from a girl who called or Aubrey (in Darjeeling, 2010) and Paul (in his Greeley home, 2013) shared a love for music. emailed her mother every day of her trip, mouth in the clouds. The eyes reminded and who wrote, I love you, Daddy Poo, in her of Aubrey, but the mouth was frown- the last letter to her father? A girl who ing. “I knew that I wasn’t looking at Au- recorded three songs for her dad before brey, because Aubrey is always smiling,” leaving home, to help him cope with her she says. “Then I realized that the face in traveling so far away from him? Paul got the cloud was mine. In Aubrey’s journal her to sing, he says, because he wanted a she wrote that in order to move on, you piece of her that he could listen to while need a clean slate in this life. Sometimes she was gone. “I loved this girl from her I wonder if my clean slate is letting go.” bows to her toes,” he says, “probably to Acceptance? The Saccos’ refusal to the point that it hurt her brothers.” even entertain the idea has powered the longest, most expensive search for a miss- When you love someone that much, is it ing trekker in Nepal’s history. But is there a price? Recently, I talked to Amanda, better to believe she abandoned you than to Aubrey’s best friend and now sister-in-law, and asked what part of Aubrey she misses imagine she’s gone forever? Do you ever stop the most. Her answer surprised me. searching? “Obviously, I miss having her around,” she said. “She was the best person I could Paul and Connie returned to Nepal for a talk to when I needed encouragement. But at this point, I miss her being there for third time exactly three years after Aubrey her family. Her parents come over all the time. I have pictures of her in high school, disappeared, in April 2013. If nothing else, of her last night before she left for Sri Lanka. Paul will kiss the pictures. Our son they wanted to remind police and mili- [Luca, 4] is at the point that he’s noticing things. My husband is more on the angry tary officials that they had not given up. In meetings with witnesses, they and screaming, “Our embassy helped you [when side, while Morgan, the younger brother, is very quiet. He doesn’t talk about it. It’s learned of reports that put soldiers near the Namaste teahouse on the day the French girls were assaulted]. Why can’t you help hard ... I just miss having her here. She was the middle child but she was also the Aubrey departed. The news reminded the Saccos of an earlier lead, initially us?” Depression? “Men, all their lives, are supposed equilibrium. She would liven the mood and her parents need that more than ever.” deemed unreliable, that three men had been seen attacking a woman near to solve their little girl’s problems,” says Paul. “To Paul admits as much during a phone call with both him and Connie last fall. Namaste, then dumping her body in the river. But news about these leads, feel as helpless or out of control as we have at times, “Frankly, it’s kind of depressing. Connie and I just look at each other and shrug. like so many others, faded when the Saccos returned to Colorado. it makes you want to commit suicide.” We’re in a lull,” he says. The latest hope: U.S. officials delivered polygraph equip- So they were shocked when, three months later, they received news that Would the news finally end this awful cycle? ment to Nepal last November, and are training Nepali police to use it. Most likely, Aubrey’s killers had been caught. On July 31, 2013, Dawa Lama, a Nepali There’s no chance to find out. Like so many the “boasters” in Aubrey’s case will be the first subjects. “But we’ve learned that even man from Langtang, phoned to tell them that the police had arrested three times during the search for Aubrey, the truth if [the police] know something, until they’re ready, they won’t tell us,” says Connie. men, and that they’d confessed to murdering Aubrey. changes. On the morning of August 1, McNeil I wonder if the Saccos really want to know. Because when you know nothing, The next night, I went to the Sacco’s home, a brick colonial in an affluent calls again. Taking a deep breath, he says, “This is, anything is possible. In September, Paul tells me about a man he met while moving neighborhood of Greeley. Aubrey’s paintings—oils and pastels, landscapes in many ways, disappointing. [The Nepali police his mother into a nursing home in Chicago. and self-portraits—hang prominently in the Italian-tiled foyer. We sit at a inspector] had doubts about this ... boaster. They “This is the manager,” he says. “A high-powered businessman, and very savvy. picnic table and parse a conversation the Saccos had with Consular Section had questions [so they took him to Langtang]. But Halfway through the tour, he notices the wristband I wear for Aubrey. He points Chief Patrick McNeil, of the U.S. Embasssy, hours earlier. he changed his story, naming people who didn’t to it, says ‘What’s that?’ I struggle with this. I don’t want to get into it. But I re- According to McNeil, an undercover Nepali police officer met a man exist. Based on no physical evidence, [the police] s p e c t Au bre y.” who told him that he had murdered Aubrey. The officer befriended the don’t feel that they have any basis to keep the Reluctantly, Paul tells the abbreviated version of how his daughter evaporated in a man, who later implicated two accomplices. The Nepali newspaper Repub- men.” The three suspects are released after 28 days beautiful valley beneath the tallest mountains on earth. And the guy starts shaking, lica reported that one of the suspects had Aubrey’s camera. News circulated in custody. like he’ll go into a trance. Paul asks if he’s all right. He says, “Yes, but I’m an intuitive.” that pieces of Aubrey’s clothing were found in another suspect’s home. All I expect the latest turn of events to devastate He says every feeling he’s ever had he’s been right about. And then he says, “Your three were handcuffed and marched out of Langtang, and the news quickly the Saccos. But they’ve been through this so many daughter, Aubrey, is alive.” spread to the AP, CNN, and news outlets times—these leads that dead-end—that they’ve The man is a Freemason with contacts in India. He says he has “brothers” all over around the globe. become inoculated against big emotional swings. the world and that he will search for Aubrey. Paul exhales, then says to Connie, The morning after Dawa’s call, Paul’s When the call ends, the house becomes eerily “That’s an example of the kind of thing that keeps us going, right?” phone rang at 5:20 a.m. It was a Colorado re- quiet. The summer air hangs still. Paul goes out to “Well, he’s asked us a lot of questions,” says Connie. “That’s exhausting. Revisiting porter, who asked, “How does it feel to know keep an appointment. Connie walks into Aubrey’s things is exhausting.” your daughter was murdered?” room, where the clock is frozen on the date she But Paul doesn’t hesitate. “We have to keep going, right?” was supposed to come home. As if it’s a question. • Connie, who has a soft, introspective demeanor POPULAR GUIDES to the five stages of grief compared to her daughter’s exuberance, confides Tracy Ross won a 2009 National Magazine Award for her BACKPACKER essay The have made everyone an armchair psycholo- that she often waits for Paul to go to bed and then Source of All Things. gist. But as any therapist will tell you, the walks into the backyard. There, she stares into real thing is much more complicated. Over the sky and talks to Aubrey. She says, “Where the three-plus years since Aubrey vanished, are you?” and “How are you?” and waits for a re- the Saccos have experienced it all—often simultaneously. Anger? Paul sponse. She often gets a feeling that Aubrey can cringes when he recalls storming in on the French Ambassador in Nepal hear her. But one night she saw two eyes and a PHOTO BY AUBREY SACCO (LEFT); HESHPHOTO DESERT SOLIDARITY

In Canyonlands’ backcountry, a family learns that the wonder of our parks belongs to anyone who goes looking for it.

BY LEIGH ANN HENION

HEN I TELL MY 6-YEAR-OLD SON, Archer, that we’re going to Canyonlands National Park in Utah, he puts a hand on each cheek and starts screaming: “Candyland? We’re going to Candyland?!” W Given this, Archer doesn’t seem terribly surprised to see a cactus covered in gigantic gumballs from the window of our Jeep. It appears among a string of signs marking other peoples’ territory: No Camping! For Sale! A placard near the cactus announces: Souvenir Shop! He wheels his head around to watch it recede. I can see him thinking: Isn’t this the place? For good reason: He’s ready to claim a piece of land that grows candy. “That’s a tourist trap if I’ve ever seen one,” my husband, Matt, says, pointing toward the sculpture. He eyes Archer in the rearview mirror. “What’s the difference between a tourist and a traveler?” Archer shrugs, unsure whether this is a joke or a riddle. Matt delivers the punch line: “A tourist exchanges currency. A traveler exchanges experiences!” “I choose traveler, definitely,” Archer says, emphatically nodding. There’s no such thing as too Sprigs of straw-blond hair splay from under his jacket hood. He’s an young to explore the desert. HARVEY KENNAN BY PHOTO

70 08.2016 adventurous kid and a thinker. Up until now, his to revive him, but he’s not hallucinating. There outings haven’t included desert backpacking. are, indeed, snow patches lingering in stone-made We live in the southern Appalachians, where shade. It’s early spring, when desert wildflowers Archer has spent a lot of time in greenery-lined are just beginning to bloom. He has a knack for creeks, communing with salamanders and craw- pointing them out, beauty I might have passed by dads. So this arid environment feels strange. without noticing. That’s one of the reasons I’m eager to introduce When the trail opens into Chesler Park, a him to it. I want Archer to know the United States grassy area completely encircled by spires, we’re as a marvelous and infinitely surprising place. submerged in a bowl of beauty. Within three When he says the Pledge of Allegiance every minutes of reaching our sandy camp, Archer’s morning at school, I want him to understand that barefoot. “The sand feels ticklish!” he says. “It’s his country is more than a flag or an idea. It’s also like a mud bath, but you don’t get dirty!” deserts and mountains—some of which look a lot I slip off my shoes, and we plant our toes. different than the verdant ones he’s used to. Archer, the author’s six-year- We walk the trail of silken sand in front of old son, in Arches National Park I also want him to understand that the national camp, and our tracks cover the patterns of boot parks—including this one—belong to him. And soles, transposing them with our soft animal me. And his dad. Archer’s still figuring out what pads. Archer finds a pinyon tree oozing sap. He that means. But I’m hoping he’ll see, at an early sits to watch, as if it might bleed before his eyes. age, that ownership means nothing without con- We can see for miles. There’s no wind, no visible nection—and connections are best made by expe- movement outside of ours. The desert is hard, but riencing the parks at ground level. there’s something impossibly gentle about this I’ll be on a similar journey. Like many people moment. It’s like the movable world has paused who aren’t from the Southwest, I was introduced just for us. Afternoon sun sets the redrock aglow in to the canyonlands in my 20s, while reading In the shadows of spires, air darkens until it is Canyonlands National Park. Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. His notion of the smoky gray of a tintype photo. Archer is at my freedom spoke to me. Yet I somehow failed to put side, nestling. “Shhhh,” he hisses, though I’m not it together that he wasn’t charting a lifestyle for speaking. “I think I see a herd!” just anyone. The solitude he referred to, the ideal “Those are actually low-lying trees,” I say, Archer. “Other times he lived in the city. But get this: Sometimes, his looks up and asks: “Is this God?” Silently, he lifts his hand again, he embodied, was intended for man, alone. studying their contours. “But there used to be son lived in the wilderness with him! And the little boy’s mom, too!” inspects it as if the lines of his palm contain a message. Then, he Maybe as a result, I left desert backcoun- bison here. There used to be bison where we live, Archer is amazed. He awkwardly twists his head in an attempt to presses it down again, gently. try to be the sole territory of the beard brigade. in the mountains.” look at me. “A kid?” he says. “Living in the desert with his mom and Not women. Not children. Certainly not young “What happened to them?” Archer asks. dad? Is that a true story?” families. So when a friend recently told me that “Some people got greedy and took more than I can see his eyes—and his understanding of the American West’s SOLITUDE SLIPS AWAY AS MATT, ARCHER, AND I move Abbey’s wife and child were with him in that they needed.” mythos—widening. There was a kid out there! Archer’s guiding par- toward the trailhead on our final morning. We see more people mouse-infested trailer while he was writing “More than they could eat?” he asks. I nod in ables will be different from the ones handed down to me. Exploring in the span of two hours than we’ve seen in days. There are large- Desert Solitaire, it was as if the sealed doors of the affirmation. wild places—on an epic level, beyond his backyard—won’t be some- crowd noises coming from the parking area. At the trailhead, I find past flew open before me. “Sounds like they should have cared more about thing to postpone until after he has facial hair. And all sorts of a woman studying a posted map. She’s Linda Aaron, trip leader of Now, with a family of my own, I was ready to experiences,” he says. people, moms included, will be in his version of the narrative. 40 at-risk students from Salt Lake City’s Glendale Middle School. stake a claim to this land. Our land. Give us Desert Solitaire. But give us desert solidarity, too. They’re training to mentor younger kids. Some of them have already Spine-free and back on the Chesler Park Loop, crumbling stone made declarations that visiting Canyonlands is the most amazing I SPEND THE NEXT MORNING PULLING becomes dusty trail. In the distance, mesas fall into buttes to create thing they’ve ever done—and they haven’t been beyond an overlook. NATIONAL PARKS HAVE ATTRACTED cactus needles out of Archer’s backside. And his windows for the La Sal Mountains, sprinkled with snow. Meadow They’re wearing cotton tights and carrying glitter-encrusted the curious for more than 100 years, adventurers READERS pants. And his underwear. In exploring the camp- turns to ravine. You don’t see where you’re going until you’re already purses. They’re eating white-bread sandwiches that ooze jelly hoping to experience raw nature that might change IN THE PARKS site, he found a collection of compacted cans, half- there. It’s disorienting, but we’re proving adaptive. The Joint Trail, and drinking water out of recycled soda bottles. None of them are them for the better. There’s a certain type of experi- I was in McClure covered in sand. “Rusty gold!” he shouted, over part of the route, is narrow. Even after descending into the slip of trail wearing anything you’d find in an outdoor store. ence that lives in the parks, unchanged since John and over, while backing into a prickly pear. between stone, it’s impossible to anticipate the peculiar slant of light, Yet, here they are. Meadow in Kings Muir said: “Everybody needs beauty as well as There are dozens of needles. Each time I pull the surrounding stones’ breath, cool and steady against exposed skin. “Some of them haven’t ever been out of the city before,” Aaron says. bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature Canyon National one he mutters, “Be brave! Be brave!” The sensation of being underground gives Archer new empathy “They’ve been climbing rocks and saying things like: My mom’s not may heal and give strength to the body and soul.” Park, hiking the John “Does saying that make you braver?” I ask. for plants trying to thrive in the desert, under conditions that seem going to believe I did this. There are kids here who are already talking And that understanding, more than any gor- Muir Trail. Just as He assures me that it does. paltry compared to the lush Appalachian mountains. When our trio about how they’re going to try to come back and bring their entire geous canyon view, is what I want Archer to have. I was zipping into I’ve been reading Desert Solitaire passages to emerges, a small green succulent catches his attention. He adjusts family. They want to share the experience.” But to find it, we need to go beyond the overlooks. my sleeping bag, Archer for the past few nights. Abbey, as a char- one of its leaves as one might brush a curl off of a loved one’s cheek. Archer signals approval with a thumbs up. We have to get dirty and sweaty to make it stick. I heard a thundering acter, intrigues him. Archer takes a break from “I think we should add some water to that to help it grow,” he says. Public land. Travelers exchanging experiences. The opposite of Abbey, famously anti-tourist, would probably of hooves and looked his bravery mantra to tell me that he suspects the “That’s really thoughtful, but it’s adapted to desert conditions,” I greed. He gets it. have approved. outside to find a rusty cans belonged to Abbey, who he views as say. “Humans don’t always know best.” In his work, Abbey announced that the canyonlands of Utah were Matt steers the Jeep past Canyonlands’ visitor some sort of billy-goat-gruff—not a wholly unfair We continue up the trail and I can see he’s working something “Abbey’s Country.” And now, watching Archer play greeter to the packer’s mules let center and a herd of mule deer to the Elephant assessment, really. out. We’ve just read about cryptobiotic soil, which means hidden life. older kids, I can tell he feels that sense of ownership, too. loose in the meadow. Hill parking lot, where we’ll leave our car to access One, two, three needles out. Six more found. There’s a mature patch nearby, dark from the lichen, bacteria, and He runs alongside the middle schoolers, feeling bold, cheer- the Chesler Park Loop. The 11-mile route is billed They were all kicking “Mom, did Edward Abbey really live in the moss that hold the desert in place. I explain that this crust is sort of ing them on. The backcountry isn’t just for men like John Muir and as a dayhike, which makes it a perfect backpack- up their heels, wild?” Archer asks. like skin. He looks into the canyon and says, “Then all of that is alive!” Edward Abbey. Archer’s 6. If he can do this hike, so can they. ing trip for a 6-year-old. Our plan calls for immer- blissfully rolling, Learning that Abbey lived in the desert with He runs to the edge of the slickrock to get a close-up look. A patch Archer takes out what’s left of the miniature Snickers. He wants sion: We’ll spend three days in the backcountry, and cropping up the family empowered me in a way I hadn’t known of ground that he thought looked like moldy bread has become the to share them with the novice hikers. This is as good as Candyland, exploring. grass. I fell asleep to I needed. And my son, now crouched like a cub flesh of a gigantic creature on whose back we’re treading. Archer after all, and my son is letting them know we all belong. An hour down the trail, Archer starts crawling the tinkling of bells. on all fours, seems like he could use a little help stretches out his hand and places it on a patch of soil. I follow his lead. on his hands and knees. “Mom,” he says, point- becoming comfortable with the landscape that’s “Can the Earth hear everything we say?” he asks. Leigh Ann Henion wrote Phenomenal about searching for wonder in ing toward the foot of a spire. “I think I’m seeing just bitten him. “I think so,” I say. “It’s affected by everything we do.” the natural world. She lives in North Carolina, where there are no cactuses mirages!” I crack open a bag of bite-size Snickers Emily Corrie “Ol’ Ed lived in the wild sometimes,” I tell PHOTOS BY LEIGH ANN HENION (LEFT); ISTOCK.COM / TONDA He pats the soil. Then, as solemn as I’ve ever seen him, my son to fall on. PHOTO BY TK discover deeper about truths the world and THE LONG WAY transformative? treks anew 170-mile loop Montana in in themselves. But what makes apath truly Sacred the trails world over help hikers search of the pilgrimage she needs. ILLUSTRATIONS BYILLUSTRATIONS JACQUI OAKLEY ELISABETH KWAK-HEFFERANELISABETH ’ ROUND DAY 4, MILE 39 DAY 1, MILE 2 “You should go out there with the intention to introspect,” he said. “Those his is not what I was expecting. ight fades as the sun sets way too quickly. We—my insights, that catharsis—that might Twelve miles into a 19-mile day, I’m edging friend Randi and her 11-year-old daughter, Shaeli, not happen without you trying to make along a field full of scratchy brush and cow pies. who’ll be hiking the first leg of the trail with me— it happen.” While he allowed that would- It’s hot and dusty, there’s no shade, and I’m L left Missoula late, and by the time we jounce my be pilgrims can do that anywhere, he also nursing blisters on both heels. Subaru up 10 miles of washboard dirt to the trailhead, stressed that traveling the same route as I had heard wonderful stories about Montana’s night is coming fast. I’m worried about making our other pilgrims with the same purpose is Sacred Door Trail. Grand vistas, sparkling lakes, planned campsite in time, or accidentally ambushing a key part of the deal. “It’s powerful and animals everywhere. But this? This sucks. a grizzly in the dark, but I tell myself to chill: This is a affirming to know that you’re walking in I plod along, yanking too hard on my pack straps in a spiritual journey, remember, so just go with it. the footsteps of others who have hiked Tfutile attempt to lighten the weight on my back, kicking The Sacred Door Trail, like many pilgrimage sites, the trail with similar intentions,” Weston the dirt clods. When the trail peters out for the hun- is intended as a place for spiritual reflection. It’s for said. “The Camino offers a more defined dredth time, I stop and stare at the sky. Are you f***ing “grieving, healing, and honoring life’s major tran- ‘container’ that helps crystallize the expe- kidding me? I say under my breath, to no one. Pressure sitions,” Weston told me over lunch a month ago. rience. The key to creating a pilgrim- gathers behind my eyes. Inspired by a hike on Spain’s Camino de Santiago, in age trail is to create a framework that’s I came to the 170-mile Sacred Door Trail last 2009 Weston started piecing together existing trails flexible, yet also strong enough to help summer looking for the opposite of this: serenity, calm (including part of the CDT) into a loop route with orient and contextualize the experience acceptance, a way out from under the wave of rage the help of a coalition of local faith-based and indig- for people.” that’s been drowning me for more than a year. This is enous groups. The trail officially “opened” in 2012 with Maybe he’s on to something. According to Linda Kay Davidson and David M. Gitlitz in Pilgrimage: From the Ganges to Graceland, a pilgrimage “is by nature a quest, a journey in search of an experi- ence that will effect the kind of change that will make a difference to the individ- ual’s life or spirit.” THE SACRED DOOR TRAIL, LIKE MANY And change is exactly what I need. When I let my we spill out of the woods into Trident Meadows, we can mind drift, it still gets stuck on painful memories. barely pick out the metal pyramid trail marker halfway across the clearing. A few steps into the grass, an eerie, mournful awhooo erupts somewhere off to the north. PILGRIMAGE SITES, IS INTENDED TO BE A I walk him from our friend’s house to the car, kiss We all freeze. An answering call drifts in from the west. him goodbye, tell him to drive safely. I’m going back Wolves. I’ve never heard them before, and tonight, their to the party; he’s traveling for work and will be howls sound deeply spooky and thrilling all at once. If gone all weekend. That’s the official story, anyway, I’ve been expecting some kind of sign from the heavens PLACE FOR SPIRITUAL REFLECTION. one I’ll believe for another seven months until he to kick off this pilgrimage, this will do. confesses where he’s really going. Which is straight to her apartment. DAY 8, MILE 73

In cold, hard math, this is what it looks like. Six and igh up in the Beaverhead Mountains, I walk a half: years we were together. Four and a half: months the Continental Divide, my right foot in Montana a brand-new American pilgrimage trail, and it prom- a multi-faith ceremony, as well as a guidebook and we were married before he cheated. Nine: months the and my left in Idaho. How many times did he and ises three weeks of inner peace by way of backpack and website. But unlike many of the most famous pilgrim- affair lasted before I finally dragged the truth out of H I go together to places just like this—skywalking boots, or so I’ve been told. But right this second, I’m age sites—such as the Camino or the Hajj to Mecca— him. And 14: months that have passed since then. on ridges, deep in the mountains, with row after row more pissed than I have been in months. this trail is explicitly nondenominational. And it gets I think the most acute phase is over by now—the of shaggy peaks radiating out beneath our feet? One It’s not just the heat, or the cows. It’s what the trail’s its sacredness not from the grave of an apostle or sucker punch of shock, the despair of looking at a future hundred? Two? founder, Weston Pew, told me to do before I started this footprints of a prophet, but basically because Weston suddenly wiped blank, the grief that weighted me down This is the guy who stood next to me and watched trip: Hike some sections in silence, noticing where your declared it so. like one of those lead smocks you wear when getting an black bears forage past our campsite in the Olympics. mind drifts and where it sticks. So I did. Spiritually, it’s a bit squishy. But so am I. I mostly X-ray. But the anger? That stuck around, and the slight- Huddled with me in a leaky tent in the Canadian grew up nonreligious, and these days, I suppose I’m est provocation—a song on the radio, an Instagram Rockies. Gulped coffee with me in the dark to catch an agnostic, and a shallow one at that. It was hard not photo—can fan those coals into a mighty blaze. At first, sunrise everywhere from the Grand Canyon to the He’s late, again. Very late, and not answering my to roll my eyes as Weston went on about “the evolving it acted like a shield, deflecting the worst of the heart- Argentinian Andes. We were snowshoeing through hip- texts. “Have you left yet?” “When will you be home?” universal life force that connects all things” or how the break. Lately, though, I suspect it’s holding me back. I deep powder in Colorado when he told me, “I want to do We’re supposed to go out tonight. I pace around trail “deepens our connections to our original church, know, I know, hell hath no fury like, well, me. But fury is this with you for the rest of my life.” our apartment, sweeping a floor that doesn’t need Mother Earth.” heavy, and a year is a really, really long time to carry it. Of all the unanswered questions my ex-husband left sweeping, checking my phone every few minutes. “What makes this a pilgrimage and not just a hike?” I’ve set aside almost three weeks to try to hike it off me with, I struggle with this one the most: Who is he? Annoyance gives way to anger, then cold, prickly I asked. “Wouldn’t being in the mountains for three here on the Sacred Door Trail. A rotating crew of friends How could the man who held my hand through all of fear. Something’s wrong. “Sweetie, where are you?” weeks anywhere make you feel better?” will join me, and first up are Randi and Shaeli. When that be the same man who betrayed me so deliberately, IF I WAS WRONG ABOUT THIS, IT’S EASY TO THINK, THEN I COULD BE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING.

so quickly, and for so long? and there among the evergreen expanse where the My friend Kim, who’s hiking this section with me, mountains have craned their necks just above timber- and I haven’t spoken for a half hour or so. In that line. A few miles away, smoke plumes rise from a small silence, I poke at myself to see how deep the hurt still wildfire that roared to life yesterday and is already goes. Outwardly, I must look like I have it together: I get choking itself out. It will make for a glorious sunset. up every morning, feed my cat, hit my deadlines. I don’t He would have loved this, I think in spite of myself. cry much anymore, and only when I’m alone. But I’m And now I’m mad again. not myself anymore, either. Betrayal shakes so much more than your faith in the betrayer. More than your faith in people. It crumbles DAY 9, MILE 82 everything you thought you knew about how the world works. If I was wrong about this, it’s easy to think, then I y friend Kim and I slow to a crawl on the steep could be wrong about everything. sides of Bradley Gulch, where we find the biggest patch of thimbleberry bushes I’ve ever seen. M Grazing with wine-red fingers, Kim and I start “I need to ask you something.” My body feels shaky, talking forgiveness. I know this is key. Maybe if I can let and not just from the chill of the early-winter rain- it all go, the anger will turn to smoke and drift away. forest soaking into my bones. We’re hiking along But I’ve been wrestling with this one for months. the Elwha River in Olympic National Park, on a “How do you forgive someone who’s never asked for it?” romantic getaway I planned because I can’t take his I say. “Or apologized? How do you forgive someone who vague, distracted distance anymore. “What’s going doesn’t deserve it?” on with our marriage?” It sounds dire, and I mean “I don’t know,” Kim says. for it to. He stops abruptly, tells me he’s sorry for how I’m not the only one to pack big questions along on he’s been acting, that he loves me. But strangely, he’s this trail. For the past four summers, Weston and his crying, and I only feel colder. colleague Shannon Ongaro have voluntarily facilitated small-group leadership courses through his nature- based educational program, Inner Wild, on the Sacred In the week after my husband told me about his Door. Next summer, the course will expand to a five- affair, I twice drove to Mt. Rainier and ticked off 18-mile week, on-trail deep dive into theory on rites of passage, days like someone was chasing me. I hardly let myself community development, pilgrimage, and personal stop, choking down food as I hiked. But I wasn’t trying leadership. Either way, many of the participants come to run away from anything. Rather, loping through to the trail hoping for a pilgrimage-like experience. the miles was the only thing that let me catch up to my “I felt like I wanted to check in with myself, like, wildly spinning mind—the only thing that gave me a ‘What do I really want?’” Sean Sweeney, a 26-year-old toehold of control. On one of those days, I stopped to artist from Texas who went through the program last jump in an alpine pond after a brutal climb. It was the summer, told me. “Who am I, what am I doing, why am only time for a week I felt a glimmer of anything besides I doing it?” wretched. Even if they don’t emerge 170 miles later with all the In the following months, I went through regular answers, at least some of these pilgrims swear by the therapy. It wasn’t enough. So why not at least try transformative nature of the trail months and years the one thing that has always helped me in the past? later. “Thinking about the people who had come before Wilderness. us was such beautiful imagery to me,” says Robyn On this ridge-hugging section of the Sacred Door Trivette, a 33-year-old teacher, of her hike last summer. Trail, I stop for a snack on a fallen log with a million- “Just being in a similar headspace and having a similar dollar view. Crumbly beige scree fields stick out here intention, and that we were carving the earth in that way with our feet. I could sense a difference from the Hogan Cabin, a Forest Service rental hut perched people we ran into who were thru-hiking the CDT.” between the second and third segments of the Sacred Pilgrimage scholar David M. Gitlitz says there’s Door Trail, I have a dream. I’m back in Seattle with my nothing inherently “wrong” with simply proclaiming a husband, but there are two of him. One sweet, funny, trail sacred. “Sure, why not?” he asks. “But it’s very dif- kind, the one I fell for, the one I meant to love for the ficult to set up a shrine that will attract a spiritual fol- rest of my life. Then there’s another one, identical but lowing on its own. People have to go someplace, say, ‘It dark. They’re aware of, and hate, each other. Sometimes changed my life,’ and the word gets out. You can’t sub- the bad version will show up around town, lurking in a stitute that. It has to take root in some popular way.” bar we duck into, and we have to leave. Sometimes he’s In other words: The Sacred Door Trail is a pilgrimage waiting in our apartment when we come home, and the if enough pilgrims say it is. good husband—my husband—gets into a screaming match with him. We try, but we just can’t shake him.

DAY 11, MILE 105 DAY 12, MILE 113 ay attention to your dreams,” Weston told me before this trip—a fine example of how his he dream stays with me as I start the final stretch “ method can blend the sacred with the self-helpy. across the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, a wind- P I’ve never put much stock in analyzing dreams, blown, rugged slice of cirque-cradled lakes and but I do believe they can sometimes let you peek into T airy alpine passes. This morning, I hugged Kim the subconscious. For months after I left the home I goodbye; my friend Norman, another transplanted shared with my husband, he and his—mistress? lover? Montanan, is hiking the last 60-odd miles with me. mistake?—stalked through my dreams, so that I’d open We push through dew-wet meadows and climb a ridge my eyes and wonder, When do I get to the part where I scarred from some long-ago wildfire, where the bare don’t wake up every morning feeling shitty? trunks grant us wide views of the crinkle-cut ridges to And yet. Stretched out on a wooden bunk in the the north. I’m still turning the dream over. It reminds me of a parable I once heard. Sometimes it’s attributed to the Cherokee, but no one really knows. In it, a wise grand- father tells his grandchild, “Inside of us all live two wolves. One wolf is evil, full of greed, anger, selfishness, lies, and pride. The other is a good wolf—joy, kindness, peace, truth, and empathy. These wolves are constantly fighting inside us, ripping at each other’s throats for control.” The grandchild asks, “But which wolf will win?” The grandfather smiles and says, “The one you feed.” We pitch the tent along the edge of Good Medicine Meadows, a low, grassy clearing with a stream winding through it. It’s lovely, and also a classic cold sink: Sometime before dawn, I wake up shivering. Frost coats the tent fly. “Are you cold?” Norman whispers. I know what he’s getting at, and I don’t want him to do it. We broke up a month ago—it was my first post-divorce try at dating— and I don’t want to lead him on. More than that, I don’t want to admit I need his help, or anyone’s. But somehow, just as much, I want him to. “Yes,” I whisper, and he pulls me close. What a place to be, hung between yes and no. Desiring two opposing things at once.

DAY 13, MILE 118

e leave the burned-out landscape behind by mid- morning, emerging into a boulder-choked field where only a few trees have managed to survive W in the thin air. Ahead, the peaks get taller, with sharper edges and hairpin ridges plunging down to a PART OF IT IS THE PHYSICAL HIKING. BY GIVING MY BODY SOMETHING TO DO, MY MIND COULD GO FREE.

necklace of lakes strung together by alpine streams. out of here to the waiting shuttle car and finish this trail. This is the beginning of the heart of the Pintlers, the But first: The sun is out, and it’s the warmest day most spectacular section of the whole Sacred Door of the week. Norman and I drop our packs and head Trail. Maybe it’s because I’ve finally had enough time straight for the shoreline, shimmying out of our processing things on the trail, or maybe because this pants and tossing our shirts over tree branches before sure looks like a place for thunderbolt visions, but sud- jumping into the lake. The cold water makes me gasp, denly, something occurs to me. but it feels exhilarating, too. I scrub seven days’ worth What if I don’t have to reconcile the man I thought I of grime and sweat off my skin, dunk my head, come knew with the man I know now? What if I just dropped up laughing. And feel better. that tug-of-war, realizing it was impossible? He can be I’ll be damned. I actually think I’ll finish this pilgrim- both of those people at once. It doesn’t make sense, but age a happier person than when I started. Part of it is do any of us? the wilderness itself: Out here, there's nowhere to hide It’s such a simple idea, but I’ve never thought of it from your demons. Part of it is the physical hiking. By this way before. Ask any psychologist, and you’ll learn giving my body something to do, my mind could go free. it's normal for people to hold contradictory beliefs. We But a large part of it, I must admit, is the spiritual inten- do it all the time. Though our conscious brains struggle tion: setting aside a dedicated time to pick through the mightily to impose order, sorting people into neat cat- thorniest corners of my heart. However you parse it, for egories, our minds remain messy places. the first time in more than a year, my anger is draining Nobody simply is a good or bad person. We only away. If I can say that, then who cares if this counts as a make choices, feed one wolf over the other. And my “real” pilgrimage or not? husband, who really was the wonderful man I thought By now, my toes are stinging. I belly-flop, seal-style, he was, instead chose not to be. But instead of rage, for up on a boulder and shake off the droplets. I shield my the first time I feel something else. Pity, maybe. But eyes against the glare off the water, stare up at the ring maybe compassion, too. of peaks around the lake, and let the sunbeams restore Just like that, I’m no longer just a victim. I haven’t my warmth. n forgiven him—no, not yet. But holding on to the bitter- ness would only be feeding my own bad wolf. Instead, I Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan is the Rocky Mountain Field Editor. have a choice. For the first time since it all happened, I feel a space in myself, clear and distinct, where forgive- ness can go. TRIP PLANNER Pilgrims Wanted: Hike the Sacred Door Trail DAY 17, MILE 165 SEASON July through September PERMIT None MILEAGE 170 on trails (200 including road segments) e topped out at our final high point, Goat Flats, INFO thesacreddoortrail.org; email thesacreddoor- for lunch; now we hug the edge of a cliff and [email protected] for guidebook ($12) and GPS tracks switchback down to Upper Seymour Lake for SHUTTLE Rick Harwood at The Bunkhouse Hotel in W our last night in the woods. Tomorrow, I’ll stroll Jackson, MT; harwoodsbunkhouse.com; (406) 204-4126 GONE HIKING

TERMINAL CANCER.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if YOUR DOCTOR

DELIVERED the SCARIEST TWO WORDS

in the ENGLISH LANGUAGE?

ANDY LYON WENT for a HIKE.

by CASEY LYONS photography by KEVIN STEELE

084 03.2015 Safe and sound … :) just set up my tent, stem-cell transplant. His five-year sur- now making chow. 11 miles today, 1 horny vival odds sank to 10 percent. The kid limps into Yakima Valley Memorial toad, 2 snakes (one rattler, one gardner). The normal 20-something, hearing Hospital out of the late-September night. This is great! :D xoxo” the news, might erupt in a mix of rage, Back at home in Laguna Beach, Betsy sadness, and frustration, cursing the His pack is worn and dusty, his face cloaked Gosselin is relieved. She has no idea universe for the awful unfairness of in a beard that grew out rather than down. what to expect during this thing either, it all. But Andy didn’t react like that. It’s the first time he’s been inside a hospital but she already decided that she would When he visited his Ayurvedic prac- do whatever needed to be done to sup- titioner (a form of Indian medicine) a in 23 months. The last time, his doctor gave port her boy—time, money, anything. few weeks later, he didn’t even men- him 24 months to live.¶ He walks up to the So what if she hadn’t even heard of the tion the relapse. Pacific Crest Trail three months ago? He came to believe that maybe the admitting nurse. “Can I help you?” she asks. On the fourth day, he waits for Betsy cancer wasn’t the real problem, but at the predetermined pick-up spot and a symptom of something larger and writes in his journal: “Well, that wasn’t more profound. Maybe, if he located so hard!” the things inside him causing the cancer, he could heal himself. That April, in a ceremony organized by his mother, Andy marked his completion NATURE IS A faith healer. Everyone of Western medicine and a new start implicitly understands that, even to his healing. It kicked off a year spent if they don’t really get how it works. meditating beside spiritual gurus in the Plenty of people harness the power American Southwest. He car-camped of wilderness to clear their heads, or around the Sierra, sometimes discov- to recharge their batteries. There’s ering unmapped stands of sequoias “I think I need some help. I’ve been on few weeks later, after they’ve wrapped power in nature’s beauty, and strength and sleeping beneath them. It was his the trail and I keep falling down.” up logistics: how to feed themselves, to spare. Andy believes that, too, and Summer of Bliss. She directs him to have a seat, then how to clothe themselves, how to his journey would test the limits of But that treatment plan was no bet- asks him his name. minimize suffering on the journey. But that power. ter. On October 20, 2010, pain forced “Astro,” he says. Andy makes his footprints here today. He was a freshman studying astro- Andy home to Laguna Beach to see his “Your name is Astro?” From the look of his trail runners, physics at the University of California doctor. A PET-CT scan showed tumors “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. My name is Andy. these are the first steps he’s taken in at Berkeley when an X ray revealed a throughout his body. His doctor sug- Andy Lyon. I’ve been walking the trail them at all. He walks over to the mon- dense, white mass at the base of his gested that without medical interven- for a while and everyone calls me Astro.” ument, locates the trail register, and neck. A biopsy confirmed what doc- tion, Andy would die within two years. “Where do you live?” writes, “The longest journey begins tors feared: cancer. Hodgkin’s lym- Other cancer patients in this situ- “Well,” he says. “I live on the trail.” with a single step.” It’s just the kind of phoma. But the prognosis was good: ation have refused chemo, choosing “You live on the trail?” stuff written by hikers filling the pages With treatment, some 90 percent of quality over quantity in their remain- “Yeah.” preceding this one, people who knew people so afflicted remain cancer-free ing time. Andy rejected chemo as well, “Do you have a mailing address?” to start earlier than 1 p.m. on a sun- in five years. but that didn’t mean he was giving up “Yeah, my parents live in Laguna blasted trail. But the treatment isn’t pretty. After on a cure. He had other ideas. He now Beach, California” He’s olive-skinned but pale. His six months of chemo, even Andy’s eye- believed that the only way to defeat “How did you get here?” she asks. It is, white, button-down sunshirt looks lashes fell out, and the nausea came the cancer—to win—was to prove that after all, south-central Washington. starched, and his trail pants sag around in long sweeping fits that would leave he was stronger than it. “I walked here.” his thighs and calves. On top, he wears him retching for hours. That’s how In January 2012, on a 10-day silent “You walked here from Laguna a beige, full-brimmed hat that makes Western medicine fights Hodgkin’s. retreat near Yosemite, Andy picked his Beach?” him look like Gilligan gone rogue. He Andy, full of optimism, was a model battlefield: the Pacific Crest Trail. “I actually walked here from Mexico,” smiles and it’s hard to tell if he’s happy patient. He memorized his drug regi- He knew it sounded ludicrous—a Andy says, and can immediately tell or wincing. Or maybe he’s just squint- men, studied up on what each ingredi- young man with zero long-distance what she’s thinking: psych ward. “Let me ing into the desert sun. ent of the cocktail did and what bag- hiking experience and a terminal start from the beginning.” Andy shoulders his 22-pound pack, gage came with it. disease is going to cure his cancer by But where is the beginning? Maybe the strap sitting right next to the scar It worked, and Andy, now in remis- walking really far? Among responses it’s when he was first diagnosed with the chemo port left. He starts down the sion, took a six-week victory tour to a terminal diagnosis, his notion was, Hodgkin’s lymphoma four years ago at trail, a ribbon of dust snaking through across Central America, explor- to put it charitably, unique. age 19. Or, maybe it’s after the second the shrubs and over the low rollers out ing Mayan cities and swimming in His family, friends, and spiritual relapse, after the first round of chemo- to the northern horizon. Even though the waters of the Lago de Atitlán in guide objected. But Andy had made up therapy failed and then the stem-cell this is just a trial run for his thru-hike, if Guatemala. his mind. He was going to thrust himself transplant failed and then he was given he makes it 42 miles to Mt. Laguna, it’ll He re-enrolled at Berkeley for his ANDY USED THIS COOKSET to PREPARE stem-cell transplant that would leave into the heart of hardship and beauty to a 1-in-10 chance of living another five be both his farthest backpacking trip sophomore year, but eight months the MEALS HIS MOM DEHYDRATED, him in isolation on a sealed hospital seize control of his fate and challenge PACKED, and SHIPPED TO HIM ALONG the years. Or maybe it’s the moment when ever and his first time going solo. later, a follow-up PET-CT scan revealed WAY. PREVIOUS: HIS PACK floor for three weeks while his immune his disease in a fight to the death. If he decided to try to heal himself by He walks and the nerves dissipate the cancer had returned as stage 4, system rebooted. When he grew sick he won, he’d be healed. If it killed him, hiking the 2,655-mile Pacific Crest Trail into the rhythm of his footsteps. In spread throughout his body and in his of the confinement, he convinced his that’d be an OK way to go. The only from Mexico to Canada. Would the camp, he pulls out the unused alcohol bone marrow. His chances of survival mom and stepdad, Michael, that he thing he couldn’t accept was waiting nurse even believe that story? stove he made from a soda can and dropped to the mid-60s. Betsy was needed some fresh air. They loaded around to die. Would anyone believe that story? Internet instructions, and fills it with staggered, but she held it together for him into a wheelchair, pushed him diesel-line deicer. When he sets the Andy and her family. When she had a down the hall, and slipped through the lighter to it, fire engulfs the whole thing, night alone, she let the sadness come. elevator doors. “The trick,” Betsy later sneaks out under his windscreen, and “This time it could mean death,” she said, “is to walk like you know what THERE’S A TRADITION among thru- FEW FOOTPRINTS circle the PCT mon- lights the ground on fire in a 3-foot cir- wrote on her private blog. “Andy could you’re doing.” hikers to take on trail names. Not only ument at the Mexico border, 2,300 trail cle. He stomps at it, then grabs for his die. I feel the immense fear of losing But 100 days later, the cancer was do these handles represent mem- miles south of Yakima, in early April. socks and slaps at it. Then he fishes out my boy.” back, again. His doctor informed him bership in the tribe, they’re also an Most would-be thru-hikers appear a his cell phone and texts his mom: Hey! Andy did what his doctor said: a that he was not a candidate for another acknowledgement that the things that happen on a long-distance hike tran- taken from home. He’s always been a before the storms roll in. scend normal life. The trail in Southern California is private person, someone it took a while He starts to whimper under the strain, Andy wants his trail name to be to get to know, but, at his mom’s urging, but knows he must drive himself past about his diet. Whereas other hikers’ like a long and winding ramp. It he’d decided to share this journey. He the place where physical pain controls food bags—especially guys his age— delivers hikers over the forested clicks on the recorder. “Even at home,” his mind. It’s the only way he can uncou- contain Snickers Bars and instant crest of the same San Gabriel he says, “I was itching to get back on the ple the two. Over 3 miles, his groans Ramen noodles, Andy’s is an apoth- trail and I can tell that’s what my body build into yelps, become a rising cry of ecary of organic foods and vitamins. He Mountains Andy saw from his likes right now, and what my mind likes Why? Why? Why! WHY! wants to be known for running on such hospital bed during the stem-cell right now is the peace and simplicity of Then his father’s face comes into his premium fuel. Then, a week and a day walking every day.” mind. after leaving the southern terminus, he transplant. He’s moving well now, At the edge of the Mojave Desert, he Andy’s dad has been gone for 15 meets Gourmet. 20, 25 miles per day, but he doesn’t clicks on his voice recorder again. “I’m years. Drank himself out of the family, Andy is already in his tent when hurry. ¶ He stops to take selfies, kinda having fun with this voice memo and, years later, to death. Andy never Gourmet cruises past on the purple- thing, so I’ll do another one that’s more understood, but as a boy he felt guilty, painted desert flats 75 miles north of which he’s never really done personal, maybe.” Then he exhales. “It’s like he could have saved his dad. He the border, rapping about snowboard- before. In one, he’s standing in going good. You know, actually it’s going once confided to a friend that it had ing. He camps a short distance away, front of a chestnut-brown horse grazing really good. Every day is like,” and he made his heart become like a closed fist. and, the next morning, Gourmet apolo- on the trail. He’s smiling next to its shoul- laughs and changes his mind mid-sen- The tension spread through his body, gizes for the disturbance. But Andy just der, where a heart is outlined in white tence, “more challenges. Every day, I’m and that, he thinks, is where his cancer laughs and asks him to sing the lyrics fur. He is always finding hearts. He sends like, ‘Goddammit, why am I doing this?’” came from. once again. Gourmet is a 39-year-old the photos to his mom. There is pain now and it reaches He begins to cry. musician from Seattle, doing his first He arrives in Big Bear, where Betsy beyond the blisters, bites, and bruises Then he screams, “You did this to me! thru-hike, but Andy doesn’t ask his real is waiting to drive him a few miles to all thru-hikers deal with. “What happens You motherfucker! Do you see what you name. Nor does he tell him—or any- the family’s cabin at Lake Arrowhead, is my belly, the upper right side of my did? Seven years have passed and I’m one else—that he has cancer. The two a deep, cold, fir-fringed lake in San abdomen, gets sore. If you push on it, still dealing with this! Can you feel this? become quick friends. Bernadino National Forest. it’s very tender and then I begin to feel Do you know how this feels?!” The rolling folds of the Volcan It’s a huge house, complete with a angry. I begin to feel anger, frustration, Andy wants to let go of it now, to give Mountains elevate them to views of yoga studio, in a peaceful spot. Andy rage for even the littlest provocation.” his mind and body a reprieve from the San Jacinto Peak (snow-dusted after wants to fill the place with thru-hikers. But a few moments later, he’s back pain and stress caused by the absence a recent storm) and deposit them Betsy, always game, buys food to host. on the recorder, exuding calm. “When of his father’s love. He sits by a log and among the flower-speckled lowlands It’s what she does for her son. Even you’re satisfied with the present sobs and addresses his father. “You did of the high desert in bloom. Chaparral when Andy recently crashed her anni- moment in every moment, that’s pure this to me,” he says. “But I forgive you.” and cactus line the hillsides as Andy, versary dinner at a fancy restaurant, she joy,” he says. Then adds, “I’m walking in Then, with a surge of clenching agony, Gourmet, and two other hikers travel didn’t mind. She’d have a lot more anni- this desert, among these Joshua trees, the tightness in his foot releases. And for the hillsides sometimes together, versaries. What parent would say no? and it’s beautiful.” that moment, there is no more pain. sometimes apart. A few calls later, Andy learns his In the town of Warner Springs, they friends are hiking on; it’ll be just the set up their sleeping bags on the lawn two of them. But that’s fine. They’ve of the fire station and stare at the sky. been tight since Betsy carried the family “GUESS WHERE I AM!” Andy says to Andy knows all the constellations, through a divorce from Andy’s father, Betsy in a phone call at 10 a.m. in early If it were only that easy. the planets, the mythology attached John, years earlier, when his drinking June. She thinks, hopes, it’s a trick ques- The fall of 2011 delivered to each; he points them out when the got out of control. Over the next few tion. “Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail?” she other hikers ask. Gourmet, consider- days, Betsy, a yoga and meditation ventures. Andy shouts, “I’m on top of Mt. 180 mph winds to the ing this, says Andy shall henceforth be teacher, leads Andy through poses to Whitney!” The landscape all around him Mammoth area, leveling known as Astro. And so it is. loosen up his tight muscles. They also falls away in spikes and columns of gray 400,000 mature pines He is Astro now and he is new and he crank disco tunes—Andy’s favorite—and stone against a brisk, blue sky. is in control of his story. To other hikers, dance like crazy. She drops him off at Andy explains, “It was here and I was and rearranging them in he’s not sick; he’s not a cancer victim, or 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and he hikes here, so I figured, why not?” a heap. It makes for slow a novice hiker. He’s just another skinny, back into the darkness, buoyed against At least, that’s what he tells his mom. going as Andy and Michael hike together early 20s guy with no history, lots of the loneliness of solo hiking. Most thru-hikers are trail-toned and sun- for a few days. blisters, and a scraggly beard. “Andy was happy out exploring,” tanned at this point. To climb an extra Michael’s been Andy’s stepdad for 13 Gourmet and Astro descend Fuller Betsy says. “Our hope was that his elation 4,000 feet over 8 miles seems like a years and his friend for longer. At the Ridge, the skinny part of a mountain over these life experiences, and the free- pittance for the chance to stand atop the southern terminus, he’d given Andy a just west of Palm Springs, and the start dom to do whatever he wanted with his tallest mountain in the Lower 48. credit card for the kind of trouble he of a 15-mile downhill. It’s hot, 80, 90, precious life, would bring peace. And of Andy, hobbled in recent days with could buy his way out of, and advice for 100 degrees. Gourmet, hiking ahead of thru-hikers concern themselves with ANDY’S TRAIL RUNNERS, GOOD for about course, we always hoped for a miracle.” a new pain in his left foot, pushed his the rest. He’s an experienced outdoors- Astro, notices a living room-size cave, making miles and wringing distance 500 MILES A few weeks later, needing another body beyond anything he’d yet expe- man, quick with a quip, and accustomed shaded and out of the sun, and ducks out of daylight, Andy feels no such break, he rides the train home to Laguna rienced to get up Whitney. He had to to being the stronger hiker when the two in for a 10-minute break. urgency. He doesn’t tell his new friend Beach and immediately settles into old make it to the summit—an exercise in of them make miles together. The first At the next road crossing, Gourmet that he intends to savor every moment routines. He goes hiking with his sister, mind over matter that tested his whole thing he notices about Andy is that he’s stops and waits on Astro. Hours go by on the trail as if it might be his last. Alex, and dog, Luna, and when Luna idea for this journey. If he can make it up lost weight. The second is his new easi- as Gourmet grows impatient, then wor- Under the setting sun, they cross the gets tired after a few miles, he scoops Whitney, he thought, maybe he really ness on the trail. ried. Then Astro traipses down the trail desert floor toward Cabazon, where her up and carries her. The rest is din- can make it to Canada. “He had a self-confidence on the trail wearing an expression of bemused sat- trail angels welcome hikers with a hot ing at good restaurants, insisting on the On the way down, his foot seizes with that surpassed mine,” Michael later isfaction. “Oh hi, Gourmet!” Andy says. foot soak. Andy sags, eyes shut, head most comfy pillows, bowling, and letting each step, shooting pain into his spine, says. “He was extremely comfortable.” “What happened to you? You OK?” in hands, with his feet in the tub. The his little sister look after him. “He liked electrifying all the other muscles on the Andy’s once-white shirt is formless and Gourmet asks. next day, he announces that he’s taking being independent because it gave him way—foot, calf, knee, groin, pelvis, back, streaked with brown beneath his shoul- “I took a wonderful nap in the cave a rest day. “I’m sorry, Gourmet,” he says. a sense of strength,” Alex says. “But he and heart. It’s like a clamp on his entire der straps. His Gilligan hat is stacked back there,” Andy answers. “It was the “You should definitely hike, though.” also liked being spoiled.” being, but he continues, alone. He has with sweat rings. At the southern ter- perfect rest spot. I couldn’t pass it up.” And just like that, fast friends become Back on the trail four days later, to make it 7 miles to the base of Forester minus in April, Andy’s ultralight gear Even in the early stages, where most memories. Andy pulls out the voice recorder he’d Pass, so he can cross it the next morning, was top-of-the-line but unused. Up until then, he’d tallied maybe five nights on box is waiting. When he picks up his he needs to go to a hospital. By luck, horse. “If I’m going to finish the trail,” backpacking trips. Now, he doesn’t use package he notices that on the rack Wolverine has friends picking him up he tells his mom, “it’s going to be with a tent—he doesn’t even carry a tent—pre- nearby sits the box of Scott Williamson, a few miles ahead in White Pass. They these feet.” ferring to sleep outside, under the stars. legendary PCT speed hiker (who had drive Andy into Yakima, Washington, He hefts his pack, pockets his pre- As they hike, Andy tells Michael given up his speed attempt this year due and drop him off at the doors of the scription steroids, and walks on. He’s about a dinner he had a week ago in to fires). Williamson is a hero to most emergency room. making his own miracles now. the Golden Trout Wilderness. He took thru-hikers, and Andy feels an urge to He limps in out of the night and tells off his pants and waded into a stream, open the box just to see what’s in there— the nurse his story. hemmed in by bare granite mountain- but he resists. Many other hikers had Hours later, a full battery of tests tops, and watched the water. When a been content to simply take a photo. reveals a large mass pressing on Andy’s fish swam by, he’d scoop his hands in But then Andy opens his own box spine. It’s a new tumor and it’s respon- and splash it onto the banks. After a little and finds it’s a few dinners light. He sible for the weakness and numbness in while, a dinner’s worth of golden trout thinks, “Well, Scott, he’s off-trail, he’s not his leg that’s causing him to fall. There’s a parable about death lay gasping in the grass. He cooked them going to use this box or what’s in it.” He The doctor on duty prescribes pain that Andy and his Ayurvedic over a fire and ate them, bones and all. finds jellybeans, Snickers Bars, tortilla meds. Betsy and Michael grab the practitioner, Rob, shared together A few days later, Michael flies back chips and dried refried beans, electro- packed go-bag of Andy’s street clothes months before Andy started hik- home, and Andy proceeds alone lyte packets, a tiny sack of toiletries, and and take the first flight in. The next through the grand High Sierra. It’s Ansel two new pairs of nylon socks. day, Andy learns of a new chemo drug, ing. When the flowers in the gar- Adams country, a kind of walk-through To set things right, he writes a letter called Adcetris, recently approved and den know tomorrow is their turn miracle over an endless succession of to Scott and tapes it into the box. “I fig- not widely available. Yakima Valley to be plucked, the lesson goes, Do high-mountain passes, each one more ure if anyone’s resupply would give me Memorial, in tiny Yakima, Washington they feel sadness? Do their faces dazzling than the last. But whatever the extra physical, mental, and spiritual (population 90,000), was the first Andy thinks about this glorious stretch, boost I need at this point, it would be place in the country to buy it. It shrinks droop? Are they any less bright? he doesn’t record it. He goes silent, tak- yours.” tumors rapidly, especially in cases like No. The moment they know that ing not a single note, nor clicking on Andy walks out of Big Lake and logs Andy’s, in which Hodgkin’s lymphoma the next day it is their turn, they his voice recorder. If he can manage his the biggest day of his hike so far: 29.6 has relapsed after a stem-cell transplant. story well enough, can he delete his sick- miles. In Scott Williamson’s socks. But it’s not a miracle. The doctor says it’ll make themselves ready with great ness from it? Can he make it go away? only buy him time. gusto and excitement. But at the end of this stretch, in Time is what Andy needs. It’s early Betsy drops Andy at a hotel in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows, he’s October by now—late in the PCT season— Snoqualmie, Washington. His friends lonely and in pain again. He can feel his MOST THRU-HIKERS look forward to and cold rain is coming to the high coun- and fellow hikers are there. Between liver swollen to twice its normal size, reaching southern Washington’s Knife try of northern Washington. Snow won’t the rancid gear and body odor, it reeks killing him under his hipbelt. He flies Edge. It’s a sharp ridge of black rock, be far behind, and then the trail will effec- inside, but Andy meets the dense air back home to Laguna Beach, and a few knapped by time into a 2-foot-wide tively close. Betsy and Andy sit together with the Yakima Herald held aloft, his days’ rest stretches past a week. blade that cuts the snow-smeared Goat in the hospital room, waiting to discuss grinning mug pasted across the front Andy talks about going back to Rocks Wilderness in two. It’s a spectacu- the new drug with the doctor—contem- page and one to match in real life. Berkeley, maybe opening a café, or lar milestone, a dizzying catwalk signal- plating whether or not Andy should give A few days later, heading north out studying healing. Betsy won’t watch him ing there are only 350 miles left before Western medicine another try. of Skykomish, with 172 miles left to the loaf. She delivers an ultimatum: “You’ve the Canadian border. Word trickles out: There is a scruffy- northern terminus, the trail becomes a got two choices: You can either get back But Andy cannot share the other faced hiker with advanced cancer who rocky, hard-scrabble way, winding over on the trail, or get a job, because we’re hikers’ enthusiasm. It’s late September walked here from Mexico. A nurse strolls mountain passes where glaciers cling not going to support you.” when he limps up to it and steadies in, tells them he’s arranging for a horse so to the slopes. The sky is textured gray Andy packs up the next day. himself on his trekking poles. The hike Andy can finish his journey. Next, a social and full of rain. has progressed well since he acquired worker comes in with paperwork from The trail is gone, replaced by a THE REST OF CALIFORNIA is ablaze Williamson’s socks, but just when his the Dream Foundation for a grant to pay rushing stream of cold runoff. Water in one of the worst wildfire seasons in strength and stamina seemed to peak, for the horses. Then the phone rings; it’s fills Andy’s fifth pair of trail runners. recent memory, but Andy works his way his right leg started buckling, making the owner of a packhorse outfitter. She Sometimes it’s so cold he can’t touch around on a network of trails and roads, him stumble and fall. wants to hook Andy up with a horse, a pinky to thumb. He clips his tent can- friends and trail angels. After the first Now, with the world falling away a wrangler, and whatever else he needs. opy (he’d gotten it back when the rains miles of central Oregon’s dark and bro- thousand feet on either side, he weights Then the press coordinator asks about came) to its poles using his teeth. The ken lava fields, he makes camp near a his right leg. It collapses, sending his a news story; then the TV crews arrive. rain is so loud at night that he has to put road and packs a tiny bowl of medical knee down onto the rock. He lifts him- In an interview with KEPR News, in earplugs. marijuana. self back onto his trekking poles. His leg Andy tells the reporter: “One of the great- Today, flush with food from his last His thoughts turn inward. “I had has given up, but that doesn’t mean he est blessings I’ve gotten from this whole resupply, he tells his fellow thru-hikers waves of pain, which I was convinced has to. He heaves it forward again and experience with cancer and healing is Scrub Rat and Doe Eyes that he’s going were signs of my ill health and my leans onto his poles to swivel around his the freedom and the drive to do what- to stay put and wait out the weather. imminent demise,” he later says. “I know good leg. He collapses again. He crawls ever I want to do.” For days, if that’s what it takes. The pair there is something in my body that is a would need to have a near-death experi- NO ONE UNDERSTOOD why ANDY LOVED forward. He gets up. Now, his story is out and everyone leaves camp and the lashing rains soak this SUN HAT so MUCH. dark force.” But he’s hopeful that if he ence, another transcendent experience Two in three would-be thru-hikers knows. And in a way, it’s gratifying. “I’ve them through. The shivering starts can accept this, it will finally let him be. where the last tethers of the ego would quit before they make it to the end of walked all this way suffering,” Andy soon enough. They’re moving slowly. Then, the thought pierces through be cut and I would be free and then heal- the PCT. Most simply get tired, worn out tells his mom. “It’s about time someone “Our gear was failing,” Doe Eyes later that the trip is a failure—that he is a fail- ing of my body and mind would happen by the compounding aches and pains. noticed.” says. “We were soaked to the bone and ure and he can’t do anything right and naturally and rapidly.” Mile by mile, Andy has been amassing Three days after he comes off the filled with fear about hypothermia. he is going to die and it is going to be his But he is too afraid of the lava field. a body of evidence that he’s one of the trail, Andy sits in a hospital bed with an And here comes Astro, jaunting up the fault. And when he does, his mom and He lies awake for most of the night, toughest hikers out there. He’s proving IV line in his arm. The Adcetris drips in. trail, his gear soaked, his rain jacket Alex and Michael will be sad and that thoughts racing but paralyzed, until himself stronger than the cancer with His hike has delivered him to one of the wide open. Fearless.” would be his fault. He wants out. “I got exhaustion takes him around dawn. A every forward step. But as he crawls few hospitals in the country that has the Andy continues ahead, moving the idea that I should hike on that night, few hours later, he gets up. By the light of along the rock, he knows he cannot go medicine. Who is he to deny fate? The slightly faster than the pair, and begins continue hiking into the lava fields and day, the lava looks easy. on. He cannot crawl to Canada. next morning, he reports the numbness the long ascent to Ptarmigan Glacier, somehow that would be like crossing Hours later, he arrives at Big Lake He tells his recent hiking companion, and tingling have subsided enough that blue ice mashed against the gray rock the River Styx,” he says. “I thought I Youth Camp, where his next resupply Wolverine, a veteran of long trails, that he wants to continue. But not with a and gray sky. The climb is endless, and he begins to despair, his burst of energy long since depleted. Tears of fear join tears seeking mercy from the moun- tain. On the way down, every other step he slips and every fifth step he falls—his leg is still sore. “There was a period most of the day today where my thumbs were so numb that I couldn’t even unzip anything. I had to open Ziploc bags by ripping them with my teeth. I sped as fast as I could,” he tells his voice recorder that night. He knows, like all the hikers do, that if he can’t stay dry, he could freeze to death within hours. For so long, death had been a distant stalker, hidden behind the uncertainty of months to come and solutions left to try. Now it’s come in close.

But so has support. Led by Betsy and Deon English, an affable drug rep with Seattle Genetics (the maker of Adcetris), Team Astro comes together to get Andy through to the end. In search of help for on-the-ground logistics, Deon connects Michael to a friend of hers named Dave Leffmann, who calls his friend, Marc Fendel, who just finished a PCT thru-hike of his own in September. Dave tells Marc the story of a kid with late-stage cancer that has been thru-hiking. Kid’s name is Astro. Does he know him? He does. To most people, Marc is Marc. But to a very rarified tribe, he is Gourmet, the guy who had given Astro his trail name all those months and wooden monument with the PCT’s A MOMENT of PURE BLISS at the miles and mountains ago. Of course insignia driven into its crown. TRAIL’S NORTHERN TERMINUS he remembers him. There are people They lope along fast, staying warm in this world who leave a mark after in the cold and damp. Michael feels only the slightest brush. Andy is one like he’s jogging. Gourmet’s been here of them. “How can we not do this?” before and marks the miles: two more Gourmet says to Dave. to go. Andy says, “I’m gonna make it. I Team Astro mobilizes for the can’t believe it.” With a mile to go, the out to it with his cold, red-raw hands. final push to the border. Andy, Dave, emotion begins to seize him—part ela- His hair is wet with sweat and rain and Gourmet, and Michael set out from tion, part relief, part something only he matted to his face. In this single, per- Harts Pass, 29.4 miles from the end. The knows. He thanks everyone for being fect moment, he is alive and free from trail is high in this part, sliding across here. With 100 yards to go, the trail wid- whatever came before and whatever the side of a mountain with views of ens enough between the trees to walk comes next. He closes his eyes, leans in snow-dusted peaks that stretch into two abreast. Michael and Andy walk toward the monument, and then, gives Canada. They walk together in a snow arm in arm under a sagging sky. it a kiss. ■ trench. That night, it pours cold rain, At 5 p.m., Team Astro enters the but they can stand up and cook under clearing and approaches the monu- Dave’s giant tarp. They devour the ment. This is his moment, the end of Ten months after finishing the PCT, Andy goodies that Gourmet packed in: soup, the journey on which he set the terms steadies himself against the railing as he bread and cheese, chocolate. of his future by focusing on the now. He walks to the Crystal Hermitage Guest On October 19, 2012, Andy wakes up is supposed to be standing here cured House at Ananda Village, his spiritual on the day before he was supposed to and triumphant with a story of strength community in Northern California. Four die. He wakes up and shakes the water and courage that he can use to help days later, on the morning of August 30, off his tent and unzips from the warmth heal others. Does it matter that it didn’t his mother wakes him so they can watch of his sleeping bag. He packs his bag by work out that way? the dawn. It is Andy’s last sunrise. muscle memory. He is 15 miles from Andy doesn’t say much. He walks up

a forest clearing that holds a five-part to the wooden monument and reaches Casey Lyons is senior editor. GOSSELIN OF BETSY COURTESY PHOTO Learning the alphabet: After the AT, Christian Thomas headed to the PCT, and the CDT is next. Here, he’s with his mom, Andrea, and her boyfriend, Dion, during their last month on the PCT.

Kindergarten Can Wait When five-year-old Christian Thomas set out with his family to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, some skeptics said he couldn’t—and shouldn’t. But like a lot of kids, he wasn’t listening. By Bill Donahue | Photography by Brown W. Cannon III BACKPACKER.COM 073 WE SWOOP AROUND ANOTHER TURN IN THE MOUNTAINS. THE ROAD GETS A BIT STEEPER, AND IN THE JANUARY RAIN, A GRAY TENDRIL OF MIST DRIFTS OVER THE GREEN WOODS. THE ENGINE CHURNS AS OUR CAR LABORS UPHILL. BESIDE ME, THE LITTLE BOY IN A CAR SEAT STARES OUT THE WINDOW. CHRISTIAN THOMAS IS FIVE YEARS OLD AND REED-THIN WITH ROSY, CHERUBIC CHEEKS, AND BY NOW HE HAS EATEN ABOUT HALF OF THE CHOCOLATE DONUT HOLES CONTAINED IN THE enabled Buddy and Dion to walk without heavy packs. In a week, after 14-OUNCE WALMART BOX IN HIS LAP. WHAT’S ON hiking numerous trail sections out HIS MIND? IS HE DREADING THE HIKE PLANNED FOR of sequence, the trio will return to TODAY? PLENTY OF ADULTS WOULD BE ANXIOUS Harper’s Ferry. Christian will become the youngest person in history to ABOUT A 15-MILE TREK IN A CHILLY DOWNPOUR, complete the AT. After that, the fam- HOOFING IT UP AND DOWN ON THE APPALACHIAN ily plans to hike the Pacific Crest Trail TRAIL AS IT ROLLS THROUGH SHENANDOAH (2,650 miles) and the Continental Divide Trail (3,100 miles). NATIONAL PARK. OR IS HE JUST MESMERIZED BY At the moment, Christian weighs THE FAT RAINDROPS LASHING AT THE WINDOWS? just 46 pounds. So he keeps eating donut holes, and then, after a while, he groans. “I don’t feel too good, Mommy,” he says. “My stomach hurts.” “You’ll feel better when you start Quiet, quiet, quiet. There are crinkled hiking, Bud,” Andrea says, again in the baby voice. “You always do.” paper bags wadded on the floor of the Dion says nothing. Almost always, Dion is silent. car, a thrashed 1996 Jeep Cherokee, and We park at the trailhead, and when we climb out of the car the wind is ripping. dirty laundry is strewn everywhere. Yet When Andrea pulls a transparent rain poncho over Christian’s jacket, it rattles in the somehow amid the chaos, this kid is gale. No other hikers are out. There are hardly any cars in the whole park, and it’s still tranquil, composed—put together. His pouring. Being a parent myself, I think, “Now’s when it happens. Now is when the kid brown hair is neatly parted. His man- throws a tantrum in protest.” ner is genial, and when he speaks he But Christian is placid. His bellyache is gone or forgotten, and he’s skipping around in exudes the incongruous panache of a the parking lot and enlisting me as a straight man for his pranks. (I’m still a novelty, having TV reporter delivering the news from just arrived to hike with him for three days.) “Knock knock,” he says. outside a low-rent apartment complex. “Who’s there?” “I like fog,” he says in a high, fluty voice. “Car go.” “It’s cool! When you see a person, it’s like, “Car go who?” wow, he magicked here.” “Car go beep beep.” He throws his head back and laughs, so the parking lot fills for a Christian giggles, charmed by his moment with bright peals of joy. own wit. Then he keeps eating donut “How many miles can you hike in a day?” he asks me as we start hiking. holes and his mother turns around to “I don’t know. About 20.” peer back at him. Andrea Rego is 26, with “That’s nothing! I did 22 miles one day and I wasn’t even tired.” long brunette pigtails. In her most recent job, she did office work at a construc- • • • tion company on Long Island. She can be feisty. Like a moment ago, frustrated, she HOW FAR IS TOO FAR? How much toil and suffering should a kid take—and what for? A said, “I’m gonna burn this car when this generation ago, back when children roamed the streets freely, pedaling their banana seat trip is done!” Now, in a sweet baby voice, bikes in a time before helmets, no one fretted over such questions. When a six-year-old she tells her son, “You can have as many boy named Michael Cogswell thru-hiked the entire Appalachian Trail with his parents in of those as you want, bud. Eat up.” She 1980, there was nothing but feel-good rhetoric surrounding his hike. Newspapers made turns to me and adds, “I’d be happy if he light of how the little boy crashed constantly, weighted by his pack, and this magazine ate the whole box. He needs the calories.” ran a celebratory story in which the author, Michael’s stepdad Jeffrey Cogswell, waxed ANDY USED THIS COOKSET to PREPARE Maybe he does: It’s early 2014 and poetic about the trailside flora—“red trillium, violets, purple ironweed”—and lionized the the MEALS HIS MOM DEHYDRATED, PACKED, and SHIPPED TO HIM ALONG the Christian is hiking the entire Appalachian little boy’s perseverance as a photo showed a wonderstruck Michael drinking from an WAY. PREVIOUS: HIS PACK Trail, all 2,180 miles, with his mom and ice-skimmed mountain creek. stepdad (well, technically his mom’s boy- Now, though, childrearing is a science, and sniping at other people’s parenting tech- friend), Dion Pagonis, 29. Christian—now niques may be our favorite contact sport. When journalist Lenore Skenazy decided in best known by his trail name, Buddy 2008 to let her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway alone, she received thousands Backpacker—started eight months ago,  of hate letters and was called “America’s Worst Mom.” (Her response: freerangekids.com.) in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, and he’s Similar skepticism has surrounded two Texas sisters who run half-marathons. When The trudged through snow in North Carolina Christian New York Times profiled Kaytlynn Welsch, 12, and Heather Welsch, 10, in 2012, the head- and black flies in Maine. He’s slept with (opposite) line asked, “Too Fast Too Soon?” One reader responded, “This is child abuse.” his Pooh Bear every night and he’s out- takes a Any parent who loves the outdoors can find him- or herself pushing the envelope, well-earned hiked his mom. She stopped after just play break sometimes unwittingly. I will confess that when my own daughter, now 20, was in pre- 400 miles, electing to chauffeur, which on the PCT school, I took her on a kayak trip during which our inflatable boat sprung a leak. Our improved their resupply logistics and in Oregon. tent and sleeping bags slipped out into the rapids and I spent a frigid, sleepless night

BACKPACKER.COM 075 earned his Eagle Scout badge supervising where you’re going.” a team that re-created a Native American “I love the Octopus’s Garden song,” village. In college, at SUNY Fredonia, he Christian says when it comes on his iPod. was the president of Greek life. “Please don’t sing it,” says Dion. Then In 2007, Dion bought a Wii Fit and he adds, “Take your hands out of your began working out three hours a day. He pockets. Christian! Listen to instructions!” lost 70 pounds. Not long after, Andrea In downtime at occasional hotels, joined a gym and began working out, Dion and Christian cuddle up together too. By 2011, Dion was fit enough to try and watch movies on Andrea’s iPad. the AT, solo. (He made it 200 miles before Out on the trail, though, the dialogue twisting his ankle.) Later, he convinced is nearly all safety-oriented during the Andrea to join him for a backpacking trip 40 miles I hike with them. To me, Dion in Colorado. She had never before gone explains, “If he trips and breaks an arm, on an overnight hike, and she was still our hike is over.” In New Hampshire, smoking a pack a day. Over a weekend, Dion made Christian a promise: “If you they covered only 7 miles. “It was very don’t have any boo-boos when we get hard,” she says, “but I loved it—just being to Katahdin, I’ll give you some money.” outside, away from Long Island.” Christian lost that challenge, scraping In spring 2012, finally, Dion engineered his knee in a crash. an escape plan. He and Andrea sold Now, though, it’s Dion who’s holding nearly all their possessions and moved us back. Still a bit chunky at 180 pounds, west to Colorado, first to Boulder, then he isn’t a particularly fast hiker, and to Crested Butte, a ski town where Dion he’s plagued with what he calls “Fred scored design gigs at elance.com and they Flintstone feet”—­ his arches are almost operated a hostel called Butte Bunk. While convex. At times, Christian and I drift Dion snowboarded, Christian (then four) ahead. Then, I ask Christian about his and Andrea took to the bunny hill on skis. audio lessons. He’s learning vocabulary “By the end of the season,” Andrea writes words: nefarious, subvert, fetid, and at buddybackpacker.com, Christian “was encumbered. blowing down moguls and double blacks “What’s the teacher saying right now?” on one of the hardest mountains in the He squints a moment, listening. Then United States. He has the endurance of he parrots the saccharine voice from his an advanced athlete with a deep love for iPod: “We’re so encumbered with red nature. Andrea and Dion have no choice tape we can’t get any real work done.” but to live epic lives with him.” When we meet Andrea at a road cross- The experience in Crested Butte ing, Christian runs toward her, laughing, changed the trajectory of their lives. to hug her. We all get a moment of sweet Suddenly, the pair hoped to bring Buddy reprieve, but only a moment. Andrea to California, so they could all learn to says, “I always feel like we’re a pit crew surf. They thought they’d like try a long- in a car race. It’s like, ‘You tie his shoes. distance mountain bike odyssey some- I’ll put food in his mouth.’ We’re always where. They wanted to put themselves rushing to get him back on the trail.” on a path toward adventure, and test their She turns to Christian. “Are you ready own endurance as well as Christian’s. In for some Pringles, Bud?” Looking back at Colorado, as the snow melted, Andrea me, she says, “He loves Pringles—that’s his envisioned another kind of adventure. favorite food.” “Why don’t we hike the Appalachian Christian takes a small stack, and then Trail?” she asked Dion in April of 2013. as we step into the woods, I glance back Crested Butte was about to button up for at our mission vehicle: The Jeep is a dull the off-season. So they bought the well- red, with “buddybackacker.com” and a big used Jeep for $1,500, loaded their gear, pair of angel wings, in yellow, that Dion and headed east. drew on the hood. (The wings signify trail angels, as Andrea often gives other hikers chastising myself for being selfish and An AT stalwart calling himself her son on such an arduous task? Is the to work full time. Logging 50 to 60 hours • • • rides.) The Jeep has 150,000 miles on it, negligent. But that was just a weekend. GreyWolf took a harder line, alleging that correct question, in fact, Is she the best a week at the construction company, but they’ve been hard miles; it looks like it To thru-hike the AT, Christian has had Dion and Andrea brought Buddy hiking mother ever? Andrea, who is 5’4”, ballooned to 200 IT’S VERY SLOW HIKING with Dion and might die on the next hill. to climb over rocks and roots almost in unsafe conditions. “The temperature pounds. “By the time I picked Christian up Christian, and also a little bit solemn. every day for nine months, overcoming never got above the 20s and was in the  • • • at daycare,” she says, “I was so tired that Both of them walk with iPods and head- • • • challenges that defeat plenty of adults, teens at night. Should I call social ser- we just went to McDonald’s or ate frozen phones. Dion listens to rock, Christian to even as his young sinew and bones are vices?” he railed. For the CERTAINLY, SHE STARTED from a rough food in front of the television. Christian educational music and lessons—brainy THE BUDDY BACKPACKER expedition still growing. Naturally, his parents have But the family’s Facebook pictures PCT, An- spot. wouldn’t eat anything if it wasn’t in a pack- stuff chosen by Dion. (The digital lessons is not a well-oiled machine, and by the critics. In one recent post on a Facebook from Christian’s journey on the AT voice drea gave When Andrea got pregnant with age. He was addicted to TV.” are the backbone of Christian’s home- time I joined, there’d been a medley of up her role page, a hiker named Yvonne called a strong rejoinder to skeptics. Here’s the driving a Christian in 2008, she was in her second Soon, though, Andrea grew closer to schooling program.) All I can hear, mov- calamities. On the first night of the trip, Andrea out. “If BB’s mother is still on boy standing atop Katahdin, his arms support year of college at Stony Brook University, her friend Dion Pagonis, who had his own ing along through the woods, is the dull after the family rolled out of Crested here and viewing these posts, I want to raised in triumph. Here he is catching vehicle and in New York. She was 20 years old, over- unfulfilling (but lucrative) job on Long thud of footfalls and the rain pattering Butte, Andrea left her wallet at a conve- challenge you!” she wrote. “I challenge snowflakes on his tongue on Christmas the fam- weight, and ensconced in a nine-month Island, working in a windowless room on the dead, sodden leaves. We roll along nience store. As Dion dislikes carrying you to take a moment, step back and Eve in the Smokies. As I scroll through ily hiked romance with a man from whom she is at Sherman Specialty, the world’s larg- over gentle hills, passing rocky outcrop- money, the trio was broke. They made ask yourself who this Appalachian Trail the images, I can’t help but marvel at together. now estranged. est supplier of restaurant crayons. Dion, pings that open onto the gray horizon, camp after midnight near Manhattan, hike adventure and experience is all how Christian has experienced so much “I hoped Christian would bring some who is also 5’4”, once weighed well over and eventually (inspired by his music, Kansas, in a cold wind, and struggled about... if it truly is about Buddy... allow delight at such a young age. And part of stability to my life,” she says. The plan 250 pounds. But he is not one to live in it seems) Christian begins skipping and setting up their tent for the first time. “I him to explore, allow him stop and love me wonders: Should we really be asking failed. After the birth, Andrea continued quiet desperation forever. He’s ambitious, weaving on the trail. was shivering,” Dion remembers. the mountain views.” if Andrea Rego is a bad mom for setting attending college for a year, but then quit in idiosyncratic ways. In high school, he “Pay attention,” Dion tells him. “Look “After just two restless hours, the family pressed east, toward West Virginia and the start of their hike—and the start of their controversial trail strategies. Many hikers have attacked Andrea and Dion for being loosey-goosey—and also lazy—on the AT. Sometimes when faced with a big hill, they make things easy on themselves. They drove to the top of Mt. Washington twice, for instance, so Christian could hike down each side. (He never actu- ally climbed Washington.) When it was snowing in the Smokies, they skipped ahead, down to Georgia, then came back weeks later. They took about 90 days off, in total, enabling Dion to earn much- needed money by doing design projects. They were simply hiking their own hike, to invoke the credo that pervades AT culture, but that counted little with back- packing’s grand poohbahs, who in many cases have built their lives around the AT and come to style themselves the keepers of the trail’s sacred mores. “They were sloppy,” says Warren Doyle, a retired college professor who’s hiked the AT a record 16 times. “They did a lot of lollygagging, and they got into trouble because of that. They were out hiking far later into the winter than they needed to be.” (Doyle, ironically, has critics himself. On his Appalachian Trail Expeditions, a support vehicle carts gear for hikers, enabling them to sashay nearly all 2,000-plus miles bear- ing nothing but daypacks.) Other critics questioned if they were actually on the trail at all, suggesting that Christian’s parents cheated by skipping several stretches of the AT, even as they pretend-logged the miles online. “There are some people who are lying about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and, since it’s almost Christmas, I’m not going to name them yet,” wrote a man named Tom Bazemore on Facebook. “This will give them a chance to come clean and end their con game.” Bazemore, who runs a Georgia-based shuttle company, continued by directly addressing his targets: “You are certainly not the first to lie about hiking the entire trail but the fact that you are using a little child in this con is truly beyond belief!” however. In his own Facebook post, he long days, on December 1 and 2, 2013. Seventy-one comments followed, wrote, “If I wasn’t hiking with Buddy, I I called Bazemore back and asked him most of them nasty, and Andrea snarled would be skeptical of his accomplish- to point me toward other skipped sec- back: “I hope you all are completely ment, too.” So along the length of the AT, tions. “Look,” he said, “I’m not going to go ashamed of yourselves for spewing he took photographs with a GPS cam-  back and forth with you on this like we’re such nonsense. I can’t wait until we are era and then posted them to a map at all in junior high school. I know what I finished and can laugh looking back at panaramio.com. His pictures are mostly Christian know and I stand by it.” all you haters.” of Christian standing at overlooks or hams it up I called Bazemore to ask which sec- streams, or by trees or on mountain- with Dion. • • • tions Buddy and his folks had skipped. tops, and they do not skip the section His complaints zeroed in on a 30.3-mile Bazemore questions. For those 30 miles, THE WEATHER CLEARS, and when we stretch of trail between Newfound Gap, there are more than 20 photos, each one begin hiking on the second day, after North Carolina, and Davenport Gap, time-stamped. I scrutinized them one camping, Christian is in high spirits. “Isn’t Tennessee. “I shuttled some hikers there morning, and a story emerged of a small it beautiful out today?” he says. “The trail exactly when [Christian and Dion] were boy moving over rocky terrain, through is nice and soft, and there are no roots, supposed to be there,” he said, “and I told ice and snow, at a little more than 1.5 and it’s pretty flat right here. It’s even these people to look for a man with a miles an hour. There is little doubt that pretty warm.” He’s chatty now, and he five-year-old boy. They never saw them.” Buddy Backpacker progressed steadily speaks of seeing orange lizards on his Dion had anticipated such critiques, northeast, toward Davenport Gap, in two AT odyssey, and turkeys, and red flying Andrea and Dion on the PCT squirrels, and a rattlesnake, some wild warmly and hitting the trail? Yes, Dion ponies, and a moose. He doesn’t know the sometimes carps at the kid. As do many names of the plants around us. He’s expe- parents who steer their children toward riencing nature as a small animal does, more culturally accepted goals—piano, sensually, as a breeze on his back and a soccer, spelling bees. Why should hik- cold bite on his brow. Listening to him, I ing be any different? In fact, it’s easy to think of Michael Cogswell, the six-year- see the experience in a very different old thru hiker, now in his early 40s, who light. Christian and his family are hiking recently told me, “I wouldn’t trade my AT America’s most beloved and fought-over experience for the world. There’s a cer- trail in pursuit of happiness, and they’re tain purity in doing something like that as happy most of the time. Together, they’ve a child. You can never get that back. But found a way to engage with the world—to there are positives and negatives. By the commune with its beauty and have an time I was done with that hike, I wasn’t adventure. This is what matters. really a kid anymore. I’d walked so many On the last day I’m on the AT, Andrea miles. I’d carried my own clothes and picks us up at dusk, to drive us to the a tent and helped wash the laundry at nearest shelter, where we’ll camp. It’s night. I’d had all this responsibility.” cold outside, so we savor the warm blast Is Christian growing up too fast? He of the car’s heater. When we park, Dion sure doesn’t seem world-weary, for he limps down the short path to the shelter. keeps begging me to tell him make- Christian leaps over the puddles. Andrea YOUTH MOVEMENT believe stories. I tell him one, finally. cooks us all dinner. Then the next morn- These kids are going places. It’s about my plastic water bottle going ing, backing out, she runs over the gas “home,” to China. The water bottle has a stove. Under her breath, she says, “Shit!” hard-to-pronounce fake Chinese name Then she laughs and throws the stove Youngest to Complete that Christian loves repeating, his voice a into the Jeep and drives on. the Triple Crown Only about 200 people have hiked all high-pitched array of scratchy, whispery three of America’s long trails—the Ap- sounds. When the tale is done, he spends • • • palachian, Pacific Crest, and Conti- 30 minutes detailing the plot of the film nental Divide Trails—making the Triple Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Then I SEE THEM ONLY ONE MORE TIME, Crown one of the rarest feats in the he asks, “Should I tell you about Cloudy eight months later, on a rainy afternoon outdoors. By comparison, more than with a Chance of Meatballs 2?” last September in the small town of twice that number reach the top of Mt. Is he lonely—starved for attention from Trout Lake, Washington, as they take a Everest most years. And when Reed people besides his parents? Probably a break near the end of their Pacific Crest “Sunshine” Gjonnes of Salem, Oregon, little, but when I ask if he misses going to Trail thru-hike. Trout Lake is a forested finished the CDT in 2013, at age 13, she school, he isn’t entirely clear what school Nowheresville, and after 11 straight days became the youngest to join the elite entails. Andrea says he enjoyed preschool on the trail they’re ensconced in drab club by an astounding 11 years. But her on Long Island, but on the trail he only tasks—laundry, email, cleaning out their record may not last. If Christian com- conjures up one memory. “They put me packs. Still, as I pull up to the Trout Lake pletes the CDT this year, he’ll become a in with the babies,” he says with disdain. Grocery to find Andrea standing there on Triple Crowner at age 7. I ask him if hiking ever gets boring. the porch, with Christian entwined in her “That’s a silly question,” he says. “No!” arms, she exudes a certain glow. There’s an Youngest to Hike the AT Solo “Do you ever hate the AT?” ease about her, a softness to her skin. She’s Most adults struggle with the physical “Sometimes I don’t like it when it’s happy—you can tell that without even ask- and mental hardships of a solo thru- hike: no one with whom to share the really hard. Then I just want to be done. ing questions. And she’s sunbaked and load; loneliness during months of hik- I want Mommy to be right there in the lean now, 35 pounds lighter than when I’d ing; making every decision alone. Neva middle of the woods and I just want to go last seen her. She’s been hiking the whole “Chipmunk” Warren conquered these to sleep right there.” way this time, with both her and Dion car- challenges and all the other difficulties Later, I described my hike with rying packs. The Jeep is long gone. of a thru-hike at age 15. She completed Christian to Dr. W. Douglas B. Hiller, an “We did 23 miles yesterday before four the Appalachian Trail in 2013, with zero orthopedic surgeon at North Hawaii o’clock,” she says, looking down. “Didn’t long-distance hiking experience. “As I Community Hospital and a one-time we, Buddy?” was climbing Springer Mountain on day chief medical officer for the triathlon “Yeah,” Christian says, rocking a bit in one … It was a lot harder than I thought at the Olympics. He said, “I doubt they his mother’s arms. He’s sleepy-eyed and it was going to be, and I was a bit caused him any physical harm. As long determined, it seems, not to take the bait. scared,” she told Blue Ridge Outdoors. as it was a happy family hike and he “Actually,” he says, “it was 22.8.” But unlike a lot of older hikers faced wasn’t being pushed, or made to keep “What’s been your favorite part of the with the same fears, she persevered. going when he was limping, he should be PCT so far?” I ask. fine. If he got some bruises and cuts, well, “Whitney,” he says. “It was cool. We Youngest to Hike Colorado’s 14ers that’s what little kids do all day long—they were way up there. It felt like the end of Axel Hamilton conquered the 54 des- run around and jump and fall and get up.” the trail.” There’s still a kid’s wonder in his ignated Colorado 14ers (as well as the I searched at length for a child psy- voice, but it’s more contained now. He’s 2 four disputed peaks) by age 6. Hamilton completed the summits with his father chologist who might object to Hiller’s or 3 inches taller, and there is, suddenly, and older brother, Calvin (who climbed sanguine take. I couldn’t find one, and I a grace about his small, lanky person. It the 14ers by age 8 and finished them all decided that the hubbub over Andrea’s seems almost certain that in a few years a second time last summer, at 10). Axel parenting was rooted partly in fear: girls will go crazy for him and that he’ll celebrated his final peak, Mt. Evans, on Andrea is different than most AT hik- deflect their ardor with a languid ease. September 24, 2013, with a chocolate ers. She’s from working class Long Island. “And what else was fun?” I ask, digging cake topped with 58 candles. What’s She’s combative at times. Yes, she and a little more. next? Axel has his eyes on Colorado’s Dion brought Christian hiking on a very “Goat Rocks,” he says, referring to a 704 peaks over 13,000 feet.

cold day. But what’s the harm in dressing nearby boulder field that stretches on —Ali Herman COURTESY KENNEDY; NORMAN AND KIMBERLY MATTHEW COURTESY; TOP) (FROM BY PHOTOS MOVEMENT YOUTH for a couple miles. “I like doing hard twirl a hula hoop. stuff. And this house,” he says, mean- “You liked that didn’t you, Bud?” ing the store, where they’re staying in Andrea asks. an upstairs motel room. “At night, they “Yeah,” he says, looking down at his light up these lights on the porch and  fries. “That was good.” it’s beautiful. It looks like Christmas.” What jumps out is how steady When Dion emerges, fresh from a Christian they all seem. They’re no longer the is 4 feet tall shower, I see he’s lost weight as well. (without hapless outsiders of the backpacking He’s more than 30 pounds lighter rocks). world. No one is savaging them on and also ebullient, almost jolly. Facebook anymore, and their goal of The tenseness I’d seen before on the AT, as completing the Triple Crown in 2015 no lon- he tried to corral a restless kid and nego- ger seems outlandish. Barring catastrophe, tiate complex car logistics, has vanished. they will get the job done. Then they’ll move This time, the three of them have all hiked on to surfing or mountain biking or whatever. together. There is, it seems, a new calm in Everything will work out for Christian, more Dion’s muscles. “This trail is easier than the or less; he’ll clearly be okay. AT,” he says. “It’s well-maintained, it’s graded. But to Christian, the unlikely peace that It’s not rocky and you can actually get a good his family enjoys wandering the world is old stride going.” news. He doesn’t want to sit there and talk We walk across the street to get lunch, and about it. There’s a trampoline behind the store, Andrea and Dion update me some. Christian, and he keeps looking out the window toward they say, now likes to wield his bamboo hik- it. Eventually, Andrea lets him go. He runs over ing poles like Ninja swords. They’ve landed to it, loose-limbed, his body lit with delight. a host of sponsors—a tent sponsor, a pack He climbs inside the trampoline’s protective sponsor, even a black mesh fence, and begins jumping, giddy socks sponsor— and laughing as he sails into the sky. ■ and at one point, resting from VIDEO Editor’s note: Christian, Andrea, and Dion the trail, they Christian started their CDT thru-hike in March. Check encountered a talks about his for updates at buddybackpacker.com. lovely 18-year- plan to hike the old girl who CDT in a video at Bill Donahue has written for The Atlantic and spent the after- backpacker.com/ The New York Times Magazine. With his buddy. noon teaching daughter, he recently swam between remote Christian how to Caribbean islands, and lived to tell the tale. Hikes Gone Wron We all love the trail. Sometimes love hurts. ILLUSTRATIONS BY RYAN GARCIA I’d take him on the hardest backcountry patrol in the park, the three-night, 18-mile, willow-clogged, river-threaded, wolf-and- strength, I’d managed to spike the entire grizzly-bear-teeming Sanctuary River trip. I made it to the edge of the Sanctuary, Loop. I’d prove how empowered I had sat, waited, and thought about what I’d have become without him. to say to him when he caught up. We drove back to Denali in twilight, and, Minutes passed, maybe even an hour. Just Desserts the following day, readied ourselves for the As night began to fall, I pictured all sorts Revenge is a dish best served cold, trip. But in the flush of vengeance, I made of fates for poor Forrest: him tripping on a wet, and thirsty. By Tracy Ross two tiny mistakes. I packed water bottles tussock, grizzlies gnawing on his buttock. and a stove, but no water purification Not only had I—a ranger—lost my volun- Forrest had gotten fat. I know it sounds tablets and no lighter. teer, but I was flirting with maybe losing my The Wrong Leaf cruel, but that’s what I thought when I saw We rode the bus to the Sanctuary drop- nerve, too. There was no way I could find Just because there’s no poison ivy around doesn’t mean you’re in friendly him at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska. off and started hiking. In full peacockery, him by myself in the brushy terrain without territory. By Corey Buhay I’d driven four hours from Denali and fueled by years of resentment, I began help, so I made the very non-rangery deci- National Park, with dual sensations duking speed-hiking up the valley. Poor Forrest— sion to cross the Sanctuary River—alone— Identifying poison oak and poison ivy are pretty basic skills. You learn, you memorize, you it out inside of me: titillation, to see the only who’d never negotiated Denali’s tussock- so I could hike the most familiar way out in take the knowledge for granted. Throw in a different ecosystem and some distractions—say guy I had ever truly loved, and neck-tensing stacked, squishy, trailless tundra—lagged the last light. beach camping and a sky full of stars—and things are bound to get iffy. anxiety, because the last time Forrest and farther and farther behind. He seemed I plunged in, nearly losing my footing I was in the Galápagos at the end of a semester abroad, on a short overnight with friends I had been together—two years prior—we weak, and that made me stronger. I took off, and submerging to my chest near the oppo- to celebrate. After a few beers, I headed for the trees. I plucked a leaf, did my thing, and imploded. blazing even faster. I’d turn back, “check in,” site bank, hauled myself up, hiked the few rejoined the party. We’d dated on and off since junior high, and blast off again. miles to the park road, and hitched a ride to The burn was subtle at first. I thought I was sitting too close to the fire or that maybe my and I’d always felt his adoration for me vac- Well, hiking like this makes you thirsty, a nearby campground. The host called my shorts had taken on a little too much sand. If only. illated based on my weight. Truth: He’d which is when I realized my oversight. boss, who initiated a search. All my fellow Something was not right. The pain became so intense I couldn’t hold a conversation. I always seemed more adoring when I was Though water sources abounded, I had no rangers fanned out, searching the tundra excused myself again, spread my sleeping pad under the trees, and went fetal. thin than when I’d packed on a few. way to purify. I can still boil, I thought. And for Forrest. I wanted to search, too, but I was “Corey? Are you crying?” My friend poked her head into my jungle refuge. She hauled me I was a chubby kid, a “big-boned” ado- that’s when I realized my second mistake. too wet and too distressed to be much help, out of the bush, marched me over to our somewhat intoxicated guide, and inquired about lescent. But at 19, I learned that long, uphill I couldn’t even do that, nor, without flame, and instead shivered in the campground the likelihood of poisonous vegetation. He led me back into the brush to investigate. hikes paired with strenuously reduced cook us dinner. I waited for Forrest, and host’s trailer. “Is this what you touched?” He snatched a leaf and waved it in my face. I nodded. He READER FAILS caloric intake could make me “muscular simultaneously gave him the news and In the span of one day, I’d gone from stuffed it in his mouth. “This is mangle salado—the salt mangrove. It takes on seawater and My husband thinks it’s really funny to thin.” In the years since, through hiking and brushed it aside. We didn’t really need to femme Denali ranger to bumbling rookie, stores the salt in its leaves. See? Salty!” I sagged with relief. Only salt. tell me lies just to see if I’ll believe him. not eating, I’d whittled myself into “wiry.” eat anyway, I told him, then mentioned a danger to myself and others, especially Then he noticed something else. So when I stopped right off of the trail Along the way, I’d also logged enough that maybe our best choice—given circum- Forrest, who was alone at the mercy of the “Oh, but this—” he picked a nearly identical leaf from a plant adjacent to the first. “This is to answer the call of nature and he time on trails to land a job as a Denali back- stances “beyond my control”—would be to bears and wolves. manzanillo—the poison apple. I took a bite of this as a child and haven’t had feeling on that told me someone was coming, I didn’t country ranger. When I called Forrest the abandon the trip. Off I stormed again, with But Forrest didn’t need mercy. side of my tongue since.” believe him. But when I looked up, an summer I started, I fantasized about him something less than peacockery, telling After I’d ditched him one time too many, My friend and I exchanged panicked glances. older couple was staring down at me, coming to the park, seeing the strong, thin Forrest I’d wait for him at the edge of the he ditched me back. “Scrub with sand,” he recommended. A subtle gesture informed him of the affected body smiling. I said hello and waved. A year me and swooning in unrequited worship. Sanctuary River. Instead of following me, he found his part, but he only shrugged. I waddled to the ocean. later I’m still a little bitter toward my Why unrequited? Vengeance was welling That was a lonely 3 miles. Not only had own way back to the park road, flagged Back in camp, word spread fast. husband. inside of me. I failed to demonstrate my leadership and down a backpacker bus, and had it drop The advice was overwhelming. Had I tried rinsing with saltwater? Freshwater? I was —PAM ANDERSON him at my Park Service cabin. When the gifted an alcohol wipe, which brought no relief to my sand-abraded skin. My friend found search party finally found him the next a park ranger, who said that orange juice would do the trick, then handed me a pocketknife morning, he was warm and happy, indulg- and an orange. Hiked the Narrows in Zion. About ing in his second king-size Snickers. I found a place to squat and squeeze. The pain made the stars swim overhead. 100 yards in, I smashed my head on a Poor Forrest—who’d never negotiated Denali’s That one should have been mine, but I I crawled back to my sleeping bag, put a baggie of ice between my legs, and, eventually, branch that I didn’t see because I was think I already got what I deserved. fell asleep. watching my feet. Blood streamed tussock-stacked, squishy, trailless tundra— Filtered sunlight and the splashing of waves on the rocks woke me the next morning. down my head in front of a bunch of Tracy Ross and Forrest parted ways ami- I sat up in a puddle of melted ice, but that was the only evidence of the previous night’s pain. kids. My partner ripped off her shirt lagged farther and farther behind. He seemed cably. She met her husband on a mountain I was cured, though by which remedy, I’ll never know. and used it to stop the bleeding. Big a few years later. day for those kids. weak, and that made me stronger. Assistant Editor Corey Buhay sticks to smooth stones now. —DAN GUAY READER FAILS Rain pummeled a three-day trip that I took with my brother in the so we hiked on to the next shelter—3 or so descent into Fontana Village was somber central Cascades, so we decided to miles away—walking into a flash-and-boom and reflective. Though the day was beau- turn around. Unfortunately, all the thunderstorm that ripped through and tiful, and though the birds were chirping streams we had crossed on the way Or maybe he was sitting on the trail com- soaked us down to our skivvies. brightly, there was no way to mentally in were now raging. The first one we muning with a fern. So we walked back out Next morning—the last Modern Man tamp down thoughts regarding the cruel came to was about 6 or 7 feet wide, but to the AT and retraced our steps—all the would be with me—we learned from a interface between fate and coincidence. appeared to be only about a foot deep. way back to the last spot we remembered passing dayhiker that the shelter at which Modern Man and I drifted apart after that I went first. One step from the far bank, seeing Modern Man, some 6 or so miles. No the honeymooning couple was staying trip, as if the distance might bury the bad I sank in to my waist and fell on my sign of him. had been hit by lightning the previous memories. And my eye? It took a long time, back with my 40-pound pack dragging We returned to the shelter, hoping that, next few minutes freaking out, which did evening, likely during the same squall that but it eventually healed. Though some- me under. My brother was laughing so by some miracle, our friend would be there. nothing to calm my nerves. had drenched us. The young wife had been times I wonder if that trip caused other hard I had to save myself. He was not. So, armed with flashlights, we Modern Man was unruffled. He spoke killed. The husband had been paralyzed on lasting effects. I maybe spend more time —BRANDON CLARK yet again retraced steps we had already reassuringly, directed me to tilt my head one side. He barely survived. It was all over glancing toward the heavens than I used to, retraced, yelling until our voices were back, and said something like, “Well, you the local news, the dayhiker said. but that’s something that likely comes with raw. It was a surreal experience, not least don’t see that every day.” My eyelid had Before taking his leave, the dayhiker age, whether you’re on the trail or not. because our minds were still, um, altered, nearly been torn off. You could pull it down looked at me and asked, “What the f*** hap- and the woods were alight with an intense and see the white of my eyeball, which pened to your eye?” M. John Fayhee, one-time editor of the display of firefly pyrotechnics. might make for an amusing trick at a At that point, my injury seemed mighty Mountain Gazette and author of 12 books, Just before dawn, we staggered back to Halloween party, but, out in the middle of inconsequential. advocates whittling the ends of trekking the Groundhog Creek shelter, caught a few nowhere, it amounted to a stressful turn of It is an understatement to say our sticks until they’re nice and round. An Eye for An Eye restless ZZZs, and pondered our options. events. Modern Man reattached my eyelid An AT thru-hiker invites friends There was no other choice but to notify with a couple butterfly bandages impro- along for a comedy of horrors. search-and-rescue. The closest road cross- vised from duct tape and pronounced me By M. John Fayhee ing was thankfully in the direction we were patched up enough to continue. going—toward Great Smoky Mountains For the next few days, whenever we Mutiny It was supposed to be a mellow hiatus National Park. And so we headed on, not passed other hikers, they would let loose Optimism isn’t a weather forecast. from the myopic intensity that had sure if we were leaving our friend behind, with some variation on the shocked excla- By Annette McGivney defined my southbound thru-hike of the and feeling uneasy about it in any case. mation theme—things like, “OH MY GOD Appalachian Trail. Two buddies were set Less than an hour later, we came across … WHAT THE F*** HAPPENED TO YOUR We stood in a circle around the seal. It was lying motionless, but still breathing, on a stretch to join me in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Modern Man. He was sitting forlornly under EYE???” of beach along Northern California’s Lost Coast. It looked up at us with big, sad eyes. One—whom I’ll call Red—would be with an improvised poncho shelter, his eyes Red left us at Davenport Gap. He seemed “It’s clearly suffering. I think we should kill it,” said John Harlin, this magazine’s me for a week, the other—whom I’ll call bleary. He had simply walked by the side happy to be departing for the relative calm Northwest editor at the time. Modern Man—for 12 days. trail leading to the shelter and hunkered of the Big Muddy. “What! Are you kidding?” answered contributing editor Mike Lanza. Neither amigo was in trail shape. Red, down when he knew he was lost. Such a Near Newfound Gap, a shoulder strap He was not kidding. “I could just pound its head with a rock,” Harlin said. “You know, though experienced, had been working the possibility had not occurred to us. broke on my pack, forcing me to hitchhike like a mercy killing.” previous six months on a boat on the Though we were weary and glad to into Gatlinburg in search of repair. During It was late November 2001 and the first day of a four-day trip to test gear. Our group Mississippi River. Modern Man, a self- be reunited, we had to stay on schedule this time, I made a detour to a doctor’s office of seven had set out that morning from Mattole Beach, some of us carrying more trepi- avowed city boy, had never placed a pack because both Modern Man and Red had to to have my now-oozing eye examined by dation than others. It was the off-season for the Lost Coast and a storm was in the fore- upon his back until we cinched up and return home on preordained dates. After someone who had perhaps washed his cast. But even in the best weather, traversing the wilderness beach requires timing the made our way uphill out of Hot Springs. agreeing that, henceforth, we would only hands in the past week. You know you are tides for safe passage below stretches of rocky headlands. Throw in a storm surge and the We planned short, leisurely days, which experiment with hallucinogens after arriv- in dire straits when a medical practitioner route becomes impassable—or interesting, depending on how you look at things. would provide a welcome respite before ing in camp, we began the first serious recoils at your appearance. After loading Rocky Mountain Editor Steve Howe had his take: “This is a bad omen,” he said as we my final push to Springer Mountain. ascent on our itinerary: directly up the me up with antibiotics, the doctor told me stared down at the seal with the sun beating on its silky, black skin. Howe said keeping As scripted, day one went smoothly. We switchback-free side of Snowbird Moun- the infection was bad enough that, had I to the plan was foolhardy. But then, Howe’s a bit of a grumbler. And never mind we were hiked a mere 8 miles, set up camp early, and tain. Near the summit, while crossing an waited another couple days, I would have testing down bags, teepees, tarps, and lightweight rainshells. “We are carrying all the wrong relaxed around a campfire while sipping otherwise innocuous little trickle, I slipped. gone through the rest of my life being a gear for this place,” Howe added, as if he was going to talk the rest of us out of it. tepid vodka-Tang screwdrivers. My head snapped forward and eye came natural for roles in pirate movies. Not a chance. Our group was dominated by the three horsemen of optimism. There was Day two did not go as scripted. When Red down directly on the pointed end of my Back on the trail the next day, we started Jonathan Dorn, the editor-in-chief whose meteorological instinct deviated so far from and I arrived at Groundhog Creek Shelter, chest-high hiking stick. My entire field of into Great Smoky Mountains National Howe’s that he was testing an ultralight poncho as both shell and shelter. Gear Editor located on a side trail a quarter-mile from view exploded with bright red. Park, which is heavily regulated. When AT Dennis Lewon was so unconcerned that he’d packed wood-burning camp stoves. And then the AT proper, we realized Modern Man “HELP!!!” I screamed, which was tough, hikers apply for their permits, they have there was Harlin, who regularly sought out the world’s most difficult mountaineering routes was not with us. given that I was hyperventilating. When to specify at which shelters they will be because, for him, the greater the challenge, the greater the fun. Fortunately for the seal, Since the tread through that section was Red arrived, having run when he heard my staying. Modern Man and I arrived at our Harlin’s zeal for euthanasia didn’t pass group muster. We hiked beneath blue skies to our well worn and well marked, and since there high-decibel shriek for assistance, he was designated destination only to find that campsite along Cooskie Creek. were no trail or road junctions upon which so winded he could scarcely stand. He saw we would be bunking with a young couple The next morning, we woke to a pounding storm. Vindication for Howe, but to his credit, he could have strayed, we could envision my bloodied face, yelped, and spent the on their honeymoon. This was awkward, he didn’t gloat. “Howe and Harlin have gone to see if there is a better way around the head- no scenario in which Modern Man could lands!” Dorn shouted over the teepee-rattling gusts. have become disoriented—except perhaps The scouts returned with bad news: There was no high route. Being more of a worst-case- as a result of an especially intense reaction scenario kind of person myself, I thought we should heed yesterday’s omen. “Well, we should to the mind-altering substance we had con- stay here and wait it out,” I said. Howe agreed. Two others were on the fence. The optimists sumed at lunch. He had simply vanished Modern Man was unruffled. He spoke argued that if we got out of camp right then, we could cross the headland stretch when the into thin air. reassuringly, directed me to tilt my head back, tide was at its lowest. Positivity prevailed. As darkness approached, Red and I The several-mile traverse between Cooskie and Randall Creeks was worse than even I began to consider the possibility that some and said something like, “Well, you don’t see had imagined. A storm surge had pinned churning surf to cliffs. We struggled across slip- mishap might have befallen our neophyte pery rocks where every oncoming wave felt like a fire hose. I planted my trekking poles pal. Maybe a sprained ankle or snakebite. that every day.” between rocks to avoid being swept out to sea and looked back at our crew. Lewon was laughing. Howe was fuming. And Dorn had salvaged a buoy rope to secure his Legend of the Bear Slayer poncho around his waist. Meanwhile, the A young hiker goes from zero to wilderness hero and back again in storm runoff caused rocks to drop from record time. By RJ Thieneman the cliffs overhead like mortar rounds. Eventually we reached sanctuary— My mother insisted that ladies a treeless bluff well above the surf and prefer a man in uniform, so I wore lashed by the hurricane-force winds. my Boy Scout outfit to school on Somehow, in the middle of this vast Fridays. Most days, girls looked in stretch, there was a cabin. It was the only my direction zero percent of the windbreak in sight and so we huddled on time, anyway, so I figured the merit the porch to consider our options. badge sash couldn’t hurt. If only “There is no way we can pitch tents in there was a badge for love. this wind,” said Howe, who added grimly The thought was never far away, that he was feeling hypothermic. even on a trip to the Rocky Moun- Lanza, with his jacket wet through, said tains’ Cimarron Range with nine he was soaked and maybe hypothermic, other 13-year-old boys. too. Everyone was shivering. That day began with a bear wan- Howe turned the knob on the door of dering into our camp for breakfast. the cabin. It was unlocked. Being the first to spot the visitor, it “I’m going in,” I said without hesitation. was my duty to remember my train- Howe and Lanza followed. ing, spring into action, and bang But the three horsemen would have the cooking pots together. I pre- none of it. “That’s breaking and entering,” tended like I knew how it was going Dorn said, suddenly glowering. to go, and the bear, also on script, “What about gear testing?” added moseyed off. Stories around the Most days, girls looked in Harlin, the seal sadist. “You’re cheating.” breakfast fire quickly evolved into Cheating never felt so good. We were a mythical saga. The cooking pots my direction zero percent finally out of the wind and rain. Our focus became my weapons. I had van- turned from survival to getting comfy. quished the beast. of the time, anyway, so We brewed tea. We claimed bunks. And Throughout our hike that day, we laughed as we watched the optimists the crew took five-minute breaks I figured the merit badge outside the cabin’s large picture window every now and then so as not to scurrying around looking for sticks to fuel let the lactic acid build in our legs. sash couldn’t hurt. their wood stove. (They had managed to Each time we stopped, we were erect their teepee in the lee of the cabin, leapfrogged by another crew, only to then pass them again on their break. Our new trail which, somehow, was not cheating.) buddies had a decent-size group and a few people our age. But there was one detail that With nightfall came a temperature made them particularly interesting: They were girls. drop. The cabin was unheated, while the Each time we passed the band of females, I glanced at one in particular. It was impos- fire in the teepee had turned it into a sweat sible not to. Her golden braids, Kansas City baseball cap, and freckled cheeks made her lodge. The optimists were sitting shirtless, irresistible. I’m sure she hadn’t bathed in days but still managed to smell like oranges. drying their clothes on a line. Our cohort She smiled and I smiled back. of mutineers briefly visited the teepee and The girls giggled each time we passed. When enough distance grew between the its smug occupants—to warm up. Sitting groups, the boys and I planned a future for this nameless angel and me. How many around the wood stove, we argued about kids would we have? Where would we grow old together? Maybe she likes Nintendo? who was smarter. Team Mutiny had the It felt like winning the lottery. No one guessed I would meet the girl of my dreams in the good judgment to get out of a potentially middle of a 100-mile hike. life-threatening situation. But the opti- Up ahead: a fork in the trail. Dread washed over me. She and I had come so far. Just as mists argued they’d been right since they I expected, her crew was heading south. Mine was going north. It was too soon. In this weren’t dead. They called us quitters. moment, I felt the same tingle I’d felt the first time I laid eyes on her, all those hours ago. We woke the next morning to a rainbow The best six hours of my life. I was not going to let her get away. arching over the coastal bluffs. The storm I summoned the memory of the bear fight from earlier that morning. I am king of that had passed. We tidied up the cabin and got beast, master of these mountains. People don’t fight off bears only to let the perfect woman the owner’s address from a magazine cover get away. You can do this. I swallowed to wet my mouth and yelled across the canyon so we could later send him a thank you toward the trail on the opposite side. note with a bottle of whiskey. “Hey! Can I have your number?!” The rest of the hike went off without a This was it. Everything was out in the open. The birds stopped chirping, the frogs hitch, notwithstanding a raccoon raid on stopped croaking, even the wind stopped blowing. No one dared a whisper. the last night in which we lost what was “Sure!” she yelled back. left of our food. Once at the Black Sands I tore through my pack for a pen and something to write on while she cupped her Beach trailhead, we reflected in our dispa- hands around her mouth to yell the digits. rate ways on what had gone down. “One-eight hundred-IN-YOUR-DREAMS!” “Man, that was fun,” Lewon said. It took a good 30 minutes for our crew to escape the sound of cackling girls. Then, as if “Well,” Lanza replied, “I’m just thankful on cue, it started to rain. My T-shirt got soaked as we rigged a tarp for cover. I rummaged Harlin didn’t club me in the head.” through my pack to find the only dry layer left: my Boy Scout uniform. If only I had been wearing it earlier. Southwest Field Editor Annette McGivney lives in Arizona, far away from the beach. RJ Thieneman is a writer in Los Angeles. He still sports the neckerchief sometimes. Stung When a group of hikers disturb a beehive, things can’t get worse. Until they do. By Dennis Lewon going around the corner,” I told him. The forest was quiet. Tall pines muffled “You’ll be OK. Wait there.” any natural noises, and the kids—normally I passed three more teens in similar chattering away—hiked silently along. distress, and sent them down with the It was the last full day of a weeklong others. Finally, another hundred yards backpacking trip for teens in the Trinity up the trail, I saw the source of the stings Alps Wilderness of Northern California. I just as another kid approached unawares. was one of two guides leading 10 youths, A swarm of bees hovered where a dead and we were in the middle of the “no-talk log lay across the path. “Run,” I yelled. walk,” where we hiked a few miles spaced “Run down to the others and stay there!” far enough apart that the kids couldn’t see Another kid entered the danger zone as I or hear the person ahead or behind. was talking and ran after her, screaming. It was my favorite time during the As they disappeared down the trail, I week—the campers were comfortable in had a horrible, sinking feeling. Hiking in their surroundings, and the forced silence front, I must have disturbed a hive when I afforded them the chance to reflect on climbed over the log. I’d breezed on, oblivi- their experiences before heading home. ous, and behind me the bees had been They had learned a lot during the previ- picking off the kids one by one. ous days—for most, it was their first time I went around the swarm and collected backpacking—and if I’d done my job right, the last couple campers and the other they were feeling confident and proud. guide, then we met the others. It looked And for me, after a week of balancing like a triage unit. Eight kids had been the need to give them independence and stung, as many as three times each. They safety, it was a chance to enjoy some down- were all holding various limbs, moaning. time and just cruise. I always acted calm, We spent a half an hour checking for but this was the only time I actually felt it. adverse reactions, applying hydrocorti- We were heading downhill, tracing sone, and reassuring the kids that the pain a stream that pools and drops through would pass. We can still have a great last the forest. I was in front, the other guide night, I thought. The pain really will pass, was sweeping in back, and the kids were this doesn’t have to be the way they remem- between us. I was zoning out on the trail- ber the week. side scenery, looking for pockets of orange “What bad luck,” I told them, “I’ve leopard lilies beside the creek when a walked hundreds of miles in Trinity and scream interrupted my reverie. never stumbled on a beehive before. I “Ayye!” Then: “Ouch!” Then: “Ahhhhh!” know it hurts, but don’t worry, you could I froze. Could the kids have run into a hike here every year for the rest of your life bear? A rattlesnake? Did someone break and it’ll never happen again.” an ankle? Get impaled by a stick? Soon after we started hiking again, I I turned and headed back up the trail. encouraged the day’s leaders to look for a READER FAILS More shouts and screams followed— campsite. Better to let everyone relax and My mom was nervous during a maybe a couple hundred feet away now— recover. night hike, so I spent the entire time and I quickened my pace. Then, as the The kids chose a site and dropped their reassuring her she’d be fine. When trail rounded a bend, I almost ran head- packs. Things were looking up. Bee stings we made it back to the road, I turned long into the first of the kids hiking down, hurt for a bit, but they fade. No one was to her and said, “Look, you did great a 13-year-old girl holding her arm and singing the ABCs. and didn’t fall. You made it.” The singing the ABCs. “What are you doing?” I Then I heard it. “Ouch!” Another shriek. words were barely out of my mouth asked. “What happened?” “Owwww!” What the heck? I thought they when I stepped in a pothole and “Owww,” she screamed, “I got stung were playing a joke on me. hyperextended my knee. After a by a bee. Twice. It hurts it hurts it hurts.” But no. Bees were swarming. One of the police escort and an ambulance ride, She took a breath. “Saying the ABCs helps kids had leaned his pack against a log— I found out I broke my tibial plateau. take my mind off the pain.” And then she and another hive. The two kids who hadn’t —KATHRYN JONES started in again: “A, B, C, D, E, F, G …” been stung were the first to get it. Before I could respond, another scream “Grab your packs,” I shouted. “Run!” reverberated through the woods. “OK, Amid the chaos and screaming, I knew My wife bought me an awesome book you’re going to be fine,” I said, recall- the kids would be OK. I also knew that of local Southern California hikes ing that no one on this trip claimed a bee someday they would get a chance to reflect for my birthday. She said to open it allergy. “You sit here and I’ll be right back.” on this trip. And I was glad I wouldn’t be wherever and we would take that Just seconds after leaving, I encoun- there when it happened. n hike. We now know it is wise to look at tered another kid coming down—a boy the difficulty ratings first. We also now swatting at his legs and moaning. I heard Editor-in-chief Dennis Lewon says it’s know the symbol for bushwhacking. the ABCs start up again in the distance pure coincidence that he was involved in —DAVID BEILFUSS before he had a chance to even talk. “Keep two of the stories here.

75 09.2017 A hidden BOX OF TREASURE. A cryptic poem from a Treasure trove: A sample of Forrest wealthy Santa Fe art dealer. Four states’ worth of Rocky Fenn’s antiquities Mountain wilderness. Brian Mockenhaupt joins the hunt. Photography by Jen Judge. WHERE THE TREASURE LIES by Forrest Fenn potentially life-changing prize out there, and a real person CHEWING A PIECE OF JERKY while Johnny Cash sings will find it. It’ll take more work than playing the lottery, of bad luck and hard times, I admire the mountains that As I have gone alone in there And with my treasures bold, but earning the prize is part of the appeal for me—and, I stretch to the horizon. The view almost makes me pity the The goods: suspect, for the hundreds of others who have tried to fol- other treasure hunters, wasting their time in all the wrong Fenn has I can keep my secret where, never said low the clues since Fenn released them in 2010. Whoever places. They’re going to be pretty bummed when they how much And hint of riches new and old. finds the treasure, it’ll be thanks to wits and skill—not hear a first-timer scooped it up. the hidden treasure mere luck. I’m good with wordplay and handy with a map But as I descend into a broad valley, doubt creeps in. (below, in a Begin it where warm waters halt and compass. Why shouldn’t it be me? There’s the memorial, set on a wide, grassy hillside. But 2010 photo) And take it in the canyon down, is worth. there’s not so much as a skinny creek nearby, and none of Estimates Not far, but too far to walk. MY OLD TOYOTA Corolla, with its blooming rust spot the fast-charging streams and waterfalls I’d expected. range from Put in below the home of Brown. FENN SAYS HE HID HIS TREASURE $2 million to on the left fender and a collection of dents, trembles as I somewhere in I pull off the road a few times and charge into the sur- $7 million. urge it up a zig-zaggy road into New Mexico’s Sangre de the Rockies, at least 8.5 miles north of Santa Fe, where rounding forests, too stubborn to accept that I might be From there it’s no place for the meek, Cristo Mountains. I’m feeling almost guilty about push- he lives. Northern New Mexico alone is 30,000 square wrong. Finally I flop back into the car, snatch the poem The end is ever drawing nigh; ing it so hard. The Corolla doesn’t know it yet, but our miles. Daunting, to say the least. Luckily, I’ve watched from the passenger’s seat, and scan the stanzas with disbe- There’ll be no paddle up your creek, relationship is ending—within a few hours, if everything Indiana Jones. I hit the books first: Fenn’s 2010 mem- lieving eyes. Chastened by the setback, I ponder my first Just heavy loads and water high. goes according to plan. When I haul a treasure chest out of oir, The Thrill of the Chase, a rambling account of his lesson in the elusiveness of Fenn’s treasure: From a few the wilderness, I’ll call the nearest Subaru dealer and have childhood in Texas, summers spent as a fishing guide hundred miles away, it was easy to jam square clues into If you’ve been wise and found the blaze, them deliver me a shiny, new all-wheel-drive, for which around Yellowstone, bombing missions in Vietnam, round holes and feel pretty confident in my conclusions. Look quickly down, your quest to cease, I’ll hand over a fat gold coin. and his rise as a particularly skilled art dealer and am- So confident that I gave Google Earth little more than a But tarry scant with marvel gaze, On the seat next to me, under a road atlas and an empty ateur archaeologist. quick glance before hopping into my car for the 10-hour Just take the chest and go in peace. coffee mug, lies the document that catalyzed our im- The book has hints that help explain the nine clues drive from Phoenix. I chalk it up to amateur’s hubris. pending breakup: a 24-line poem (far right) penned by hidden in the poem. It was a cancer scare that spawned Time for Plan B: experts. So why is it that I must go an 83-year-old New Mexican art dealer and archaeologist Fenn’s plan to hide a treasure chest, so two stories stood And leave my trove for all to seek? named Forrest Fenn. Its hidden clues, he says, lead to a out to me, both reflections on mortality and what re- BEFORE I LEFT for New Mexico, I had The answer I already know, bronze chest filled with millions of dollars worth of gold mains after we’re gone: In Vietnam, where Fenn was clicked and scrolled through blogs, mes- I’ve done it tired, and now I’m weak. nuggets, rare coins, gems, and jewelry. I’m not sure why shot down twice, he visited a remote waterfall and near sage boards, and Facebook pages where I brought the poem—good luck? a sense of security?— its base he found a graveyard filled with the bodies of searchers trade theories. Some recount So hear me all and listen good, because I’ve puzzled over its clues enough that I know the French soldiers. The rest of the world had forgotten fun weekends with family; others declare Your effort will be worth the cold. lines by heart. I’m also pretty sure I know where its cryptic about them. Years later, after Fenn had moved to Santa the treasure has already been found, or that it’s a hoax. If you are brave and in the wood code points. Nothing left to do now but collect my riches. Fe and opened an art gallery, a friend of his asked that Many are cagey in their posts, not wanting to give too I give you title to the gold. I’ve heard people who win the lottery say they won’t he scatter her ashes over Taos Mountain. He flew his much away. And there are those who know exactly quit their jobs. Not me. I’ll retire right away, then buy a plane over the summit, but he didn’t think she’d want to where it is, 100 percent, but don’t have the money to handsome little boat and sail around the world. Never rest forever in the cold of the snow-covered peak, so he finance their expedition, or can’t get the time off work. mind that I can’t sail. I can afford lessons. I can afford any- dropped her ashes somewhere close by instead. In both “I broke Forrest code last year and know where he has thing. Maybe after a tour around the globe I’ll move to a stories, he mentions yellow and purple flowers in the buried his treasury [sic]. Actually it isn’t buried but cabin in the woods and fly fish. area. Coincidence? No way. I won’t say more,” one poster wrote. “If you want my Winding down the backside of the mountains, I catch My girlfriend, who had been studying a map of New maps, make me a deal, a substantial deal.” a whiff of burning brakes. That’s okay. We’re almost there. Mexico as I read aloud from the book, smiled and But hour three of research yielded a promising lead: Besides, I have more practical concerns: Most boats have tapped her finger on an area east of Taos. Taos art gallery owner Doug Scott has been hiking and names. What should I name mine? “Agua Fria Peak,” she said. I looked at her dumbly. rafting some of the most remote areas of northern New “Cold water.” Mexico since the early 1970s. For the past several years, Ah ha! And that’s not far from Taos Mountain. If his fascination has been waterfalls. He’s photographed MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY have come to expect strange Fenn had turned his plane east, he could have poured hundreds. Some are just 100 yards off-trail, but un- declarations from me in my 15 years as a freelance writer: the ashes around there. Begin it where warm waters halt. known to most everyone who passes by—just the sort Off to the jungles of Southeast Asia, or to report in Af- I dug deeper and learned that near Agua Fria Peak is a of place Fenn might have visited with his treasure. ghanistan, or to climb a mountain in Nepal. But when I memorial dedicated to 16 Marines killed in Vietnam in Just off the old plaza in Taos, I step into a gallery filled told them I was leaving to find a literal treasure, it was as 1968. One of them was Davis F. Brown. Home of Brown. with early-morning sunlight, its walls lined with paint- though I’d said I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. In an afternoon’s time I had whittled down my search ings of wildlife. I spot Scott in the back, near an easel. I’m 39. area from a quarter-million square miles to just a few. A thin gray beard runs along his jawbone and frames a But when I told my nine-year-old nephew my plans, he I’d start at the memorial, head to a nearby river with face tanned and weathered by decades outdoors. Scott looked at me with eyes big and mouth open, an expres- a couple of waterfalls—there’ll be no paddle up your has just opened his gallery for the day and the tourists sion that said, Adults get to do things like that? Maybe creek; just heavy loads and water high—and somewhere aren’t drifting in yet, so he offers me a seat at the back. growing up will be just like being a kid, only awesomer. between them I’d find the treasure. I loaded up the car I’m far from the first treasure hunter who’s come look- He’s right. It is awesome, especially since I can use my with snacks, camping gear, and Fenn’s book, and was off ing for his advice, he tells me. He’s met about 50 so far, adult brainpower and resources on the job. There’s a real, to claim my prize. PHOTO BY ADDISON DOTY and he can usually spot them quickly, milling in the gallery but not paying attention to his art. He gives me a raised eyebrow that says You need to “The majority of the people looking for the treasure know what you’re getting into. I hadn’t really considered who bother me about it can hardly walk a mile,” he says. Opposite: bullet wounds as a potential outcome of this quest. Imag- “They tell me ‘I know it’s up that canyon. Come out with Forrest ining a backside full of buckshot dampens some of the us. We’ll split it with you.’” He declines politely, tells them Fenn in his romantic allure. So I stop imagining it, and forge ahead. den, with he has too much work, but doesn’t tell them the rest: his book, “Where would you look?” I ask. “They’re basically lazy people,” he says. “They want to be The Thrill of Nick and Christina suggest the rugged sections of the the Chase. a millionaire without working for it.” Um, who doesn’t? He’s sold Rio Grande River, or the wilderness areas north of Taos. Scott says he hasn’t looked for the treasure himself. 21,000 “How do I know you’re not trying to throw me off, be- copies, And while he can recommend plenty of waterfalls for me even though cause you’re looking for it, too?” I realize it’s hard to joke to visit, he doesn’t have any leads on where it might be. I you can about the treasure without sounding half-serious. only buy wonder if he knows more than he’s letting on. Maybe the it through “If we found it,” Nick says, “we’d hang a sign on the poem has kept him awake at night, too. Maybe he has his his local front door: Gone fishing forever. Treasure found.” bookstore own secret map of likely spots, his own dog-eared copy of (Santa Fe’s Fenn’s book. Maybe his search for waterfalls is just a clever Collected front. Maybe I’m getting paranoid. Works). WITH A VERY NICE $8 MAP from He wishes me luck, then pops up from his seat to greet a Nick and Christina’s shop, I head couple eyeing a painting of charging horses. That’s my cue north of Taos and camp in Car- to leave. I wander down the street, past cafes and more art son National Forest, near an area galleries, plotting my next move. Scott can’t be the only local W that Nick suggested, with can- who might, even unknowingly, harbor inside knowledge. yons and mountain streams that On the edge of town I spot the Taos Fly Shop, a weath- would make good hiding spots. ered wooden building that looks like an old Wild West I’m up early and dayhiking deeper into the mountains, trading post. Fishing has been a big part of Fenn’s life, and the poem stuck on repeat in my head. I poke around some many people interpret home of Brown as brown trout, rocks near a cascading stream and peer into pools of wa- which would make these guys the area experts. Inside, ter—Fenn says the chest is hidden, not necessarily buried— I find Nick Streit and his wife, Christina. Nick grew up but I find no treasure. As I look out on the miles of woods fishing these rivers and now runs the shop, which his dad around me, it occurs to me just how little of the wilderness opened in 1980. By his ruddy cheeks, I can see Nick still we actually explore. As of today I can count these moun- spends plenty of time on the water. The guides are out tains as a place I’ve hiked, but I’ve only seen the view from with clients, and Christina is this brown band of trail snaking through the forest. Fenn working a broom across the could have hidden his chest behind any one of those dis- floor. I ask about Fenn’s trea- tant ponderosa pines. sure and they trade a glance. As I look out I crest a hill, which opens to a vast meadow between Nick gives me a here-we-go- ridges. A herd of 200 elk stand a few hundred feet ahead. again nod. on the woods They’re frozen, having seen me before I noticed them. They’ve been visited by around me, it They bolt. I see flashes of brown and hear the thunder of a few vacationing couples, occurs to me their hooves, hundreds of branches snapping, and moth- and four college buddies ers calling for their bleating calves. Farther along I pass six on a reunion trip, but Nick just how little bighorn sheep and see another three higher up, perched particularly remembers a of the wilder- on a steep ledge, looking down at me. While no human but young woman who came Fenn has laid eyes on the treasure’s hiding spot, I imagine asking about areas out near ness we actu- some animals have. If only I could ask them. Agua Fria Peak, my first ally explore. I eat lunch on the rounded, rocky hump of Gold Hill, failed location. watching storm clouds gather on the horizon, and make “She knew just where it back to treeline before the thunder rolls in. A few miles she should go,” he says. She from the car, the valley floor narrows to about 60 feet wide, asked him questions for an hour. He brought out topo with rock walls on both sides. The poem plays through maps, and was generous with his time. She scribbled a my head on its maddening loop as I scan the canyon for a crude sketch of the area on a piece of scrap paper. “I told little waterfall, or an easy-to-miss cave where Fenn might her, ‘You can buy one. It’s only $8.’ She says, ‘Oh, I can’t have tucked the treasure chest. My heart beats a little faster afford that!’ each time I go to check on a spot. I wish I’d brought my “This girl was going to a place outsiders shouldn’t be nephew; he’d appreciate turning a hike into a giant game of going, and walking across people’s property,” Nick says. hide-and-seek. “They have guns.” Just ahead, maybe 20 feet, a deer crashes through the THE HUNT—MAPPED FOR THOSE WHO TORTURE themselves trying to “Well, I’m kind of proud of that,” Fenn says, “because what decipher Forrest Fenn’s poem, being invited to his you’re saying is I make people think.” Glacier NP’s Mt. Brown house is like finding the golden ticket and visiting Willy We sit on a soft leather couch and our conversation meanders Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. At least that’s how I feel as I from Jimmy Carter’s passion for arrowhead collecting to the in- pull through the gate in a neighborhood of old Santa Fe tricacies of property law1, but he’s evasive when the topic shifts GREAT FALLS MISSOULA homes hidden by high walls and drive up to his small, to the treasure itself. He gently deflects my questions or tells me stucco villa, escorted by a trio of yipping dogs. a new story, like fishing a beautiful stretch of the Madison River Fenn has welcomed a few treasure hunters into his near Yellowstone. He has wanted to return there, but it’s too far home, but I don’t have a heartwarming story. So I’ve to walk—which is both a line from the poem and the name of played my other card—reporter. I can give him a little his new collection of stories about his life. Plenty of people are publicity, and maybe cajole a clue from him along the way. searching that area, where Fenn spent so many childhood sum- Yellowstone NP, Fenn’s favorite park I knock on the door, and there he is, wispy white hair, mers, but he’s not offering me a hint. in his youth crisp blue button-down shirt tucked into jeans, with a soft He’s released a trickle of new clues since he first announced the voice and Texas drawl predisposed to storytelling. Stories treasure, which keeps him in the spotlight, of course, but he also that start like this: “I was standing right here one day with doesn’t want the blame for hunters’ missteps. He says the trea- Ralph Lauren...” sure is above 5,000 feet—and north of Santa Fe—so hapless fools CHEYENNE Fenn leads me into his den, which is like a little mu- won’t be dying in the desert, and that it’s not associated with a seum, the walls and shelves crowded with moccasins, structure or buried in a cemetery, to keep them from destroying Lookout Mountain, Buffalo Bill Cody’s jewelry, tomahawks, and a model of the fighter he flew in property or desecrating graves. But those extra clues aren’t much burial site DENVER Vietnam. This is just the barest glimpse of the art and ar- help, because Fenn knows some pretty obscure hiding spots. 4,600–10,800 feet, tifacts he has collected, traded, and sold over the decades He first explored the Southwest the approximate Leadville, home of to amass his wealth. backcountry in the 1960s while elevation range at Molly Brown He writes his books here, and answers emails from stationed at an Air Force base in which the treasure is hidden treasure seekers. He’s received more than 36,000 over the Arizona. Cruising over the can- last three years. He’ll often respond if the notes are short, yons and deserts in a fighter jet, One man The Red River, a great brown and kind, and the writer signs her name and doesn’t ask he’d spot a tucked-away ruin, and Places named “Brown” TAOS trout stream too many questions. Many people are looking for tips, or return later by Jeep or on foot. followed Fenn SANTA FE The author’s stops telling him where they’ve looked and wondering whether When he moved to Santa Fe in when he left they’re hot or cold. He never lets on, but he tells me a few the early 1970s, he fished the Pe- people have deciphered the first two clues correctly, and a cos River and small streams, and Popular search spots the house, few have been within 500 feet of the treasure. hiked all over central and north- Certainly the treasure is in part about legacy, and Fenn ern New Mexico, “to get the lay thinking he is having fun in his old age—creating a reason for people of the land,” he says, “and learn might be going to talk about him before he goes, and, if the treasure re- something about the country in mains unfound, to remember him long after he’s gone. which I lived.” to check on the But he’s more modest in his reasoning; for the record, he He seems confident that hunt- brush and runs to the far side of the little box canyon. I says he hid the chest to inspire people to turn off their TVs ers are still far from finding the treasure. can hear him moving toward the rock wall on the right and gadgets and enjoy nature. He’s charmed by the emails chest, and I don’t think he wants side, where I’ll be able to get a good look at him. He steps about father-son searches, and the family-vacation trea- it found anytime soon. He’s en- out from behind the trees, 30 feet from me. sure hunts, or the two brothers who hadn’t spoken for 17 chanted with the idea that some- Only he’s not a deer. He’s a rather large black bear. years, until one read about the treasure. They went search- one may be as interested in the treasure 500 years from now as he What a silly way to die this will be, killed by a bear ing for it together and are best friends again. is in the objects that surround him in his den. while hunting for treasure. Although, what a way to die! On the flip side, someone sent him a death threat a Fenn takes me to his “laboratory,” a small room just off the Killed by a bear while hunting for treasure! I take a few few days before my visit. He’s called the police twice on garage loaded with Spanish chain mail and religious medallions, steps backward and wait. He stares at me, then sniffs the people who stopped by uninvited and wouldn’t leave, and whole pots and plates from the Pueblo eras, musket balls, arrow- air and turns to some berries on a nearby branch as I step one man followed him when he left the house, thinking heads, and stone tools. He encourages tactile relationships with lightly past him and down the trail. he might be going to check on the treasure. Others can’t artwork and artifacts, and tells me I can touch anything. Most of I’ve hiked a 19-mile loop through stunning scenery, believe that their search spot was wrong. “They’ve figured the antiquities I’ve seen in my life were sealed behind glass cases, 1. and had it all to myself. But back at the doomed Corolla, out exactly where the treasure chest is,” Fenn says. “They so it’s pretty damn cool—and a surprisingly powerful sensa- Potential hunters, with my tired feet enjoying flip-flop freedom, I realize that go to that spot and it isn’t there. So one of two things: Ei- tion—to rub a 500-year-old Spanish coin between my fingers, or take note: Some contend that if the much of the trek was unnecessary: A 79-year-old man ther Forrest Fenn is a fraud, or someone has already found a piece of Ming Dynasty porcelain that made its way from China treasure is on federal carrying a heavy box probably wouldn’t have lugged it it. They’re absolutely convinced. Never mind that it’s 400 to New Mexico via the Philippines and Mexico City. land, it would be a miles from a road. Another rookie mistake. At this point, miles some place else.” Fenn was nine years old when he found his first arrowhead, crime to take it. Plus, each state has its own I’d have the same luck throwing darts at my new map. “Does it give you some enjoyment knowing this drives the same year he started a list of rules to live by, which he has laws. One thing’s I need to see Fenn. people crazy?” I ask. added to and reordered throughout his life. “I decided that my clear: It’s complicated. number-one rule is this: It doesn’t matter who you are, I frequently tramped 8 or 10 miles through the deepest it only matters who they think you are,” he tells me. “It’s snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yel- what I can make you believe.” low birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. Oh boy. For a quick moment I feel like I’ve been had, “He knew what it was all about,” Martin says. “You suckered into an elaborate illusion. love a little tree and you go and visit it. Out here it’s But I think even a trickster like Fenn would find it un- rock formations, petroglyphs, or a little stand of wild- seemly and lacking honor to just lie about the treasure. flowers that only grow in one place. Last week I found And he doesn’t appear to lack for money. Rather, his rule a new species of plant that hadn’t been documented in seems to reflect his impatience with title and privilege and Los Alamos County.” societal norms. Anyone can be a successful art dealer or Maybe he can see the disappointment on my face, archaeologist without fancy degrees. Just like anyone can the golden gleam draining from my eyes. He throws hide a box of treasure—and carve out a little place for themselves in history. Just like anyone can find it. He says he always knew the hiding spot, but spent 15 FEELING LUCKY? years massaging the clues to match before he hid the chest. These legendary treasures haven’t been found. With the cancer treated, he had time to get the words just right. “People think I sat down one night and wrote that poem. I didn’t write that poem, I crafted it,” he says. “No one is going to find that treasure chest on a Sunday after- noon picnic or over spring break.” Even Peggy, his wife of 60 years, doesn’t know where it is. For several years before he hid the box, it sat on a table in his vault—where he keeps many of his pricier posses- sions—covered with a red bandana. One day she pulled away the bandana and found a stack of Fenn’s books in place of the chest. He told her only that he’d hidden it sometime in the previous 18 months. Will he ever pass on the location? Maybe a deathbed Hidden disclosure? riches: 1. 2. 3. Arizona’s Lost Rhoades Mine, The Oak Island Superstition “No,” Fenn says. “Never, never, never, never, never. Peo- Dutchman’s UT Money Pit, ple may still be looking for it for 10,000 years from now.” Mountains are home Gold Mine, AZ Nova Scotia, to saguaro In the 1850s, Canada cacti, jave- According Ute Indian Chief linas, and to local leg- Wakara led an This tiny island MY TIME WITH FENN, enjoyable as it was, hasn’t perhaps end, German early Mormon houses a sink- brought any clarity to my search. But I’m not ready gold. immigrant settler, wealthy hole said to be to resign myself to the dartboard strategy. Northern Jacob Waltz miner Thomas full of treasure discovered Rhoades, belonging New Mexico still feels like the right place, speckled this rich mine into the Uinta to Spanish with deep canyons, waterfalls, and remnants of past in the 19th Mountains to sailors, civilizations. Fenn has even hinted in interviews that century, some- this trove of Freemasons, where in the ore—enough or pirates. In he might like to go to the hiding spot to die and have Superstition to pay off the 1795, Daniel his bones rest near the treasure, which suggests a loca- Mountains east national debt, McGinnis tion close to home. of Phoenix. He Rhoades’ son discovered I head northwest of Santa Fe to Los Alamos, where left the gold later said. the pit while untouched. Rhoades swore wandering on I’ve arranged a coffee-shop rendezvous with Craig Rumor is it’s to keep the the island. He Martin, author of 100 Hikes of New Mexico. The cursed; in the “Sacred Mine” and several 61-year-old has a gray ponytail brushing his shoulders, past decades, secret, only others since Superstition take what one have attempted and he hikes about 1,800 miles a year. As the open- Mountain has man could to excavate the space specialist for Los Alamos County, he maintains claimed several carry at a time, pit, claiming and promotes the county’s trails, essentially doing the adventurers and use the findings such who went out money for the as tool marks same things as Fenn: Trying to get people outside. in search of good of the from digging or Martin has read Fenn’s poem, and he humors my the gold, never church (Wakara cipher stones. request for expert analysis. He dons a pair of read- to return. was a convert). All attempts ing glasses and ponders the stanzas. He sips his coffee The mine’s at finding any exact location treasure thus and removes his glasses. But no epiphany; instead, he was never dis- far have failed. quotes Henry David Thoreau: closed. PHOTO BY CCOPHOTOSTOCKKMN / AGE FOTOSTOCK. SIDEBAR TEXT STASIA CALLAGHAN me a crumb. like doing a puzzle while taking a hike. It’s fun. place, searching out an ancient ruin that hadn’t been seen fields of hops. The monastery grounds are purposefully “Along the Rio Chama. That’s where I’d look.” I climb up through the first of several sculpted sand- in 1,000 years, brushing dirt from an artifact and turning quiet, with little conversation. From far over in the monk’s stone slots. Halfway through the second, stemming my over the past in his hand. area, a bellowing, joyful laugh breaks the stillness. hands and feet against the slick-with-grit walls, I pause to Back up at the monastery, I want to ask the monks All of a sudden, I care much less about Fenn’s treasure. AN HOUR NORTH of Los Alamos, I turn consider the sense of this. If I fall, out here alone, I’ll be in what they think of such earthly treasures as Fenn’s box of Having shared the trail with a cougar will be my reward down a rattly, dirt Forest Service road that trouble. Luckily, this is in keeping with the poem: From gold and gems—or, a long shot, if they have any inspired for the day. skirts the trout-filled Chama River for 13 there it’s no place for the meek, the end is ever drawing nigh. thoughts about its location—but realize I need only look I watch a monk stroll past the rows of hops, then I walk miles. I think I’m finally onto something. This is exactly the sort of place I’d imagined when I’d around me for the answer. They live simple lives of mate- back to my dinged and dented car, which waits for me After meeting Martin, I studied maps of read Fenn’s poem for the first time, though I figured I’d be rial deprivation. If they saw value in earthly riches, they along the road, still loyal. I’m ready to get home and savor the area and found divine inspiration: using a rope to swing across a pounding stream, or maybe wouldn’t be out here. a monk-brewed beer. And yet, as I drive back down the This road ends at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, easing my way along a brittle bridge, with a swirling whirl- “What do you do here all day?” I ask one of the monks. dirt road, my eyes are drawn to the side canyons and mesa built in 1964 at the base of a high red sandstone wall. The pool and certain death just below. “We pray!” he says, sounding rather jubilant. Seven tops and the far-off peaks along the horizon. I already monastery is home to a couple dozen monks. Monks The few footprints I saw early on the trail have stopped. times a day. In between, they work in the fields along the know I’ll never be in the Rockies again without a few lines wear brown robes. Home of Brown. And upstream, the Now it’s just the occasional deer track until, while crossing river, growing hops, and they brew beer, which is sold of the poem sneaking into my head. Fenn’s treasure is out river pools in a reservoir behind the El Vado Dam, where through a patch of soft mud in the streambed, I see a fresh throughout New Mexico. I also learn they’re Benedictine here, somewhere, maybe 1,000 miles away, or maybe up warm waters halt. cougar print as big as my fist. I make a quick and pointless monks, who wear black robes, not brown. Oops. the next canyon, just around the bend in the river. I park just below the monastery and start up a dry glance over my shoulder—if the cougar wanted to bother I wander into a building next to the chapel. On a table Of course, the river! I’ve been going about it all wrong! streambed into Chavez Canyon, ready for more clues to me, he’d already be latched on my neck. near a small room filled with photographs of the New What I need is a raft. I’ll float down the Rio Chama, hop click like the tumblers on a vault’s lock, or at least for the At the third slot, an 8-foot ledge leads up to a large cav- Mexico desert, I find an essay the monk Thomas Merton out along the way, and investigate all these hiding spots. I’ll feeling that they might. It’s kind of addictive, and I’m start- ern. I prop a branch against the rock face and climb it like wrote about the monastery and the power of wilderness. find my box of riches yet. ing to understand why so many people spend their week- a ladder until I can pull myself over the lip. But the cavern “There is nothing final or permanent about the desert. All I wonder if “Hey Forrest, I found it!” will fit on the back ends geocaching. Whatever the prize, there’s something is empty, and before me is an even higher wall, 20 feet tall. that really matters is ahead of one,” he writes. of a sailboat. • about the search itself that makes any hike more exciting. Crap. After reading his essay, I sit on a covered porch, on a Like something special might happen around any turn. I This canyon is too rugged for an old man with a heavy long wooden bench, and watch clouds push across the Brian Mockenhaupt wrote about veterans on the PCT in guess that’s probably how Fenn felt looking for relics. It’s box. But I can picture a younger Fenn in just this sort of clifftops on the far side of the Chama. Mist hangs over the our May 2013 issue. He’s still driving the Corolla. Confessions of a Reluctant Highpointer More people have climbed Mt. Everest than have highpointed every state in the U.S. But does that mean it’s really hard or really crazy—or both? BY LOREN MOONEY

JUNE 2018 78 BACKPACKER.COM JOHN S. DYKES marathon push to Rapid City, South Dakota. The following day we’d snag Black STATE HIGHPOINTS Elk Peak (South Dakota, 7,242 feet), then hit Hawkeye Point on the way back Plus: The author’s top picks to the Minneapolis airport. “We should have an hour or so to spare before our Mt. Rainier Mt. Katahdin Eagle Best dayhike flight,” I said. “Hopefully.” Mountain Mt. Mansfield Yes, it would mean we’d pack our “laid-back” vacation with an extra 20 hours hikes. Audra saw the dates written Best summit White Butte Mt. Arvon snack bar and 1,200 miles of driving. It would mean forgoing the Boundary Waters. It in the personal log and kept asking Mt. Hood Granite Peak Mt. Washington Mt. Marcy would mean trading the Apostle Islands for a 1-mile hike to a nondescript butte when I was doing more. “No idea,” I’d Timms Hill Mt. Greylock Borah Peak Gannett Black Elk Hawkeye High Point ULL OVER,” I said. on private land. respond each time, “I’m not trying to Peak Peak Point Best staircase Jerimoth Hill We were headed down a two-lane But it would also mean checking off two more state highpoints. do them.” Best views Mt. Frissell- Campbell South Slope Boundary Panorama Hill Mt. Davis highway south of Timm’s Hill County Had it really come to this? Audra put the Chevy in gear. Audra ignored me and started Charles Mound Ebright Azimuth Peak Point Toughest access Easiest to do on Park, through the thick green woods consulting the book whenever we Kings Peak (private property) Backbone Best moose Hoosier Mountain your lunch break spotting Mt. Elbert High Point Spruce of north-central Wisconsin. This was traveled. It was her idea to detour to Mt. Sunflower Knob Mt. Whitney Best summit art Black Mt. Rogers supposed to be a laid-back week, hit- the Delaware highpoint on a winter Taum Sauk Mountain Black Mesa Mt. Mitchell ting four easy state highpoints: Eagle IGHPOINTING. Talk to most people who call themselves high- weekend when we were visiting Humphreys Wheeler Mountain Clingmans “ Dome Best road trip Peak Peak Sassafras Mountain (Minnesota, 2,301 feet), Mt. Arvon (Michigan, pointers, and they’ll tell you about the moment they committed to friends in Philadelphia. I resisted. Magazine Brasstown Woodall Bald Mountain 1,979 feet), Timms Hill (Wisconsin, 1,951 feet), and the goal, perhaps the peak that got them hooked. “It’s not even a hike,” I said. Mountain Mountain Cheaha PHawkeye Point (Iowa, 1,670 feet). In between, we’d use the Not me. I don’t have a single moment. If anything, I thought the “It’s only 25 miles out of our way,” Mountain Driskill extra days to hike the Boundary Waters’ forests, explore idea was pretty dumb when I first encountered it. Nineteen years ago, I stum- she argued. And won. Guadalupe Peak Mountain H Best fossils Britton Hill the cliffs and beaches of the Apostle Islands, and wander bled upon a copy of Highpoints of the United States on the “free table” at the “Turn right at the light,” Audra the dunes and pancaked sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks short-lived outdoor magazine where I worked. said, using the book to read me direc- Mauna Kea Greatest single- National Lakeshore. It was just after Labor Day week- I flipped through the pages and learned I had summited exactly one— tions to Ebright Azimuth. At the day elevation gain end—no crowds, clear skies, summer heat subsiding. It was Washington’s 14,410-foot Mt. Rainier—the year before on a guided trip. I also light, I turned off the four-lane high- Denali a good plan: We’d pace ourselves and see the area’s most learned that the highpoint of Alabama, way onto a neighborhood road. A few renowned wild places. where I grew up, is 2,407-foot Cheaha blocks later, we pulled up next to a Instead, after tagging Timms Hill—with nearly a thou- Mountain, and that you can drive right up Over the next blue-and-gold historic sign on the sand miles of driving and two other highpoints behind us to the restaurant and observation tower at edge of someone’s yard (the property and three days to go—I had a new idea. It did not include the the summit. few years, was formerly owned by the Ebrights). to get to the Cape, or chosen one dayhike over another, Boundary Waters. Fairly quickly, I realized that half of It’s only about 420 horizontal feet their minds turned on the concept of highpointing, and Audra steered our rented Chevy subcompact into the state highpoints are, like Alabama’s, Audra found from the Pennsylvania border, but at MASTER THE MOUNTAINS questions typically came in the same order: the gravel lot next to an old train depot, tires crunch- not climbs at all, or even hikes: They are ways to sneak 447.85 feet high, it’s deemed to be the Scramble Safer “Where’s the highest highpoint?” ing to a stop. I called up Google Maps on my phone and bumps and hills that can be accessed by highest natural earth in the state. Conquer class 3 or 4 terrain with “Alaska, 20,310 feet.” reached into the door pocket for our well-worn copy of Don roads all the way to the summit parking two more I walked through 2 inches of sooty confidence. “What’s the lowest highpoint?” Holmes’s Highpoints of the United States, its laminated lot. Delaware’s highpoint, I read, was 448- highpoints snow toward the sign in mock slow “Florida, 345 feet.” cover peeling. I thumbed to the U.S. map in the front of the foot Ebright Azimuth, an indistinguish- motion, taking gasping breaths like Assess your objective. Is it “Are you going to do all of them?” book, then typed “White Butte, ND” on my phone. able swell on a suburban street corner north into our plans a mountaineer at elevation, and necessary or just a shortcut? What “Oh, no,” I’d say, shaking my head. “It’s silly.” “Oh, no. That’s insane,” Audra said in an accusatory tone of Wilmington. I guess that’s why they’re tagged it with a playful slap. We took are the consequences of a fall? Don’t “Yes,” Audra would say over me. “We’ll try.” that couldn’t quite hide a tinge of excitement. called highpoints and not summits. while we were each other’s pictures next to the sign, climb up anything you can’t climb I continued to punch in the new route and made my Of course, some are summits, and require doing other wearing smart-ass grins and faces of down. case. “If we drive to Minneapolis now, then leave by great effort or technical skill or both. As a sarcastic pride. It was her first high- EARLY A DECADE after I discovered six tomorrow morning,” I said, “we can be at the White weekend adventurer and budding moun- things. point, my eighth: “2/21/05.” Cinch your laces. A tighter fit Highpoints of the United States, Audra and I Butte summit by early afternoon.” Then, we’d finish a taineer, I had already penciled some of these Over the next few years, Audra gives you better feel for the rock. flew to Asheville, North Carolina, to visit my classics on my bucket list, like Mt. Hood found ways to sneak two more high- Approach shoes and softer, stickier brother and his family for a long weekend. The (Oregon, 11,240 feet). But Cheaha Mountain? Ebright Azimuth? Pursuing them points into our plans while we rubber soles improve grip. Nbook came with us. We tagged Sassafras Mountain (South seemed the very definition of inane. The locations on this list are determined by were doing other things. Going to Carolina, 3,554 feet), Clingmans Dome (Tennessee, 6,643 arbitrary state lines. In the rules of this game, standing on the corner of some- Cape Cod for a group beach house Watch your footwork. Keep your feet), and Mt. Mitchell (North Carolina, 6,684 feet). Even one’s manicured yard shares equal status with standing on the summit of Denali rental one summer, it was less than weight over your feet for better I had to admit, there was something irresistible about a balance. Paste your soles onto low- (Alaska, 20,310 feet). an hour’s detour to Jerimoth Hill cluster like that. Plus, we saw peak fall colors, ate at rural angle rock to maximize surface area. Still, it was fun trivia, so I brought the book home. And I suppose it’s tell- (Rhode Island, 812 feet), another diners, and poked around Cherokee-themed souvenir Dig into small, flat holds with the ing that in the personal log appendix, in writing so measured that today I don’t spot next to someone’s yard. Hiking shops that sold skins and arrowheads. And, OK, we sacri- inside of your big toe, and flex your quite recognize it as my own, I wrote “6/17/99” next to Washington, Mt. Rainier, along the Appalachian Trail on a calf to press down and into the wall. ficed actually hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains to do it, before putting the book on my shelf, where it sat untouched for years. fall weekend, it was easy to detour but by this point I’d come to appreciate the way highpoints, to nearby Mt. Frissell (Connecticut, Maintain three points of contact. even the drive-ups, made for fun side excursions from 2,380 feet). Infrequent as they were, Move slowly, and test holds before whatever else we were doing and introduced us to unex- these experiences were becoming a weighting them. pected corners of the country. HE BOOK DREW Audra’s attention like a magnet. We’d only been thread running through our adven- On the way home from my brother’s, it occurred to me dating a short time when she picked it up. As a natural obsessive who tures, connecting the years in ways Be suspicious. Look for fissures that this trip had been different: Had we spent more time isn’t happy unless she has a goal—a marathon, an Ironman, basically our “normal” hikes didn’t. around blocks, which can mean highpointing than visiting? I was afraid to do the math. anything that requires planning and diligent checking-off of mile- Even at this glacial pace, our they’re detached from the rest of the As if to confirm my fear, a package was waiting in our pile Tstones—she was fascinated by the list. “highpointing” drew notice. Most formation. Knock on thin, flake-like of mail. Audra had signed us up for a family membership By then I had hiked a few more peaks that incidentally were also highpoints: of our friends were indoorsy New holds. Hollow? Don’t touch; they in the Highpointers Club, with some 2,613 dues-paying Mt. Marcy (New York, 5,344 feet) and Mt. Mansfield (Vermont, 4,393 feet). They Yorkers, so when Audra would tell could snap off. members, plus 302 completers of all 50 states and another were easy weekend trips from my home in New York City—and were actual them why we had taken an extra hour 589 who have done the Lower 48. ➞ feet), Mt. Sunflower (Kansas, 4,039 feet), Panorama Point (Nebraska, 5,424 feet), Mt. Elbert (Colorado, 14,433 feet), Kings Peak (Utah, 13,528 feet). When we returned to the trailhead after Kings Peak, Audra pulled out the book, wrote in the date, and did a count. “You have 25,” she said. “You’re halfway.” The milestone hit me in an unexpected way. Even though I was now unabash- I opened the large, white envelope and pulled out the edly highpointing, it never occurred to me that I might actually finish someday. club’s quarterly newsletter, entitled Apex to Zenith. It was But now I experienced a psychological shift: I no longer thought in terms of how like lifting the lid off a secret world. many I’d done, but how many I had left to do. It was like a countdown had begun. required meticulous research of conflicting sources and writing letters to There, on its glossy, color covers, were photographs And so the Western tour de highpoints continued. On Mt. Whitney dozens of Forest Service officials for different maps and advice. As a perk of his of highpointers in action: doing a headstand on the (California, 14,494 feet), the high-altitude air seemed so oxygen-rich I felt like telegraph job, he got free railroad travel. So over several summers, he traveled summit of Mt. Washington, kneeling next to the family I could run to the top. No fatigue. No altitude headache. We felt relaxed and by rail, hitchhiking, and foot—ticking off highpoints as fast as a modern-day dog on Hawkeye Point, posing with a 19-day-old baby on strong—if there were such a thing as professional highpointers, we could be part peakbagger with the benefit of a rental car: Nevada 6/3/30, Arizona 6/7/30, New Sassafras Mountain, lying prone in mock exhaustion of that elite group. Mexico 6/15/30, Colorado 6/19/30, Utah 6/28/30. upon reaching for the summit sign of Cheaha Mountain. After Whitney, we made a beeline for nearby Boundary Peak (Nevada, 13,140 He had no family obligations, no home to worry about. The main focus of his There was also a picture of helmeted climbers stand- feet). I started calling myself a highpointer. My real-world titles of “writer” or whole life became highpointing. In 1936, he took a multi-month leave from ing shoulder to shoulder on Mt. Hood, each raising an ice “New Yorker” had little relevance on the trail. Some days, all I wanted was to work in order to do his final 18 highpoints. In July, in the farm fields of Indiana, axe triumphantly. One photo showed a highpointer with just keep going like this—mapping, driving, hiking, checking off one peak, and Marshall finished number 48, the last one at the time. (There, he visited three an impossibly large grin—he was standing on the snowy heading to the next. points on his maps that listed the same elevation, plus two additional areas that summit of Gannett Peak (Wyoming, 13,804 feet) holding a But we knew it was only a temporary escape. Several of the remaining peaks locals claimed were higher, just to be safe.) sign that said “50.” had snow and ice hazards, and their short summer climbing windows had Around the room there were lots of “wow, how far is too far?” head shakes. Every issue had a “completer’s” section of reports by closed—we didn’t have the skills to climb them. And while we briefly entertained Government Camp, Oregon, for the annual Friday evening I was reminded of Stony Burk (New Hampshire, 49 at present), a living high- those who have done all 50 or finished all but Denali, fantasies of hitting the Dakotas or blowing through the Midwest drive-ups, we social. Despite the fact that it was June, big, heavy flakes of pointer who represents the Marshall spirit. To date, he has made 423 ascents of which many highpointers skip. One newsletter featured a were still unemployed. The cost was just too high, in dollars and in time away snow fell outside. state summits. And at 71, he continues pushing. He’s been to the Rhode Island photo of someone’s “4EVR 49” license plate. from job hunting. So after the three-week lark, our all-too-brief career as pro- After a couple of years, during which we’d relocated and New Jersey highpoints in every calendar month, and climbed Tennessee’s Another installment ran a front-page photo of a gath- fessional highpointers came to an end. Still, what we’d done felt like progress. to San Francisco, started new jobs, and done a few more 11 times. He’s currently helping to estab- ering of highpointers at the New Jersey summit, clad in casual, one-off highpoints, Audra had convinced me to lish a permanent Club museum in Ohio. matching tie-dyed shirts—it was the annual Highpointers register for the convention. She’d read in the newsletter All of us highpointers have sacri- I no longer Convention. A convention. HE MAIN ROOM of the 2012 Highpointers Convention was packed that a longtime club member was organizing an informal ficed for our obsession in our own way— Speed-record attempts. Interviews. Regional guides. with more than 200 people—mostly men, beards mostly gray, though Mt. Hood climb on the side. “We’ll meet more experienced spending time and money, sometimes thought in Apex to Zenith was fun to read, but more importantly, it there were a few couples and families with kids. We were crammed people to climb with,” she said. “This is our chance to get speeding through them for the sake of terms of how made me feel normal compared to the people who inhab- into the main room of the Mazamas mountaineering club’s lodge, in Oregon, and maybe prepare for other hard ones in the accomplishment, while not stopping to many I’d done, ited this wacky subculture. These folks were obsessed; I T future.” But the snowstorm prevented a summit bid. savor or explore arguably “better” and was just curious. Instead, we tried to make the best of it at the social. more wild places. On the other hand, I but how many Mingling in the room of strangers was easy with our had one highpointer tell me that pick- common interest. Our convention badges even displayed ing up the list helped him get over a I had left to do. HAT LASTED UNTIL the fall of 2010. A THERE’S A LIST FOR THAT the key pieces of information any highpointer needs to divorce. It had certainly helped Audra It was like a couple of months before, I’d lost my job in the Got summit fever? Here are just a few of the checklist challenges make conversation: name, home state, and completion and me deal with a job crisis. What else middle of the Great Recession. Audra’s free- around the country. number. Those with numbers higher than 40 typically might our brains obsess over—breakups, countdown lance career had already ground to a halt in the responded with puffed chests if you started with, “Wow, money woes, the state of the world—if not had begun. Tsluggish market—we were both unemployed. Some sev- 50 STATE HIGHPOINTS over 6,000 feet in North Carolina, what’s left?” If the number was 15 or fewer, “Just getting for this list? erance pay and savings meant we were in a far more for- The Highpointers Club site has an Tennessee, and Virginia. carolina- going, huh?” was an obvious gambit. My number, a mid- tunate position than many other Americans, but we were online guide and store, and a blog mountainclub.org pack 33, meant that most people started instead with the both at a crossroads. Everything was on the table: chang- with club news and membership info. home state, “California, have you climbed Whitney?” HE SPRING AFTER the Oregon convention, Mitchler tossed out an ing careers, moving to a new city, leaving behind friends highpointers.org NEW HAMPSHIRE HIGH PEAKS I loved the question because it led me to the story of our invitation to the Highpointer Club’s email group: He was going to be who felt like family. Since 1957, the Appalachian highpointing bender out West, and how the trip ulti- back in Portland on business, and offered to lead a climb up Mt. Hood, In the absence of knowing what to do next, one clear-cut COUNTY HIGHPOINTS Mountain Club has charted hikers’ mately emboldened us to take the leap and move across especially for anyone who had missed out on a summit due to the pre- goal presented itself: We turned to the list of highpoints. Arguably the most obsessive progress on the 48 4,000-plus-foot the country. vious June’s storm. Audra and I jumped at the chance. peakbagging faction, the County peaks in the White Mountains, with T The human brain craves order, and the rest of the world felt Don Holmes, 80, author of Highpoints of the United We had perfect snow conditions and mild weather for our ascent (number 35 Highpointers Association hosts an special awards for those who climb like chaos. Looking back, it’s clear we felt like we had little interactive map with established and in winter. The club also keeps lists for States, looking regal with white hair, a thin smile, and for me). We took a summit photo with our small group, ice axes held high. else to guide us, so the list became a sort of life map. debated county highpoints for each New England’s 4,000-footers and a white golf shirt bearing the club’s logo, stood near the Back at the Timberline Lodge bar, our climbing team naturally began to talk We cashed out every single frequent-flier mile between U.S. state, plus more peakbagging 100 highest peaks, as well as the 111 front podium. He was joined by newsletter editor John about what was left. Audra and I shared our plans to pace out our 10 remaining us and headed west to knock off some of the bigger sum- esoterica. cohp.org 4,000-footers of the Northeast. Mitchler, an Alec Baldwin lookalike. They both wore Midwestern and Southern drive-ups on a couple of relaxing, stop-and-see-the- mits. We drove highways, desolate back roads, and amc4000footer.org badges that said “Colorado, 50.” sites road trips. unmaintained dirt washboard that punished subcom- COLORADO 14ERS Mitchler called the room to order and we settled in for A few of us were also missing three of the hardest remaining peaks in the pact rental cars. We pitched the tent, cooked by headlamp, In addition to the Fourteener records, ADIRONDACK 46ERS the evening’s keynote about the first-ever highpoint com- Lower 48, and so hatched a plan to tackle them the following summer: Idaho, brushed teeth with a bottle of water, hiked dusty trails, and the Colorado Mountain Club main- More than 10,000 completers pleter, A.H. Marshall. Marshall, a wiry railroad telegraph Montana, and Wyoming. The latter’s Gannett Peak requires at least a 33-mile tains an online register, MySummits, have registered their climbs of the scrambled over scree and boulders to summit markers. We operator with a swept-back thatch of hair and peering eyes round-trip hike and 8,450 feet of elevation gain. where you can log your progress on Adirondacks’ 46 highest peaks since studied the increasingly battered Highpoints of the United Colorado’s top 100 peaks. cmc.org the list began in 1925. adk46er.org that made him look like he was perpetually facing a gust of Mitchler sat back, sipped his beer, and smiled at our excited planning. I States as if it were leading us on a crusade—or at least tell- wind, nabbed his last U.S. state highpoint in July 1936. thanked him for organizing the trip. He shrugged. “I really appreciated the ing us what to do next. SOUTH BEYOND 6,000 Didn’t find the list you were looking for Marshall began highpointing just as the U.S. spiraled times when I was invited along on trips with more experienced people.” With book in hand, we went on a blitz: Wheeler Peak The Carolina Mountain Club recog- here? Try here: peakbagger.com/list- into the Great Depression. He first had to create a list of Mitchler completed the 50 U.S. highpoints in 2003, and his obsession only (New Mexico, 13,161 feet), Black Mesa (Oklahoma, 4,973 nizes those who summit 40 peaks indx.aspx. state highpoints—nobody had compiled it before—which grew after finishing the feat. But rather than repeating highpoints, he found new ones. He completed the county Mitchler made my two decades of casual highpointing feel highpoints of several states and MASTER THE MOUNTAINS normal. But then I recalled the years I spent as a highpoint- began working through the high- ing denier. Can we recognize when we go over the edge points of U.S. National Parks and Get an alpine start ourselves? Does it matter? There are plenty of people who Monuments, and the U.S. territories Weather risk and warming snow think climbing any mountain is crazy. Who’s to say when worldwide (in June he completed can make an early start critical. enthusiasm becomes obsession? the first-ever ascent of 3,166-foot Don’t blow it. On that 1,200-mile detour to the Dakotas, we went a Agrihan on the Mariana Islands, a little nuts by any objective measure. Our time on the road sword grass-choked volcano that he Set two alarms. Hitting snooze is dwarfed our time on the trail. We skipped the Badlands called “the last unclimbed American a good way to sleep through your and Devils Tower. Instead, we walked through what felt highpoint”). He’s even ticking off wakeup window. like a painting of the American prairie, complete with the highest natural ground in the 50 abandoned cabin and barbed-wire fence, to reach White Pack the night before. Get your most populous U.S. cities. “That’s Butte. We ran to the stone fire tower on Black Elk. And it kit ready to grab and go. Do all your neat,” he said, “because there isn’t felt like we were making each moment really count. snack and breakfast prep before a list—I have to map them out.” He’s hitting the hay. Now, when I look back on that road trip and other ques- done 42 of them. tionable itineraries, I don’t regret the places not seen. For Mitchler, his multiple ongoing Get dressed. Lay out everything Rather, I appreciate how even my mild case of obsession quests solve a common problem most you’ll hike in. Better yet: Sleep in has shaped how I experience the outdoors. As a backpacker, highpointers face. “Almost all who your clothes. I have spent hundreds of nights out in the wilderness, hiked finish the states say, ‘Now what?’” he thousands of miles of trails—and sometimes all the beauti- explained. “Now all of a sudden you Caffeinate. If coffee is a ful places blur together. But I remember every single high- don’t have a list.” necessity, use instant and point in vivid detail. The day, the weather, the back roads, That won’t happen to Mitchler. He make sure you allow time for the trail, the nearby towns, the people met along the way. told me he’s also considering a list boiling water. List-keeping doesn’t drive all my hikes, of course. For of the highest golf courses in every instance, I only recently noticed that, since moving to state. “So far, I’ve identified 20 states Eat on the go. Choose breakfast California, I’ve been to seven of the state’s 58 county high- and played 10 of them,” he said. foods that require no dishes points. I’m definitely not trying to climb them all. Just like the newsletter used to (oatmeal in a packet is a good bet), make me feel normal by compari- or eat cold snacks while hiking. Loren Mooney currently has 48 U.S. state highpoints. She’s son to “regular” highpointers, now missing Virginia and Alaska.

TRIP PHOTOS BY TED ALVAREZ

ABOUT FOR SO LONG. SO FOR ABOUT

SOMETHING I’D THOUGHT THOUGHT I’D SOMETHING [

LIKE TO FINALLY SEE SEE TO FINALLY LIKE THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LOOKS IT WHAT IS THIS

of a mummy bag and just barely hear a muffled whimper from within above all the howling and flapping. and howling the all above within from whimper amuffled hear barely just and bag of amummy shape the out make Ican home-sweet-home. crumpled and battered our into light adim cast to pole aluminum splintered the at hammering ever. Istop trip backpacking first on her tent, our mom? my She’s But inside ables. storm and trying desperately to jury-rig a snapped tent pole back into place before my underwear fills with grit. grit. with fills underwear my before place into back pole tent a snapped jury-rig to desperately trying and storm AUTHOR’SMOM Utah’s one in make parks way to week perfect the is national

I think I may have broken my mom. my broken have Imay I think Me? I’m used to backcountry exercises in humiliation and nature’s occasional profaning of my unmention of my profaning occasional nature’s and humiliation in exercises backcountry to Me? used I’m –LIZALVAREZ, IN CAPITOL REEF NATIONAL PARK, NATIONAL REEF CAPITOL IN of multi-colored sandstone canyons that web and crimp together like giant veins. It’s easy to feel small here. small feel to It’s easy veins. giant like together crimp and web that canyons sandstone of multi-colored SPREAD THE LOVE THE SPREAD I find this sensation to be magnified after midnight, while squatting barefoot and half-naked in a sand in half-naked and barefoot squatting while midnight, after magnified be to sensation this I find up for disaster. lost court time—or

A mother-and-son five of all through trip road

CAPITOL REEF NATIONAL PARK, DAY 5, 1:36 A.M. A.M. DAY PARK, 1:36 5, NATIONAL REEF CAPITOL Mom’s Adventure Big the Waterpocket Fold creases Earth’s crust in a 100-mile network network a 100-mile in crust Earth’s Fold creases Waterpocket the

By TedBy Alvarez

] - - IT WAS NOT “EASY.” MY HUSBAND AND I HAD Landscape Arch TRIED IT ONCE BEFORE BUT DIDN’T GET FAR. hovers above Devils THAT WAS PROBABLY 10 YEARS AGO. Garden in Arches National Park. I used a climb up a modest Thirteener near the in Arches and Bryce would beget overnights in cabin (“It’s easy!”) to assess her ability and come up Canyonlands and Zion before culminating in a with a plan. We didn’t quite make the summit and backpacking trip in Capitol Reef. In my experience, her pace slowed to a crawl on the descent, but she’d southern Utah can break anyone’s funk. THAT’S WHAT cleared nearly 7 miles and 2,500 feet. This I could I’ve planned a lot of trips, but the stakes felt so I WANTED, TOO. AFTER work with. much higher this time: This was my mom, after all. TAKING CARE Back on the cabin deck, we treated our sore And I wanted more for her than a vacation. I wanted OF SOMEONE feet with Woodford Reserve while the sun melted her to find purpose, inspiration, and a reason to stay ELSE, YOU KIND behind a trio of Fourteeners and updrafts tossed strong in body and mind somewhere out there in all OF FORGET AND her blond and silver hair. Seeing her now, obviously that red sand. Was that too much to ask? LET GO OF THE pleased with the fresh air and effort, I wondered Kidnapping her unannounced seemed unfair, so THINGS THAT YOU DO FOR what other dreams or goals she might be keeping I called to give her two weeks’ advanced warning. YOURSELF. to herself. I asked her about her bucket-list and her Her voice trembled a little when she admitted that answers were a gut punch to me. She had always her efforts to prep hadn’t gone much beyond neigh- wanted to go camping under the stars. She wanted borhood dog-walking. I told her that she’d be fine, to visit the alien deserts of the Southwest. But, hoping it was true. But the silences on the phone because of the creakiness that comes with age, she were longer than normal. She swallowed hard didn’t think either of those things could happen for before admitting to the big one: She was nervous WHEN I WAS A her now. about pooping in the woods. But she said she trusted GIRL, WE HAD This was insane. She lives in Colorado, a mere six me. By the end of our redrock rager, I wanted her to A TWO-STORY hours from Moab, and some months I spend more trust herself. HOUSE WITH A days outside than under a roof. Why hadn’t I taken ROOF WE COULD her on a grand Utah adventure? Am I a bad son? ACCESS FROM A WINDOW. AND There was only one solution to my goals of show- DEVILS GARDEN TRAIL, YOU COULD ing her the Southwest of her dreams and making ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, DAY 1, 2:30 P.M. SEE SO MANY up for decades of lost time: A road trip through the We almost bailed on day one. High winds on the STARS. WANTING densest patch of desert canyons in the world. We drive in threatened to topple our car—just as they TO RECONNECT made a pact to get in shape. threw the trailers we saw in roadside ditches. I’d WITH THAT hoped for perfect spring weather, but now I hoped IS DEFINITELY TIED INTO MY NATIONAL PARKS ARE MADE for big lists and my mom wouldn’t think the whole week was going CHILDHOOD. bold ideas, and we had both. We’d visit all five Utah to be like this. More than rain or snow, wind can parks in a week, and she’d train on the job: Dayhikes ruin any first-timer trip: It’s a constant headache,

LOTS OF KIDS SAY their moms are the strongest As the years rolled by, health issues—first her person they know, but I think it would still sur- family’s, then her own—seemed to sap her energy prise my mom, Liz, to hear that I mean it. Enduring and her joy. When she retired two years ago, she patience and bottomless empathy don’t usually pop expressed excitement about traveling or finally MY OLDER SISTER up on superhero stat sheets, after all. But there’s learning how to play guitar. But instead of trips AND TWIN SISTER CLASHED A LOT. a flip side to that kind of strength: deference. to Europe or tinkering at James Taylor songs, the THAT SET ME UP TO Growing up as the quiet one in a kaleidoscopically years were riddled with the grief and exhaustion of unstable family of nine in rural Texas taught my caring for an aging parent and a dying sibling. BE THE PEACEMAKER. I DIDN’T KNOW IT mom to be supportive, reactive, and always on duty. The guitar I got her as a retirement gift gathered WAS AFFECTING My mom’s commitment to her kids’ dreams is dust in its case. Then her little brother died, and YOU GUYS IN A the gravitational center of our nuclear family— something cleaved. Listless and distant, she seemed WAY THAT CAUSED the reason her three children ended up as a profes- as if she wanted to sleep straight through her golden YOU TO WORRY sional writer, an opera singer, and a drummer. In years. The constant light behind her eyes started to SO MUCH. her career, she turned those same traits outward as fade, and her health began to falter mysteriously. THE WAY I GREW a Montessori preschool teacher, where success was When we tried to lift her out of the fog, she would UP, RAISING KIDS measured in inspired children. Parents and kids grow protective and snappish about her mourning. WHO KNEW THEY still stop her in the grocery store to say hello and But when I visited, I noticed how her blue eyes WERE LOVED AND share updates. She lights up every time they do, as if regained their sparkle when she walked the dog HAD CONFIDENCE IN THEMSELVES hearing good news about her own children. through the quivering aspens that crowd the cabin WAS THE DREAM. But I worry that beyond teaching and rais- she built with my dad in Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo ing a family and seeing her kids scatter happily Mountains. Maybe she just needed to go for a hike, to the four winds, she’s never really chased her and didn’t know it—or didn’t know what she was

own dreams. capable of. PHOTOS BY IAN DAGNALL / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO OH, COME ON! it’s loud, and you have to stake everything down. of the day. Then my mom darkened my mood by But it was too early to go off itinerary. The wind indulging in my least favorite of her post-retire- I HAD NO IDEA I might have been beastly, but we had a good tent, ment habits: naming her past, present, and poten- THIS IS A WOULD BE USING triple windproof layers for my mom, and a collaps- tial future ailments. Diverticulitis. Glaucoma. THIS AS A FACE COMMON THING. MASK. ible flask of bourbon if the whole plan hit the skids. Hiatal hernias. Esophageal spasms. Indigestion. JUST WAIT. My mom brought an ultrastylish scarf, too. We were Excessive constipation. Macular degeneration. Lost ready. eyebrows.Bunions. My easy-entry plan was to tackle Devils Garden, Maybe she just wanted to know the enemy, but DID YOU a 7-mile loop with a buffet of arches, and hit Delicate I was annoyed it had joined us under the Double O REALLY HAVE Arch at sunset. It seemed like a perfect starter hike Arch. I walked faster to leave her grim summon- TO MENTION when I was looking at the map a few days earlier, ing behind. But when I saw her struggling on a ALL OF THESE? imagining a sunny, mild spring day. But it was high sandstone bump the size of a large throw pillow, I I SOUND SO NEUROTIC. season, and we were dodging a line of scarfed hikers dropped back and offered up my hand and shoulder. TED IS MY ELDEST. coughing through the airborne grit. The massive We hugged at the bottom. Gaining confidence on HE’S A PEACEMAKER sandstone fins and loops walled in the trail and I remembered my goal to help her shed her per- the Queen’s Garden AND A PLEASER, acted like wind tunnels; the strongest gusts blasted ception of herself as someone who doesn’t belong off Trail in Bryce Canyon KIND OF LIKE I AM. sand into our mouths and ears. the scenic drive. Back at the cabin, she’d confided I knew there’d be crowds, and worried my mom that the fantasy of shouldering a pack and striding would be disappointed, but she didn’t even notice. into the wilderness was obscured by stinging joints Like a kid, she was finding shapes in the sculpted and fading stamina. But I think national parks are Testing ninja skills against sandstorms in Capitol Reef Preparing for a stone: a reclining lion, an otter, a vulture, a child the best way to reappraise who you are and what sandy night’s sleep squatting, two cats next to a dog—wait, no, that’s a you’re capable of. I’ve healed self-inflicted wounds in Capitol Reef piglet. We laughed. She hadn’t made a joke in years. before with slickrock, and return whenever I sense The fun stopped when we reached a short section a better, happier, fuller self is hidden out there in the THAT WAS 13 OR of stone stairs. She tensed up and had to lean on my miles of dirt. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN My mom’s only camping expe- shoulder, then blasted up the next slickrock bench And now I wondered if my chafing at her list rience thus far was a soaked, 14 YEARS AGO. CURIOUS ABOUT MY HUSBAND WAS like a champ, then froze when it ended in a sloping was less about her aging process than my own. A WHAT MAKES TED chilly nightmare at Colorado’s LIKE, “WELL, WE’RE pile of stones. I could see her fear. Walking the dog nasty case of plantar fasciitis hobbled my autumn TICK. I THINK THE Guanella Pass, sleeping on the NEVER GOING TO hadn’t really prepared her for the psychological and forced a reckoning with my own abilities. I’m OUTDOORS FOR bare ground beside a soaked dog. DO THIS AGAIN.” challenge of a pile of stones with a 14-foot drop on also about to close my fourth decade and thinking HIM IS A FORM OF I needed her first night since then THERAPY. IT FEEDS THERE IS NO one side. Where I saw adventure, she saw danger. about living in a van while my friends settle down HIS SOUL. to be a stunner, not a fight for sur- WAY I COULD’VE Landscape Arch rose behind us like a totem with houses and kids. Mortality—my mom’s, mine— vival. As every backcountry trav- HANDLED THAT. from space; we were maybe 2 miles in. I knew the whistled shrill in my ears. eler knows, sometimes you have entire 7-mile Devils Garden Loop was out of reach. We can both benefit from more time outdoors, I to improvise. We headed south Delicate Arch would have to wait. I knew there’d know. New research shows that exposure to nature and checked into a Best Western be taxing moments this week, but saw no reason to yields health benefits like reduced cancer risk, in Bryce Canyon City. HONESTLY, I WAS make the first day a killer. lower blood pressure, lowered depression and anx- PRETTY EXCITED We turned around and I felt the magic drain out iety, lowered inflammation response, enhanced ABOUT THIS. immune systems, and boosted memory. The latest BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK, buzz is around forest bathing—frequent but small DAY 2, 9:30 A.M. doses of the outdoors—and I’m all for it. But it We woke up to a sun-bright morning with snow sounds like dipping your toe in. Sometimes you crystals twinkling in the fierce breeze. Yes, it was need a good old-fash ioned dunking—full immer- still blowing, but the air was clear and invigorat- sion, the deeper the better. ing. We blasted to the Queen’s Garden, a 3.5-mile But you can’t make someone take the plunge; you chance at redemption. can only show her where to do it. The forested rim of Bryce melted below us into Neapolitan towers, and I could sense my mom tens- ing up on the loose gravel. I coached her through, ISLAND IN THE SKY ENTRANCE, telling her to trust her poles and her feet. Coral-and- CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, pink hoodoos crowded our descent, each turn in the I CAN CLIMB UP DAY 1, 7:30 P.M. trail revealing a new ornate section, like dripping LIKE NOBODY’S Winds whipped sand and fury at the Island in the Gaudí cathedral spires cast in dirt. Bryce was at its BUSINESS—IT’S Sky. A Mad Max-style haboob erased the sagebrush shoulder-season best: A thin layer of snow decked THE DOWNS THAT horizon—and my plans to camp on the rim and duck the ridges like cake icing, making the red and peach BUG ME. into the Syncline for our first overnight. I couldn’t pop enough to crack viewfinders. But the trails very well have my mom’s inaugural night out end remained dry and trustworthy. She didn’t balk at with her being blown off the rim of Canyonlands. the zigzagging switchbacks. We high-fived with our That certainly wouldn’t have helped with the poles at the top. esophageal spasms. ➡ I KNEW THIS WASN’T THE REAL EXPERIENCE—NOISY EXPERIENCE—NOISY NEIGHBORS, RVS. BUT WAS IT NICE TONICE SEE THE WHOLE PROCESS IN AIN REALLY CONTROLLED CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT.

I’LL TAKE IT! Zion: They’re popular. I know that, so I should have have I should so that, I know popular. They’re Zion: like parks beauty-queen about thing Here’s the miniature bonfire. a with We celebrated calmed. had air the camp to (5.1). total mileage daily her toward count would town through walk the her Iassured margaritas. with for a“here” looking went we so town, atent-and-RV be to have doesn’t “here” Iexplained and here, be to happy just spikes. railroad and hammers with city on work acanvas to went who 20-somethings fit a half-dozen out barfed NewJersey from bus ture adven an We up while set park. the in campsite car a get to late months two were Springdale—we in Inn Quinta a La behind a campground It was scenic. B, plan our at when mom my from improvisation fun. of the part is chaos Alittle circumstance. and weather with change plans adventures, park On ZION NATIONAL PARK VISITOR CENTER, CENTER, VISITOR PARK NATIONAL ZION Time for more improvisation. Mom said she was was she Mom said improvisation. for more Time for taste roll-with-it my I get that I learned SPRINGDALE, UTAH, DAY 2, 9:30 P.M. DAY UTAH, 9:30 2, SPRINGDALE, She swelled a bit, and by the time we got we time the by and abit, swelled She which was neither glamorous nor glamorous neither was which DAY 3, 8:30 A.M. A.M. DAY 8:30 3, she just laughed laughed just she

- Point, where we set out on Zion’s West Rim Trail. on out Zion’s set we West Rim where Point, Lava to off zipped we shuttle,” your about what “but say, could he Before website. NPS the to contrary open, was road Point Lava the thought he us told Zion. see to subtle, however desire, her asserting leave—that to ready wasn’t she I sensed too. else, something was there but down, me calm to trying was She offered. she around,” ask just “Let’s Reef. Capitol like park empty) (read: civilized for a counts!) through—that (we drove entirely Zion in overnight on the bail to Ithreatened full. was lot parking Zion the 7:30 at a.m., arrived we time the by and didn’t, but start on asunrise insisted “How’d it stay that way? It’s so gorgeous.” I dragged Idragged It’s gorgeous.” so way? that it stay “How’d siblings: of charred afield in green bursting osa ponder immaculate an at wondered She renewal. in aforest by enthralled was she and youth, our in Gaia mom green-thumbed my nicknamed we But backpackers. most for blight forest—a ponderosa burned of largely miles through rambled trail The WEST RIM TRAIL, ZION NATIONAL PARK, NATIONAL ZION TRAIL, RIM WEST A young, ruddy-faced ranger with chapped lips lips chapped with ranger ruddy-faced A young, patience: soothing her with rescue the Mom to DAY 3, 1:30 P.M.DAY 1:30 3, Late-season snow decoratesLate-season she was the rim of Bryce Canyon. Bryce of rim the

- MAKE IT HAPPEN. IT MAKE TO AWAY I FIND TO ME, ENOUGH IS IMPORTANT SOMETHING IF TRUE. IS THIS

PHOTO BY DUSTY DEMERSON / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

I HADN’T HIKED I HADN’T HIKED 9 MILES IN MY LIFE.MY 9 IN MILES IT WAS SUPER WASIT SUPER EXCITING AND POWERFUL TO BE UP ONUP THAT RIM AND WATCHAND ALL THE DIFFERENT COLORS OF THE US T. SUNSE THE ANXIETY. THE OFF THE EDGE TAKES BEAUTY LUCKILY,

close to the 3,000-foot drop. drop. 3,000-foot the to close too swayed downhills gravelly when only grimaced and uphills the into grunted she But included. miles trip, on this max her double almost was pace: keep to flowers indigo and leaves fuzzy from her offs that frame Angels Landing, her joints were joints her Landing, Angels frame that offs edge edge sandstone cracking the beyond and wide, 4 or 5feet only it was but grade, a moderate at of a cliff face the down switchbacked A path crux: the at shaky was She mom’s Bad. Big exposure—my with of descent feet 3,500 involved tradeoff The River. Virgin the to miles go 5.5 to day, opted we previous the from Tired evening. of the lavenders and oranges final the in grasses at picked they as us around milled silhouettes deer. Their of mule aherd with campsite day.the mom for my saving I thanked twilight. in reddening and of crimson bands with through shot sandstone white all It was Angels. Guardian the surround that ramps and cones the reached we time the by tains REFRIGERATOR CANYON,REFRIGERATOR NATIONAL ZION The sun had already slunk behind the moun the behind slunk already had sun The By the time we reached the rust-colored drop- rust-colored the reached we time the By That night, we shared mom’s first backcountry backcountry mom’s first shared we night, That was a thousand-foot drop. athousand-foot was We started late, and our planned 9-mile day day 9-mile planned our and late, We started PARK, DAY 4, 11:30 A.M. A.M. DAY 11:30 PARK, 4,

margarita - faces to ward off stinging sand. sand. stinging off ward to faces our covered we up, and picked wind The canyon. atight down turn to wash abroad crossed we and soil, of cryptobiotic colonies terraced around sliced path Asandy fun. having was she I thought but scared, been might’ve She a smile. into turned mace a gri and bottom, the reached she when sigh deep there. down got we until know wouldn’t we but it, done have or 2might Amile Twist. Muley Lower in day for abig position in get to set sun the before terrain protected to get to We needed Canyon. Twist Muley Lower into us dump would that ble scram friction 20-foot the at bugging eyes wind, this!” do I can if know crux: anew hit mom away right and car the ditched we top the At diamondback. apanicked like edge up a cliff feet a thousand coiled Switchbacks Trail Burr up the drive teeth-chattering The abackpacker. like sounding said, she crowds,” the lose to ready I’m think “I soap. hotel like smelled who of daytrippers full ashuttle boarded and Grotto the into marched We death acrawl. to slowed she Wiggles, Walter’s down heading crowd ing by bugabooed was She murdered. She followed my steps, breathing hard. I heard a I heard hard. breathing steps, my followed She CAPITOL REEF NATIONALCAPITOL REEF PARK, DAY 5, 5:30 P.M.DAY 5:30 5, she shouted into a vengeful a vengeful into shouted she the ants-march “I don’t “I

➡ so so - - -

THIS WAS THE THE WAS THIS HEAVIEST PACK PACK HEAVIEST I HAD, WITH ALL THE WATER. AND WITH THE WIND, WIND, THE WITH I THINKDIDN’T I COULD MY KEEP BALANCE. BUT I DID I THINK:DID I CAN ALWAYS CRAB WALK.ALWAYS CRAB THINGS WE SAW. WE THINGS TO THE ALL SEE THEY WERE GOING WAY NO WAS DAYHIKERS—THERE THE LATE, THAT COMING UP THE ALL OF PEOPLE THINKING I KEPT

Facing down exposure on Zion’s West Rim Trail

little freak-out: I wanted Capitol Reef to be the conversion moment, a wild nar- cotic that keeps my mom fresh and alive forever, and it was backfiring. She was learning that the desert wonderland of her dreams is an inhospitable hellhole, and her son had spent decades mining routes to backcountry incompetence— his latest low point: forgetting to bring duct tape. Great. Transformative road trip squandered. I sought to lift my mom up and literally buried her. The murmurs from underneath grew louder. Sand sloughed off her bag. Was she . . . convulsing? No. She was . . . laughing. Hard. WE’LL JUST SLEEP IN A COLLAPSED TENT. WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL? We camped in a bowl between tripartite barri- LOWER MULEY TWIST, CAPITOL REEF ers of pinyons and junipers. The wind picked up and NATIONAL PARK, DAY 6, 9:30 A.M. sand filled our tent like a torpedoed submarine, but When we wake up, my mom’s still chuckling. This IT WAS REALLY Mom just wanted to know, “What’s for dinner?” time because her eyes are glued shut with sand; HARD TO GO TO In the bends and licks of the canyon walls, wind she asks me to pass the saline. The wind has died— SLEEP WITH THE WIND POUND- gusts boomed like zoo lions at sunset. She loved it. it’s still and cool—so we set to exploring the crazy- ING. I DIDN’T We found Orion and the Big Dipper before ducking colored sandstone canyons. My mom resumes her FEEL SCARED OR into the tent. But it was a noisy night, and even sev- obsession with naming formations: Mother and INTIMIDATED, IT eral doses of whiskey couldn’t blunt the din of flap- Child, the Alien Brain, the Coyote. WAS JUST, ‘WOW, ping nylon. We laid awake for three hours. Sound tints any wilderness experience, but I DIDN’T KNOW Finally, a rogue microburst slapped the top of the there’s a peculiar way it grows acute in the desert. THAT IT COULD BE LIKE THIS.” tent into our faces, shattering a pole and thrust- Our day without seeing another human amplifies ing it through the fly like a broken femur through our voices, and yet puts us on even footing with the leg meat. In my skivvies in the sandstorm, I had my rustle of cottonwood leaves or the cascading laugh WE KNEW IF WE WE IF WE KNEW DIDN’T TURN TURN DIDN’T AROUND IT WAS IT AROUND GOING TO GOING GET DARK, BUT BEYOND EACH TURN, WE’D SEE SOMETHING SOMETHING SEE ELSE AMAZING. WE KEPT SAYING,WE KEPT “LET’S DO JUST E.” R O M E N O

I CAN’T CAN’T I BELIEVE YOU BELIEVE PUT THISPUT IN! iconic Delicate Arch. Sunset light strikes pooped in a more beautiful place,” beautiful amore in pooped faded. have here out concerns major her even And vanished. mostly have civilization in her dog that issues the and backcountry, the in days It’s been hurt. didn’t joints her that astonished Camp Sandy call we’ll what up in Mom wakes hiking. stopped Inever gibberish. into melt words the and numb goes tongue her until miles, for afew this does She hiking. start and in, up, join I stand ..” and hurrah. hurrah, one-by-one, go marching whining in the dirt. She begins singing “the ants and sulking I’m but shoulders, on his sister little my with ahead marches My father car. the from miles we’re but trail, on the farther go any Ican’t Park. astory. me tells She wall. the is this if Iwonder and campsite, our to mile last go. to it’s time me tracks. tear iridescent black, like down spills varnish desert and jets, jumbo house to enough tall and deep alcoves into opens Twist Muley wren. of a canyon I’m six or seven, in Rocky Mountain National National Mountain Rocky in or seven, six I’m LOWER MULEY TWIST, CAPITOL REEF REEF CAPITOL TWIST, MULEY LOWER

NATIONAL PARK, DAY PARK, A.M. 7,NATIONAL 8:30 We poke around until the fading light tells tells light fading the until We around poke She slows to a stumbly crawl in the the in crawl astumbly to slows She she tells me. We me. tells she “I’ve never “I’ve together today and it’s enough. It’s a gift. It’s agift. it’s enough. and today together We stand matter. to seem doesn’t that But does. ing noth forever, because We it last won’t know time. of grind the against bulwark unlikely an stand, will sunset. the in ruddy goes Arch Delicate as shots We it. glory get worth totally and view, a cliché trail, It’s abusy tourists. goggle-eyed past zips sections, exposed mildly the at shrugs She days. six in miles 35 and nights backcountry four to couch the from it for herself. see to needs she her. says She pushing not I’m no, And thwarted. won’t be we time this But Arch. Delicate see to start a late with it started: way the ends trip Our Grand Canyon. soon— trip for alonger back come to promise we and view, the at swoons She around. time first the us eluded that park the in foot setting Sky, the in Island at rim Canyonlands. stop: last our make to early out bolt We stand together and wonder how long the arch arch the long how wonder and together We stand she’s but gone deliberate, and slow are steps Her of the edge the to hiking we’re later, hours A few DELICATE ARCH TRAILHEAD, ARCHES ARCHES TRAILHEAD, ARCH DELICATE NATIONAL PARK, DAY PARK, P.M. 7, NATIONAL 4:30 maybe a prelude to something bigger, like the the like bigger, something to aprelude maybe

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THIS IS JUST THIS JUST IS THE BEGINNING. I WANT TO GO TO COLORADO’S SAN THIS JUANS SUMMER, AND AND SUMMER, THEN THE BIG ONE—GRAND CANYON THE IN FALL. FROM THERE, WHO KNOWS? WHO

PHOTO BY BEN HERNDON / TANDEMSTOCK.COM