‘Journeys North- Takes You 2,650 Miles Along the Pacific Crest Trail

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Pacific crest trail is 2,650 miles long. It stretches from the Mexican border up through California, Oregon, and Washington to the Canadian border. Every year. There's a window of opportunity for those, with dreams of through hiking, the whole thing in one go, it takes months and not everyone makes it. San Diego resident Barney scout man has written a personal story called journeys North about the cohort of Pacific crest trail through hikers that he was a part of in 2007, that year extreme weathermen, only a third of the hikers who started the trail here in San Diego County reached the Canadian border Barney. Scott Mann joins us now. So Barney, or should I call you scout? Welcome to midday. Speaker 2: 00:44 I love being called scout. I'm my best self out there. Okay, Speaker 1: 00:47 Good. Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about your name. Uh, you write about how everyone on the trail eventually adopts a trail name and yours is Scott. Speaker 2: 00:56 Let's start with the word adopted because that's actually the opposite of what happens is the name is usually thrust upon you. Uh, you've done something stupid. Uh, it's a play on a words. If you were sitting around a campfire after having eaten beans during that day, and what happens naturally did happen, and someone asks you, what is that? And you answer that's rolling thunder. 13 years later, I still know him as rolling thunder to thousands. If not tens of thousands of people, I'm simply known as scout and my wife, who I followed for 2,650 miles, she is simply known as photo Speaker 1: 01:37 Trail name, give you a different identity from your everyday life. Speaker 2: 01:40 You know, imagine if you were suddenly thrust into Narnia or thrust into Hogwarts, you know, would Alison when she want to have a different name. Yeah. And there's very similar summit. We were out there for five months and slightly different way of living. And you were completely removed from all those things that we call normal or off trail life. So names are given usually early on in the trail. Speaker 1: 02:05 It allows you to, in some way, it sort of frees you up in a way to be a different cell. Speaker 2: 02:10 That is so true. And that's one of the attractions for being out there and we are different out there and we are more free Speaker 1: 02:17 Now rather than, you know, describing in your book that the changing landscape along the trail, you do a bit of that, but you chose mainly to focus on a handful of hikers through hikers with you and you weave their stories together so beautifully. So we get a sense of the internal journey, as well as the, the outward trials and tribulations. Why did you decide to tell your story that way? Speaker 2: 02:38 When you think about this, you would think, okay, you're going out there. And it's about seeing pretty scenery, the landscape, maybe putting yourself in a, in a, in harsh weather conditions. But what it's really about is the people. That's, what becomes the most important. These people that maybe you'll be around for a week or two. And then you'll see a month later, it's 13 years ago. And if I've met you on the trail for 15 minutes and you showed up my front door today, well, COVID, we wouldn't hug each other, but we would literally treat each other as brother and sister. You feel differently. I would hear stories every day in a conversation you wouldn't have with the best friend once a year. And this is why I want to write. I want to share these stories, these amazing people who chose to pull themselves out of society for five months and hike in the wilderness. Speaker 1: 03:29 Talk about how you, you end up sort of either walking alone or, or with someone else on any given day has that, Speaker 2: 03:37 Uh, the term is leapfrog and it literally is. It's random. We might for a, um, a few days, uh, be hiking around someone. So you might see them at a break. And when you see people, months later, you have these stories. You want to tell I'm 69 folks. And I don't have most perfect memory, but for each one of the hundred and 55 days, I was out there, I can tell you a story. This was the feeling I wanted to share. Speaker 1: 04:03 I got quite invested in some of the characters. It must've been quite difficult for you to decide which ones to choose for your book, but, but talk about how you became invested and how the hike was going. For some of the other characters on the trail, Speaker 2: 04:16 The hike 20, 25 miles a day is hard in all honesty. There's a good part of the, of the time that you are carrying some burden, the pain, a number of the younger folks we hiked around. And I teacher for four of them in the book, uh, Dalton, blazer, and Tony meeting. These people became like our children's trust. In fact, if you would call us trail, mom and dad, and we called them, uh, uh, you know, trail son and trail daughter. And I wanted to both share what the closest felt like, but also shared the depth of stories. Why do people break away for five months often? Because something traumatic, something very deepest happened to them. Um, and out there they're willing to talk about it. Tony. Now you're taking a shower. Side-by-side, there's a thin plywood wall between us. It's open to the sky, but we're still, you know, this closeness and we're watching a four or five days worth of dirt. And we both tell each other's tails. I hear about, uh, 20 shares about a suicide attempt and out there, he felt safe enough to tell me, and I felt safe enough to hear it. And I wanted to share that feeling. Well, Speaker 1: 05:26 Talk a bit about why, why was it so important to make it to the end? Speaker 2: 05:31 In some respect? It's not, it's what it was important was to stay out there. Um, my wife fell and broke. A Lily had, had had a tooth, uh, come out of its socket and she had to shove it back in and broke the other half of the tooth off. And during that half day that we're trying to deal with this and trying to find a way 20 miles to get into the next smallest little town and being told no dentist will come out and finally getting them to one of the things she really was. I want to be out here. I want to be part of these people. I want to be part of this adventure. Speaker 1: 06:07 You are. In fact, one of the people who has walked all three of the trails, the Appalachian trail, the great divide and the Pacific crest trail major through hiking trails in this country. How, how would you describe the experience of doing the Pacific crest trail? Our trail, you know, compared to the others, Speaker 2: 06:26 Uh, when people ask me, which one's the best I say to the civic crest trail, the Appalachian trail, they called the green tunnel in a lot of parts. That's what it is. I could go all day and I have a little guide book would tell me these are the three spots today. You'll have a view and you're much closer to civilization. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was different. The continental divide trail way, fewer people, 60% of the time easily. I was, I was by myself. I could go 48 hours hike 50 miles and not see another human being as wild as it was. It's not quite as stunningly, beautiful as much of the time as the civic chris' trail. So our trail, and I love the word that she used, the word our with that, um, our own it's wilderness, but it still has an edge of approachability to it. It has people, but you can still be alone. It's also where I grew up. I grew up in the Sierra Nevada. So it's my first love too. Speaker 1: 07:21 Yeah. So thank you so much for talking with us Varney. Speaker 2: 07:24 It's a real pleasure and folks out there. I will hope that you give journeys North the chance I will take you far, far away for awhile. Speaker 1: 07:32 We've been speaking with San Diego author, Barney scout, man, about his book journeys North, the Pacific crest trail. And he'll be talking more about his book tomorrow, Wednesday in November the 11th at four o'clock at a Facebook live event, hosted by Warwicks. And he'll be in conversation with the cohost of a way with words here on KPBS, Martha Barnett.