SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
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than frantically looking for a camp spot as night fell,
might not be evidence of insanity.
I gritted my teeth. I understood the sense of
shocked betrayal felt by any dictator faced with an
insurrection. I tried explaining again how much fun it
is to hike for 14 hours while eating only protein bars; I
patiently outlined the moral superiority to be gained
by stoica l ly enduring foi l packs of cold tuna^19 for seven
days in a row even as weaker creatures slink off the
trail to enjoy a hotel shower and hot restaurant meal.
My logic failed to sway Tumbler.
So our backpacking style evolved. Caroline
brought baby wipes, and I generously didn’t object
when she handed me half of one at the end of a hard
day.^20 We dropped into trail towns a bit more, espe-
cially when my wife or the boys joined us for a
segment. (My wife, Sheryl WuDunn, trail name
Blueberry, enjoys backpacking but believes in show-
ers every two or three days.)
This evolution of our hiking pattern was bitter-
sweet. I was thrilled to see that Tumbler’s love for
hiking continued as she moved into adulthood, and
I could daydream about grandchildren being intro-
duced to the trail someday. But hot meals? Really?
Our trail transition encompassed all of the compli-
cated feelings parents invariably have—pride, dismay,
bewilderment, helplessness—as they lose control over
a child journeying toward independence, making a
few mistakes along the way. Sometimes the mistake
is an unfortunate boyfriend or girlfriend, or a dead-
end job. Sometimes it’s just a baby wipe.IN AUGUST 2018 WE SET OFF ON THE FINAL
leg of our PCT odyssey, traversing the northernmost
part of the trail’s California section. I had caught up
with the miles that Tumbler had completed on her
own, sometimes on hikes with Blueberry but mostly
alone. And while I used to love my solo hikes, now
I found they were marred by how much I missed
Tumbler, both in the she’s-not-here way and in the
she’s-growing-up way.
For our last 200 miles, from the little town of
Castella to the Oregon border, we had fine weather,
and the tarp stayed at the bottom of the pack. But
forest fire smoke blanketed the trail, obscuring
scenery like the jutting crags of the Trinity Alps and
offering a reminder of a changing climate and envi-
ronment. When I began backpacking in the 1960s
and 1970s, trails were rarely closed because of forest
fires, while now this happens all the time.
As we hiked through the Russian Wilderness, past
the strange natural stone formation known as The
Statue (it looks like a huge Trojan Horse on a cliff ),
we ref lected on the continuity and change in the wil-
derness and in the hikers who pass through it. The
geography hadn’t changed much in 1,000 years, but
we had been transformed in just seven.
It was late in the season for thru-hikers, so the
PCT was mostly empty. One day we didn’t see any
other hikers at all. We talked—about music and poli-
tics, friends and history and books.
I had hiked a part of this segment, north of Seiad
Valley, as a 15-year-old high school student with
a 76-pound pack. I shared with Caroline memo-
ries of that old trip and of my high school days; she
expressed a polite interest in this medieval history.
As we chatted, we disturbed a pine marten on the
trail ahead of us—the first I had ever seen. It ran off
into the woods, and we talked about the animals
we had seen on the PCT: two bears, one cougar, one
fisher, one lynx, and 14 rattlesnakes. We had also
worn out about five pairs of shoes each^21 and lost
countless toenails.^22
We had managed this joint project together,
seeing so much wilderness, enduring so much cold
and rain, feeling so much exhilaration and awe. She
had grown from a little girl incapable of carrying
even an empty pack into a capable outdoorswoman,
either because of me or in spite of me. As we com-
pleted the last few miles of our seven-year section
hike, it hit me that just when you think you’ve fig-
ured your kid out, it’s time to let go. I wanted to
savor the memories and chat about all our adven-
tures together—but then I buckled down, because
I saw that Tumbler was waiting for “one-speed old
dad” to catch up.^23
And the most gratifying part of that last section?
We spent a good deal of it talking about what to hike
next, together.Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for The New York
Times and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. His next
book, Tightrope, will be published in January. Caroline
Kristof, his daughter, is a senior at Harvard.19 Horrifyingly, I’m actually
the one who introduced Dad
to these tuna packets, so he
could switch off between
tuna and his cardboard
chocolate protein bars for
breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
every snack in between.
Worse: This is not far from
how he eats at home.20 Giving my dad baby wipes
at the end of the day was
often a greater service to me
than it was to him.21 Fun fact: I once found a
pair of decent shoes in a hiker
box and used them for about
a month. It’s fun to tell people
that I’ve literally walked in
someone else’s shoes for
500 miles.
22 Let ’s be clear: My dad is
the one who loses toenails,
not me!23 I wanted to finish as we
started: one step at a time,
side by side.Father and daughter hit the 1,600-mile mark—as measured
from the Mexican border going north—on the their fi nal
section hike in 2018.PHO
TOBY^BARNEYS
COUTMANN