The Mayor thinks she broke her pinky.
Sitting in her folding backpacking chair, sunglasses hanging loosely from her nose, she raises her right hand. Sure enough, the final digit is swollen, purple and bent sideways.
“Just a klutz sometimes,” she says with a drawl.
I rummage through my backpack for the first-aid kit and pull out the athletic tape. She pulls out about 6 inches of tape and wraps the pinky to her ring finger. You can tell she’s done this before; when she’s not hiking or working, The Mayor is a Division I Women’s NCAA basketball referee.
“They fly me all over the country for games,” she says. “But mostly I work the west coast.”
“Sweet gig,” I say.
“Well, it doesn’t pay the bills. I work in corporate sales. Awful work, but it’s good money. I’m currently on sabbatical. Can’t you tell?” She spreads her arms out to show her current setting is not a typical business meeting. “I’m giving myself a few months before I return to the grind. I always wanted to hike the Washington section of the PCT, and I figured now was the time.”
She’s right about the timing. The conditions are ideal. The weather forecast is calling for clear skies and highs in the 70s for the next week. It wasn’t so great last week, though.
“Did you get caught in that rainstorm?” Giovannina asks.
“Thank God, no. I got lucky. That’s when I took my break.” She shakes her head. “Met some other hikers who were in it and said that it rained for 31 hours straight. Miserable.”
Gio and I nod in comprehension. I look up at the sky and can’t see a cloud. The surrounding ridges are dry as a bone. Many of the seasonal streams we passed on the trail have been dry as well. On the flanks of Lemah Mt a few snowfields linger, small remnants of the winter’s gift. It’s their melt that provides important water for the Pacific Northwest during these dry summer months.
It’s day three of our hike from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass and Gio and I have taken a break at a small lake on top of Escondido Ridge to eat lunch, filter water and take a dip in the cold, clear tarn under the peaks of Lemah Mountain. The trek has been wonderful so far. We started with our friend Nate, who drove us to Stevens and hiked in with us the first night. We camped together at Hope Lake. He headed back the next morning, and we continued on.
I did this stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail, know as the J-Section (A through I are farther south; K and L are to the north) about 15 years ago with my friend, Glen, but we did it in the opposite direction, starting at Snoqualmie and ending at Stevens. Well, we intended to end at Stevens. A combination of errors drove us off the trail early, so we hiked out at Surprise Creek instead of making it all the way to the Stevens Pass. My biggest mistake was weight. My pack must have been over 60 pounds. After 5 days of hiking, several of my toenails were black, and my feet hurt so bad I could barely walk. Today, my base weight (everything I’m carrying minus food and water) is under 20 pounds. Back then, I hiked in big leather boots. Today I’m wearing sneakers. I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things since then.
In the last three days of hiking, Gio and I have met a number of people. Most of them are doing the same route we are, the 72-mile jaunt between Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes. Others are just out for a few days doing various loops from the several trailheads that access this section of the PCT. And then there have been the many PCT through-hikers, those long-distance walkers trucking all the way from Mexico to Canada. Most of them started in April or May and are now arriving in Washington in what one hiker referred to as “The Bubble”, the massive cohort who all started the PCT in the spring and are now just a couple hundred miles from the finish line.
The Mayor is hiking the Washington section of the PCT and is doing it southbound, or SOBO. At just over 500 miles, many consider Washington to have some of the most picturesque scenery of the PCT. And the J Section – the part between Stevens and Snoqualmie – is one of the more scenic and easily accessible parts in Washington. Most of the J-Section hikers we’ve met are like us, Pacific Northwesterners who want to take advantage of the proximity and easy access to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. There was a nice couple from Portland that we played cards with at camp the night before. Then today we met Joe, a teacher at West Seattle High School, who is getting in one last backpack before school starts. The most adventurous of the J-Section hikers was probably the group of 11 we met on the first day. They were two families (four adults, six kids and a dog) from Camus, WA who had hiked the J Section every summer for the past three years. “We like to do it before the kids return to school,” one of the moms said. “It’s a great way to keep them off their phones.”
But no one has been as convivial as The Mayor.
Leaning back in her chair and nibbling on cheese and crackers, she looks up at us as we return from our swim in the blue waters of the tarn.
“You going to take a dip?” Gio asks.
“I think I’ll soak my feet,” she says. She holds up her right foot, which is wrapped heavily with KT tape. “Sprained my ankle a week before I started the hike. It could use an ice bath.”
“You’ve been hiking with a sprained ankle?”
“Almost two hundred miles!” The Mayor says proudly, raising her ankle in the air.
Her plan is to finish the trip sometime in mid-September, crossing the Columbia River at the Bridge of the Gods. There, she’ll meet up with friends who will drive her home to Burien, WA. She started at the Canadian border about three weeks ago. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. There is no border crossing at that trailhead, and so even with a passport, you can’t cross into Canada. The SOBOs either start the hike about 30 miles south of the border at Harts Pass, or hike from Harts Pass to the border and back, adding a few extra days to their journey. That’s what The Mayor did, and she’s quite proud of it.
“Hell yeah, I hiked from Harts Pass to the border and back,” she says, waving her pinky in the air. “If I’m doing it, I’m doing the whole damn thing.”
And with a sprained ankle, and a broken finger, she has been making her way south. Though she walks like a wounded camel, she’s averaging almost twenty miles a day. But she does take breaks to resupply her food and to give her legs a rest. In addition to the three-day break after reaching Highway 20, she also took a small detour from the PCT to the isolated little hamlet of Stehekin to enjoy the pastries at its world-famous bakery. It was on the bus ride to Stehekin where she got her trail name. She had struck up a conversation with a fellow hiker when someone else recognized her from her earlier days on the trail. Surprised that she was so popular, her traveling companion started calling her The Mayor of the PCT, and the name stuck.
Gio and I haven’t talked to many other hikers on this trip, so we appreciate the mayor’s amiability. We expected hikers to be more social, but I’m realizing that most of the through-hikers are focused on getting miles and don’t have the time to stop and chat. I think long-distance hiking is an activity that selects for introverts, which makes The Mayor a bit of an outlier. When we pass a through-hiker on the trail, they usually just nod and keep going. Many of them wear headphones, like they’re working out at the gym. Being the agitator I am, I’ve started asking these folks random questions whenever we cross paths. I know they’re all obsessed with efficiency, so I usually ask about their routine or their gear.
“Do you have a raincoat?”
Most do, but some don’t, and when it rains, they either get soaked or spend the day in their tent.
“Do you eat breakfast? If so, do you cook it or just eat it cold?”
Most just have a bar for breakfast.
“How many pairs of socks do you have?”
Most have two, but a few get by with only one.
“How many pairs of underwear did you bring?”
This last question I only ask of the men, and even then, Giovannina has advised me to stop asking it otherwise my trail name will be Creepy Underwear Guy. However, I’ve gotten some great responses. One hiker stopped and thoughtfully pondered the question for a moment before saying, “Well, I started with one pair, but then got a second pair, and honestly, I think three would be ideal.” Another guy proudly stated, “None! But I do carry this.” And then, reaching into his fanny pack, he pulled out a stick of Body Glide.
“Fascinating,” I said. “How has that worked for you?”
“Great,” he said. “Though it did take about four days to develop a crust. After that, everything’s been fine.”
That guy’s trail name – to Gio and me, anyway – will forever be Crusty.
By now, Gio and I have finished our salami and cheese. Our water has been filtered, and we’re ready to get back on the trail. We have another 6 miles before we reach camp. After that, it will be another two of hiking. We ask The Mayor if she wants us to wait for her.
“Nah,” she says. “I’ll see you guys at the next camp.” And looking off at the rocky spires reflected in the turquoise waters of the lake, she adds, “I’m just going to enjoy the view a little while longer.”