To the Horizon

The sun was setting over the San Juan mountains of Colorado as I passed the eleven hundred mile mark of the Continental Divide Trail. I silently reminisced of the distance covered since departing the Mexican border just over a month before. The nostalgia didn't last long, as it was soon replaced with contemplation of what lay ahead. I was curious to see what the previous month and a half spent on the three thousand mile trail had made me capable of. I wanted to test my limits.

While staring at the summit ridge from the valley below, the idea came to me.

I muttered to myself, “I want to hike three hundred miles in a week.” Quickly realizing my error, I corrected myself to, “I’m GOING to hike three hundred miles in a week.” It felt both exhilarating and absolutely insane at the same time.

The stretch at the northern end of Colorado through the Great Basin of Wyoming was the flattest section since New Mexico; the ideal time to attempt something extraordinary.

While the terrain allowed for big miles, I knew the Basin was also extremely dry; a desolate stretch of land frequented by massive thunderstorms with almost nowhere to hide. These hazards posed constant questions. What if I run out of water in near triple digit heat? What if I actually get struck by lightning? Am I even physically capable of walking that far in seven days?

If there’d been anything the past couple months on trail had taught me, it was that you could never fully expect what the miles ahead would hold. It was best to take things as they came.

With a couple hundred miles before my proposed “hell week”, those worries fell to the back of my mind.

__

Time, as it always does, slipped into the ether and I found myself standing on the shoulder of highway 40 just outside of Steamboat Springs in northern Colorado. My pack, now full with the necessary rations, leaned against my knees, protesting the journey ahead.

“I sure hope I can get there in one piece,” I thought as I raised my thumb to heavy traffic speeding past me in rhythmic gusts of wind.

I had noticed by then, it seemed the more traffic there was, the longer it took for people to take pity on lowly hitchhikers and pull over. I assumed most people thought someone else in the many cars behind would take the lead and help them out. These same people would also often curb their guilt by avoiding eye contact. Some, even exuberantly pointing in the opposite direction to nonexistent objects more deserving of their attention.

Forty five minutes passed, and I grew restless as the math problem of completing my proposed mileage within the given timeframe played over in my head.

The first night would probably be the best night of rest I would have for the entire week, as I was starting with a half day of twenty five miles. The next six days would consist of a near fifty mile per day pace, bringing me to the three hundred mile mark in just under a week. A tall order after considering calls of mother nature, setting up and breaking down camp, and the time needed to replenish water every couple dozen miles. This left about five hours of rest per night.

I broke a forced smile at the continuous stream of vehicles, and began to do a little jig back and forth in efforts to give more notice to my request for a ride.

“Now, I just look like a crazy dude on the side of the road,” I laughed to myself. It was now 12:42. With a thirty minute drive up to Muddy Pass, my starting point, I bid farewell to my planned start time.

I looked up helplessly to the slowly descending sun, trying to let go of the things I couldn’t control. This was just the first of many obstacles I would face in the days to come.

A peppy honk snapped me back to the present moment. I scrambled as I hoisted my pack on my shoulders and jogged to the small blue mazda now pulling over.

“How far you going?” asked a well dressed man in the driver seat when I opened the car door.

“Just to the pass about a half an hour up” I spurted, hoping he would say yes.

“Hop in,” he said.

“Thanks!” I sighed in return while I went through the all too familiar action of gently tossing my pack in the back seat and settling in the front passenger spot. I was on my way.

__

Raindrops ran down my face as I thanked Bernard for the ride before I closed the door. He thought I had lost my mind, and I had to admit, I felt the same as I tried to justify why I was doing it.

I blinked the droplets away from my eyes and watched Bernard's tail lights disappear around the corner of the hillside crowded with melancholy conifers. I noted the time; it was 1:17, then touched the shiny green highway sign. The starting gun of my race against time had been fired.

A low rumble of thunder sounded overhead when I reached the small emblem of the Continental Divide Trail. Without pause, I veered from the highway onto the two foot wide trail of dirt, and vanished into the deep green bows of Routt National Forest. The skies churned an ever deepening shade of dark blue and gray.

The melodic sounds of nature slowly replaced the now fading noises of busy society. I held my hands out from my waist to caress the vibrant rainbow of the gentle but hardy wildflowers of Colorado. I reveled in the moment, knowing the lush landscape would disintegrate into parched sage almost immediately upon reaching Wyoming.

A cool breeze meandered through dense trunks around me as a small lake appeared just down the hillside, reflecting the moody clouds suspended above. By the time I reached the far side of the lake, the reflection on the water had blurred with ripples from the thousands of tiny droplets that were falling from the sky.

As I had done countless times before, I instinctively shed my pack, rummaged through its contents and pulled out my rain jacket. The peaceful moment was surely to be rudely interrupted with heavy sheets of rain and soon after, ankle twisting mud.

While the onslaught of rain was less intense than expected, the trail eventually absorbed enough moisture to lose consistency and became unforgiving. My foot slipped off a bare root as I noticed a fresh footprint of someone ahead.

“I wonder if I know whose shoe that is?” I said.

After fourteen miles, and no further sign of the mystery hiker, my body began to protest the steady pace I was putting it through. “Just fifteen more,” I thought, which was almost immediately replaced with the fear of what a forty mile plus day would feel like.

My anxieties abated slightly when the angry clouds dissipated, and gave way to a sunset that could be compared to a painting by Bob Ross or Terry Redlin. The sky blazed a bright red with an array of oranges that brought warmth to my heart. I chased the sun until it was extinguished by the horizon, only then, led by its many relatives hundreds of lightyears away.

—

I woke with a jolt at 3:45 in the morning to an almost full moon peering through the canopy of a mature aspen grove I had nestled in just hours before. I gained my bearings after a few slow breaths and noticed my still blaring alarm, begging to be attended to.

A sliver of guilt crept through me as the nearby campers were surely inconvenienced by my early wake up call. My desire to curb their annoyance aided my efforts to pack up as quickly as possible. I didn't even eat breakfast. I anticipated sluggish mornings and had stuffed the hip belts of my pack with various granola bars the night before. I could eat when I started walking.

With my backpack strapped to my shoulders, I tiptoed around the edges of my neighbors’ tents, and vanished into the predawn hours. The day ahead would be a challenge of its own.

Due to a recent fire that was now barreling through the Mount Zirkel wilderness, a large section of trail in northern Colorado was closed to foot traffic. The alternative, designated by the forest service, routed hikers along the narrow shoulder (almost as thin as the average malnourished thru hiker) of a highway stretching over twenty six miles.

After so many days of walking on the uneven but natural tread of gravel trail, pavement took a toll on my body. While it was flat and there wasn’t the need to watch your step, the constant impact of the repetitive motion on the synthetic surface made my knees feel as if they were plagued with early onset arthritis.

Eventually, the pain reached an almost unbearable level and rest was needed to prevent injury.

“Just ahead to that corner,” I muttered with a determined exhale. I put my head down for the next few minutes and allowed myself to fully experience the pain coursing through my bones.

Upon reaching the corner, a rather large billboard advertising ice cream, sandwiches, and snacks at the Clarks Store just a quarter of a mile ahead greeted me.

“Well it’ll be a hell of a lot better than eating uncooked ramen on the side of the road.” I said. With the excitement of eating real food, my pain seemed to subside for the remaining five minutes of walking to the front porch of the store.

When I took the last step onto the covered porch adorned with picnic tables for the many patrons that were bustling around, I heard my trail name being shouted.

“Pika, over here!” It was Janice Joplin. Of course it wasn’t the real Janice; I hadn’t completely lost my mind. It was the trail name of a friend I hadn’t seen for some time as well as the owner of the mystery footprint I had seen the day before.

“JJ!,” I exclaimed.

I made my way over to the table where he was sitting alone (likely due to the stench that accompanies long distance hikers) and gave him a hug. My pack placed by his, somehow resembled adolescent friends quickly falling into conversation punctuated with quiet laughter after not seeing each other for some time.

We devoured ice cream and chugged soda as we recounted stories during the weeks since we had seen one another last.

“How much further you going today?” he eventually asked.

“Twenty four miles.” I said.

“Woah, it’s pretty late in the day for that yeah? How far have you gone this morning?” He asked.

“Twenty three miles so far, and yeah, we’ll see if I’m able to make it” I responded.

“You going for some kind of record?” He asked.

“Well, something like that, a personal one anyway.” I said before telling him what I was doing.

He was excited for me and gave encouraging words. I listened intently to his advice as he had experience in setting speed records on a few sections of the Pacific Crest Trail in the westernmost states.

I looked at my phone to check the time. I had exceeded the half an hour allotted for lunch by fifteen minutes. I needed to keep moving.

“Good luck man!” Janice shouted as I took off down the road jogging to the best of my ability.

I ran until the road turned to dirt and culminated into a sizable parking area with no cars to be seen. On the far side of the primitive clearing stood a small information board of the surrounding ATV roads. I studied it closely and memorized the many turns and junctions I would navigate in the dark until reuniting with the official trail just a few miles from the Wyoming border. I clicked on my headlamp as I whispered, “See ya tomorrow Basin.”

—

The alarm religiously broke the silence again. I blinked at the silent stars until the blurriness of my vision cleared, then roused myself with a rather resigned, “let’s do this.”

The first few steps that day and every day to follow were clunky, mechanical, jarring. Constant doubt of my ability to achieve my goal grew in my mind, but by the time the sun crested the horizon, my joints creaked less and my muscles loosened ever so slightly.

Just as the young sun beams stretched through the trees and began to warm my body, I caught a glimpse of a pair of license plates hanging on a lodgepole pine just to the side of the trail; one belonging to Colorado and the other Wyoming.

“Another one down.” I said.

When I arrived at the mini shrine where hikers snapped photos as a rite of passage into the cowboy state, an irresistible smile spread across my face.

The moment was bittersweet. While I was that much closer to Canada, the time spent in Colorado was never to be forgotten. The miles stretching through the mountainous state were like summer vacation. Days were long, I was in excellent shape, and the idea of finishing my hike seemed too far in the future to comprehend.

The two license plates not only signaled entering into a new state, but the second half of the journey as well. It was all downhill from here as they say.

I surmised the smiles seen in hikers’ pictures didn’t last long as they descended into the Basin where they were met with increasing temperatures and waning tree coverage. After taking my own photos showcasing a big thumbs up, toned thighs, and tattered clothes, I too hiked into the inevitable.

The trail twisted and wound any which way it could, utilizing every tree that stretched into the desert before there was nowhere else to go. Upon arriving at the last skeletal tree, I peered into the waterless abyss. A sinister feeling I can only compare to being stranded in the ocean coursed through my veins.

The trail ahead had no turns, but extended endlessly into the blurry horizon. The mirages that bordered the horizon intensified as sweat dripped into my eyes with a searing sting. I took a deep breath and walked into the light.

__

The mental rollercoaster of the Basin was almost violent. Near triple digit temperatures in the still air made me feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. Intense hallucinations periodically took over reality, often paired with a high pitch ringing that approached the limit of human hearing.

My mind and soul separated from my body and stared back at it wondering why. I became the sage brush along the trail, watching me pass with neutrality, non-interest, as it did countless days with other hikers and animals. The sleep deprivation of only getting 4-5 hours of sleep had caught up with me and caused a delirium that was at times comical and the next minute a fever dream in hell.

I cried after a semi honked at me on a lonely highway. The driver seemed to be my only cheerleader in the open desert and I thanked him for the support even though he couldn’t hear me. My sanity was disintegrating, but with my barriers of my mind at their weakest, two incredibly spiritual moments happened as the week neared its end.

As I approached the forty nine mile mark on the fifth day, walking by the light of the moon and stars, I realized the full immensity of the universe. I was it and it was me. I could feel stars exploding light years away. Destruction. Like the tearing, pain, and trauma happening to the cells of my muscles, my bones. But with that destruction came creation. These celestial explosions far away created every element of the universe, new planets, new life. Simultaneously, I was creating myself, new strength, new possibilities I never would’ve imagined through my physical demise. I cried again.

The following day, when the sun was at its highest and hottest, my nose began to bleed. A lot. I threw my pack down and searched for gauze to stop the bleeding. When I found it, I realized my blood was dripping onto a small sage bush. Something told me to pause. I have no idea how long I watched the blood fall in slow motion onto the plant while I struggled to catch my breath.

Instinctively, I picked one of its small fronds and inhaled the aroma through my healthy nostril. A cyclical event of trading flesh with Mother Nature. I closed my eyes, and asked the universe to give me the strength and the will power to persevere.

I set up my tarp that night due to a thunderstorm passing overhead. The rain that rhythmically tapped on my simple shelter quickly carried me off to a deep sleep. My slumber was only interrupted by a few loud crashes from bolts of lightning, briefly connecting the parched land to the heavens above.

Once the storm had cleared, all grew quiet. Too quiet. In the stillness of the night, my arm thrust itself from my sleeping bag and firmly grasped the only pole holding up my thin cocoon. Seconds later, a stout gust of wind around fifty miles per hour ripped the stakes from the soft sand and exposed a crystal clear sky littered with stars. My dangling tent hung from the pole like a flag of surrender.

I longed to fall back to sleep, but the metaphor of Mother Nature ripping my sheets away, demanded I get moving. I wasn’t going to argue. Not long after, I was packed up and limping down the atv track once again.

As the days of the week dwindled, I processed an almost constant number crunch of the mileage needed to reach my goal. There were just over seventy two miles remaining when my shelter was torn from the ground and only thirty two hours left to finish. I hadn’t been able to squeeze in a fifty mile day, and the odds of success were growing slim.

I had two options: Push for fifty miles, sleep for two hours, then hike the remaining twenty two the following morning, or cover the entire distance in one long thirty hour day. I was worried sleeping at all would tighten my muscles and cause me to forego success. The way forward was clear, I would go for the gold.

High spirits reigned during most of the day, and my body relented slightly from the near constant pain. However, as I entered what I’m calling the eternal night, my feet deteriorated.

Every step sent a searing, aching pain through the bones of my feet and up my leg. It was like walking on coals. Eventually my lower extremities went numb, helping only marginally. The only sound to distract me was the hypnotizing crunch of my glorified sandals on the coarse gravel road.

I calculated my progress as I sat down by the tiniest trickle of water from a spring just a few steps away from the trail. Filtering water had become the only time I allowed myself to rest.

The slow flow nourished the surrounding glade and provided an oasis for countless small animals whose eyes reflected my headlamps light. I probably would’ve been more disturbed by the dozens of beings now aware of my presence but the lack of sleep from walking nearly twenty hours straight had depleted my adrenaline stores to a critical level.

I didn’t care what the bodies belonging to those many eyes looked like until I noticed two much larger ones staring at me from across the glade. Its shadow extended to the left and terminated in a long thin tail. I froze, the water dripping off the rock next to me turned into a deafening sound of suspense. I continued squeezing the water through my filter as the predaceous cat and I decided our next moves.

I stood up slowly and shouted with a quivering voice,“GET OUT OF HERE!” The cougar vanished into the darkness beyond the clearing.

“Great,” I thought, “now I have no idea where he is.”

I spent the next few miles looking over my shoulder ready to lock eyes with my stalker at any moment. An hour passed and no further sign was to be seen. I contrived the idea that the cat, like me, was just trying to get water from one of the few sources in the isolating desert. With the last of my mental energy spent, I once again resorted to a slow zombie-like march.

My gaze was usually glued to the passing rocks and sand under me, but when I finally broke this powerful meditation and looked up, I noticed the stars along the horizon had disappeared. Several massive cumulonimbus clouds had since surrounded me, and performed a natural strobe light show. The silhouettes of Zeus’s masterpieces ominously outlined by the moon behind added even more tension.

Every time I saw a flash in the corner of my eye, I began counting under my breath; one…two…three…, until the boom would sound. If I was calculating them correctly, they seemed to be about twenty miles away.

The angry flashes were kept at bay until the last hour of dark before dawn. Thunder followed the flashes by seventeen seconds then fourteen then ten. I knew the inevitable was fast approaching.

Soon, I was sprinting through a deluge of giant freezing rain drops across a pitch black endless chess board. Running was almost impossible after walking sixty miles that day, but the fear of imminent death took over and I needed to find any sort of depression to escape the wrath of the storm.

Minutes later, I came to a road with a shallow ditch and threw myself into the small brown river flowing at its bottom. The cold mud that flowed around my body caused my temperature to plummet. The only consolation to my hypothermic condition was the fact I was lower than the tallest plant for miles, which rarely exceeded four inches in height.

When the storm passed, the blackness of the skies gave way to the deepest shade of blue. The first hint of morning. Soaked, I pushed myself from the ditch and winced as sharp pains pinged through my bones.

Every step of the last twelve miles took a monumental effort, but when the sun finally rose, and broke apart the storms, its elongating rays began to warm me. Soon after, I caught my first glance of the road. My finish line, which simultaneously felt so close but impossibly far given my state.

Two neverending hours later, I didn’t find myself running across the yellow centerline of the highway, arms up grinning ear to ear as one often imagines at the end of a long distance race. Instead, I hobbled onto the pavement on the verge of passing out. When I reached the dotted yellow line, I collapsed, then kissed the chipped yellow paint.

“I’m done” I whispered as if the asphalt could hear me. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed before the roar of an engine snapped me from my humble celebration and reminded me of the imminent danger I was in. I leapt as fast as I could onto the side of the highway as the truck sped by.

“I wonder how long it’s going to take to get a ride,” I muttered through chapped lips as my legs strained to keep me upright. I lifted my thumb once again. It was time for rest.