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Seven Million Steps on the CDT (Part 2)

J. Willis 'Whoa' Jarvis

May 7, 1999

Albuquerque

• TNM&O bus Cuba-ABQ 1:00 pm $15.
• Greyhound bus Grants-ABQ morning and evening $11.
• Route 66 Hostel, 1012 Central Ave. SW(about 5 blocks west of downtown Greyhound station) $13 dorm, lots of free food and sci-fi paperbacks, no daily lockout.
• Express Inn, 1040 Central $24 for luxury splurge, 64 channels cable TV, phone in room, etc.
• Souper!Salad! all you can eat salad bar $4.09, 1 block SW of University Campus on Central Ave.
• Public library, downtown Copper & 5th St., one internet access terminal, 1-hr signup sheet. Better yet:
• TVI Community College on University Ave. south of Coal St.; Max Salazar 3 story brown brick building on east side of University Ave., computer lab, about 20 fast computer terminals, no questions asked, just look like a scruffy college student, plop down at any terminal and act like you know what you are doing.

Silver City

• Internet access at U of NM, but extremely slow. However, the Carter House Hostel should not be missed, one of the best, about $15.

Grants

• Home fries with brown gravy $2.50 at the Uranium Café. The Smiths supermarket at Lobo Canyon does NOT have an in-store bakery, but blueberry muffins and whole milk is a good substitute. Wave to the prisoners in the Lobo Canyon penetentiary.

Pie Town

• Home-made pie $2.50 at the only café, open Wed - Sun, but no groceries.

May 27, 1999

Pinedale, Wyoming. Nearly launched a raft into the spring snowmelt torrent of the Sweetwater River, but had the good sense to find another way around (a 20 mile walk to a bridge). The heavy snowfall in the Wind River and the Tetons has prevented me from hiking the higher CDT route. Snow is 167% of normal and will not melt for another month, according to the Jackson National Forest ranger office. Maybe some back roads will take me north instead. The target dates which I hope to make are: 6/13/99 Macks Inn, ID, 8/05 Rawlins, WY (starting Colorado southbound) and 10/01 Cuba, NM end of hike.

July 12, 1999

Anaconda, MT With the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness behind me, only three more supply stops remain to reach the Canadian border in about a month: Lincoln, Benchmark Ranch near the Bob Marshall Wilderness and East Glacier Park. A non-refundable bus ticket from Shelby to Rawlins, WY has been bought for August 10, so now there is some extra pressure to complete the schedule on time. Just another 'excuse' not to whoa-down; actually the dream of doing this hike in a leisurely manner evaporated long ago. It's not that I walk particularly fast, it is just that I keep on going, and long summer days provide plenty of room for going, adding up to about 20 miles per day. My groove has become a treadmill.

Meeting southbound Bush and Julian, both from Texas, on Rainbow Pass in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness on 7/09 was my first encounter with other CDT hikers since starting from Arizona four months ago. It was wonderful to set our packs down and visit on the trail, especially after we moved from chilly shadow into warm sunlight. I hope our paths cross again in Colorado. Maybe they will have shed some of their impressive pack weight by then, a burden impossible for my old body to manage (20 pounds gear plus 15 pounds for 9 days food plus 6 pounds for three liters of water is my maximum load). However, I would have liked to borrow one of their ice axes for a frightening snow traverse above a rocky cliff at Storm King Pass. They told me their ice axes had saved their lives.

To my regret I missed meeting Jim and Ginny Owen after waiting for them three nights in mosquito-filled Wisdom, WY. They were delayed by the snow which still hadn't fully melted, hard as it may be to imagine for flatlanders from the south. (Ed. Note: Jim and Ginny completed their southbound CDT hike and later met with Willis in Lukeville, AZ in December.)

August 4, 1999

See Willis's entry in the 'Distance Hiker's Gazette' vol 4 #3 for an August update and interesting uses for a bandana! Willis now reports that he has reduced the number of his essential bandanas from five to three (food, body and mud).

Long period of no available e-mail communication!

September 7, 1999

My solo six-month Continental Divide hike is finally over, completed today in Cuba, NM. Words fail to describe the inner experience, therefore this field report will stick to the facts.

Starting last March 9, I set out from my winter retreat in the Sonoran Desert bordering Mexico and walked across Arizona in 21 walking days, averaging 20 miles per day. Then on reaching the Divide, headed north through New Mexico (31 walking days, including the Chama segment finished today), Wyoming (30 days), Idaho (7 days), Montana (36 days) and finally Colorado southbound (24 days, one of them without rain). (Ed. Note: Willis says that since then he has acquired a GoLite umbrella)

The total of 149 walking days in 6 months adds up to about 3,000 miles, slightly less than the 'official' CDT trail length of 3,100 miles, because of my taking more direct routes near the end, due in part to global warming causing heavy rainfall in the mountains. With a stride of 27 inches, that is 2,340 steps per mile, or more than 7 million steps total.

My thanks to my parents who diligently mailed map packs and hiking supplies stored in the Willis Whoa Bin. My gratitude to all those who welcomed me on the trail and encouraged me by word and example to keep on to the end, especially the Leadville 100 Mile Race runners, encountered in their 55th mile jogging down Willis (no kidding) Gulch from 12,000 foot Hope Pass.

The only article which did not get much use was my sitting meditation bandana, but at least it did serve as a reminder to resume sitting practice when stiff, muscular legs become flexible again.

To those CDT hikers whom I met or almost met on the trail; Jim and Ginny Owen, Bush and Julian from Texas, Paul Leech; Bill Gurwell; Jeff Wheatley from Florida; Jim Wolf of CDTS, and William 'Marathon Man' Emerson; as well as any other southbound hikers: Beware of an early Colorado winter - yellowing aspen leaves, bushy squirrels, greedy camp robber jays, nippy nights above 10,000 feet, and morning rainbows. The ground is so saturated with monsoon rain that puddles form overnight. On the positive side, the daily rain seems to be discouraging would-be hunters, hauling their putt-putt ATVs back out on flatbeds or pickups. I do my part by shouting my war cry "Hoy!" from time to time to clear the field. "Hoy!" means "Today! " in Spanish, "Carpe Diem!" in Latin or "Mama Mia!" in Hebrew.

What did I gain by this Continental Divide hike? A bead necklace from Glacier Park. What did I lose? A pair of white socks. What did I learn? To endure discomfort more patiently. Was it worth it? Grist for the mill. Would I do it again? Not in one season. Do I recommend it? Only to the most valiant explorers, those who ignore the appropriate time of their going. What next? Coconut cream pie.

Farewell Continental Divide! Hello Today! HOY!

September 10, 1999

The hardware items described below are all winners, survivors of my six-month 3,000 mile Continental Divide Trail hike, building on previous experience thru-hiking the PCT, as well as six years of voluntary homeless wilderness life. Their weight adds up to about 20 pounds plus food and water, a load which allows 20 mile days and restful nights. There are some long distance hikers who get by on even less. John Muir, for example, once wrote that all he needed to go on a hike was a loaf of bread in a gunny sack and a neighbor's backyard fence to jump over. But this set described below is what suits me, and is presented as a suggestion for other fellow hikers. The important thing is to experience life for yourself, to decide for yourself what is worthwhile. A list like this one is only a platform to jump off from, like the backyard fence Muir needed to get started.

• Rucksack: Top-loading pack with glove compartment lid, about 3,000 cubic inches, lightweight, no internal frame. Adapted from a daypack by hand sewing external quick-access pockets and cinch straps for external sleeping bag duffel (left side) and down jacket/clothing duffel (right side), reserving main compartment for food and water. Fits in a greyhound bus or airplane overhead rack. Never out of reach when traveling except when cached in a hotel or above treeline to summit a mountain.
• Sleeping bag duffel (left side): 20 degree down bag, loosely packed to prolong life. Duffel has room for extra toilet paper, cotton balls, small clothing bag and extra food for maximum 9-day range. Like a Mexican bus, there is always room for one more. (Ed. Note: Willis is currently sewing a quilt by hand.)
• Small clothing bag: one hip pocket bandana, 2 non-cotton briefs, 2 pairs nylon socks, one pair ragg wool socks (for sleeping and mosquitos, not for walking), one pair wool mittens.
• Large clothing duffel (right side): down jacket, Duofold thermarest crewneck undershirt, mesh bag of parachute cords (readily accessible before storm instead of rummaging thru main compartment), alternate of 2 knit shirts or T-shirts, and watertight nylon stuff bag for washing clothes, containing a 2-oz Nalgene bottle of detergent, lasting about 4 weeks, used frugally to remove odors, not grass stains. Laundry must be done daily, an acquired discipline. Drape on back of pack to dry out while morning sun shines. The sign of a long distance hiker is laundry on his pack; short-timers have homes and washing machines.
• Other clothing not listed above: one pair of Supplex nylon cargo pants, quick drying, with custom sewn pockets for a small folding knife (sheath pocket sewn inside right hip pocket and secured with a zipper), a watch (left front), a 5-degree compass with declination ring (right front) and a passport/money pocket in back for travel to Mexico. White hat (nylon, washable, folds into pants pocket, otherwise a Mexican straw sombrero is also good, but requires a strap to attach to back of pack when not being worn). Shoes: walking or running shoes, never heavy boots. Leather tops such as New Balance $65 last twice as long as fabric shoes; it's a toss up if slight weight improvement is worth the extra cost; decision may depend on availability. WalMart has featherweight jogging shoes for $9.95. Just rip out the tongue and the velcro straps and sew on a couple of shoelace loops. Nylon windbreaker with integral hood, anorak style. Wigwam thermastat skull cap. Nylon running shorts.
• Top glove compartment: Ditty bag with address book, memo book, ballpoint pen, comb, acrylic mirror, all waterproofed inside ziplock bag; mosquito headnet; sewing kit.
• Sewing kit: Rubbermaid 14-oz flat Servin Saver: black nylon upholstery thread, white button/carpet thread, three-ply waxed nylon pack thread, lump of beeswax, assorted hand and machine needles. Safesport knurled nut needle holder with cotter pin handle (if not available, improvise individual handles with wooden dowel rods, drill and epoxy), 8 straight pins, vinyl tape measure cut to 37", tiny pointed sewing scissors, USA pin point precision tweezers, straight razor blade, Kenyon ripstop nylon tent repair, butane lighter, spare batteries, fingernail clipper, spare GI can opener, 30 dB foam earplugs for Mexico.
• Other external quick access pack pockets: map/correspondence/passport pouch, hair-cutting scissors, flashlight, 4 yard parachute cord, toilet paper, unbreakable one-inch wood chisel digging tool, "mudder" all-purpose bandana-rag, small jar vaseline (fire starter and skin ointment), 1-oz vials of Deet, iodine tablets, ascorbic acid tablets to neutralize iodine, aspirin for pain.
• Tarp: 5 X 7' Campmor grommeted green nylon, rigged with a 7-yard length diagonal ridge-line and two opposite corner guy lines. Using short strings preattached at each tarp corner, position the tarp along the selected ridgeline diagonal using a boy-scout slip knot (a clove hitch with an extra turn on the inside). Tighten the ridgeline and the guy lines by using a "power" or "winch" knot (see Jacobsen's Basic Essentials of Knots for the Outdoors).
• Mesh cord bag: Precut lengths of parachute cord, each identified on one end by colored vinyl tape ($2 package of 5 colors available at WalMart). Wrap and sew the vinyl tape onto the marked end. Set of 2 each of 2-yard lengths (red), 3-yard (yellow), 4-yard (green) - one of them kept in a quick-access external pack pocket, 5-yard (white), and one 7-yard ridgeline (white with yellow stripe), add up to 105 feet of parachute cord. If necessary to make a longer cord, join short cords using a sheetbend knot. Fasten guylines using a bowline knot or two half hitches with quick release.
• Ground sheet: remnants of old tarp, or Tyvek if available.
• Medicine kit: bandaids, cloth athletic tape, antibiotic, aspirin, antihistamine, moleskin.
• Stove kit: Sierra Zip wood burning stove, modified by replacing tethered fan switch with an onboard Radio Shack toggle switch, nested inside a 1.0 liter stainless steel pot (titanium if available), vaseline smeared cotton balls in small bag stuffed inside dry combustion chamber. Black tar-encrusted pot is never washed on the outside, rather stored inside a one gallon ziploc bag inside a custom fitted nylon stuff bag, with pot holder and copper scouring pad on top. Because of sloppy dimple stove construction, the unit tends to fall apart when dumping out ashes, but this minor problem is easily handled by restraining the stove with a stick. The elegant concept of replacing heavy passive insulation with lightweight active air convection to boost stove efficiency more than compensates for minor engineering design flaws. My stove has worked well for more than a year, 2-3 times every day. Wood fuel is abundant everywhere, from dead creosote branches in the Sonoran desert to sagebrush roots on the Wyoming range to willows along streams to evergreens in forests. The stove works well even with wet or snow-covered wood, and permits extended stays in remote backcountry where petroleum fuel is not available. However, a gasoline stove such as the MSR Whisperlite is more convenient. The alternative of going stoveless on a hike by building wood campfires is not recommended, based on my personal experience, because of time-consuming inconvenience and significant forest fire hazard. However, for longer stays in one place, a rock-and-dirt stove/oven is easy to build and gives excellent peformance in rain or wind, although consuming more wood and producing more visible smoke. The other alternative of not cooking at all is acceptable for short 2-3 day hikes, but the calorie-to-mass ratio is too low for long hikes.
• Water: 4 liters in the arid Southwest, 2 liters elsewhere. No water filter. Drink water from mountain streams, or treat stagnant water with iodine, or boil it on a wood-burning abundant-fuel stove.
• Spice bag: Rubbermaid 2-cup Servin Saver plastic bowl with rim flange, small sugar jar nested inside bowl, spoon, food bandana' Nalgene 2-oz bottles (coffee, salt, black pepper, hot pepper, garlic powder, cumin/curry mix), toothbrush (salt as toothpaste), dental floss in precut lengths in 35mm vial, One-a-Day vitamins, GI can opener, sunscreen for lips. Avoid eating near water on account of noise, insects, private property and limited views. In bear country, never sleep anywhere near where food has been cooked, especially designated campgrounds. Leave off wearing silly ding-dong dinner bells; instead give a manly, stirring shout "Hoy!" from time to time to assert your place in the wilderness. Many animals also cry out "Here I am!"
• Variously colored food bags: Hint: high calorie peanut butter is a glue that holds everything together, less messy than oil. Great with Ramen noodles.
• Strategic Timing, Food, and Water

I feel somewhat embarrassed to read some of the things I wrote on this hike. In retrospect I did so much of it wrong, especially strategic timing, food and water. On page 176 of Ray Jardine's book "Beyond Backpacking" I am the fellow described as "hating" hiking after 41/2 months on a diet of nothing but wheat spaghetti. This conversation took place when we met in Tuolumne Meadows in 1994. On this 1999 CDT hike I varied my diet more but not enough and depleted my body reserves after a few months and began suffering dehydration headaches unsuspectingly every day for the last six weeks of the hike. Naturally, I was in a hurry to finish. This made it not fun.

Quick summary:

• March across Arizona: dry.
• April in New Mexico: winds all day.
• May in Wyoming: freezing winds, snow, on exposed open range.
• June-July: 160% snow buried Wind Rivers in Montana and Yellowstone. Therefore tedious road walks, then mosquitos, swollen streams, a moose attack, and head aches begin.
• August in Colorado: Summer monsoon, rain every day (23 out of 24).

A much better strategy would have been a North-South hike departing Glacier Park in July, with a New Mexico warmup in June. It would not be true that I hate hiking, in spite of my remark to Ray and Jenny. I just haven't learned how to do it the right way yet. If something is not right, it is not the trail's fault; it is my fault. The trail is a guru at every step and my job is to learn from it.

Beyond Jardine

But if there is any topic on which I would expand further, it is the challenge of hiking as a permanently itinerant life style, not just a summer adventure. I am still looking for that groove, a balance of sitting and walking. My CDT '99 hike failed in that respect, but I still learned from it. I learned that 20+ mile days are beyond my capacity to do well. I did them but not well. When did I ever "leap over flowers lightly"? This next season, if I am permitted to go forth yet another season, I want to try 10-mile days. Rise at 4:30 am, sit in meditation until dawn, walk about 4 hours till lunch. Then stay put until late afternoon when another hour's walk would be a pleasant diversion, not a treadmill grind. Sure, Jardine gave us the freedom and means to achieve phenomenal mileage, but as he himself quoted Thoreau on p. 413, "There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." Change "getting his living" to "getting to his destination". If there is any message I could transmit to my brother/sister hikers, it is this: Whoa-down! Take it easy. Restrain your hyperactive body. Restrain your furious breath. Restrain your hot mind. Believe me, it is harder to walk 10 miles a day than 20.

October 7, 1999

Bueno, today hoy in Caborca, Sonora, Mexico, I have returned now to the Sonoran desert for my sixth annual winter retreat. My recent vacation near Basaseachi, Chihuahua, winding down from hiking the Continental Divide, was a peaceful interlude between wars. Camped at 2,000 meters (Mexico is metric) in mixed forest of ponderosa pine, broadleaf encina oak and smooth red madrone.

Last night as I walked away from the Caborca bus terminal into the clear desert night air, I saw overhead the soft smudge of our sister galaxy at the end of the third chain binding princess Andromeda. Its pristine light departed some 2.2 million years ago, about when our human ancestors walked, yes walked, out of the jungle onto a grassy plain. It is the farthest object visible to the naked eye. Towards the southern horizon, between Gamma Sagittarii and 45 Ophiuchi, the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way is obscured by gas and stardust, 27,000 light years deep. By day the desert is frugal, conserving water in tree leaves the size of grains of rice, but by night it unfolds a starry tapestry with lavish extravagance.

On the whoapath!
J. Willis "Whoa" Jarvis
P.O. Box 744, Lukeville AZ 85341
williswhoa@hotmail.com

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