Day of Silence

Three days ago Spud, Histo, Honey Bear and I (the crew I have been hiking with for the past week and hopefully for a long time to come), decided just out of Sierra City to make the next day interesting. We had chosen to challenge ourselves by spending the day completely silent, to not speak to a single person on trail, to give us a chance to reflect in our own minds. As the day was coming to an end, we made camp in a beautiful spot above a large cliff face, watched the sunset and discussed our plan for the next day since we wouldn't be able to talk about water sources and a desired ending point. Since we figured we wouldn't be sitting around distracting ourselves with conversations, we could handle doing a higher mileage day too. To challenge ourselves mentally and physically, we would hike 32 miles to the middle fork of the Feather River completely silent.

I looked around as we were all cowboy camping the night before our big day and each of us were engrossed with writing in our journals. I was excited for the challenge, interested in where my mind would take me, and looking forward to catching up verbally with everyone the next day. As darkness filled the sky we all said goodnight and "I look forward to talking to you in two days!"

The next morning we woke up as usual around 5:30-6ish and quickly picked up our things since we had many miles to move through. I made eye contact with Spud and Honey Bear, smiled, and that was about the extent of any interaction we all had all morning. We hiked along until the first water source where we all knew we had to fill up a few liters, of course I filled five since it was a dry stretch, exchanged glances and head nods, and continued. By lunch we had already gone 15 miles. We were sitting in a shaded spot just after a beautiful ridge line that gave us a spectacular view of the foothills of the Cascades. A day hiker walked passed us sitting together and said, "Great spot for lunch guys!" and we all smiled a nodded our heads. For some reason the day before I hadn't imagined running into anyone else on trail since the past few days we had only seen one or two PCT thru-hikers. Since we hit the Sierras the 'pack' has spread out enormously which definitely gives the trail a more peaceful feeling. Sadly, we were wrong about not seeing anyone...

Seems pretty simple? Well, I thought the hardest part of the day would be analyzing thoughts in my head. Oh no no. Completely the opposite. As the day continued we found ourselves in more and more awkward situations. Just as we were about to cross a highway we see an RV sitting on the side of the road with half a dozen lawn chairs in front and many friendly, welcoming smiles. It was wonderful -trail magic! But wait, we couldn't actually talk to them. The four of us looked at each other, smiled and laughed. We hiked up to them and wrote down an explanation as to why we would be so boring in their presence. Spud earlier in the day had written a note saying, "Three of my friends and I have decided to hike today in silence. Please respect our decision and we look forward to talking to you tomorrow! Thank you." which he had shown to a few thru-hikers earlier in the day. Fortunately these thru-hikers had also told the trail angels about us and already 'expected' us. We sat around, ate grilled cheese, cookies and drank sodas of course silently. The Beatles played in the background as a few other thru-hikers decided to leave. Three Bears, a thru-hiker, yelled to the people leaving, "NO, don't leave, I won't have anyone to talk to!" Throughout the endless hospitality these trail angels provided us, I on many occasions wanted to share my gratitude with them. We awkwardly wrote thank you notes, hugged them goodbye and smiled and waved when we decided to continue down trial. 17 miles to go.

It was around 2:30 when we left the trail magic and decided to pick up our pace with that unexpected stop. From then on we separated on trail, walking our personal comfortable paces and decided we'd meet up at the same water source down trail for dinner. I was hiking just in front of Spud during this stretch of trail and picked up one of the largest sugar pine cones I had ever seen in my life! It was longer than the bottom half of my leg. I showed it to Spud and he replied, "It's HUGE!" Just at that moment, realizing that he spoke for the first time all day, he threw down his trekking poles and fell to his knees, arms raised above his head and mouthed, "No!" Absolutely hilarious reaction to the situation. I laughed out loud for a good minute and we communicated non verbally that we would keep this secret between us.

After another quiet meal, we finished dinner and descended 3,000 feet to the Feather River as the sun started to set. I was so excited and surprised by how beautiful it was! We all jumped in the river and laid on the hot rocks that had been heated all day by the sun. This was an perfect ending to a 32 mile silent and awkward day on the PCT.

The next morning we woke up, looked at each other and smiled. I think at first it was hard to move our mouths to make words. Then once we started talking over breakfast we couldn't stop! Even though we were all present with each other the day before and had all been through the same terrain and trail magic, we had so much to share. We laughed and stayed in our sleeping bags til 9 am, went swimming in the river for another hour, then by ten decided it was finally time to start hiking again.

As we enter northern California the miles are going to fly on by. Thru-hikers often move a lot quicker because we are halfway through the trail, have the Sierras with large elevation change behind us, and have flatter terrain to move through ahead. Big days like these will become more consistent yet this one was unique. To spend a day in silence really allows you to reflect and analyze what you've been experiencing so far on the trail. I thought a lot about moving to Berkley in the fall, who I am as a learner and educator, and how I can be a more effective teacher. I also realized how ADD I am on the trail. Every time I wanted to hike and really dig deep into a thought I was distracted by a beautiful wild flower or the color of the lichen on the trees. Life couldn't be better. I am curious once in Berkley this fall to try this experience once again in the other world. To spend a day in silence out grocery shopping,  making dinner at home and interacting in my every day routine would be interesting. If you try this, tell me about it because I would be very excited to hear about your experience!

So here I am, in northern California about to hit the Cascades and enter the land of many volcanoes. I have never been above Tahoe so this is all new territory for me. So excited for the halfway point in a few days and soon enough we'll be viewing Mt. Shasta!

I need to learn how to post pictures on this blog (they're definitely more interesting with photos...). Soon to come!

Get outside and challenge yourself,
Much love,
Oasis