PCT Day 46 – Swimming in the Brocean

Hitch from Lake Isabella (mile 652) to campsite at mile 662

Ten hikers are riding the bus back from Lake Isabella to the trail at Walker Pass. We’re comparing trails hiked when an older man in front of me turns around and says “the Camino del Santiago, PCT, and AT give up elevation like women give up sex.” I’m already wary of where this is going, he continues: “the Camino is like a nun, never gives up anything. The PCT is a regular woman who gives it up the right amount, and the AT is a whore, going up and down all god damn day long!” He roars with laughter and gestures to his wife who is sitting in the seat next to him in agitated silence, “she hates when I tell that joke.”

Gee, I can’t imagine why.

I try to let it go and plan to avoid this guy in the future. We haven’t seen this couple until now, there’s a good chance they’ll pass out of our bubble and I won’t have to see them again. But later when we’re standing on the side of the road applying sunscreen the same guy shouts over to Keith, “hey Starman! What’s the difference between a giant, raging boner, like a huge hard boner and a Cadillac?” Keith, unsettled, just shrugs. “I haven’t got a Cadillac!” laughs the man before heading across the road and up the trail.

I round on the guys still standing around, “what a fucking creep, right?!” One guy shrugs and says “I like a joke as much as the next guy, but his delivery is terrible, too slow.” Yes, because the delivery is the real issue with the boner joke. Well spotted, you.

Immediately I’m equally mad and tired. Tired that the PCT, like so many outdoors spaces, is a veritable boys club, mad at the fact that men refuse to police themselves, mad that when a woman says certain behavior is unacceptable she’s labeled an over sensitive kill joy. I’m mad that folks will defend these behaviors by saying “not all men are like that” when movements like #MeToo and #YesAllWomen reveal that an alarming number of men are like that, and a fair few more offer complicit approval through their silence. And I’m tired of people offering up the hollow phrase “I’m sorry you had to deal with that” instead of examining their own actions, the times they condoned rape culture by not calling out a tasteless joke, the times they made a woman feel uncomfortable with their actions, the time they didn’t take “no” as a complete sentence. I’m mad that some people will read this and say “hey, let’s not get political, I come to nature to escape all that!” A phrase that is only said by those who are so shrouded in their own privilege both on and off the trail so as to be able to avoid politics completely. Why care about poverty if you’re safely middle class? Why speak up against fatphobic and ableist language when you fit societies standard of ‘normal’? Why care about police killing unarmed black men in their own back yards if your whiteness ensures that your every interaction with law enforcement ends in “thank you officer, have a nice day”?

People want to hide behind the idea that nature is for everyone, that the trail doesn’t care what you look like. But the reality is the outdoors have been built, branded, and all but reserved for a select few and they’re not all that kind to folks who fall outside their mold.

Do you need an example? I have them, I have more than I could ever possibly write down, most women/queer/fat/black/lantina/black people do.

We’re standing at the southern terminus and some guys turn to chat with Keith about first day milage, they block me out of the conversation, literally turn their backs to me, ignore my existence.

Taking a break at Boulder Oaks Campground when an older man comes up and asks Keith if we’re staying there tonight. Keith looks to me and I tell the man we’ll be hiking on. He tells me it’s uphill to the next campground. I know. It’s a ways away. I know. He won’t let the issue drop until he shows me his maps, points out every detail, as though I don’t have the exact same maps, as though he’s more informed of my abilities than I am.

Sitting around a camp fire one night I notice men blatantly taking over women and queer folks, interrupting them mid sentence again and again.

Filtering water at Tylerhouse canyon and discussing old Mel Brooks films a college professor says “they could never make that film today, it’s too offensive, and all the directors now days are pussies.” Ah yes, the old usage of female genitalia to refer to cowardice.

One night a drunk man old enough to be my father puts his arm around me and tells me I remind him of his college girlfriend.

Hitching into town an older man mumbles “that bitch” to every female driver who doesn’t pick him up. To the men he says nothing.

An alarming number of people still casually use the word retarded in a pejorative way.

At Carmen’s in Julian we meet a rad 19 year old hiker from Seattle. When she leaves the table to get a drink a guy informs me that they’re going to give her the trail name “Barely Legal.” Because apparently all women are divided into “can have sex with” and “can’t have sex with, yet” categories depending on age.

Hiking from a spring between Mojave and Tehachapi a guy launches into a 30 minute tirade when he learns I’m a P3 Hiker. He tells me he applied and was rejected because they wanted to pad the program with more women and people of color. It never seems to cross his mind that the choice might have been made on talent, and that he simply didn’t make the cut. He rants “they just picked a bunch of women and Asians, that’s not even what the trail looks like!” As though we all need reminding of the lack of diversity on trail.

Taken individually these incidents seem insignificant, petty even, which is what so many people fail to comprehend. Because it’s never just one man, one interaction, but a lifetime of being seen as weaker, less intelligent, and less talented than my male peers. Imagine being told in ways subtle and overt that the simple fact of your gender makes you less than for your entire life. It’s never just one man, and I’m not speaking from a place as just one woman.

I rage hike up the trail from Walker Pass, mad at myself for not saying something to the man on the bus. Feeling like a crap feminist and a bad ally. Why am I preserving his comfort over my own, over that of other women? Why can’t I speak up in the moment and tell people they’re behavior makes me feel uncomfortable? Am I really so worried about being liked by people like that? Have I really bought into the idea that the best thing a woman can be is nice? I feel like I’m failing myself, like I’m failing the hiking community and those who will come after me looking for a safe space and only finding a boys club. Already the PCT has forced me to be uncomfortable physically, so why stop there? Maybe this is the catalyst to growth that I need.