After months and months of hiking through California, I finally reached the end.

For 18 years this state was the whole world as I knew it. The golden state, for all I was concerned, may as well have been the entire universe.

We had beaches, and mountains, and forests, and deserts. We had Silicon Valley, and the Central Valley (CA produces half of the vegetables and three quarters of the fruits/nuts grown in the United States), and gold, and the iPhone, and blue jeans, and Disneyland, and Yosemite, and Hollywood, and 300+ days of sunshine a year, and really, it felt like we had everything. I could have lived and died happy never having set foot outside of the state’s borders.

Now that I have traveled far and wide, lived thousands of miles away for almost a decade, do I think any different? Honestly, no, not really.

I still pretty much feel the same love and (be)longing I did as a child. Being apart from California for so long really killed part of my soul. Deep down I am forever tied to this land and its people. Nowhere else has ever felt right to me. Maybe there is somewhere else for me too, but I haven’t found it yet. I know I will leave again but somehow I also know now that I will always, always come back.

So that is all to say, it felt very weird crossing the border into Oregon this week, now having travelled every vertical foot of what used to be my entire universe. When I crossed that border, the world became a little smaller. Like the final pages of a favorite novel, I tried to slow myself down even as I couldn’t help but to be gravitationally yanked toward the conclusion. As I crossed the border, the unexplored and mysterious aspects of the universe in my mind subtly but unmistakably diminished.

Despite my many bittersweet feelings about finishing California, so far Oregon has been great. After many hundreds of miles of unmaintained trail, the meticulously manicured paths here have been a pleasure to hike. Founded on the timber industry, Oregon knows forests, and takes pride in showing them off. Trail crews are endlessly at work clearing the blowdowns and overgrowth. People are nice, though there is a clear cultural difference in how they act. Hard to put my finger on what exactly. But even now taking a zero in Ashland, I can tell I am a foreigner again.

The ecology, somehow, also changed right at the border. Conifers are more robust in their foliage, wildflowers scatter over the landscape, and wild onions spring up by the thousands along the trail. Biscoff describes the forest here as “cozy” and I concur. It has a storybook feel. Almost too perfect to be real.

As a final goodbye, I can still catch glimpses of Mt. Shasta in the distance. Wildfire smoke begins to blow in, luckily not from a fire near the trail. Still it’s not a good omen, and I am praying that we are just fast enough to beat fire season in Oregon and Washington. Only time will tell.

Mac

Milk&cigarettes

Well, maybe the final town in California, Seiad Valley, is not in California at all. Maybe the PCT runs through four states. It all depends on who you ask.