Wednesday, August 22, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
7
PCT trek is fulfillment of a dream
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
Yvette De Groes of
The Netherlands had long
dreamed of taking a very
long hike.
“I actually wanted to do a
very-long-distance trail and
I thought I would walk from
my home town all the way to
the south of France,” she told
The Nugget last week.
But then like so many oth-
ers, she read Cheryl Strayed’s
2012 memoir “Wild: From
Lost to Found on the Pacific
Crest Trail,” and she became
entranced by the idea of hik-
ing the 2,650-mile PCT.
The NOBO (northbound
hiker) stopped in Sisters on
Friday, having trekked all
the way from the Mexican
border. In her company was
Casper Van Wigck, also of
The Netherlands, who was
joining her from Ashland to
Cascade Locks before return-
ing home to take up a new
job in the paper and card-
board industry.
De Groes will continue to
the Canadian border, which
she expects to hit sometime
between September 10 and
September 20. She is confi-
dent that she will be among
the one in five PCT through-
hikers who actually complete
the journey. After all, she
says, 90 percent of those who
make it from the Mexican
border to Oregon finish out
— and she’s halfway through
Oregon.
The 25-year-old Dutch
woman prepped for three
years for this adventure of
a lifetime, researching the
route, purchasing and test-
ing her gear and getting her
international paperwork and
permits in order. She and
Van Wigck connected online
and planned their rendezvous
in Ashland.
Neither did any specific
physical training for the
effort. De Groes said she sim-
ply started out with 15-mile
days and as she got in shape
rolled up to as much as 35
miles a day, a pace she had
to dial back when Van Wigck
joined her.
“The PCT is training
you,” she said. “The day
before will help you for the
next day.”
The early part of the trail
up from the Mexican border
was unexpectedly enchanting
for De Groes.
“Somehow, I just fell in
love with the desert,” she
said.
Part of the reason, she
thinks, is that the challenges
and perils of the desert cross-
ing imbues a sense of cama-
raderie into the hiking com-
munity. They meet at the
scarce watering points, and
look out for each other. This
creates a sense of community
that both hikers marked as
the most gratifying aspect of
their adventure.
The trail isn’t always a
delightful playground for
adventure. Entering the
Sierra Nevada, De Groes got
sick and ran out of food. All
she could say about it was
the natural thing: “Ah… this
sucks!”
But she persevered and
found the stretch from mam-
moth Lakes to Lake Tahoe to
be “very nice.”
De Groes was fortunate
in avoiding fire closures,
but there has been no avoid-
ing the smoke from mega-
fires across California. She
said that smoke in the area
of Redding was so heavy “I
could not see more than three
or four trees ahead.”
Van Wigck acknowledged
that it is “sad, because the
views aren’t that great.”
Van Wigck, 28, ran into
trouble with his footgear
early in his segment of the
hike, developing a painfully
sore Achilles tendon.
“I walked from Crater
Lake to Bend in her sandals,”
he noted ruefully.
New boots in Bend are
expected to see him through
the rest of the way.
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
Yvette De Groes and Casper Van Wigck came to the U.S. from The
Netherlands to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
Van Wigck finds the
landscape fantastic, where a
hiker can go for days without
encountering a town.
“We don’t have that in
Europe,” he said. “Here, it’s
real backcountry.”
Whatever the other plea-
sures of the long backcountry
trek, both hikers repeatedly
come back to the camarade-
rie of the trail, where hikers
will give socks to a needy
hiker with blisters or share
their water and food.
“Everything they had was
to share,” De Groes said.
“It’s really special.”
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