I almost died hitchhiking the summer I turned 19.
Here’s what that time of my life taught me.
I opened the summer of 2005 with grand plans — but really, I needed to dream big just to maintain my sanity.
The preceding five months had been spent in wintry upstate New York, locked in the perpetual grind of my first semester of college. When I wasn’t in class, I was out drinking; when I wasn’t out drinking, I was slumbering in the heat of my dorm room.
My interactions with others were dull and lacked depth; I couldn’t seem to make relationships stick. At a university where girls outnumbered boys 3 to 1, proposing a date seemed out of the question. My Facebook friends numbered in the single digits.
I was really fucking depressed. Was this life?
Returning home in May, I decided to embark on an adventure, with a simple goal in mind. After months spent in the confines of four walls, I sought the outdoors. Searching through the most respected long-distance hikes in the United States, my eyes fell on the John Muir Trail. Snaking 220 miles from the Yosemite Valley to the top of Mount Whitney (the highest mountain in the contiguous United States), the “JMT” represented the kind of challenge that could offer definition to a life sorely lacking it.
Armed only with the contents of my backpack, a one-way plane ticket, and a bank account buoyed by a recent insurance settlement, I landed in San Francisco and made my way by bus and train to Yosemite. Upon reaching the Valley, I visited the Ranger’s Office to obtain the back-country permit so I could begin my hike.
The ranger laughed. Hadn’t I heard? The Sierra had received 300% of its average snowfall, covering the passes in feet of deep powder. “Try your luck”, he told me. If I happened to see any of the three fellows missing, would I be so kind as to inform them that their families were a tad worried?
I was stunned. This was the disastrous luck and failure that had haunted me for months. Confronted with few options a continent away from home, I stumbled upon the Greyhound Discovery Pass, a $300 document that allowed unlimited travel throughout the United States and Canada. With few alternatives, I just made the purchase.
It ended up being the right call.
The next 2 months tracked up the West Coast into British Columbia, then east towards the Canadian Rockies. Challenges abounded.
I endured three hours of interrogation by Canadian customs, terrified they’d find my hidden fake ID (worthless north of the border, it allowed me to drink in the US).
I helped save a baby seal on Vancouver Island.
I hiked by myself through a white-out in Jasper National Park. That night, a bear invaded my campsite and tried to steal all my food.
With each successive day I realized more and more how little I knew of life. I’d never been happier.
Upon reaching Calgary, I discovered that Greyhound made no connection south to cross the border back into the States. With little recourse, I stuck out my thumb in the direction of my native land. A series of rides finally brought me to the border at Sweetgrass, Montana.
No one had crossed the border by foot in months, the border control officer told me, though he almost immediately allowed me to pass through. I walked a mile up the interstate, and pitched my tent as night fell. With little prospect for a ride in the darkness, I pitched my tent in the soft grass a hundred yards off the highway.
In the morning, I set back out on the road. My destination was Glacier National Park, a couple of hundred miles away. Noon and three short rides left me at a gas station, and I inquired inside as to whether anyone was headed west. A gray head slowly rotated from in front of the counter, and asked, “Have you got any weapons? Any drugs?” I assured him I was clean, just having crossed the border.
We walked out to his car, a late-model Ford Taurus. I squeezed out the basics: he’d just retired from the Stock Market in New York after a series of heart attacks, embarking on an adventure to visit children in Seattle and LA.
He’d been on the road just 3 days — from New York, all the way to Montana. This was a feat in itself. He hadn’t left the car, other than to eat, sleep, and gas up. Thousands of miles had passed through a shield of glass.
He must have been eighty years old, in poor health and bitter to match. I could see each vein in his knotty hands as they tightly gripped the steering wheel, his eyes intent on the road. Our speed gyrated constantly from 45 to 85 mph and back, irritating a long line of cars behind us. Alternately crawling and sprinting ahead, we entered the mountainous country that marks the beginning of the approach into the northern stretch of the Rockies.
Traveling higher into the hills, the road expanded into three lanes. Two were devoted to cars in the opposite lane, with only one lane in the direction we were traveling. I stared into my guidebook searching for a hike.
A series of honks shattered my concentration. Looking up, it took me a few moments to realize our situation. Our car was driving in the middle lane, squarely facing oncoming traffic. Other vehicles swerved out of the way as they careened down the steep mountain pass.
I didn’t have time for fear; adrenaline, but not fear. He was oblivious, the look in his eyes unchanged with every horn blaring by. For ten timeless seconds, I pleaded with him to pull back into our lane. Finally, he realized his error and swerved, overcompensating and almost hitting a guardrail. Every nerve in my body stood at attention.
We pulled over, each of us gasping for air. I grabbed my pack, and told him I couldn’t go any further. He understood; in his embarrassment, he peeled off, tires squealing, once again alone on his journey.
Hours later, I realized I had taken down none of his information, that I had no way of contacting any of his family. I’m not sure if he made it to his final destination, or if he really even had one. Perhaps his road trip was a subconscious way of saying goodbye, one last fuck you to a world he felt had given him short shrift.
Contemplating his journey put mine in perspective. The summer of 2005 marked a new beginning to my life, a period of unchecked growth. At the same time, his quest symbolized an end. This contrast stood in deep relief.
In the days immediately after the incident, the event seemed surreal. I thought of it more as a great story, than for what it actually represented; a near-death experience that revealed the connection between action and consequence. Maybe it taught me something about impermanence, and the importance of carpe diem.
A day later, I would make the difficult choice to return to California via seventy hour Greyhound to hike the now passable John Muir Trail.
Eight years later, when faced with challenges, I picture that fearless 18 year old, only to contrast his example to current moments of complacency and weakness.
Specifically, I wonder: how can I return to form? How would that younger, more sure-footed version handle today’s challenges? Am I the only one who looks back to earlier times with nostalgia and wonder?
The answer, of course, is of course not. I’m not alone. We all endure peaks and valleys, triumphs and failures. What matters is how we choose to deploy these life lessons. In those moments, I focus on what empowered me to shrug off fear, failure, and weakness way back when in 2005. That core strength never left. It’s always there. It’s part of me.
