Day 84: Tin Cans and Strings of the PCT

(Sierra City, 1197.5 to 1218.5 + 1.5 on road = 22.5 miles)

I was thinking on our morning hike, having just left the company of fellow PCT'ers and been caught up on the Trail's latest and greatest, about how we all keep up with each other. 

Notes under rocks are read by all. Notes about water are especially appreciated!

In this great electronic and digital age, we do use a bit of technology to keep up with our fellow hikers.  Now, I am not the best to speak on this since I am by nature a technophobe or a Luddite, but I do have a smartphone and do finally know how to text, check email, etc.  And I do have the cell numbers of some of the hikers I rarely travel with, but like to catch up with.  We text where we are, share trail updates, and fill each other in on mutual hiker friends.  I've exchanged email addresses with a handful and given my real name out to friends in Facebook.  I've checked a few fellow hikers' blogs.  But.  Cell and internet service are spotty on the trail, so technology cannot be heavily relied upon.

A pile of rocks, a "cairn," says, "Go this way!"

When technology is sure to fail, we resort to more primitive methods.  We leave each other group messages on the trail by way of stacked rocks (cairns), lines made by dragged poles, arrows of rocks and sticks, blocked paths, and shorthand messages written in sticks, rocks, and sand.  You learn to look for these things and decipher them.  You silently thank whoever took the time to send the message.  When it is a particular person we want, we leave notes on the trail, usually stuffed under a rock.  We all read all of these messages, even if they are not addressed to us.  When I left Kindergarten Cop notes, he had scores of hikers asking if he got his messages.  We both like to snoop and to be helpful. 

A fantastic arrow, pointing the way to water!

But, one of the fastest ways news travels is by word of mouth.  It is ridiculous how fast news travels up and down the trail.  Maverick texted Gumby the other day and tried to say he was ahead of us.  But she called his bull and told him he had slept in the last pass's parking lot the night before, so that was impossible.  And then she told him not to repeat his last town's antics in Tahoe.  He was flabbergasted.  We'd been filled info and just that afternoon about his location and a few days before about his last town stop.  Last night, over dinner, we all told stories of fellow hikers and were filled in on the blips we'd heard.  Town stops and water stops are where the updates are usually exchanged.  And this is the news that travels fastest. 

I imagine news on the Trail is much like things used to be before internet and before telephones.  News travels with the travelers.  It moves forward and backward.  Faster than the written word and, until the cell companies take over every mountaintop, faster even than our high-speed technology.  ...  She says as she types on her smartphone and hopes she gets service sometime tomorrow so that she can pass the message on.