HUMANITY HIKER

We had not hiked far up the rain forest draped trail when Cindy remarked: “I remember this, and not that long ago.” My mind was dismissive at first. I had only been up this stretch of trail once, back in 1977; I knew that Cindy had never been here. We often associate dementia with not being able to remember things that were; this was not the first instance of Cindy remembering things that were not.

Cindy obviously was pleased with this false memory; I finally figured out the cause. “Not too long ago” by middle-age reckoning our whole family hiked the Wonderland Trail, not far from where we were, starting out on a west-facing rain forest slope much like the one we were on now. I was pleased that Cindy was pleased. Is it more important now for her memories to be correct or pleasant? That’s a no-brainier for me.

As we curved higher up towards north-facing slopes the snow patches began. Cindy had trouble hiking on the snow, with each struggle came discouragement. As we climbed further I had my own troubles with route finding. That brought back my not so pleasant memories of my first day on our PCT thru-hike.

We spent our whole first day in the snow, also struggling to find the trail. The day never climbed above freezing and at day’s end I had my first and so far only feeling of “we’re not going to make it” while thru-hiking. What made things easier was depending on Ken Bell for the route-finding. With that stress eliminated it was easy to just think: “I’ll keep going wherever Ken leads.”

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to navigate my way through the wilderness since, mostly on my own, including over the snow. However I was only responsible for myself. I plodded on this way or that without needing to think much about the consequences. Now on our first day out on Cindy’s quest for the Triple Crown I was all too aware of my responsibilities to both my wife and daughter. I wondered if Ken felt similar stress 37 years ago.

Charissa appears to be in some ways a young me; she would have just soon plodded on and accept the consequences. Cindy was a different story. She would have followed anywhere, just as I did with Ken. She even might have enjoyed the sections out of the snow; her short memory worked to her advantage in this case. Yet she would have been miserable in the snow, with those stretches coming too often for now.

I made the call, over some mild objection from Charissa, to turn back. We would go further south to start our hike north to the Canadian border, precisely at Mackenzie Pass in Oregon. I also resolved that we really had two goals. One was to get Cindy the Triple Crown. The other, and more important, was to enable Cindy to enjoy life, even at the cost of the other goal.

Out of the snow Cindy loved what she was doing, as expected. Hopefully with our fresh start from Mackenzie Pass she can continue to love what she is doing all the way to the Triple Crown.