Gary Campanella

The idea to walk from Mexico to Canada really just came from boredom. Jeff was flipping through old National Geographies in the college library and he found an article entitled "Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail" (June 1971). i remember we all looked at it and said "yeah, we gotta do that" and then went back to studying?just tossing the idea out the window like jack did with his magic bean seeds. Now what makes this so significant (what allowed the seeds to grow) is that we continued to talk about the walk whenever we were bored, ? it was like our community daydream, ?and now, three and a half years later, nothing, not liberal arts degrees, not good jobs, not even girlfriends has stopped our boredom with everyday life from turning the daydream into reality.

And to be honest, the walk is still more than just rooted in that boredom for us. I mean, everyone asks us why we want to make such a walk (and they usually got that "the 60's are over" cynicism in their eyes), and none of us has come up with a really good answer. It's like we woke up one morning and the seeds had become a beanstalk as big as our backyards. So what else is there to do but climb it?

Of course, the walk is no longer just an idea for us (we've made that transition from talking about it to doing things about it). As a result. people, especially relatives and friends, expect and deserve a better reason than "we're bored." So at the risk of sounding like a social scientist, I'M start my explanation by defining this boredom, the boredom that drove us to the Crest, as our alienation. No I don't mean the kind of alienation that people, let's say, in the inner city feel, ?the realization that the American Dream is closed to them. Because the American Dream is wide open for all three of us. We're all middle class and educated at a fine liberal arts college. The corporate world is looking for us. The alienation we feel from the American Dream is spiritual, it's motivational. Speaking very personally (I'm currently assistant sales manager for a stock market advisory service), the corporate world has offered me no satisfaction and it literally bores me to death. Thus, I have no reason for dedicating myself to it, and I'm alienated from people who do.

The Crest carries a very defininte anti-American Dream, almost Beat Generation, feeling for all three of us. I mean, we're not trying to make this a professional walk. We're not trying to "conquer" the Crest. We're very informal about setting an exact route (we're looking for exciting detours from the Park Service route) and we're de-hydrating our own food. We're very low budget and have no choice, but still don't mind keeping it that way. Our superstition is that bad things happen with too too much planning and the best things happen spontaneously. Which isn't to say we're underestimating the degree of preparedness we need for the walk, it's just that, in the end, we'll do what we can and want on the walk. At the same time we're, what I call, "anti-American macho" about the walk, we don't really run a risk of being "purists" about the walk. That is, our personalities aren't that serious. We ail like junk food and are not "above" an occasional, when affordable, steak dinner, or taking shelter on cold rainy night, or getting rip-roaring drunk whenever the mood is right.

We've talked about this alot, and we closely share these "anti-American macho" and "anti-purist hiker" attitudes. I almost think of us as pioneers, leaving them all behind. In any case, we realize that because of this we'll have to be relying on each other and on ourselves every step of the way (as it's ail we'll really have left to rely on). This is fine. As I said, we are not walking to conquer the Crest, and we are not walking to prove something, anything, to anybody. If we're pioneers, then our frontier is the spirit, not the land and not the ego. We are all very much walking to enjoy the walk and all three of us speak of the walk as a "cleaning out" experience?a kind of Native American vision quest. This is really our driving force, and the reason why we'll all finish the walk. You see, we're all aware of our bonds?the fact we all were dissatisfied New Englanders who left home at 18 years old for the Midwest and found that atmosphere an even bigger nightmare. And so now we have all ended up bringing our search for satisfaction to the Pacific Crest, bringing us coast to coast, and to the limit We think this physical situation alone should bring all the determination and commitment we'll need to hold us together even beyond the Crest. Further, the fact that we've all chosen this quest,?especially after our time in the Midwest college and the fact that most people see the walk as either useless or just youthful fancy,?gives us yet another kind of glue. This one's like a rebellious pride,?cause we think the whole situation's about as anti-American

Dream as you can get,?and it shows in our humor, which is sarcastic and mocking. We think the walk will ease our bitterness and show us a way of life that's not so boring.

Now these are all fairly general (however important) reasons for walking the Crest. These are the ties that bind the three of us. But as every hiker knows, while we all pitch camp together, during the journey we all walk alone. Thus, we all have our very personal reasons for walking the Crest. If we call the walk a vision quest, we can say that each of us seeks a different vision. Now I really don't want to presume the depth of the visions Jeff and Mick are seeking for, truly, I don't really know. 1 can guess that Jeff is seeking out more self-reliant lifestyles. He's also seeking out the myth of the mountain man. I think he feels that pretty close. Mick, in some ways, is more spiritual. More than anyone I've yet known, he feels the call of the wild. He has told me so. He is answering that call with the Crest.

If you ask me more about them, i can't go very far, not right now anyway. Maybe they can't either. But if you ask me what vision I am seeking, I can tell you in no uncertain terms because the choices I face are so clearcut. The Crest for me is spiritual life or death. It is selling out or not selling out. You see, while the American Dream does not seem to offer me anything but ulcers and boredom, it still tempts me. The Catholic and middle class ideas of authority that I was raised with are only slowly being exorcised.?And I often have nightmares of how Jack Kerouac turned reactionary before he died and I can sometimes taste how easy it is to be like T.S. Eliot's Hollow Men. It's all like the temptation to fall asleep when you're driving. Right now I 'm on the threshold of breaking through all this. It's just that I don't quite know who I am. My revolution is in my mind and in my heart, but the two are not quite together. For instance, 1 work with Black Rose because i believe anarchist principles, but then I find myself caught in this or that silent accept ance of some middle class or Catholic authority and I can't really say "I am an anarchist," because I don't really fee! it.

I know it's just that old American fear of the unknown that's stopping me, and the Crest, I know will let me beat that fear.?The reason is because in order to try the Crest I'll have to face up to all my fears. The Crest'll be like spending a night in the cemetary to beat a fear of the dark, or standing "no hands" on a ladder to beat a fear of heights. In order just to try the Crest I will literally have to give up every facet of my American

Dream ?my job, my apartment, most of my possessions and 1 suspect even my girlfriend. And once 1 have done this, once I have taken that first step northward from the Mexican border, I have a feeling there'll be no stopping me. My silent acceptance of all phoney authority will disappear, and I will be free to really be as I really am.

if I fail the Crest (and failing will be failing myself and not necessarily have everything to do with whether or not I finish), I don't know what will happen.

I have recently read the amazing account that Nunez Cabeza de Vaca gave of his walk, naked after a shipwreck, from Florida to Mexico City, between 1528-1536. His account, which in many ways is ahead of our time, is in the form of a letter to his Queen of Spain, who we can picture sitting in the portable wisdom of her time. Nunez is trying to explain to her what he has learned:

Your majesty, such were the senses in which I found myself treating all human beings alike, i screw up my courage to confess it. Perhaps it is the secret thing which fife has it in itself to become ?a long, long march on the road, meeting people, thrown into relations with them, having to meet demands often terrible and without the aid of mysterious power impossible: demands of healing and understanding, and constantly the exorcism of fear.

(pp. 29-303

POSTSCRIPT: As I've indicated, our budget is low for the walk ?and as we're beginning to find out, the costs can easily become enormous. If any Black Rose readers, particularly those living on the west coast (we're still on the east coast}, think they can help us in some small, but vital, details ? such as helping us plan sites for placing food and water caches, it wili save us dollars and time in traveling etc. that we just don't have and, as a result, you will swim in our gratitude. Please write Black Rose and let us know.