On the way into town, we decided that we would take a double zero at a minimum to allow Bear the time he needed to decide if he could get his head around the new plan. We talked to Derek, the manager of the hotel, as soon as we got done eating to confirm this was possible.
Bear used the time to start running through possible itineraries to get us to Dunsmuir which is about 100 trail miles from Etna. This big carry has also been bothering him for quite some time. When I presented my “big picture” change of plans, he said he liked it, but that he might get off trail for a week until we made it to Dunsmuir and then get back on trail with us when we jumped down to Old Station.
In my opinion, Bear is suffering from the “Virginia Blues.” This is an AT phenomenon. When you start out on the AT, you only have 80ish miles and you leave GA. Then you’re in NC for about 50ish miles until you join up with TN. By the time you make it to 400 trail miles and enter VA, you’ve already been in 4 states and you feel like you’re beginning to make progress. But Virginia drags on and on and on. VA is nearly 1/4 of the AT and people don’t get the endorphin high of changing states that they had already gotten used to. It just feels like you’re walking and walking but not making any progress…the Virginia Blues.
Bear doesn’t see anything other than CA ahead (California is almost 1700 trail miles long!). He’s not tied to the trail like we are with almost 1850 miles complete. All he sees is drudgery of a hundred mile carry, followed by an area nobos have been describing as the “Post Sierra Blues” section of the trail. Most people consider the Sierra the highlight of the PCT (we couldn’t tell you since we haven’t been there yet). People have been telling us CA sucks once they get out of the Sierra. Bear has only heard negativity about the next 300 miles we’ll be hiking. I’ll admit, from his perspective, it doesn’t sound fun.
To summarize, Bear sees a terrible 100 mile carry which is the first part of 300 miles of a boring section of trail. Now we have the coup de gras, smoke in the air. Bear started looking at the California fire map. Bear and Sassy are from the South where wildfires are nonexistent. In fact, East of the Rockies, wildfires are pretty rare at all. He became a bit obsessed with the fire map and tracking fires anywhere near the trail. He managed to whip himself into a fire frenzy (and bring Bunny along). I damn near got psyched out, myself.
As a reminder of Bear’s background, he’s a NASA career man. 42 years of looking for every possible problem that could go wrong and then coming up with working scenarios for each of those problems. Then, practicing every scenario so that IF an error occurs, people will stay calm and work from muscle memory. NASA people are some of the most risk averse people on the earth. You will never hear of a NASA engineer dying in some unforeseen circumstance. Bear cannot get his head around everything that could go wrong in CA nor does he have the time to make himself comfortable enough to proceed. Hell, I’ve seen him spend 30 minutes trying to pick the correct flavor of instant potatoes, and he eats those 3x a week on the trail.
It didn’t help matters when Bunny and I got into a big fight after 2 days in town. We had drank an entire bottle of wine between us (we generally don’t drink when hiking and become lightweights). We both felt the other was ignoring the other. It created another layer of drama when Bear and Sassy had to step in for an additional role as marriage counselors. They did their job and calmed us back down, but they started demanding $100/day contingency counseling fee which was well out of our price range. We offered an M&M each/day. Bear doesn’t like peanuts so the whole house came tumbling down.
On the morning of the 3rd day, after Bear had worked out a scenario in which we could avoid the 100 mile carry (coincidentally, Bunny and I had a 120 mile carry last year, it was a bitch, but we managed with just a little extra whining), Bear and Sassy, by marriage pact, decided the risks were too great to continue on. Keep in mind, they are from Alabama. They don’t have earthquakes, volcanoes, forest fires, or tsunamis there. The biggest risks they face are severe thunderstorms, an occasional tornado, and desegregation (lets be honest, Alabama is not a progressive state).
Bunny and I decided to take an extra day, rob them of all the extra food, fuel, and supplies we could use, and then stock up everything else we’d need. We did decide to follow Bear’s “Etna/Dunsmuir 100 breakup beta 4 alpha 6” procedure to reduce our pack weights and get another town night in 4 days. He might be a bit afraid, but he can draw up pretty solid plans.
Bear texted Linda that they were thinking of getting off trail here in Etna. Bear met both Miles and Linda through NASA. When Linda heard “might get off” she began her own “Extract Bear and Sassy alpha 547” procedure. Not saying she’s as organized as Bear, I’m saying she’s more so. She already had plans drawn up for every possible extraction point and we just happen to be 547 miles in. Miles was at our hotel in the morning in a hazmat suit. Bear and Sassy are off trail and in a decontamination quarantine for two weeks (Miles and Linda are old hands at NASA and are used to isolating returning astronauts…not a bad decision in retrieving hikers from the State of Jefferson in the time of Covid).
Bunny and I will return to the trail, 🎶 alone again, naturally. 🎶 It has been nearly 800 miles since we have been hiking by ourselves. We’ve hiked 550 miles with Bear and Sassy this year. At the end of last year, we hiked 250 miles with Charcoal B and Struggles. It just so happens, Charcoal B and Struggles will be arriving in Old Station in a little over a week, just the time we will hike from Etna to Dunsmuir before jumping to Old Station. Charcoal B and Struggles live on the side of a volcano, a few hundred fires doesn’t scare them.
EFG