How Getting on a Freight Train Turned Me into a Hiker

It was a simple plan. Ed and I would bike 150 miles to the freight yard in Staples, Minnesota, take a westbound freight car with our bikes, and ride three days to Seattle. Then we would bike along the coast.

But that’s not what happened.

And that’s how I found out about the PCT.

We loaded up at dusk, loaded our bikes onto the car’s scratched wooden floor, slid into our gear, and climbed in later. We ran a rope across the car and raised the forks of our bikes over it, suspending them in the middle of a wheelie. Ed hung his hammock and I gathered up loose cardboard to put under my inflatable mattress.

As the train picked up speed, the two of us stood at the open door watching the sunset, the wind blowing our hair and drying the sweat from our shirts. We had surrendered our destiny to wherever the iron leviathan took us. It felt like freedom.

The next day, legs dangling over the edge of the door, we watched the scorched plains of North Dakota pass by, taking swigs of warm water from a gallon jug. Leaning against the hot metal of the door frame and lulled by the afternoon heat, we rounded a bend and suddenly there was an open space below and a bridge of steel girders passing just below our knees. We raised our legs, looked at each other and laughed.

Ed. Somewhere in North Dakota, 1981.

Wrong way

We didn’t realize we were going the wrong way until the train stopped for a crew change in Miles City, Montana. We should have been in Havre, up north. At least we were going west.

We were in Billings at dinner time, where a railroad policeman kicked us off the train. We jump over the couplings and find another van. It was already dark; We cannot be demanding.

We knew we were in trouble before the train left the yard. The new car rocked like a drunk. Its large metal door slammed into the side and echoed inside like a cannon. I squatted fetally and stuck my fingers in my ears. Ed smiled in the dark and said he’d been through worse. I couldn’t have cared less.

We woke up to birdsong in Livingston, Montana. Our van was parked and the morning sun was streaming in through the door. Dazed, we cut up the bikes, put the gear on them, and lowered them onto the gravel. Over eggs and coffee, we agreed that trains no longer felt like freedom. I stirred my coffee. Ed just shrugged. We would bike to the coast. It was an open field and we intended to use it.

open fly

In the Palouse, eastern Washington, we are in rolling wheat hills. The strong wind at our backs made it so easy to travel for miles that we refused to stop until after midnight. We could barely see the road, but the Milky Way was so bright it was worth the risk. The next morning, while eating breakfast at a lonely gas station, I complained to Ed, «There’s so much stuff here I can’t fit it in my camera.»

Mount Rainier first appeared on the outskirts of Yakima and its snow-capped peak became our companion as we pedaled west.

Then the forests and ridges swallowed him up.

We missed the mountain.

We climbed for two hours to Chinook Pass before finally seeing the heavy log bridge across the road, “Mount Rainier National Park,” carved into the wood.

We walked our bikes to the bridge.

«Where is Rainier?» I asked.

“Right there,” Ed said, pointing to what I thought was a dark part of the sky.

I stepped back as my eyes finally understood.

A lanky man with a backpack that extended past his head walked towards the bridge. He had deeply tanned legs, a long beard, and his fly open.

He said he was promoting something called PCT.

I had never heard of that.

Bible

A year later, I was at Midwest Mountaineering near campus and saw «The Pacific Crest Trail Vol. II: Oregon and Washington» by Schaffer and Selters. Heavy and expensive, I bought it anyway. I thought of the lanky man.

It sat on my shelf for three years.

After graduating, I got a job as a fisheries observer aboard stern trawlers in the Bering Sea. Training began in Seattle that July.

I left Minnesota in June.

Two sleepless days on a Greyhound with my external frame Kelty and that heavy book. I told the driver to drop me off at the Bridge of the Gods.

I was going to hike to Canada.

Walking through the transparent steel grating of the high bridge was exhausting. Lihat juga tyu6. I closed my eyes forward, looked at the Columbia 140 feet below, and ran my hand along the guide rail just to know it was there. Cars and trucks passed around me; I barely noticed.

Energized by the bridge and refreshed after two days on a Greyhound, I nearly ran down the trail. Leaving Columbia Gorge is one of the most difficult climbs on the PCT. But by late afternoon I was sitting among wildflowers looking at snow-covered Mount Adams in the distance. That night in my tent I slept like a king.

Wildflowers and Mount Adams. Washington PCT, 1985.

When I got to about 5000 feet, I started to encounter patches of slushy snow. At first, the novelty of leaving footprints in the summer snow was fun. I was from Minnesota, what did I know? Then the patches became snowfields and the footprints became postholes. One day like that and I realized I wasn’t going to Canada.

I got off and hitched a ride to Portland. At Powell’s Books I looked for something to read for a coastal hike in Olympic National Park; there is no snow there.

I kept thinking about it.

After July training, I may not ship until September. I would return in August and try again.

Returning

And that’s exactly what I did. Thirty-three years later.

It turns out that we were assigned ships right after training. At the end of July, I was in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, waiting for my boat to take me to the fishing grounds. I didn’t try it again that summer or the next. And life went on.

In 2018, I took a full year off from the small university where I taught. This was my chance. I almost didn’t go – I was almost 60 years old – but my wife insisted. She knew the story.

This time I took a plane and took a ferry to the Bridge of the Gods. Crossing it a second time was just as frowning. The exit from the gorge was more difficult. And there were other hikers, lots of them. Muscular, incredibly lean and tanned. All the way from California. They said he had entered the bubble. Outside of Trout Lake, the angels were serving lots of blueberry pancakes that looked delicious. I passed by; I didn’t feel worthy.

I started seeing the same hikers and got to know them. They taught me the slang (SoBo, NoBo, zeroes, magic, angels) and told me their stories. What I thought was going to be an amazing hike turned into something I didn’t expect. Belonging.

The more miles he covered, the more he deserved her company. And despite the rain, shin splints, fire deflections, and joint pain, I lost years. He was completely alive. On the freezing September morning I arrived at the terminal and it felt deserved.

I posed for photos, smiling like an idiot. Then he lingered to watch the others celebrate. When I crossed into Canada (it could be done then), I started running. I couldn’t help it.

I was going to be a hiker.

Northern Terminus, PCT, September 2018.

freight train

In the summers that followed, between classes and students, I went on hikes. The Wyoming section of the CDT in 2020, the CT in 2021, and during spring break, AZT section increases. Long-distance walks filled an empty space. It quelled the anxiety of what I would become.

I retired early. At 63 I uploaded the PCT, at 64, the CDT. I continued. I started the AT the following year, but wear and tear stopped me. I’m still trying to finish.

I’m grateful for the train ride Ed and I took west.

I don’t think I’m alone.

Everyone has a freight train.