Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail by Bill Walker Page B

sex. I had been living in Florida for two years before coming out for the PCT, and treated them to some fare of Florida-style dating.
    “I was dating a woman almost twenty years older than me down there,” I said.
    “Nuh, uh,” Trout Lily said in disbelief.
    “What else are you gonna’ get in South Florida,” I said. “At least she didn’t live in a damn nursing home.”
    “But then one day I’m strolling along the beach and run into this girl (Liz) half my age—24 years old to be exact. She had trained all her life to make the Olympic swimming team, but missed it. That was it. Next thing you know she’s gone from an ascetic lifestyle to drinking and dating older men. She really didn’t know how to handle either.
    “After several months of going out with Liz, I’m walking on the beach with the older lady who had morphed into my friend. All of a sudden, this older guy walks up with an alarmed look on his face, and says, ‘Bill Walker?’. ‘Yeah’, I answered. He grabbed me by my elbows and says, ‘come with me’. ‘Can I bring this lady with me?’ I asked. ‘No’, he said. ‘I want to talk with you’. I’m thinking, what the hell is happening here.
    “‘I’m Liz’s father’, he proceeds to tell me. ‘She died in her sleep last night with her ex-boyfriend’. Liz had just told me the week before that this same ex-boyfriend—who was 62 years old—had stalking tendencies. So that’s Florida-style dating for you.”
    “Sounds like swapping out Florida for the PCT was a good trade,” Too Obtuse incisively observed.
    Trout Lily didn’t blanch one bit.
    “I date this big, old surfer. I swear he’s got the most unbelievable body. I can’t quit thinking about it.”
    After listening to her rhapsodically describing his many bona-fides as a modern-day Romeo, she said, “But he keeps having sex with his ex-girlfriend.”
    Nobody said anything, so she added, “I don’t care, though. I just wish I didn’t have to pay his rent.”
    Poor fella’. Life sure is a bitch. Unfortunately, however, this same guy was to play a seminal role in derailing Trout Lily from the PCT.

Chapter 10
    Seeds of Disaster
     
    There are three things in life you don’t want to do:
                1. Play poker with somebody named ‘Slim’.
                2. Buy a Rolex from somebody who is out of breath.
                3. Go hiking in the desert with a pair of shoes that are too small.
    A PCT hiker, who wasn’t even a nerd, could write an entire book on shoes. The treadway is very different from the Appalachian Trail, especially in the desert. For that reason, most people wear trail running shoes. They were breathable for starters (if you have the right damn size!). And they were lighter, so you could go further. But Yogi and others repeatedly stressed that your shoes had to be at least one size bigger than you normally wear.
    It’s the one decision you have to get right from the beginning, and I had gotten utterly neurotic beforehand about it. Yet, I still ended up screwing it up. I’m normally a 13 ½ so I had ordered Vasque Size 14 low cuts. But the minute I tried them on, they had felt snug. I checked the REI website, but 14 was the largest size they offered for Vasque shoes. Like many hikers, I thought REI was the center of the hiking universe. If they didn’t have size 15, then I assumed Vasque didn’t make Size 15 shoes. This would prove to be a grievous blunder.
    I had wandered with my backpack all over the beach in Florida in that pair of size 14 shoes. One day I’d think they were big enough; the next day I’d change my mind. Not until the day before I left did I make a final decision to wear the Vasque Size 14’s. Maybe they’ll stretch had been the final tiebreaker.
    Now here I was in the worst of the desert heat. The temperature in the sun was well over 100 degrees. But the ground surface temperature was probably in the neighborhood of 140 degrees. It was like a