ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL, Calif. -- Every spring or summer,
in lieu of professional help, I ditch civilization for the therapy of the
wilderness. I've just been backpacking with my 18-year-old daughter on the
Pacific Crest Trail in California, abandoning our material world for an
alternative reality in which the aim is to possess as little as possible --
because if you have it, you lug it.
Our lives were downsized to 10 pounds of possessions each, not
counting food and water. We carried backpacks, sleeping bags, jackets, hats, a
plastic groundsheet, a tarp in case of rain, a water filter and a tiny roll of
duct tape for when things break.
Few problems in life cannot be solved with duct tape.
O.K., I know I'm supposed to use my column to pontificate
about Donald Trump and global crises. But as summer beckons, let me commend
such wilderness escapes to all of you, with your loved ones, precisely to find
a brief refuge from the pressures of the world.
This isn't for everybody; astonishingly, some folks prefer
beaches and clean sheets. But for me at least, a crazy jaunt in the outdoors is
the perfect antidote to the absurdity of modern life.
In the 21st century, we often find ourselves spinning on the
hamster wheel, nervously jockeying for status with our peers -- Is my barbecue
bigger than my neighbor's? Is my car flashier? -- even as we're too busy to
barbecue anything. We're like dogs chasing after our tails.
That's why I find it so cathartic to run away from home. My
parents took me backpacking beginning when I was about 7, and my wife and I
took our three children on overnight hikes as soon as they could toddle.
Don't tell Child Protective Services, but when my daughter was
4, I took her on an overnight trip on Oregon's Eagle Creek Trail, carrying her
most of the first day on my shoulders, on top of my backpack. The next morning,
I bribed her: If she would walk by herself all 13 miles back to the car, I
would buy her a spectacular ice cream in the nearest town.
So we set off for the car. At every rest stop, we conjured
that ice cream and how cold it would be, and, fortified, we trundled on down
the trail beside glorious waterfalls. When we reached the car, we were both
proud of her heroism, and she beamed tiredly as I buckled her into her car
seat.
When we arrived at an ice cream shop 20 minutes later, she was
fast asleep. I couldn't wake her.
Thus began our hiking partnership, sometimes undertaken with
the whole family, sometimes just the two of us. At home we're all busy, but on
the trail we're beyond cellphone coverage or email reach and we're stuck with
each other.
So we talk. Even as we're disconnected, we reconnect. And on
rest breaks and at night, camping under the stars, we read aloud to each other:
On this trip, my daughter and I have been reading Adam Johnson's brilliant
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Orphan Master's Son," and talking
about what it means.
No self-respecting teenage girl would normally allow her dad
to read to her, but out in the wilderness, it's a bond we share.
It's true that not everybody can get time off, the cost of
equipment can add up and it can be a hassle to get to and from a trail. (When
I've tried hitchhiking out, drivers see a bedraggled, unshaven hobo and speed
up!). Still, costs are modest: While car campgrounds often charge, backpacking
in the great outdoors is almost always free. And day after day, there is simply
nowhere to spend money.
I can't pretend it's glamorous. We've been scorched by the sun
and chilled by rain, hail and snow. Sure, in trail conversations we bare our
innermost thoughts, but we also spend plenty of time whining about blisters,
rattlesnakes and 20-mile stretches without water. We curse trail designers for
PUDS, or pointless ups and downs.
And let's be blunt: I stink. When you're carrying everything
on your back, you don't pack any changes of clothing. We bathe our feet in
creeks (hoping that anyone drinking downstream is using a water filter), and on
this trip we luxuriated in the Deep Creek hot springs beside the trail. We
commiserate together, and we exult together in America's cathedral of the wild,
our stunning common heritage and birthright.
My daughter and I have now hiked across Washington and Oregon
and hundreds of miles of California, and eventually we'll have limped the
entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. Nothing is as different from
my daily life, nor as treasured, and that is why I suggest the wilderness to
friends.
For members of my family at least, these spring
and summer hikes are a reminder that what shapes us is not so much the
possessions we acquire but the memories we accumulate, that when you scrape
away the veneer, what gives life meaning is not the grandest barbecue or the
sportiest car. It's each other.
