Fifteen Miles To Eagle Peak

I could feel a blister forming as I hiked on the long, everlasting trail in the hot sun being weighed down by my heavy backpack. As I hiked along in the single-file line of us  eleven girls, I was eager to get to the final leg of our journey and then heading back to the base camp of Camp Unalayee. To the left of me was a ridge sprinkled with hundreds of evergreens, shrubs and wildflowers, just as all of the ridges in the Russian Wilderness were. On my right, was the spacious and beautiful view abounded in hills of granite and an endless deep blue skyway. The air smelled of sweat, a smell I had gotten to know well. An uncomfortable feeling had been gradually growing on me all day since we started the big hike at seven this morning. There was sweat from my forehead to my aching feet, I was tired of walking all day, and my thirst grew stronger every step.

“Sarah! When can we take a break?” whined my friend, Lucy who had been wearied from the constant hiking all morning. Lucy Bock was a tall, dancer going into eighth grade whom I had met at camp the previous year. She wore a sweaty pink camisole and pink tie dye shorts with her wavy, mermaid-like hair falling out of her ponytail.

“We can stop in three miles!” Sarah responded with a yell to Lucy who was near the end of the line. Her tone implied that three miles was effortless.

Maybe for her, anyway.

Sarah Camp; a tan woman strong enough to carry seventy pounds on her back with hair being a mix of honey, walnut and scarlett who knew what she was doing and spent many months in the wilderness every summer. Sarah had been going to camp Unalayee her whole life, making her last name quite true.

“I’m hungry!” cried my tall, blonde friend, Maddy. A chorus of “Me too’s” had begun.

“If you guys have such a voracious appetite, just eat your trail snacks!” reminded Trula, a good friend who I had also met at camp the year before. Trula Rael was a kind, mature twelve-year old girl with pale skin and dark brown, curly hair. She had been going to Unalayee her whole life along with Sarah and my friends Ursula and Amanda.

Ursula was a very skinny girls with straight blonde hair and a kind personality. Amanda, her sister, was also blonde and was usually quite. Both of them were strong soccer players and though they were two years apart, were both born on November sixteenth.

My first year of camp had only been a year before when I was eleven. This made me very skeptical about signing up to be part of the Trail Tribe with my friends, but I was up for the challenge.

I didn’t know we would have to hike fifteen miles in one day at the time.

“Lets play a game or something, I’m getting bored!” suggested our other counselor Becca who was the caboose of our line. Rebecca Fitch was a fun girl in her young twenties. Becca, though was strong like Sarah, had a sweet, cheery feeling that beamed through her long, blonde hair.

For the next couple of hours, we hiked on the Pacific Crest Trail playing games and telling riddles until we took our first rest break since we started.

We lay on our packs panting, too tired to talk, until Sarah got up and stretched while she said, “Alrighty then, let's get going before we get too comfy. I mean, I'd love to sit here all day, but the sooner we get hikin the sooner we can make it to Eagle Peak!”

Everyone took their last sip of water and after relishing those short five minutes, I reluctantly swung on my pack, tightened my straps and set off, thinking the same word every step: lunch, lunch,lunch!

At least hiking on the PCT made things easier. The trail was mostly a flat, paved line that was about as straight as a train track for many miles at a time. For the first few days of our all girl hike, titled Girls Getaway, the terrains were so extreme that we ended up having to take whole days just to hike two or three miles.

Our first day was a hike to Bingham Lake, we spent two nights there. On our layover, we hiked the highest Peak in the Russian Wilderness, Thompson Peak. On our second day we hiked to South Sugar Lake. This hike was as far from easy because we had to go down a ridge steeper than the drop of my stomach when I first saw what we would be climbing down. The mountainside began to throw rocks at us once we crawled halfway down and dodging them was quite difficult!

The next day we hiked to High Lake and the granite that our group carefully stepped over this time, was much less dangerous. The boulders seemed as though they were glued to the dirt and grass because of how stable they were.

After High was Little Duck Lake and since the hike was fairly easy besides the steep hill, we got to lie in the sun all day and swim. Our worn out figures resembled seals on a rock.

The day after that, we hiked three miles to Statue Lake, an amazing sight to see. When we made it to a big flat rock or in our case, the campground, we stood below a pile of humongous rocks. Once we climbed over the rocks, inside of them, was a small little lake. It looked as if the enclosed area was a bowl of granite filled halfway with water.

Our next stop was Big Blue Lake, a day that I think of as a rehearsal for our fifteen mile hike. Since we had been used to going two or three miles, five miles made us work a lot harder. Finally, when we got to the top of the ridge, we had to hike down the steepest hill I had ever seen. It seemed as though it was slanted at an eighty degree angle and the only way we could get down safely, was by grabbing on to the small trees barely attached to the ground.

The next day was even harder, and it was nine miles to Golden Russian, or so we thought. This was the day we went on our solo hike. Hiking by myself was a strange thing. It wasn’t scary because though I was surrounded by tall trees at certain times, there was also sun peaking through them like a child playing hide and seek checking to see if someone could be found hidden in the trees. I wasn’t scared of getting lost, because there was only one path that day and it was on the PCT so it was easy to know where to go. The part that seemed hard was not knowing when to stop. While hiking, I preferred to know when I could stop so I could have a goal to work towards. Since Sarah was the leader going three minutes ahead of the following person, I felt like I would never be able to stop! Luckily, I found Sarah and the others in front of me sitting in the shade about three miles after we had split apart. Later in the day, we decided to make a decision: have a one day layover at Golden Russian, hike to Russian and then hike to Eagle Peak. Our other option would be to hike to Russian which would mean four more miles that day, then have a two day layover, and then hike to Eagle Peak. We decided to go all the way to Russian because we wanted that two day layover and after a full day of hiking, we finally made it.

Once those two wonderful days of relaxing and building our own sweat lodge was over, it was hard to put my backpack on again. Tomorrow, we would hike five miles back to our base camp where everyone else was. Then it would be over, and the challenge overcome.

As I thought about all this, I realized how hungry I was. Without thinking about it this morning, I ate my trail snack an hour after we got on the trail so now I nothing to eat. I thought about asking Sarah if we could have lunch soon, but decided against it because I was sure she had a good place in mind to sit down that wasn’t in the middle of the PCT. I joined in a game of Contact with the Maddy, Lucy, and Trula as our pathway suddenly, changed.

Instead of a dusty pathway surrounded by grass, flowers and trees as it had been before, the trail now turned red and had more dirt around it like a desert almost, except without sand.

“Sarah, where are we?” asked Ursula.

“The PCT,” Sarah answered without noticing the drastic change in scenery.

I figured that we would be able to get off of it soon, but after an hour, we still walked along the dry and flat surface. I listened to people tell and guess the answers to riddles and jokes.

When I was asked to help create a story, I replied, “Sure!” with the intention to get my mind off of hiking.

“Sophie!” yelled Maddy from the back of the line.

“What?” I panted realizing my mouth was in desperate need of water.

“It’s your turn!”

“Huh?”

“To make part of the story!”

“Oh uh...well once there was.. a king... and he...” I couldn’t finish.

I could barely walk and the heat was badly exhausting me. I needed water but didn’t have enough energy to reach back and grab my camelbak tube. Everything seemed ten times worse than before, and to stop myself from passing out I knew I had to ask Sarah to stop.

“Sarah! I need to take a break!” I yelled with all the energy I could find in myself.

“Well, you can stop whenever you want and Becca will wait for you, but until we find a place to eat lunch, I’m gonna keep going,” Sarah said to me.

I have to stop, a part of me said.

The other part told me to keep going and stay in the front of the line.

We're almost there. Just a little further!  I tried to convince myself for what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes. Just when I knew I couldn’t make it any further,  a stroke of luck came to me, and Sarah dropped her pack.

I put my backpack down with the last bit of energy I could find. It felt like the last breath of air I could take until drowning. Finally, I lay on my pack, sipping my water in big gulps, but cautious not to drink so much that I might get a cramp. My legs felt funny because I wasn’t walking and as I took my cap off, I wiped the bucket full of sweat off of my forehead. We once again, ate crackers, hummus, and nuts. I drank my water and sat in the shade to eat. I felt so good! Re-energizing was all I needed.

“How much longer till we’re there?” questioned Lucy.

“Just a little longer, what, three four miles?” asked Sarah in answer to Lucy’s question.

“We’ve got four miles left. I hope we get there before dark. I know we haven't night hiked most of this trip. But I just wanna get there soon!” Becca replied.

The thought of having to night hike made my pace quicken.

The blister that was forming this morning was now twice as big and I could definitely feel it. As we unwillingly began to hike again, my foot was finally giving me my punishment for putting it through the hiking and sweat I had all week. Every single step, I felt pain as sharp as a knife and after a while, I was walking on the other side of my foot to try lessening the stinging friction inside of my shoe.

Our hike took a turn into the forest of trees to shade us and we stopped once we got to a spring that flowed down the path like a long snake sliding fast across the trail.

”This is the last time we’ll see water until tomorrow, so wash everything you need to!” Sarah warned us.

I washed my pink bandana that I would use to clean my bowl and put some moleskin on my blister that was now looking like a sixth toe.

“Sarah are we having soup tonight?” asked Maddy. For dinner, we always had soup, or as Sarah called it, Salt and Water. After the soup, we would have some dehydrated food like beans and rice or mashed potatoes.

“Well, we are, but since this is our only water source available , I’m going to have to carry the pot,” Sarah replied. I knew right away that Sarah couldn’t carry it too long, so I didn’t worry about getting too tired again.

I was right, because in a half an hour later, Sarah stopped at a cliff overlooking small lakes called East Boulder Puddles. The grassy area had flower patches and bushes that we sat down in as Becca heated up the pot of water. After sitting and singing some fun songs, we got to drink our hot, salty and delicious soup!

Once we had all slurped up all of what used to be in the pot, Sarah told us the plan for the rest of the hike. We would hike two more miles on the PCT, then go cross country for the rest of it. She warned us that the cross country was all uphill, but I didn’t worry.

It can’t be too long.

The next two miles was easy, but I was eager to come off of the trail so we could finally get there. The sun was getting lower every minute and everything else followed along. I knew my energy would soon be gone and the pain of my blister would soon be unbearable, even with the moleskin. I had gotten used to life in the forest and knew that the bugs would start to buzz in my ears soon.

The night was quiet. Besides the stomping of our hiking boots, nothing seemed to make a sound. I guess we were all too excited to talk.

Just as I was starting to get bored, Sarah stopped, turned around.

“We’re gonna get off now and start hiking up this hill. It’s gonna be hard, but this is the last of it.”

We started out fast, eager to reach the top, but our quick pace slowly turned into us panting with every step. Ursula, Lucy,Trula and I told riddles until the hill slanted even more upwards. I, again, got too tired to play and focused on my walking. Each step was a new goal and I started to count them. I did everything I could to keep going.

Suddenly, a boy who looked about ten with curly brown hair walked out from behind a bush.

“Who are you?” cried out Ursula.

“I’m Jevon. Who are you?” the confused boy answered.

“We’re Girls Getaway, a trail tribe from Camp Unalayee! Are you from a camp too?”

“Ya, we’re from Unalayee too! We went on a four day hike; everyone at camp did and I guess my counselors didn’t realize you guys would come here too.”

“Wait, where are we?”

“Eagle Peak.”

I couldn’t believe it! I actually hiked fifteen miles in a day. My heart was racing with joy and relief. After throwing off my backpack, I triumphantly ran up to the very top of the peak with my friends just in time to watch the sunset. That night, I realized that anything really is possible, if you set your mind to it.