I was pumped. It was March 8, 2021, and after months of training and dreaming, I fist-bumped the southern terminus, and headed north for Canada. Never mind that I got lost and walked a mile out of the way before even finding the terminus. Forget that my feet blistered up after only ten miles. Just ignore that my pack was too heavy from carrying about 5 pounds of extraneous gear.
I only saw one other hiker that morning and afternoon. The sun was shining, the air was cool and the streams were flowing. I had hoped to camp at Lake Morena about 20 miles from the border that first night. But the blisters, a late start, a recent COVID vaccine and a final steep climb to the lake convinced me to camp near Hauser Creek at the 15-mile mark.
Dog-tired, cold and hungry I was looking for a tent-site when I met Dave, a huge mountain of a man with a beard to match. He gave me a jubilant greeting and told me about his first day’s hike, and how excited he was to be camping beside a veteran thru-hiker (Star) who he already greatly admired because her trail skills were top-notch as evidenced by her taut, perfectly tied-down tent fly. Dave’s tent looked amateurish by comparison.
Didn’t talk much to Dave that night, but he was up early and shouted out an enthusiastic good-morning and said he was excited because he soon would be eating a breakfast burrito at the Oak Shores Malt Shop in Morena Village. He also said he was probably the slowest hiker on the trail.
I caught up with Dave later that afternoon at the Boulder Oaks Campground. He told me a little of his story. He’s an electrician, and like a lot of guys during the pandemic, he lost his job. He also didn’t have a partner at the time, and to save money he’d left his apartment and moved in with his Dad. He was fiddling around on YouTube, and came across something called the Pacific Crest Trail. And then he began a deep-dive watching podcasts and videos from veteran trail hikers. A few days into this binge-fest, he decided that maybe this would be something he could do despite having next to no backpacking experience and being out of shape. He planned a hike on the PCT near the Cajon Pass where he ran into an experienced thru-hiker who told him her story of becoming a PCT trail junkie. He was hooked.
From that day he began to do training hikes in the San Jacinto mountains and elsewhere and to plot out what gear to buy and when to depart. Unlike me, who would have preferred a later start-date, Dave specifically chose an early date: March 8, 2021. He wanted to give himself time to work into physical shape and still reach the Sierras by Memorial Day. The next morning, a four-day snowstorm hit San Diego County. While I was trying to decide if I should just hunker down in the campground, Dave announced he was going to test his toughness and raingear by heading out into the storm. I thought he was a bit crazy, but after an hour of boredom in my tent, I broke camp too. I met Dave in the afternoon where he was setting up camp along a creek and trying to stay dry and warm in the snowstorm. It was a pretty location, but unsheltered so I pushed on to a campground about five miles north figuring if my tent failed at least I could stay warm in the outhouse. Turned out that wasn’t necessary for me, but another hiker spent lots of time drying out clothes in that five-star outhouse.
I hiked through two-feet of snow on the trek to Mt. Laguna where I got off the trail for a couple of nights to let the storm blow over. With two additional storms on the way, I flew back to Berkeley for three weeks to let the weather improve. That morning, I met Dave headed out again for the trail. The sky was clear but another storm was predicted to hit in two-days. Dave was concerned but thought he would soldier on.
I didn’t know if Dave had made it safely through the March storms and the treacherous San Jacinto Mountain. I re-started my hike from Mt. Laguna on April 5th. About a month later I walked into a spring just south of Tehachapi, and heard this booming laugh and their stood hiker Dave. There was much less of him now. He had lost weight and he was looking lean and strong. We caught each other up on our respective journeys. He had acquired the trail name, Tortoise. But I noticed when I walked with him over the next few days that he was anything but slow. However, he was still telling folks about how his pace was like…well a tortoise.
Tortoise and I were destined to meet yet again. This time I was walking southbound just before the Lincoln Chair Lift at Sugar Bowl. And who turned down the northbound switchback but a big, lean bear of a man, named Tortoise. He was strong but seemed a little tired from his journey through the Sierras and was planning to take a week’s vacation to the beach with his brother. I never saw Tortoise again. I hope he was able to get through California before the Dixie Fire blocked the path. But I bet he did because he was one determined dude, and after three months on the trail, in very difficult conditions, he proved he had the grit and the experience to finish.