The driving factor behind getting to the interstate was McDonald's. I know you're probably thinking, "You're supposed to be living the trail life and eating trail food not stuff you can get everyday." Well I'm telling you to step off, ho. I wanted some damn fries and an egg mcmuffin.
So I start hauling, broken up occasionally to talk with someone on the trail or take a picture, but for the most part I was trying to keep my pace above 3 mph.
After a short climb around mile 336, I start to notice clouds rolling in again over a far ridge, but one that I'm headed towards. I don't mind because at 338, I'm supposed to pass under some power lines and then it's only four miles and under two hours. Mile 338 came and it was only 6:30 so I'm 20 minutes ahead of schedule and really pumped. Unfortunately that's when things start to go a little screwy.
I walk into another patch of fog and this time it's wetter, windier and colder than earlier in the day. I stopped to pee and I start walking again and all of a sudden I feel wet on my lower leg.
"Damn! Did I piss all over myself and not know it?"
I look down and I've got wet patches on both legs which are getting larger by the step. The vegetation around the trail is also getting damp so my shoes and around my ankles are getting wet.
Now I start worrying about my camera in my pocket because they're now starting to get a little damp. I didn't feel like wrapping myself back up in my poncho but I figured it would protect my camera well enough. Go to grab my camera and what do I feel but my pocket being held together by maybe three threads and my camera half hanging out the bottom. Lucky save.
Down one pocket, but no less excited to be approaching McD's, I wind down a switch back and work my way around a hill and see some weird formation below me. It looks like a big easter egg shaped road criss crossed with other roads over the middle.
"What the hell..."
And out of the fog like an alien ship over New York City in Independence Day emerges this absolutely massive power line transmission tower.
"Oh. Fuck."
I specifically remember the Data Book description of the landmark as "Road under massive power line tower." I now start cursing the Data Book because the tower I thought was the right one was your average sized tower. This one loomed. It scowled down at you ready to throw lightning bolts like a metal Zeus.
I am half a heartbeat from packing it in and I might have if the sun weren't setting and I wasn't a bit condensationized.
So I start cursing up a storm yet again, mentally pushing my arrival time back with each curse later and later. I literally run down one hill in the hopes of shaving off a minute or two before remembering my climb up the "shortcut" the day before and decide to just walk fast instead of risking injury over a quarter pounder.
I cross under the actually massive tower, walk across a short field along a random fence line and emerge under yet another set of power lines.
Repeat paragraph beginning with "So I start cursing up a storm..." The bitch of it was there was an eagle perched atop this third (although average sized) tower that screeched and took flight as I was walking by.
"Sorry, eagle, no time for a picture. I've got a long fucking way to go."
At that moment I actually remembered the one battle scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he was being overly obvious with his allusions and had eagles flying over the one army to signal that they were the good guys and were going to win, and ravens and crows over the other to show that they were the losers decided by fate.
So I couldn't decide whether it was a good or bad sign that an eagle flew overhead in my time of despair, but being a major pessimist at that particular moment, I decided that the eagle was abandoning me and I was going to be carried home on my shield.
But what I did notice at that same moment away on the horizon were two cars, one passing the other. But I-15 is from what I read an eight lane highway, and this looked like a four laner at best, so I dashed that glimmer of hope on the rocks of despair.
At the same time, I passed over two dirt roads in quick succesion near the third power line, and the Data Book did mention something about two dirt roads in quick succession around mile 340 or 341.
After the other day I refused to abandon the trail if the landmarks and mileage and all the other wayfinding factors seemed right. No more succumbing to trail vertigo. Not to mention the fact that I had given up on cooking dinner for the night and was determined to eat McDonald's come hell or high water (they told us at the Kick Off not to make hell-or-high-water decisions on the trail, but fuck 'em - I was cold and hungry and that guy was tucked into his warm bed drinking milk and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups).
Promisingly I came to a PCT marker just before a set of stone steps that had been cut into an incline leading into a canyon. The Guidebook said that just before hitting the highway, you go through a canyon.
One of the big things causing me to backtrack the day before was that coming around every turn was another mountain, and everytime I would come around one bend, another mountain in a never ending string that refused to open up.
This canyon...same thing. Turn, turn, turn, high canyon walls that don't stop. But I kept telling myself, just keep going, it will open up eventually.
Now, on the trail you hear and see things. One day I swore I saw a man in a blue shirt and white pants ahead of me, rushed to catch him and he never materialized. Then just the other day I definitely heard two people above me, but when I got to the ridge top, I looked over and it was a steep cliff. Nobody there.
So pardon me if I thought I was hearing things when I heard a guy talking over a loud speaker. A train line runs right by the trail and you could hear them going all day, so I convinced myself that if the guy were real it was somehow the echo of the conductor speaking to someone over the train's intercom.
But a minute or two later, I look up and left and see the canyon wall dip lower, meaning that hopefully it was about to open up onto the highway. And a few more seconds later, the white broad side of an eighteen wheeler's trailer.
I cheered non-stop for at least thirty secods and then broke into an impromptu rendition of the first few lines of Shania Twain's Still the One.
"Looks like we made it
Look how far we've come my baby
We might have took the long way
But we knew we'd get there someday..."
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