Today my good friend Colin had arranged to join me for the leg up to Donner Pass. He and his friend Sidney met me in the morning at the junction and we quickly started the almost 20-mile trek to the highway crossing at Donner Pass. It felt good to be hiking with a buddy again, and no less one I had known going all the way back to Elementary School! We climbed through vast fields of mule’s ear plants to the rocky summit of the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, which had hosted the Winter Olympics back in 1960. Eating lunch beneath the large Granite Chief rock formation, Colin and Sidney shared some very welcome fresh carrots and fruit while we admired the view down into Olympic Valley.
In the afternoon we scaled the Tinker Knob, a rocky outcrop/pile of boulders a short distance from the trail with expansive views south to Lake Tahoe and as far north as Castle Peak. During the breathtaking descent from the Knob along an open ridge I awkwardly twisted my knee. At first it didn’t hurt much, but as we navigated across a tricky snowfield and began hiking down the granite steps to Donner Pass the pain became increasingly more excruciating. I found that if I kept my knee moving the pain would subside, but if I stopped to take a break for even a minute it would return in force the next time I took a step.
Hobbling to the trailhead, we were all excited to walk the short distance down the road to the Donner Ski Ranch for a well-deserved meal. The restaurant offered a free 40 oz King Cobra to PCT hikers, which I gladly accepted along with a burger, salad and pie feast. By the time we finished it was well after dark, and while Colin and Sidney drove back to Reno I attempted to find the trailhead on the north side of the highway. Still buzzed from the drink and stumbling around with an injured knee in the black night, I gave up and climbed up some large boulders to a flat patch of dirt where I pitched my tent. It was not until after the tent was set up that I realized the dirt patch was covered in shards of broken glass. Too tired to find another site, I crawled in and lay in my bag hoping that the glass didn’t puncture my inflatable sleeping pad.
My thoughts soon turned dark as I pondered what came next. I had spent the past week enjoying the company of many friends and family, and now I was alone again for the foreseeable future. I had no hiking buddy, and the next person I knew along the trail was a friend all the way up in Portland, Oregon, almost a thousand miles to the north. How would I manage hiking alone that whole time? Was it really a good idea to keep going? What the hell was I even doing on the trail anyway? These questions plagued my mind as I drifted into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.
Russell on the Road 