06: The Part You Know

After a difficult few days, Andrew and Rocky head back out on the trail.

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

Dan Ahdoot can currently be seen on “Cobra Kai” and “The Crew” on Netflix, and his podcast, “Green Eggs and Dan,” is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find any of Dan White's books and writing at danwhitebooks.com

Transcript

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

Andrew: The memory of Forester Pass with still trapped in my and Rocky’s heads. The hardship of this 200-mile thru-hike and the mystery of the fallen hiker infected our thoughts as we made our way into town and off the trail for our first planned resupply.

Seven days doesn’t seem like long enough time to miss a bed, a shower, or electricity. Yet here we were, back in town for the first time in a week, and we were getting reacquainted with modern conveniences.

After being bombarded with unread emails, I tried to Google and search for any information about the fallen hiker or the rescue attempts. Nothing.

We slept in a bed.

And, the following day, another failed attempt to find any news about the hiker or his fate.

The surrealness of the situation intensified as we sat down at the included breakfast we purchased in advance, months earlier when we made our reservation to stay at this motel. The humble dining room felt like a film set, designed to look like a small-town family’s dining room. Only this wasn’t a film set; it was a small-town family’s dining room. We sat around the table with other hikers. We ate scrambled eggs and English muffins, trading pleasantries with other hikers who had just hiked the same route we had, the same days, but had a completely different experience, unaware of the stranded body that had fallen off-trail.

We finished breakfast and returned to our room, packed our bags with the food and supplied we had mailed there, and set back off to the trailhead parking lot we arrived at the day before.

[Theme Music]

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

[Thunder and Rain]

Andrew: As we hiked up to rejoin the JMT, thunder cracked, and lightning flickered. At this elevation, tree cover was minimal, and Rocky and I were the tallest objects around. Stuck between turning back and pressing on to cover, we hiked onward. Clouds moved in, and hail started to pelt us. Rocky, who was faster than me, walked ahead while I trailed behind, moving slowly up the accent.

We finally made it to a place we could camp for the night as the rain was pouring down.

As night fell, the rain slowed, and by the time we woke up the next morning, the skies were clear, and the day was ahead of us.

Andrew: It's Thursday, August 8th. And we had our first rain, thunder, and lightning day, hike, and camp. Coming back from Independence over the Kearsarge Pass it started, uh-- The clouds were rolling in and started raining and haling. And we saw a big bolt of lightning in the distance. Heard thunder. 

Rocky: Oh no, the clouds. I knew it, they're coming back. ughh.

Andrew: They look like happy clouds.

Rocky: No, they're not. 

Andrew: So we're up early-ish this morning hoping to—

Rocky: Yeah-- What, there's three more days of forecasts with thunder storms? 

Andrew: Two to three-- I heard-- I only heard till Thursday, which is today, but—

Rocky: We heard a lot of thunder, but we only saw one lightning bolt, which was like right close by us—

Andrew: A few miles. 

Rocky: Yeah. And there was a couple of times before the lightning hit— Oh, that was weird. So before the lightning hit, you get like the-- your arm hair sticks up and everything. It's like a warning--

Andrew: The static electricity.

Rocky: But for me, the like, couple, like, minutes or even, I don't know-- A minute before the lightning bolt happened, a Pika, which are very shy and, uh, skittish animals. 

Andrew: They're almost-- they're small-- because they're small-- they're rodents probably they're like chipmunks without tails.

Rocky: Yeah.

Andrew: Like fat, cute mice.

Rocky: I know, they're so cute. 

But so one ran out in front of me on the trail and then was just hanging out. And I was like, when is it going to, like-- usually they hear you. You like-- You don't even see ‘em before, like, they see you and they run away. And then eventually, like, I think as soon as I passed it ran off, and then like a couple steps later, the lightning bolt happened. So it was like, maybe like--

Andrew: It intuited it?

Rocky: Cause isn't that a thing? Like animals-- 

Andrew: I think so. I don't know.

This whole hike is hard work, but it's also fun, but it's definitely not fun hiking through rain and hail. Um, and it's like, we, you know-- We covered up, we had our rain jackets and stuff on, but like, I don't have-- I have like gloves for warmth, but they're not waterproof gloves. And so I was just-- My hands were getting stung and pelted by the little hail marbles. It's an interesting experience. Like I think-- Like a lot of the hardship on this trip, in hindsight, I can be sort of grateful I experienced it and know that I can get through it, but during it, it's--

Rocky: It sucks. 

Andrew: Yeah. 

Rocky: All the adventure stuff is fun until you're actually the one in my adventure. [Fades out]

Andrew: [Fades in] Okay. I'm recording too. 

Uh, Hey Dan, so we were just recording an episode of your show, and, um, you mentioned that hiking changed your life. 

Dan Ahdoot: Hiking changed my life. Yes, uh-- 

Andrew: And so I was like, okay, well we have to talk to you for this, um—

Andrew: This is Dan Ahdoot, he’s a friend and writer and comedian and we share a love of hiking.

Dan Ahdoot: I will say it has hiking has become my new religion in that I do it daily. Uh, I am a-- So here's the thing that-- The bumber thing about being a hiker is that anytime you tell someone that, “Oh, I like hiking.” They're like “shut up loser. Like, you're just like-- you go hiking once a month.” But I literally, so once the pandemic hit and I stopped going to the gym, um, I've always loved hiking, but I-- you know, I have a mile out of my house. I can get to a trailhead and it's not like a crazy big mountain, but it's like, you know, it's a nice steep hill. And round trip from my door to, to the top of, of, uh, the trail and back is 4.7 miles. And that has become my daily routine. And I think because the barrier-- for the reason I didn't-- and I never went to the gym very much just because you have to drive there, you have to park there, this and that. The fact that I can walk out of my door, I just-- I can't imagine. Like, I want to move, but I like-- being in close proximity to a hill that I can just, like, walk out of my house too, is like actually becoming an important thing now.

Andrew: Was it, was it-- Was it just the convenience factor or was there something else that like kept you coming back there day sfter day after day? 

Dan Ahdoot: I mean, I've always loved the nature aspects of hiking. You know, the kind of-- I don't know, man, I-- I've tried a lot of the things that people say they do to calm themselves down, like meditation and whatnot, and it just doesn't work for me. But something about being up in those, in, you know, up-- amongst nature, whatever, is just like, it's, it's become the most grounding thing for my brain that like every morning I need to do it before I get to work. And in fact, if I don't do it, I have a tough time just like sitting down and focusing. 

And uh, again, like I was telling you, like, I remember when we started working together and, uh, you were, you were very heavyset and then you started hiking. I remember you were like, “Yeah, I'm just starting to hike. I'm starting to--” And every time I'd see you, you just like shrink more and more and more and more. And I'm not even saying get into hiking to lose weight. Like it's, to me, it's like a really fun little side thing. ‘Cus I do think the other benefits outweigh it. Um-- but it was just like, it was so cool to see like it's so easy to become obsessed with it. And it's like what a wonderful obsession

Andrew: For Dan and me, we constantly saw new ways hiking was influencing our creative work. I knew that thinking of life as a screenplay inspired me to go on this month-long hike, but I wasn’t thinking about how hiking would inspire my creative work. Dan and I have talked off-air about how this goes beyond a quasi-meditation but that it actively stimulates creativity. It gives time to think and process and provides space for ideas to come to life. Even now, while working on this podcast, if I’m feeling stuck, I’ll go for a walk and let whatever happens happen, and often, when I get back, I’m ready to jump back in with new ideas.

This is great and all and something I’m genuinely grateful for to this day, but it’s definitely one of the benefits you think about after you get home from a long thru-hike. On the trail, we were hoping the rain wouldn’t come back.

[BREAK]

Andrew: After the rain, we got up early the next morning to make sure we had enough time to get to Glen Pass earlier in the day and not have a repeat of Forester. The approach hike was beautiful, and we passed a growing number of turquoise blue alpine lakes. Rocky and I were more tired than usual, perhaps because of the early morning or perhaps because o the events of the days prior.

We made it to the top of the pass and started our descent. We had some snow crossing similar to Forester Pass, but nothing quite as challenging. We scrambled down some rocks that would have been easier if our centers of balance weren’t altered from our packs. But we eventually made our way down and entered the famed Rae Lakes section of the hike, which we had heard was the most beautiful section of our hike. A distinction hard for any one place to claim as every day we were surrounded with the wonder of the Sierra Nevadas. 

Dan White: Well, I um-- I feel like, well--

Andrew: This is Dan White again.

Dan White: I'm sorry to say that one of the most memorable things is just-- I was terrified. 

 Andrew: He’s an author and hiker we heard in an earlier episode who had also experienced the fear AND beauty of the Sierras when he walked from Mexico to Canada on the PCT.

Dan White: But my main takeaway is this feeling of, almost like you're walking through cathedrals, or the ruins of cathedrals. You feel like you're walking along these enormous-- these, these beautiful structures. I remember the sky was incredibly blue. I remember you need to fight the impulse to block beauty. You're so inundated by beautiful [laughs] information. You're so inundated by gorgeousness and by bird song and toad song and butterflies and the high grass and water and that amazing feeling of descent and ascent. It's really important to reawaken to the rarity of the trail because it takes a lot of effort.

Andrew: At Rae Lakes, we slept in for the first time on the trail. We made breakfast and packed up at a slower pace than usual, and enjoyed the beauty of our surroundings. Above us, we could see Fin Dome, a steep, granite dome, like the giant sail of a stone ship, or an imaginary dorsal fin of a granite Orca. And as we made breakfast packed up our gear, we saw it glow in the morning sun. 

By midday, we had reached the suspension bridge—sometimes called the “Golden Gate of the Sierra,” and a common photo I had seen online in the year of my planning. We filled out water in the river and continued on through manzanita and Jeffrey pine, whitebark and lodgepole until we reached our destination for the night, Twin Lakes.

Andrew: This is where we camped last night, and this is where we’re going.

Andrew: At the beginning of this hike, I thought I came to the trail to look for something instead of running from something. I mean, here’s me in episode 1 of this podcast:

Andrew: “Like Cheryl strayed or Jack London, we had our ‘call of the wild,’ but unlike those two, we weren't running from something. At least we didn't think we were.”

Andrew: Yes, I saw some similarities to Cheryl Strayed’s story in “Wild.” Still, ultimately I thought I was on a different journey. But here I was, on the trail mourning my mom, and that’s one of the very things Cheryl Strayed was doing on her hike.

Her book—and the Reese Witherspoon movie based on it—is an inspiration for many to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail or get out a hike. I, too, turned to them as I trained for the JMT. I found myself downloading any audiobooks about thru-hiking I could find and listening to the hours of stories as I went to the gym, went on long day-hikes, and as I fell asleep.

It was all part of my preparation process: Listening to and reading books, watching Youtube videos, and putting everything into my spreadsheet.

In an article for Outside magazine, Scott Wilkinson, director of communications at the Pacific Crest Trail Association, shared that not too long ago, Cheryl Strayed was the biggest trail celebrity, bringing more people to the PCT than ever before. But Wilkinson said that today, “YouTube’s influence is enormous,” perhaps surpassing “Wild” as “the leading drivers of growth on the trail.”

That was true for me. While searching for tips and tricks, I was overwhelmed with the number of hikers on Youtube. And while I learned a lot and appreciated the advice I gained, these Youtube videos weren’t quite the same as the stories I heard from authors like Cheryl Strayed.

In an interview with Tim Ferriss for his podcast, he asked her about pouring her heart out on paper. 

Cheryl Strayed: [Fades in] There are basically two kinds of people. There are those who think talking about difficult experiences or painful memories or painful emotions is a bad thing, because it brings up those feelings again. Why would you want to dwell on something that makes you cry or makes you remember that sorrow? There’s that camp, and then there’s the camp that is like-- Let’s dig it all up because that’s the only way to ever understand what happened or make some meaning of the suffering is to examine it and tell stories about it. [Fades out]

Andrew: As someone who is doing my own version of that, I was very interested to hear if the process was cathartic or if it forced a reliving of the pain and hardship. 

Cheryl Strayed: [Fades in] I’m definitely in the latter camp. You know, I think that-- Did I sometimes cry writing “Wild?” Yeah, I would say probably every day. You know? Probably every day. And was that good for me or bad for me? It was really good for me.

There is no question that I would say the most cathartic thing in my life, right alongside motherhood for me, has been writing. It is through writing that I have to come to understand who I am and what I’ve been through, and therefore who we all are. And that’s really been an emotional journey and one that I’m better for having taken. [Fades out]

Andrew: You’ve heard it here in this podcast. Writing my story has helped in so many ways. I’ve realized and relearned truths, and having to retell and relieve these events has helped give me words to describe not only what I was seeing but what I was feeling. And like the hike, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Cheryl Strayed: [Fades in] One of the lessons I learned is that it’s always hard for me to begin. [Fades out]

Andrew: This goes beyond writing, and it’s one of the stories in my life before episode one of this podcast. How do you begin anything? How do you make change?

Cheryl Strayed: And not just-- And I don’t mean just the first line of a chapter or piece, which is always hard, but even like when you’ve been in that flow, and then you take that break, you finish that section, and then you have to begin the next. I think I-- I get almost like this performance anxiety—what’s the first thing I’m going to say when I step into the room? You know what you have to say, but how do you get to the part where you get to just say what you have to say?

In writing, what I do is, I take a shortcut around it when I’m feeling stuck. If I don’t have that first line or that first paragraph, I just write the part that I know. Ok, so, That might mean it’s kind of sloppy, that I have to start writing something that’s, you know, a third of the way into the piece—a scene that I’ve already imagined is going to be in there, or a paragraph, a description of something. And what I find is once I start writing, I relax, and then, of course, I can go back and make that beginning. [Fades out]

Andrew: In writing, this shortcut seems more obvious than in life. How do you start\ with the part you know in the real world? What do you do when you don’t know anything?

Cheryl Strayed: [Fades in] Writing a book is hard. Writing is hard. Writing a poem is hard. With that kind of sense of surrender, that sense of kind of like, here I am, I'm going to do this work and I don't know where it will lead, and acceptance. You know, I think that those, I think if humility, acceptance, and surrender is all these really, you know, words that are connected to each other and meaning. Um-- And we think of them all and these, kind of, we-- we disassociate them from things like strength and power. But I really think that the only way to get to those places is through those things. [Fades out] 

———

Andrew: So, let's talk about the last couple of days. 

Rocky: Okay. 

Andrew: Rocky wants to go home. 

Rocky: No, I'm just missing-- I'm missing couches and toilets-- 

Andrew: But we were-- we were hiking and you were angry. 

Rocky: Yeah. I just, I, my-- I have huge blisters on my feet then, like it's, I hate that it's-- It’s so pathetic, but these blisters are horrible that I'm like limping. I've never had a blister like that before. Maybe not. I've had them on my hands, but I don't walk on my hands. 

Andrew: But you were saying-- there was one point in the trail where I was like, “let's just go home.” ‘Cus I thought that's how upset you were. 

Rocky: Yeah. But then I also-- 

Andrew: What did you say? 

Rocky: “No, we have to finish it.”

Andrew: No, but what made me say that?

Rocky: “I hate this.”

Andrew: Yeah.

Rocky: Or, “this is a trip from hell.”

Andrew: Yeah. Or like, “why are we doing this?” 

Rocky: Yeah, ‘cus it's hard. Like today we hiked-- I think only-- Well, we did 10 miles today, around that. But the last like two or three were so slow and so hot and directly in the sun with like no shade. That was hard

[BREAK]

Andrew: When Rocky said she wanted to go home, I didn’t know if she wanted to actually go home or if she was just venting. We stopped and talked and I was prepared to look for the nearest trail to town, but we decided to stay on the trail. 

How do you skip to the part you know when it feels like everything you are going through is your first time?

Andrew: Well, let's, let's, there may be a reason why I'm-- let's back up first. 

Rocky: Okay.

Andrew: So, Mather Pass. What do you remember people saying about Mather Pass? 

Rocky: Is really hard and scary, right? Yeah. That the-- the southside was like, good, no snow. And then the northside was going to be sketchy snow. 

Andrew: So what was your experience on Mather Pass? 

Rocky: Going to the top felt pretty good. We were walking with Grace-- Uh, someone we camped with the night before. Uh, she booked it though. She was so fast and she had like nine days worth of food. So it was like, insane woman, but yeah, she booked it up there and booked it down. But yeah, we went up, felt pretty good about it. I had the thought though, too, of like seeing all the snow, we didn't have to walk through any— I don't think we did? Or we just walked around it. I had this thought of like-- the like, seeing some like hand or something like that was caught in a snowstorm, popping out and being like, “Oh my God, that's a body.” But, uh--

Andrew: Yeah--

Rocky: But just because we had seen down in Onion Valley and then in another spot-- Oh, by the ranger station--

Andrew: At Rae Lakes.

Rocky: Rae Lakes, they had signs out for a missing person. And he's been gone since like April

Andrew: Yeah.

Rocky: Or earlier.

Andrew: Came out here when it was snowing. 

Rocky: So, I had the thought in my head of like, oh, he was-- he could be covered by snow and the snow’s melting, so then you see his hands and it's like-- 

Andrew: It probably didn't help that we had that experience on Forester. 

Rocky: Yeah. 

Well, Oh yeah. That's so that's been-- I've come, I've come to terms. I've realized how much that has affected me and my nerves or my fears. I feel like if that didn't happen, I probably would be okay. I'd still think like, oh, this stuff is sketchy or scary, but it wouldn't be like-- cause that's just like in your face, “hey look, the stuff you're doing is very dangerous.” And there-- you know, like just the fact that that guy was like, he fell like 50 feet or whatever, but he wasn't too far away from the trail, and nobody saw him for two or three days. So it's just, it's scary. You could fall and you could be right there and you just can't yell for help. It's like a nightmare. That's a nightmare. So yeah. Matter pass to the top wasn’t bad.

Andrew: Yeah. What about what's coming down Mather Pass? coming down 4,000 feet--

Rocky: Going down-- So we were at the top and before we headed down this lady, and then another woman who had just finished coming up the northside, uh, was like, “well, that was the most terrible--” What did she say? “That was the most terrifying thing I've ever done.” And then like hearing that, I was like, oh, thanks, we're headed right down that way, like this is going to be great. So we went down and then there's like a couple of ice-- snow patches. Some long, some short. And so right before we get to the first one, I like sat on a rock and it was just like, “I'm scared, Andrew. I'm scared.” I think I said that like three times and you're like, “Oh, it's okay. You got this.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, supportive, nice person. And then, uh-- like the first step on it, it's like, oh, this is so scary. ‘Cus it was just like a straight drop down. So after I took like two steps, I was like, Oh, I got this. Like I can do this. 

Andrew: Yeah. I think it ended up being one of the easier summits of a pass.

Rocky: I mean, it was still like hard work. But it was like-- I felt very powerful. 

Andrew: Yeah. It wasn't so much as it was challenging as it was just physically taxing. [Fades out]

Andrew: Since we were hiking north, we’d pass hikers coming south from time to time, and we’d always ask for conditions of the high mountains passes we would encounter that they had just hiked through. And every time we asked, we noticed an interesting phenomenon. For us northbound hikers, each of our passes slowly got lower in elevation as we headed toward our finish line in Yosemite National Park. For the southbound hikers, their passes each got higher and higher until they reached Forester. This meant that every new pass for them was “the hardest one yet,” but for us, it was easier and had less difficult snow crossings. We had already done the “hardest one yet.” In a way, we already “knew” what it could be like. This didn’t mean we were complacent, but it meant we could slowly release some of our anxiety to help keep us more aware of our surroundings. 

Andrew: [Fades in] Yeah, and the past three days we've been doing-- we did three 15-mile days--

Rocky: Yeah.

Andrew: Versus, like, our average of ten. 

Rocky: Right. So we're pushing ourselves more. 

Andrew: But we're Mather pass--

Rocky: Wait, you mean Muir? 

Andrew: Muir pass.

Rocky: Muir Pass, like, was one-- So they always say that when you're going southbound, it's like one that you're just you are constantly seeing in the distance and it's like, we're never going to get there. And then like for me, though going northbound, or for us, it was like almost every turn-- Like I couldn't-- I didn't know where the pass was. So I was like, is this it? Is this it? Versus like, knowing like-- oh, that's the pass. And we're never like-- we're not getting any closer.

Andrew: Yeah, the southside--

Rocky: This felt like it was like, oh, it's going to be right here. So you get your hopes up. And then it's like, nope, there's another like mile to go. And yeah-- 

Andrew: Yeah. And we had some snow on Muir pass, but I feel like, uh, it was pretty-- it was in flat parts mostly. 

Rocky: Yeah, it was, Oh my God. Compared to the other passes, it was fine. 

Andrew: Way easier.

Rocky: It was tiring ‘bus it was like a long distance. But no, it was-- I would take that snow over this other scary snow. 

Andrew: I feel like it might've been--it was, it was-- I mean every five miles, it feels like the scenery changes in the Sierras, but there's just something really special about sort of the-- the five miles on either side of Muir past. Like it felt especially otherworldly. It felt especially, like its own secluded little area. Like there were times we were like, are we like in, in Antarctica or Alaska because of how some of these snowfields 

Rocky: Well, and it would change so drastically too. 

Andrew: Yeah. There was a lot of, um, black, I think metamorphic rock versus the granite, which is what you mostly see in the Sierra. So it had this-- it had this almost volcanic look to it. 

Rocky: Yeah. Oh. And then like the snow ice field looked like a glacier, like I guess 

Andrew: The ice, it looked almost like icebergs you would see with like penguins and polar bears jumping off. Um, and then after Muir Pass in the Muir Hut, we, we stayed pretty high. We only had a couple more miles and at Wanda Lake, so pretty, which was super beautiful. And just the way the sunset hit the mountains and reflected in the, the Lake was like a mirror reflection. And then after that, we hiked to the mid-way-- the halfway mark, roughly of the John Muir Trail, which is Muir Trail Ranch, which is a-- it's a working ranch. That's a, it's only, it's a backcountry, ranch. That's only accessible by horse or foot. And they do, they do resupply stuff. Like we mailed some food and gear there, which we had to pick up. Plus they have a little, a very small store that sells very basic things.

Rocky: Like first-aid basically. 

Andrew: Not like snacks and then no cafe or anything. Um--

Rocky: No.

Andrew: We missed out on getting a shower and doing some laundry, but we did have a surprise waiting there for us when we got there. 

Rocky: Yeah, my dad showed up.

Andrew: Your parents live in the foothills of Yosemite, so it's not too far out of the way for your dad to like, want to meet up. 

Rocky: Yeah. And he likes this area a lot at Lake Edison, Huntington Lake, Shaver Lake, all these like areas we've been going to since I was little and I think since he was little with his family. Anyways, so-- 

Andrew: So, so we get there in the morning, like Rocky said, and then all sudden, uh, Rocky and I are in the store--

Rocky: Yeah. Andrew's getting some, uh, canister--

Andrew: A new fuel canister.

Rocky: --canister, some sunscreen, some different stuff. 

Andrew: And then I look out at the door, and I see your dad tearing up and I see you walking towards him.

Rocky: Yeah, and I was like, oh my gosh. And yeah, he teared up. He cried cause he's so emotional. 

Andrew: No, it’s good. Um, so it was really cool to see, you know, just see a familiar face out here two weeks in. [Fades out]

Andrew: Looking back, the difference between the first and second weeks is startling. The first week we were still figuring out what it meant to be backpackers. We were weaker, and our muscles hadn’t yet gotten used to the new normal. We were leaning, getting used to life’s new rhythm. We experienced so many things for the first time. We had to detour and reroute our trip. We were forced to confront emotions we didn’t necessarily want to deal with, and we didn’t know anything. 

Week two felt much more routine. It went quicker. We had slightly better expectations, and we knew some things. Sometimes starting with what you know works when your writing a story, but in nature, we had to live and learn before we could get to the “knowing” part.

[Teaser]

[Credits]