Pat Bertram

Too Old to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail?

March 1, 2018 — Pat Bertram

Ever since I’ve started walking with a twenty-five pound pack two or three days a week, I’ve been waking up extremely stiff and sore and wobbly even on non-hiking days. Apparently, that’s what I get for trying to build up my strength!

Still, I would have thought that increased activity would eventually translate to an increase in agility and and mobility, but that’s not happening. At my age, tendons and ligaments lose elasticity, muscles lose strength (at a whopping 30% per decade without high intensity workouts and additional protein intake to offset the loss), and joints can be painful even if there is nothing particularly wrong with them. (So if I weren’t trying to build up my strength, I’d probably still wake up stiff and sore.)

Once I’ve “oiled” my muscles and joints by moving around and stretching a bit, I am okay, but I worry about the night stiffness and early morning adjustment on the trail, so I’ve been researching the feasibility of long-distance backpacking for older adults. I know there are quite a few famous folks who backpacked well into their eighties, but some of them were life-long athletes, others seem naturally strong or obstinate. But what about regular folks like me who aren’t particularly athletic and who come to backpacking later in life? The prospect of a long distance backpacking trip, or even a short one, is daunting enough without adding the challenge of age to the mix.

Apparently, though, for someone in reasonable health, there’s no reason not to attempt such a trek, (though anyone with even the beginnings of heart or lung problems would need to check with their doctor before setting out). From what I can gather, everyone, no matter what their age, hurts on the trail. Older folks just have to be careful to stretch when possible, use trekking poles to save knees, elevate the legs when resting to redistribute the blood flow, and carry as light a pack as is feasible. (Feasible for an older person is different than for a younger one. Some hikers can get by with a tarp for a tent, or an almost non-existent sleeping pad, but not me. I need a bit of comfort or I’d never sleep, and if I never slept, I wouldn’t get very far.)

Of course, age is truly relative when it comes to backpacking. I recently came across a demographic survey of hikers, comparing the younger folks with the older folks, and the cut-off age was thirty-four. (The “young” group was under thirty-four, the “old” group was thirty-four and up.) And, in a forum discussing the advisability of older folks thru hiking, I came across a query from a fellow who said he was going to be turning thirty, and he wanted to know if he was too old to attempt a thru hike.

Interestingly, older folks who did long-distance backpacking trips after retirement seemed to have more fun than the younger ones because they knew what they wanted from a hike. Some wanted to go the distance, others just wanted to be out in the wilderness for five months. While a lot of the younger folks complained about the hardships, the older folks enjoyed all of it, even the rain and such because often they were fulfilling a lifelong dream. Some of the experienced older hikers did the same sort of insane mileage as the younger ones, but most seemed okay with going slower and savoring the journey, whatever the length. Older people are also more liable to enjoy the hike because after a certain age, pain and stiffness are a fact of life, so physical discomfort might not as much as an affront as it would be to a younger person.

If I were looking for reasons to give up my idea of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (more than the day hikes I have already done, that is), I didn’t find them.

So, this weekend I will add another pound to my pack weight for my conditioning hike and bring my impossible dream a step closer to possible.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in Adventure, culture, life. Tags: age is relative when it comes to backpacking, fulfilling a lifelong dream, older thru hikers, older women backpackers, Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Crest Trail calls to me, thru hiking. 5 Comments »

Marching Along

February 28, 2018 — Pat Bertram

March begins tomorrow, and suddenly, it feels as if the the months are speeding by too fast. January seemed about three months long, and February about three days. At the rate I’m going, March will feel like three hours, and that is not enough time to do everything I need to do. Like print out more information about campsites and such for my May trip. Like get strong enough for a short backpacking trip. Like convert a bit of fat into muscle. Like work on my poor abandoned book.

In January, when I decided that March would be my novel writing month and marked “book” on my calendar, I felt as if I had forever to get in writing shape, and suddenly, here I am on the cusp of the month, and all I’ve done to prepare is drag out my printed copy of the manuscript.

I truly have no specific intentions other than to spend a bit of time every day focused on the book and maybe move the story along a bit. I have no word count goals, not even any expectation of finishing the book. I should be able to do that, right?

We shall see.

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Posted in being me, books, writing. Tags: focus on writing, my writing month, on the cusp of March, word count goals, work in progress. 2 Comments »

Look! A Snowflake!

February 27, 2018 — Pat Bertram

A friend drove me home from the dance studio this cold, blustery afternoon, and every once in a while, we’d see a tiny spot of white.

When I realized what I was seeing, I exclaimed, “Look! A snowflake!” A few minutes later, she made the same exclamation as she pointed out a flake.

I’m sure this fuss over a single flake or two of snow seems silly for those of you who have been all but buried in the stuff this winter, but for a couple of desert denizens, these few flakes amounted to a full blizzard.

Once upon a time, perhaps thirty years ago, more than two feet of snow fell in the desert, but I’ve only seen flurries a couple of times since I’ve been here, and whatever stuck to the ground disappeared as soon as the sun came out. The last time I saw any real snow was three years ago when a friend invited me to go snow hunting. Out here, where it seldom even rains, snow seems a mythical phenomenon. And yep, sure enough, we did find snow — enough to throw a couple of snowballs around; enough to chill our feet.

And we weren’t the only ones flocking to the nearby mountain to gog at the snow that long-ago day — the roads were all but impassable because of the traffic.

Today there was only a bit of dusting on the surrounding mountains, but even here in the desert, we got to see a snowflake. Or two.

Such high excitement!

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: desert snow, gogging at snow, snowballs, snowflake, winter in the desert. 1 Comment »

What I Should Be Doing

February 26, 2018 — Pat Bertram

I did a quiz about what I should be doing for the next six months. This is the response I got:

For real!! Admittedly, the quiz was sponsored by a sporting goods store focused on hiking, but still, to get such a response seems . . . prophetic.

For sure do I seek change. In fact, I desperately need a change. And I certainly am ready to strap on my boots and just take off. It sounds so wonderful to go where the wind blows and the trail goes. But though my mind (and will) are strong, the body is still so weak. My ability to carry a twenty-five pack for any length of time has more to do with growing stubbornness than growing strength, which makes me wonder about any sort of multi-day hike.

I keep telling myself all I have to do is get through the next two months, and then I can head north. I do not want to come back, but I promised, and much as it pains me, I try to keep my promises.

But then, who knows?

Actually, what my heart really longs for is to go back home to Jeff, but that is not a possibility since he’s gone, so the PCT will have to do.

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Posted in Adventure, culture, life. Tags: building strength to carry a pack, desperately need a change, following the trail, going where the wind blows, hiking quiz, Pacific Crest Trail. 7 Comments »

Ain’t Life Grand

February 25, 2018 — Pat Bertram

I often use this blog as a way to organize my thoughts and try to figure out how to deal with problems, but after such posts, I sometimes go through a period of embarrassment for laying my not-so-admirable self bare.

To my amazement, my online community, both the readers of this blog and my Facebook friends, have never exacerbated the embarrassment by pointing out how childish I am. Instead, they’ve been supportive, probably because we have all been in situations with bewilderingly self-centered folks who treat us badly for no reason we can fathom.

In a recent blog post, The Nature of Dilemma, I said I felt as if I’d conjured up my nemesis because she was the personification of the character Deb in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare.

One fellow writer commented: Oh dear. I shall now be warily looking for characters from my stories too. And I’m wondering if you now have a very intriguing plotline growing from this.

I hadn’t looked at the problem from that angle, but what a great story that would be — a writer creates a character who comes alive. Although the character torments her, the writer can’t do away with her literarily because the character has already met her fate in the book, so the writer has to . . .

Now if I can only figure out what comes next in the story, maybe I’d know what to do in real life!

I suppose I could out-nice her, as one friend suggested, by being sweet and standing my ground in a nice, kind, way, not letting her ‘get in my space’ or steal my joy of dancing. Or I could be rude and tell her to stop being “up herself,” as the Aussies say. As satisfying as those suggestions might be, holding my tongue as long as possible is more my speed. (But I do have to consider that my speed isn’t very effective, though to be honest, I doubt anything will get through to her.)

Another friend sent me this quote: When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you. The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth, just like you did.

I think others are beginning to see the truth (although, unfortunately, we all also see the truth of her and her unhappy life, and so feel sorry for her, which complicates the issue), but still I need to stay above the situation or at least find a way to ignore that which I cannot control.

Life! Ain’t it grand.

Actually, irony aside, life is grand — pitfalls, toxicity, tragedy, and all — especially when you have supportive friends.

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Posted in life, relationships. Tags: characters coming alive, don't let others control you, embarrassment after blogging, out-nice someone, supportive online community, toxic people, trying not to be controlled by others, when a toxic person can no longer control you. 2 Comments »

On The Trail Again

February 24, 2018 — Pat Bertram

I managed to get outside today before the winds returned, so I had a lovely trek in the desert. Oddly, after the hiatus from my faux backpacking trips, I could barely lift the pack, but once it was strapped on my back and resting on my hips, I hardly noticed the weight. Well, not much.

You’d think while I’m out sauntering around on desert trails, carrying an addition twenty-seven pounds (additional to my own weight, that is), that the urge to go backpacking would leave me since trekking with a pack is hard work, but nope. The hook remains. I’ll be interested to see if after I finally get out in the wilderness by myself, the desire will be as strong.

The other day, I was chatting with a friend who suggested that my Seattle trip should be just for my sisters (and dealing with Jeff’s ashes) rather than adding a short solo backpacking trek to the mix. She said, “Why not just do the longer trip in September?” My answer shocked both of us into laughter. “But what if I hate it?”

Despite that totally unexpected response, I truly do not think I will hate being out there by myself. I’ve hiked alone. Camped alone. Could it be so different?

I’m not really that naïve. Of course it could be different — a whole lot different. So, yes — a short backpacking trip first, a trip where someone can come get me if I run into trouble. Afterward, I can decide what comes next.

Meantime, there is the rest of my May trip to plan. As I am writing this, I am printing out a brochure for a San Andreas Fault road tour in the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Although I have no interest in driving along ghastly roads, the San Andreas Fault does interest me. Years ago, I went searching for the fault line (which, I discovered to my horror, was a mere ten miles from where I was living at the time), and though I found traces of the fault in displaced red earth and a lake (pond, really) that had been created by a fault sag (a place where the land sank as a result of earth movement along the fault) in the early twentieth century, there was no obvious indication of the fault, no break in the earth, no line. But apparently, in the Carrizo Plain, the line itself is visible. Probably looks like a dry creek bed up close, but still, if the weather, me, my car, and my nerves hold up, it might be an interesting tour.

Earlier today, I printed out information about the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. I get a kick out of that — the idea of going from desert to rain forest in just a few days. Talk about jet lag! Car lag? Cultural lag? Geographic lag? Some kind of lag anyway.

It’s funny — January seemed about three months long, probably because I had added the practice backpacking trips to my normal schedule of dancing, blogging, reading (not writing, you might notice). But February evaporated. Just . . . disappeared. The four months until I start my May trip have shrunk to two months (although I call it my May trip, I will actually be leaving about this time in April).

Yikes. Still so much to do! By this time, I’d hoped to be further along in the weight addition category (being able to carry more weight in the pack), the weight reduction category (carrying less weight on me to keep my knees and feet from having to deal with extra poundage), the planning (though that is coming along quite nicely), and the writing. (I’d still like to finish that last work in progress before my life veers into a different direction.)

I better get cracking.

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Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: Carrizo Plain National Monument, from desert to rain forest, Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, practicing backpacking, San Andreas Fault, San Andreas Fault road tour, solo backpacking trip. 3 Comments »

Faux, Faux Backpacking Trek

February 23, 2018 — Pat Bertram

It feels like forever since I’ve been on one of my faux backpacking trips, as I’ve been calling my treks in the desert carrying a backpack filled with bottles of water. (Water, because it’s easy to control the weight since each 16.5 oz bottle weighs a pound — or, in honor of my Aussie friend, each 5 litre bottle weighs 500 grams. And water because if the pack becomes too exhausting to carry, I can lighten the load by pouring out the water.)

In reality, I’ve only missed one weekend (last weekend because of my state line adventure) and one day (today because of lunch with friends and a disinclination to spend much time in the bitterly cold winds).

Still, today hasn’t been a total hiking flop, though the trip has been all online — a faux, faux backpacking trek, so to speak. I’ve finally started printing out the maps and information I need for my camping trip in a couple of months, and already, after a single stop on this e-trip, I can see myself driving straight through to Seattle.

For the first day, I’d planned to drive by the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve to see if any poppies were still in bloom, though because of the lack of rain, there won’t be any “still” since the poor things might not bloom at all. In fact, as of right now, only a few plants have sprouted.

Then I planned to head to Carrizo Plain National Monument. I’d hoped, of course, to be able to see some wildflowers, though that wasn’t my real reason for the stop. (My real reason was that I’d never been there and it seemed a viable place to camp on the way to the coastal highway.) Here, too, it seems as if there will be no bloom, though last year the place bloomed with phenomenal colors, so much so that more than a hundred thousand people visited the plain to see the very unplain “super bloom.”

At least I won’t have to worry about crowds when/if I go, though I do wonder about camping. Apparently, there is only a partially paved road in the monument, and that doesn’t go anywhere near the campgrounds. Ten miles or more on dirt roads in my ancient vehicle? Eek. Although much of the working parts of the car are still sort of new, such as the new engine and rebuilt transmission, the weldings are forty-six years old. Remember those early comic books where an old car drove down a horrid road and suddenly, the entire thing fell apart? Not something I would like to test.

Also, during the time I would be there, the self-guided Painted Rocks tour would not be available because of nesting birds, (a reason I can accept) so I’d have to take the three-hour guided tour. I suppose it could be fun, but I’d have to drive to where the tour started, and there are those roads again. (Some of the roads are clay, so if it threatens to rain, you are urged to leave immediately or be stranded since the roads become dangerous when wet. More eek.)

I considered dispersed camping, but there again, I’d have a long drive on iffy roads.

Still, a straight-through trip to Seattle is not an option — I have things to see and people to visit along the way — but I am making a note to myself: make sure you have a back-up plan, such knowing where to find a motel for the night.

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Posted in Adventure, culture, life. Tags: Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, back-up plan, Carrizo Plain National Monument, driving to Seattle, Painted Rocks, super bloom, visiting California. Leave a Comment »

You’ve Got This

February 22, 2018 — Pat Bertram

In Pacific Crest Trail discussion forums, occasionally people mention their worries about doing the trail, such as “I just had an operation on my foot, and it hurts to walk. I feel as if I’m walking on glass. I don’t know if I’ll still be able to the PCT this summer.” And the unvarying response, “You’ve got this.”

I hear (and see) that remark all the time. “You’ve got this.” What the heck does that mean, anyway? Well, I know what people who say the words mean — “you can do it” — but as it stands, it means nothing. In my case, I don’t “got” anything except maybe the raspy fingers of cliché scraping up and down my back.

I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to track down the origin of the phrase, but can’t find it. It had to have started from somewhere, but unlike many clichéd and annoying phrases, such as “bucket list,” it doesn’t seem to have come from a movie. And I can pretty much guarantee it doesn’t come from Shakespeare like so many common phrases do.

There is a song, “You’ve Got This,” but I can’t tell if the song came first or the statement did.

Not that the origin of the phrase matters.

What does matter is the way people use it, telling others they can do something without any sense of the person or what the person can actually do. Seems dangerous to me, and in addition, reeks of false positivity.

In my example above, the people who offered the encouragement knew nothing about the woman except those three brief sentences. How do they know she can do it? Why are they even urging her to try? No one suggested she check with her doctor first to make sure she won’t further injure her foot. Admittedly, most of the women in the group seem young (young-ish, anyway), and so they have not yet gotten to the point where their bodies refuse to do what they tell them to do, so I’m sure it never occurred to them that others might not be able to do what they themselves can. The fact that some of the women hiked the trail without ever having been on a single backpacking trip and many had only been on one or two short trips is an astonishing acknowledgement of the power of youth.

(Oddly, it’s almost four years to the day that I first began writing about and dreaming of life on foot. In that initial research, I discovered that potential hikers often spend months in preparation, taking long hikes and backpacking trips, drying foods, mapping water holes, sending ahead care packages to themselves at various places along the trail. They need to be prepared for emergencies, all weather conditions, and whatever might overtake them on the trail. And yet now I’m reading about people that aren’t doing any of that — just buying their gear and setting out. Ah, youth!)

People often say that hiking the trail is more mental than physical, that the sheer distance and immensity of the trail get to people more than the physical activity, but I don’t see how that can be the case with everyone. Even after all my walking, hiking, trudging with a backpack, there is no way I can hike twenty miles in one day, let alone day after day after day. Even when I was young, I couldn’t do it.

And yet, I’m sure if I posted my reservations in a PCT group, I’d get a spate of “You’ve got this.”

Someday, perhaps, I will attempt to hike the trail, or at least a small portion of it, but if do, it will because of a lot of hard work in preparation and not because someone told me I’ve “got this”.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: dreaming of a long distance hike, dreaming of life on foot, long distance hiking is mental, needing encouragement, power of youth, the Pacific Crest Trail, you've got this, you've got this origin. 2 Comments »

The Nature of Dilemma

February 21, 2018 — Pat Bertram

I walked out of dance class yesterday. I can’t even remember the last time I walked out of anything in anger. Now that I think about it, though, I wasn’t really angry. Just fed up.

I’ve mentioned before that I have problems with one of the women — a total narcissist. I get tired of the almost constant sound of her voice and the way she makes everything about her, but more than that, I get tired of how she treats me.

And yesterday I’d had enough.

It’s my own fault, really. Sometimes we as writers have the power to make things happen. When I was writing A Spark of Heavenly Fire, I always saw a silver Toyota Tacoma in the grocery store parking lot. I used the vehicle for the book, and oddly, after the truck was stolen in the story, I never saw that Tacoma again. Made me wonder if somehow I managed to get it stolen in real life.

Then, when I was writing Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, I didn’t want to use her real car — a PT Cruiser — since it could identify her, so I changed her vehicle to a Kia. A couple of days after I gave her the pseudonymous car, she drove to the studio in her new Kia.

Such things are common occurrences for me, but never before have I conjured up a person.

Those of you who read Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare are familiar with a character named Deb. This character started out being based on the idiosyncrasies of a couple of women in class, but I skewed the character far from those women to fit the needs of the story. This skewed character seemed to see herself in competition with the narrator (whose name, coincidentally, is Pat), and this competition, one way though it might have been, fueled the story.

When I was able to return to class after my various surgeries, lo and behold, there was Deb. Her name and physical description are not the same as my fictional Deb, but the rest of it is pretty darn close, perceived competition and all.

Did I conjure her? I doubt it, but still, whether her emergence is my fault or not, this woman is in my life, or rather, in my life as long as I continue to take dance classes. It’s only two months until my trip, which will give me a break from all that has been bedeviling me, so I’ve been trying to ignore the woman, stay as far away from her as possible, and to hold my tongue to keep the peace, but yesterday I simply did not want to have to deal with her anymore.

As I was going out the door after the incident that fueled my need to leave, she continued with her unwanted comments. I just wish narcissists would understand that not everything is about them, that other people have their own lives and needs separate from theirs. But then, if they understood that, they wouldn’t be narcissists.

Unfortunately, it’s too late to rewrite the story to make Deb nicer and less of a narcissist, and it’s too late to make her vanish since her fate was already written. (And anyway, when I write things on purpose hoping they will happen, they never do.)

So I have the dilemma of getting her out of my life and missing out on the good parts of dance class or keeping the status quo.

Not a fun dilemma. But isn’t that the very nature of dilemma? If the choice were easy, it wouldn’t be a dilemma.

For now, I’ll continue going to class. Maybe something will happen to tip the scale one way or another.

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Posted in being me, life, relationships, writing. Tags: conjuring up a person, creating a character in real life, dance class problems, dilemma, when fiction becomes real. 9 Comments »

Reclaiming “Can’t”

February 19, 2018 — Pat Bertram

After my second dance class four or so years ago, I was chatting with a fellow student as we changed into our street shoes. “I don’t know why I can’t do this,” I said, referring to the few dance steps I’d been trying to learn.

Another woman (Rhett in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare) said not to me, but to the teacher, “I hate people who say can’t.”

That seemed so rude to me, I was rendered speechless, but the woman I’d been talking to spoke up. “Pat didn’t say she wouldn’t try or that she’d never be able to do it but that she can’t do it now.” I smiled at her in gratitude, thanked her for sticking up for me, and said, “If I could understand why I can’t do the steps, maybe I’d be able to do them. I’m going to continue to try, of course, but at the moment, my feet won’t do what they’re supposed to.”

Rhett responded, “I can take you to a grocery store where you will see a lot of cans, but you won’t see a single can’t.”

Despite that inauspicious beginning, Rhett and I generally got along. But I was careful not to say “can’t” unless I was in a contrary mood, even though my feet often didn’t do what they were supposed to.

Now, though, I’m back to saying “can’t” because there are many things I can no longer do. And again, people (though not Rhett) are giving me a hard time for using the word.

Their attitude mystifies me. What difference could it possibly make to anyone if I say “can’t”?

Even if I refrained from saying “can’t,” it wouldn’t help. My left arm, wrist, and elbow seem normal enough for most things (which is why people often forget there are things I can’t do) but none of those parts work right. The arm is twisted a bit, doesn’t reach areas of my body it used to be able to reach, such as my left shoulder, and doesn’t have a lot of strength. The elbow creaks and groans, and the fingers don’t close properly. (We’re not even talking pain here, simply range of motion.) I am working to improve all these areas, but there are physical limitations to what I will ever be able to do.

I am grateful for the things I can do and accepting of the things I can’t. In a way, saying “can’t” honors both what I can and cannot do because it speaks the truth. Truth is more important to me, and will always be more important to me than a fake positivity.

Besides, can’t is a perfectly respectable word despite its negative reputation. Sometimes it reflects a cry of frustration rather than refusal to try. Sometimes it’s a sign of momentary defeat and offers a respite from the stress of trying. And sometimes it’s the simple truth.

So, I’m reclaiming “can’t.”

And you can’t stop me.

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