05: Hiker Down

Andrew and Rocky discover hardship on the trail they never expected.

Trail Weight is produced and written by Andrew Steven. Our Story Producer is Monte Montepare. Executive produced by Jeff Umbro and The Podglomerate.

Cindy Ross' book, "Walking Towards Peace" is available here: https://amzn.to/3tJwKzr

Check out Florence Williams’ "The Nature Fix" and "The 3-Day Effect" at florencewilliams.com

Follow Joey Clift on Twitter at @joeytainment and online and joeyclift.com

Transcript

Note: Transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors.

Joey Clift: Something I really wanted to talk about on the show was the idea of, uh, watching out for, like, false victories. Or something that you think might be, uh, the completion of your-- of your personal narrative arc, without actually being your personal narrative arc.

Andrew: This is Joey Clift. He’s a writer and a comedian, and someone who I’ve admired online for some time, so I was excited to hear his thoughts on the whole, writing-your-own-life-story stuff.

Joey Clift: This originally tracked for me as a concept, um, in, I want to say it was 2011. I just finished my first assistant job. Was looking for new-- for more work. So like, uh, for me, I'm a huge fan of professional wrestling. I loved, I-- I've loved WWE for a long time. I've watched since probably I was like six or seven years old. And a big dream of mine, for a lot of my life, was to be a writer for WWE. There are people that write the storylines, write the promos for the wrestlers, and stuff like that. And it's a job that, like, I applied for a lot, you know, kind of throughout my life.And it was this really interesting experience for me of, like, knowing that I was put up for, and interviewing for, what for over half my life was my dream job. 

I kind of figured, Oh, I-- I want to interview for this job just to see, like, what this alternate reality version of my life would be. If I took the job, you know, also it's like, you know, what is, what, what-- what even is interviewing for my dream job? Like, so I-- they flew me up to Stanford, Connecticut, which is where the headquarters, uh, was. I got a selfie of myself in front of their Andre The Giant statue in their lobby. 

Andrew: [Laughs]

Uh, I had, uh, five to six hours worth of interviews, uh, over the span of a day. Uh, which was just like chaos defined-- where it was like-- I think I spent an hour and a half locked in like a chair storage room because they didn't have any other place that they could put.

Andrew: [Laughs] They locked you into it?

Joey Clift: I mean, they didn't like lock-- but I mean, it was like-- there was, like, a key card and it was like, it was clear that, like, if I left, it would have to be escorted by the HR person or whatever. 

Andrew: Yes. Totally.

Joey Clift: Yeah. It was just a very insane, chaotic experience. And at the end of it, they ended up offering me the job and I turned it down. 

You know, if I told myself when I was like 16, that I would be in a position where I'm being interviewed by the WWE for writing job and I'm like, maybe not going to take it. 16-year-old-Joey would be like, “What its your problem, man?” But, like present-day, 2021-Joey-- it just kind of struck me as like a lot of my goal in the entertainment industry right now is to create work that helps marginalized groups feel seen. And writing for WWE, for me, um, would be kind of like, you know, I'm sure a cool job, but also a false victory in that, like, is my 14-year-old dream of wanting to be a WWE writer, um, more important than maybe the thing that made me want to do that as opposed to being a comedian growing up. Um, and that's not seeing people like me on television and in the media. 

So, you know, like I-- I was in a fortunate spot where I was up for this WWE writing job while I was also up for writing, um, on a new Netflix show called “Spirit Rangers,” which I'm writing on right now, which is the first-ever United States animated series with a Native American showrunner and creator, Chris Valencia, uh, an all Native writers, um, you know, just like Native talent up and down the bill working on all sides of the production. And, um, it-- it struck me while I was interviewing, of like, okay like, is what I really want to write for WWE, or is what I really want to create the heroes that I wish existed when I was growing up. And am I going to be able to do that while I'm writing, you know, the new catchphrase for John Cina to sell more t-shirts or whatever? Um, so, you know, I-- I ended up turning down my dream job when I was 16 to get what my dream job is now.

I'm sure there are a lot of people that are just like, “why did you turn down a job,” which I totally get. But I guess that for me, in the moment, that felt like a big personal narrative moment of like reinforcing for myself of like, what is actually important to me, um, as opposed to like taking a false-- a false end or a false climax or whatever.

Andrew: Hearing Joey’s thoughts about living in a story made me reflect on the year of my life I spent recording this podcast. Joey’s journey is much more admirable in comparison, but the lessons he learned were showing up in my own life. My dream, my goal, was to lose weight and hike over 200 miles through the Sierra Nevada mountains. But when I lost 100 pounds and got to the trailhead, I had to relearn why I was out here. I had to discover what was far more important, and what was underneath my motivation to hike.

I thought I wanted to lose weight and go on an adventure, but I was learning that what I really wanted was not that simple.

[Theme Music]

Andrew: I’m Andrew Steven, and this is “Trail Weight,” a podcast about hiking outdoors and the lessons learned along the way. 

I knew spending a month in the mountains would have an effect on me. I knew I wanted to heal from the pain of losing my mom to cancer. But I didn’t know what would actually happen being in nature for so long.

The plan for today’s hike included crossing over the infamous Forester Pass—a 13,000-ft high notch in the mountain known for its complex and dangerous, snow-covered route. There was no going around. There was only one way to go. But our bodies were finally starting to feel different. We began to sense the positive effects of being in nature for such an extended period. 

The JMT and Pacific Crest Trail (a 5-month long thru-hike from Mexico to Canada that shares some of the same trail with the JMT) converge at Crabtree Meadow, and follow the same route to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. Crabtree Meadow was where Rocky and I camped instead of hiking to Mount Whitney, and from here to Forester Pass, the elevation slowly grows over the next two days, and we hiked from peak to valley, mountain pass to drainage below. Leaving the foxtail and lodgepole pine behind, the granite giants we walk about become more and more evident.

As we hiked, the anniversary of mom’s death was ever-present in my mind. But somehow, out here, things felt different than when I was grieving at home. Was nature healing me? I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was happening. Being in the forest felt like exactly where I needed to be.

Andrew: [Fades in] I know my thoughts are all scattered and disjointed, but-- I don’t know if you’ve had an experience like this, where you’re so far out-- Like, there are, there are-- There’s not a road that we could get to where we-- Like, the only way to be where I am right now is to hike several miles, perhaps several days. That’s a pretty interesting feeling. On one hand, it can feel very alone, and like, you’re so detached, but on the other hand, it also feels like you’re so present. I don’t know if that’s cliché? [Fades out]

Andrew: We eventually came across Bighorn Plateau, an eerie and strangely awe-inspiring, vast expanse with views stretching miles in all directions—from the Great Western Divide to Mt. Whitney. I’m used to expecting this kind of vista from a peak or prominent pass, but on such a large, flat expanse, it made us feel like we were indeed in another world. I felt alone, but not in a negative way. It’s sort of like how sometimes you can feel positive claustrophobia surrounded by giant mountains. Maybe this is just another part of nature; feelings that, in another context, might usually be upsetting are somehow welcome and beneficial. Being in such a vast, open expanse at such a high elevation created a feeling and sensation I had never felt before.

Tracing the trail and climbing switchbacks, we eventually reached Tyndall Creek, our stop for the night.

Rocky: [Fades in] So the thing I look forward to—which I guess a lot of people don’t look forward to—is setting up camp. Because it signifies that we’re done walking for the day. Uh-- It’s just like, “ugh I’m done.” Like, yea it’s a little annoying to have to set everything up and tear down, set everything up, tear it down… but, I don’t care. It means I’m done walking. I’ve done my work. Um, and then I think-- I have a moment in the morning where it’s like, “ugh,” I don’t want to pack everything up. Like, that is harder for me. But then I-- I don’t know-- I tend to be more optimistic in the morning. And feel better about myself and life and everything. And then I slowly decline throughout the day. Which would make sense since we’re working hard. 

Andrew: Yeah, I think mornings are the toughest. I mean, that just, first push to get yourself out of the sleeping bag--

Rocky: Yeah, ‘cus it’s--

Andrew: --out of the tent.

Rocky: It’s cold. There’s a shit ton of mosquitos.

Andrew: Yeah. There’s easily-- I think I said 100 yesterday. There was-- This morning there was probably 200 just waiting on the outside of our tent.

Rocky: They swarm. It’s kind of funny to watch them try and like bite you or suck your blood through, like, multiple layers.

Andrew: Yeah. We put on a bunch of layer because its cold, but it also means--

Rocky: --they don’t bite. And they seem very confused. [Fades out]

[BREAK ]

Andrew: Leaving the following day, we left Tyndall Creek and started the final climb to Forester Pass. The forest makes way for an almost desert-like landscape encased in a spider web of snowmelt creeks. 

Andrew: [Fades in] So today we have Forester Pass. We’re going to climb about 3,000 feet of elevation. Right now we’re at about-- just over 10,000 ft elevation, where we camped. And we’re going to go down a little bit and then up to 13-thousand-something feet for the pass. Probably gonna be snow, probably gonna be a little bit of, uh, scrambling and, sort of, route finding. [Fades out]

Andrew: We broke for a longer than usual lunch while our lungs were acclimating to the higher elevations. We chatted with a hiker couple who were attempting the PCT. They had hoped to be much further ahead by August, but the year’s high snowfall dramatically slowed their pace. (Many PCT hikers that year flip-flopped or skipped this section of the Sierras in an attempt to come back in a few months when more snow might have melted and the weather might be better.)

It was around 2:00 pm when we arrived at the final switchback climb to Forester Pass’s summit. The talus—rocks the size of golfballs to grapefruits—made the trail fade into the surrounding rock. If you weren’t looking, you could easily find yourself sleeping off-trail, and the tight switchbacks added to the possibility of accidentally getting lost. 

Rocky hiked on ahead, moving faster than me, as we were both eager to make it over the pass and into camp, ready to end our day and eat our freeze-dried dinners. It was a struggle but a good struggle.

Andrew: I’m about a little more than halfway up Forester Pass, and this might be the hardest thing I've ever done. Onward.

Andrew: Some areas were covered with snow, and we had to hike blind, checking our GPS every couple of seconds to dictate which direction to go.

Andrew: There's no trail here. It’s snowed over. Not sure which way to go. There are two passes that it looks like it could be. I’m gonna have to hike blind by GPS. Here goes. 

Andrew: Slowly, feelings of uneasiness began to creep in as we hiked hard through the eerie geology above the tree line. Soon we passed a plaque embedded in a boulder commemorating Donald Downs. 

Because of this area’s remoteness, the challenging surroundings, and the high elevation, Forester Pass was the final section to be officially added to the route of the JMT.

On August 26, 1930, four men, including then 18-year-old Donald Downs, were hurt while using dynamite to “carve” a path through the granite. A boulder fell, crushing Donald Downs’ arm. The men were evacuated to the nearest town. Downs, however, was taken on stretchers to a remote cabin because of his condition. A doctor performed an amputation, but Downs passed away a few days later from complications of surgery before he was able to be evacuated. This plaque was an ominous reminder of the potential for danger as we pressed on. 

Rocky climbed higher, and I needed to catch my breath every few moments. Without obvious places to rest, I found myself at times sitting directly on the trail, using any step as a makeshift chair. Maybe one of these steps might have been blasted by Donald Downs himself?

Andrew: Hopefully, it’ll record. It's 2:30 [pm]. Still heading up the ascent for Forester through some snow and sun cups. It's pretty late. It's not very late, but it's late in the afternoon to do an ascent. But we were going slow. Hopefully, we'll get up before the sun passes to the other side of the mountain. Rocky's ahead of me. I have to take a break like every minute to catch my breath. Anyways, break over, back on rock—time to keep moving. 

Andrew: The switchbacks lead to a set of cliffs where it's hard to imagine there’s a trail, but as you get closer, you see a thread carved into the side of a cliff. It didn’t make sense looking at it. It was as if M.C. Esher was in charge of routing the trail. 

Two hikers caught up to me, one of which was wearing a Superman shirt, perhaps to give him the confidence he needed to attempt this impossible task. He had also hiked the PCT two years earlier, during another partially high snow year. He recounted how last time he was here, this most dangerous section, the Esher-esc thread of a trail was completely covered in snow, creating a steep angle they had to traverse. Using an ice axe as a cane-like spear, they drove it as deep as they could into the snowbank and held onto it like a handrail whose ability to hold meant life or death. Today, most of the snow had melted and, in comparison, made this small section seem less difficult. Hearing Superman’s account, I started to wonder what lay on the other side. We didn’t have ice axes. We didn’t have crampons. We had aluminum trekking poles and rubber-soled shoes. 

Following the trail, through a crack in the wall, I was suddenly there on the summit. Rocky greeted me as I stood tall and out of breath at 13,153 feet, higher than I’ve ever been before. Moments like this were what I had envisioned, what had helped motivate my weight loss and training the year back. This was the postcard moment we had missed on Whitney. This is why I was out here.

Atop the ridge is a sign letting us know we had just crossed between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Looking north, we saw the Palisades range and Mather Pass, the next highest crossing, and eight days away.

The north side of Forester pass had significantly more snow. Hidden from the sun for most of the day, the heavy snowpack covered much of the trail, and we could only make out footprints of the hikers who had crossed before us. After catching my breath and taking a few photos, we asked Superman for tips on the next section. He mentioned that this time of day wasn’t ideal for snow crossing, but we should be ok. We had read about trying to cross snow at the perfect time in the morning when it wasn’t too frozen from the night before but hadn’t yet started to get slushy from sitting out in the day’s sun. This late in the day, our biggest concern would be trying to prevent ourselves from post-holing.

Post-holing is the name given to the difficult and sometimes dangerous occurrence that happens when you take a step, and your foot suddenly breaks through the snow, plunging your leg to a depth as high as your waist. Most of the time, post-holing is an annoying and tiresome aspect of hiking in snow, but you can get seriously injured, twisting or spraining a muscle, and sometimes a sharp rock can lay just under the surface. It can also really throw off your balance, which already isn’t great on snow. Falling will hurt on flat ground. But the descent down the north side of Forester was steep, so a slip or fall could mean cascading down the mountainside for hundreds of feet, your body playing Plinko with the boulders that broke through the snowmelt.

We started hiking down slowly, Rocky and I each post-holing a handful of times. The snow was soft this late in the day, and this was not the ideal time to hike such a formidable section of the trail. In hindsight, we should have camped just before the switchbacks on the southern side and crossed the pass the following morning. But we were here now, and we went ahead, trying to learn from Superman as we watched him hike on in front of us. 

Eventually, we passed the most dangerous and challenging section and could see the well-trodden path ahead; we just had to make our way over. We saw the route Superman and his friend took, but we also noticed a slightly different way to the trail that looked like it might be more accessible. Rocky went first, almost skating down the soft dirt, each step sliding a few feet further than her natural gate. She was now back on the trail, about 50 yards ahead of me. Suddenly we heard a yell from Superman’s direction.

Andrew: I’m recording. I'm going to record what's happening. Just in case. Just for right now. So we're coming down Forester Pass and, um, apparently there's a hiker down. Someone is using their emergency GPS to call in SOS. We are hiking towards where they were shouting.

There's no real trail. It’s covered in snow.

I’m gonna stop recording for privacy.

Andrew: Rocky’s heart beated faster as she waited for me to reach her. I skated my way down, and we both were scared for an entirely new reason. In shock and not fully aware of what was happening, we yelled back we did not have an SOS or emergency GPS. Was someone using theirs? Was this actually what they were yelling? Did we mishear somehow? We needed to reach Superman to know what was going on. We hiked on, racing to catch up, and made it to where Superman’s partner was standing on the trail. I noticed their two packs askew, thrown down on the trail in disregard.

Superman wasn’t there. Had he fallen? No. Superman’s partner quickly recounted to us that they were scanning the mountainside to find the trail since they were off-route. Something looked out of place. Superman found the footpath but saw a dark shape just beyond it. Doing a double-take, he asked his friend, “Is that what I think I’m seeing?” It was the silhouette of a body. As they got closer, they could see a man who appeared to have fallen off the trail. They took off their packs, and Superman attempted to climb down to the fallen hiker as carefully as possible. After hearing the account of what had happened, I went into fight or flight safety mode, and with a jolt of adrenaline, Rocky and I hiked as fast as we could down the trail, attempting to find a hiker who might have emergency GPS or SOS device? We needed to call in Search and Rescue.

In a blur, we hiked somewhere between 20 minutes and an hour before we came across another hiker. They didn’t have GPS but told us there was a campsite with a lot of thru-hikers not too far away. We pressed on, but before we reached it, we heard the thwop-thwop-thwop of a helicopter and saw a few people descend on ropes. The mechanical noise felt out of place, but it was a welcomed reminder of the outside world and a welcomed relief that the fallen hiker was now in the hands of the medical experts.

Rocky and I slowed to catch our breaths and reflected. What had just happened? Today was supposed to be challenging, but not like this.

Eventually, Superman and his friend caught up to us, and he recounted what happened. He got as close as he could to the body and said he thought he heard the man groaning. We had no idea how long the fallen hiker had been there, if he had just fallen, or if it had been days. A couple who had set up camp down the mountain heard Superman’s shouts and used their Garmin GPS to call in the helicopter. Search and Rescue instructed Superman to get back to safety on the trail, and they eventually started hiking again. That’s all we knew. 

While Rocky and I had planned to hike a little farther, we were both exhausted from the physical strain and emotional toll. We made camp at the location we were told just moments ago and tried to process the events we just lived through.

Hiking this trail was supposed to be healing. It was supposed to help me deal with the pain of losing my Mom. But instead, now, I couldn’t escape being surrounded by death. It was just the anniversary of my mom’s passing, we passed Donald Downs’ monument, and Superman had yelled, “hiker down.” I heard the thwop-thwop-thwop of my heart beating faster. “He’s alive. He has to be. I NEED him to be alive. What’s the point of all this?”

While all these feelings were swirling around, we found ourselves in the middle of the most crowded campsite we had yet on the JMT. For most of the hike, we had camped alone. This wasn’t by choice, but “a lot of campers” would typically mean one or two other tents nearby. Here, we were surrounded by five or ten other groups, all of them unaware of what we had just lived. 

The trail was leaving its mark on us, whether we wanted it or not.

[BREAK ]

Andrew: Living on the trail, with all of our belongings in a backpack, surrounded by nature was having an effect on us, and the pain from back home was healing. For the days leading up to Forester Pass I was starting to feel nature’s healing effects.

Florence Williams: Well, you know, look, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of years of poetry and philosophy and memoir writing has really documented the experience of people, you know, healing in nature. [Fades out]

Andrew: This is Florence Williams, and she’s...

Florence Williams: [Fades in] Typically you like a science journalist and author.

Andrew: She’s studied the effects nature has on humans.

Florence Williams: So like Wordsworth lost both of his parents when he was a young boy, um, he ended up walking, you know, thousands and thousands of miles across the Alps and across England writing poetry. Um, you just see this over and over again, um certainly a lot of veterans, they write books about, you know, working with Grizzlies or doing these long-distance hikes, or, you know, learning how to search these don't, they, they don't have to be sort of officially therapeutic at all. They, you don't need a guide, you don't need a therapist. Um, I mean, certainly many people have just, you know, come to this on their own sort of working. Um, and I don't think there's necessarily a high bar to entry. You know, I don't think that you have to sort of sign up for something expensive, um, to be able to find meaning and benefit in it.

Andrew: I also spoke with author Cindy Ross about this too

Cindy Ross: [Fades in] Almost everyone that goes on a long hike is going through something in their lives. And they want that time to think about it or, or redefined who they are, whether they're getting out of a marriage or they lost somebody or they are dissatisfied with their lifestyle and they want to change. I mean, hardly anyone is out there because they just want to have a good time hiking [Laughs] ‘cus it’s so hard. [Fades out]

Andrew: For many years, Cindy has been meeting veterans who have taken to thru-hiking to deal with their trauma.

Cindy Ross: [Fades in] Most of the vets that's one of the things that they do deal with on their hike is lost. And of course, a lot of times it is loss of their buddies and not them. So they have the survivor's guilt that they're dealing with. They suffer from a loss of who they used to be and trying to understand who they are now. [Fades out]

Andrew: And so she wrote a book about these veterans and their PTSD and how nature healed them.

Cindy Ross: [Fade in] Well, when I was doing the research for my book, I mean, I always knew it did amazing things, cause it always made us feel fabulous. You know, overall. Especially once you've got fit. And you know, there's some of our fondest memories, our long walks, but I was learning all kinds of amazing research, uh, findings, like, like actually walking on a trail, Andrew and having to decide millions of times in a day of how to place your feet and how to cross a stream and how to navigate, you know, rocks.

Like all those decisions do something different to your brain that creates different firing, you know, senses and, and, and help you heal and grow and become peaceful. And so it's those decision-makings that you don't get when you're like walking on a flat dirt road or blacktop that actually aren't just helping you get more physically fit because of the different terrain, but, but your brain is actually changing and being helped by making those decisions, which you're not even aware of. I mean, that's one of the things that happens to you out there. So, you know, the trail really does do so much to deliver, uh, you know, gifts that you can't get anywhere else.

Andrew: Here’s Florence Williams again.

Florence Williams: Yeah. Right. I-- I actually, well, for the-- for the book, “The Nature Fix,” and then later for the podcast, um “The 3-Day Effect,” um, I went on two different river wilderness river trips with veterans-- groups of veterans who had PTSD. So there were sort of two different experiences. And for “The 3-Day Effect” one, a scientist scientists were actually measuring brainwaves during the trip as the trip went on.

Andrew: How does nature exposure and these wilderness trips, you know, sort of help—if I can use that word—people with PTSD?

Florence Williams: I think that's a complex question. And I think there are probably a lot of factors that go into this, but, um, I would say that one of the things that really struck me is that at least in the veterans who have PTSD, um, they're very hypervigilant, right when they arrive. So they've been through, you know, the theater of war. Um, now that they're back home, they may hear a book drop, and it sounds like gunfire, um, their nervous systems are really, really amped up. They have nightmares, you know, um, they are uncomfortable being in crowded places. Uh, they feel unsafe very easily. And so they're very, very, very hyper-alert. Um, the way to survive that is to kind of shut down your senses and to retreat and withdraw. So a lot of veterans with PTSD have a hard time leaving their homes. It's just too much. They need to calm down their nervous systems, but when they go outside into the wilderness, that's really interesting thing happens, which is that gradually, you know, over the course of many days, it starts to feel safe to open your senses back up, right? So you're not hearing gunfire, you're hearing birds, you are feeling the breeze on your cheek. You may be sort of able to, in some ways like reclaiming the somatic and bodily sensations that you need to feel again, you know, in order to heal. Um, and that gradually helps also relax your nervous system, but not in a way that forces withdrawal it's in a way that it kind of forces engagement. So, you know, when, when you're, like, calm and relaxed in these outdoor environments, you know, food may taste better, you may sleep better. Um, and I, and it was really fun to watch this.

I mean, you sort of come out of your shell a little bit and, you know, there's a lot of laughter and singing and social bonding that I think really that survived past, you know, the end of the trip. Like a lot of people stay in touch and that, in turn, reinforces the more conventional therapies, you know, that they're doing back home. So they're supporting each other, you know, maybe through their sort of talk therapy. Um, so in this way, I think, you know, the wilderness therapy or just the boldness experience can be, um, this great kind of adjacent, um, therapeutic modality. Uh, I know it was really cool to see.

Andrew: I think I intuitively knew of nature’s effect in my own life, it was one of the reasons I wanted to get on the trail. But I wasn’t actively thinking about it when planning my thru-hike.

Andrew: Is it-- is it over-simplistic to sort of say like, maybe it's the way we were meant to be or created or-- or however you phrase it. Like it's, it's-- it's part of our being that we relate to.

Florence Williams: I don't think it's over-simplistic, I mean, I think it's actually a sort of complex idea that we are living right now in kind of a mismatch, you know, with the way our nervous systems are designed to work. Um, our, our nervous systems are designed to sort of, um, you know, experience moments of stress and then recover from stress. Right. Um, and I think, you know, as humans, we become sort of good at doing that over, over, you know, millennium, millennium millennia…

Andrew: Mmhmm.

Florence Williams: ...by, you know, being together by singing, by looking at the fire, by looking at the stars, by looking at the sunset. I mean, there were so many elements of the way we lived that helped kind of bring us back right. To a place of comfort. And now we're living these modern, large, sometimes isolated lives where we're not able to recover from, from this kind of daily drip of stress that we get. So, I mean, I think it's sort of, you know, it's complicated and we're certainly we're living in different habitat right. From the way our, our bodies evolved.

And, and, you know, we have data about this. So we know that for example, um, sounds of airplanes and motor traffic, um, increase our distress, the release of stress hormones. We know that it puts us into a little bit of a fight or flight response in our nervous system. Um, we know that, um, you know, pollution, particulate pollution, uh, is linked to dementia, you know, as well as a number of other problems. We know that, um, these sort of monochromatic linear landscapes, um, are, are associated with a state of stress also, and not really a state of, of comfort or relaxation, so there's data. But we also know that people who live in urban areas are more likely to have a host of psychological diseases, um, like anxiety, um, their amygdala loss, or the fear centers of their brains are more engaged. They're living a more hypervigilant state. Um, so there's certain mental illnesses that, that also, um, you know, live with these kinds of landscapes.

Andrew: Yeah, so-- So, if we’re all living in cities. Like obviously we can-- we can go out and find nature around us, but thinking past that, like, do we need to redesign our urban areas?

Florence Williams: Um, well you can interpret the data different ways, but I think certainly the way the EU is, is starting to look at this as, yeah. You know, if we care about preventing mental health, mental illnesses, if we care about, um, preventing stress-related diseases, we should definitely think of redesigning our cities. Um, there, there are these really interesting large scale epidemiological studies looking at health outcomes and how close people live to green space, uh, all over Europe, you know, where they have really good health data that they can map, you know, on, on these, um, maps of green space. And it's pretty dramatic. I mean, they definitely have found higher mortality. Um, the farther you get from green space, um, worst birth outcomes, you know, and babies, the farther you get, um, more cancers, more morbidities. And, and this is, you know, after adjusting for socioeconomic factors.

Andrew: Mmhmm.

Florence Williams: So, uh, you know, in countries that have socialized healthcare, um, where prevention is really a major goal, they are paying a lot of attention to access to green space access to urban areas, improving woodlands and parks. Making sure that different neighborhoods have that access. It becomes a social justice issue of course, because there are always parts of the city that have worse access than other parks or smaller parks. And we're seeing that now during the pandemic that-- that this is really an issue because when we do go to parks, we aren't comfortable unless we're socially distanced. Right. And so, the fact that neighborhoods that are more people of color have parks that are half the size, you know, of neighborhoods that are light. So I think this is all kind of coming to a head right now, too. We're feeling really stressed. And we also need to understand that we need to have bigger, higher quality areas.

Cindy Ross: You know, these guys have, have lost faith and hope and, and lots of things, including themselves. You know, a lot of, a lot of what they're out there for is to learn how to forgive themselves and saying, you know, I did the best I could. They did the best they could. We're all doing the best we can and it's gotta be enough. And, and I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now to make a difference because I am worth it and my life is worth it. The important thing is, you know, I wrote this book to share the veteran’s stories. They all told me their story for the purpose of helping other veterans that are struggling so that they might know there's a way out of their darkness and not to think about suicide, but to think about going for a hike instead, and to save some lives. So out of all the nine books I've written, this is the most important because it can change their lives and, and help save them.

Andrew: My journey was supposed to be therapeutic somehow. I was supposed to get away from the death in my life. I was supposed to heal. I wasn’t expecting to find it on the trail.

Cindy Ross: Well, I'll tell you a story about what happened when I came back from the PCT. I-- Both my parents died young and my dad smokes-- inhaled cigars his whole life. And so when I came back from the PCT, he got lung cancer and it went to his brain and it went to his heart. And everyone in the family was like, “oh my God,” they just couldn't deal with it. And since I just got back from the trail and I wasn't working yet, I hung out with my dad the most. And you know, if he wanted to try to sell me the backyard, cause that was where his brain was, you know, I talked to him about it. And my siblings and my mom were so upset and couldn't deal wi it. And I said, first of all, that inhaled cigars, his whole life. Why is anyone surprised that he has lung cancer? And number two, I just came from a place where there is constant cycle of life and death. And-- and you see decomposing trees that are nurse trees, and there's little tiny pine trees coming out of the rust-colored decomposing pine. And it's like, life comes from death and it's a cycle and it's natural. 

And I don't want my dad to die either, but he's going to because he inhaled cigars his whole life and he has lung cancer and he can't get better. So, I don't want them to die and I'm unhappy just like everyone else, but I could accept it better because of where I just came from. 

You know, out West forest are burning and it's just death and devastation, but then you see, you know, fire we'd come up and, and new growth and it keeps going. So I had a different attitude about life and death because I had just come off the Pacific Crest Trail than the rest of my family. So that was pretty startling for me.

Andrew: When I started this podcast, I naively thought starting the hike was the end of my narrative arc. I thought the growth I needed would happen before I set foot on the trail. Day one of the hike would be the final scene of the movie. The credits would roll and the “Andrew” character would be healed and changed for the better. This hike, if it was part of this, would maybe be the sequel. But being in nature, I found myself ripped back open, exposed, and learning that the healing was just beginning and would be a life-long process. 

I already had one trauma to deal with, I wasn’t ready for another.

It wasn’t until much later on the hike we had pieced together later that the medical team determined the fallen hiker had passed away, we think a day or so earlier. His planned itinerary had him further along the trail. He was an older man, and we believe he may have had a cardiac issue that caused him to stumble, but even now, attempting to Google for answers, we can’t seem to find any. The story we have is incomplete, compiled together from short conversations with other hikers, rangers, and intuition. It may be wildly inaccurate, but it’s the story we have.

Today, I want there to be a “bow” on this story, I want to tell you the takeaway lesson, and while there are bits and pieces of it, ultimately, I don’t really know what or why. It’s not fair why one thing lives, and another dies. Why him? Why my mom? Why not me?

We all hold ourselves accountable for things that we aren’t responsible for. We don’t all live in war zones, but cities and our lives have their own versions of stress. Everyday life has little traumas and we rarely give ourselves the time to sit with them.

We're all doing the best we can, and it's gotta be enough.

After the experience at Forester Pass, there was an obvious and unavoidable shift. We saw what this trail could do, and we were confronted with the reality that this wasn’t just a walk in the park.

The following day we hiked in the eerie silence that can only be found a day’s walk away from the nearest small town. Unsure of how to feel, we made our way to a junction trail and away from the JMT. We saw our first glimpse of a highway and cars, buildings and electricity. We hiked our way down from the mountains. After seven days in the backcountry, we exited the trail and waited at a parking lot for a ride to the nearest motel.

We were back in “real life”—our phones pinged and buzzed—our families and friends wonder how it had been—we didn’t know how to explain what we’d been through—we didn’t know if we wanted to go on. Hadn’t we already done enough?

If this hike wasn’t my true story; if this wasn’t the actual completion of my personal narrative, why was I even out here?

[Credits]