by Rachel Shaver

There is no elbowroom here in the big city. I dodge the people-pretending that I’m at home, hopping stones across a Carolina creek. I keep pace with the waves of people, and when I pause to take an icy breath, a blond in a suit-jacket shoves me from behind. This is not how I pictured myself. Maybe at 22 years old, all the plans for your life run out.

At my desk on the 19th floor, I notice 147 new emails blinking on my screen. Breathe. I remind myself that I am interning at the photo desk at National Geographic Adventure magazine. Everyone I tell stops listening after I say the words "National" and "Geographic." They ask, “So, you get to travel all over the world?” and, “This is your dream job, right?” I’ve resorted to nodding and smiling, instead of explaining how there’s no traveling and it’s just an editing gig. It’s a great editing gig, yes, where I get to set up tents in my cubicle and look at amazing pictures. But in it all, I still hear that little voice whipsering, how in the hell did you end up in New York City?

A year ago, I had just finished applying for grant money to fund my 2,600-mile, six-month hike from the California/Mexico border to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) with my camera and my boyfriend, Greg. At dawn, on May 5th, 2006, I left the trailhead and hiked into a cool wind and overcast sky-a rare, deceiving sky, considering how southern California would soon scorch me.

As a Blue Ridge babe, raised in the lush green tunnels of North Carolina mountain trails, I was unprepared for the dry, exposed desert landscape. Greg and I hiked from 4:45 a.m. until noon everyday. I wanted to stop, take photos, and admire the colors saturating into the deep valley landscapes. But the blazing sun forced us to keep a strict schedule. I couldn’t risk not getting to water. I couldn’t waste the little energy I had.

The afternoons were torturous. After finding some low bushes and making a little shade with our umbrellas, we’d sit for hours, withering in the heat, exhausted and hardly speaking. The thermometer dangling on my backpack maxed out at 125° Fahrenheit. I knew the desert was a terrible place when I watched a gopher drag himself out of his sun-drenched hole, collect some leaves and quickly return to build a roof. Eventually though, we’d stand ourselves up on our sand-blistered feet and force our stiff bodies to walk until sunset.

The evenings were rushed because I wanted to sleep as soon as possible. A sandy oasis with the tent spread flat, no poles, was where we bedded down. I’d inhale a bland rice or pasta dinner, get into my bag and then complain to Greg to hurry up. Often, I’d fall asleep too soon to hear the coyotes cry. Pillow talk was nonexistent apart from an occasional murmuring of I-love-yous. Our bodies hurt, and so did our hearts. The desert shut us off from each other. The distance was lonesome and silent, almost deafening. Many times, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up in a panic; I’d open my eyes to a piercing white light, which I assumed was a stranger with a headlamp standing over me. I’d gasp, and sometimes let out a shriek, before realizing that it was only the moon. I’d roll over, un-soothed by my snoring boyfriend. It was then that I began to ask myself the big questions: How did I get here? Is this what I want? What do I have to prove?

After a few weeks and hundreds of miles behind us, we were trudging across a knee-buckling 20-mile ridgeline with no shade or water. My water bottles were empty. In the late afternoon heat, we came upon a massive boulder perched on a slope. We slapped the ground with hiking poles to check for rattlesnakes, and then collapsed our worn bodies underneath. My burnt shoulders seemed to sizzle on the cool rock. Greg began to cry, and then I sobbed. Disappointment infected our already blistered wounds. We hated the desert, but the idea of quitting so soon cursed in the face of our many months of planning.

The next morning we walked to an underpass of a bridge, and a trail angel was waiting. He relaxed beside a cooler of food and drink ready for the mouths of hikers, but when he saw me, he reached for the car keys.

Off trail, we met other hikers at a hostel, and after having our spirits lifted, we decided not to bag the trip just yet. Instead we took a break, waited for snow to melt, and planned to leap ahead on the trail to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We spent the next few weeks hitchhiking through Big Sur, San Francisco and Palo Alto, all the time feeling anxiety for the future and disappointment for a summer’s goal already lost. I enjoyed the vacation with a certain level of guilt.

Back on trail, we hiked higher to 12,000 feet and breath-taking scenery. We navigated with a compass and used ice axes to scramble up Forester Pass, the highest point on the PCT. On top, we smiled for a picture, truly happy for the day, and this small achievement made together. That picture might be the best one I took on trail. Finally invigorated, I wanted nothing more than to make the push to Canada-it wouldn’t be the whole trail, but it would be something. Greg didn’t agree.

A stranger drove us to town for a food re-supply on Father’s Day. The windows were down and jazz music was playing. My Dad was proud of me, and I knew at home that he was thinking about me. I missed him and my family. I missed love. I looked at Greg’s burnt, empty face and then at my filthy-black empty hands. That muted feeling, right then, I never anticipated.

At the hotel I took three baths, while Greg watched a golf tournament on the television. I could hear him cheering through the closed door. It was the happiest I had heard him in weeks. The next morning, we easily ate four breakfast entrees and then spent the afternoon at the grocery store, buying food for the next section. That night we drank beer in bed and watched the Carolina Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup. Then we spent the rest of the night, and into the next morning, deciding to quit the trail all entirely and possibly breaking up-or some sort of combination of the two. After two phone calls, a hitchhike, and a bus to Reno, Greg and I were on separate flights home.

Eight months later, I shift in the night, listening to the howling wind and creaking trees. This familiar cadence soothes me as I sleep on a futon in Brooklyn. The beaming streetlamp startles me, and I realize that the light is not the desert moon. It is not wind and trees I hear, but instead cars zooming and power-lines dancing outside my window.

I think about expectations and all the plans I had made for my young life while I was in college. Being 22 is scarier than I had expected. Now, as I find myself far away from the trail, I can see that graduating from college doesn’t provide any guarantees. Nor does it mean that I must settle down and get cozy in a cubicle, either.

So in a few days, I'm headed to Alaska for an outdoor photography gig. Photographing Alaska has also been one of my big dreams, and it may not have happened had I not quit the trail.

The outdoors will always be a place where I can escape-but it is not always a place of peace and harmony. I was fooled to believe in the romantic notion that the hardest parts of life cannot touch me while I am stomping down a trail. The good and the bad, the planned and the unplanned, will be on every rock I set foot on-and now I know that one is not more beautiful than the other. 


After the Pacific Crest Trail, Rachel and Greg remain together as an adventurous couple, still exploring the challenges of life and the outdoors. After their stay in New York City ended in mid-April, they decided to briefly part ways in order to pursue individual goals during the summer of 2007. Rachel is currently working as a photographer in Alaska, and Greg is leading cycling and hiking tours with Backroads Travel company in various places in the United States. They plan to reunite on their two-year anniversary in September. •