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BOOKMONGER
Meet the woman who hiked the FKT on the PCT
Mountain lions, rattle-
snakes and bears, oh my!
Washington resident
Heather “Anish” Ander-
son faced those challenges,
and much more, when she
hiked the 2,600-mile-long
Pacific Crest Trail in 2013
and snagged the record for
completing the entire length
of the PCT in the fastest
known time (FKT) ever.
She did it by adhering to a
brutal regimen that required
her to hike more than 40
miles a day, every day, for
two months — or, to be pre-
cise, 60 days, 17 hours and
12 minutes.
And mind you, that’s
not traipsing along a gen-
tly winding, daisy-lined
path. The PCT definitely
has its charms, but Ander-
son also contended with
harsh weather, poisonous
plants and wild animals,
an occasional raging river,
and sometimes treacherous
terrain.
Now you can read
about her extreme quest in
THIS WEEK’S
BOOK
Thirst
By Heather Anderson
Mountaineers Books
208 pp
$17.95
a new memoir published
by Mountaineers Books.
“Thirst” is aptly titled,
for not only does Ander-
son have an unquenchable
desire for long-distance
hiking, she also miscalcu-
lates her water needs, espe-
cially at the beginning of
her hike, as she traverses
the drought-bedeviled des-
erts and mountain canyons
of southern California.
Anderson was already an
experienced long distance
hiker — she had through-
hiked the PCT before, as
well as the Appalachian
and the Continental Divide
Trails. But for this ultra-en-
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deavor, it takes her a while
to get mind and body into
sync.
By the second day, she is
hiking thirsty, having drunk
up her water supply, and
finding creek beds already
parched in early June. This
hadn’t been her experience
on her previous hike along
the PCT. In the early days
of this hike, she is loath
to carry too much weight
while hiking in the punish-
ing desert, so she skimps on
refilling her water supply
when she has a chance.
But dehydration quickly
wreaks havoc with her body,
which she already is push-
ing to the max, so she learns
to adjust her expectations
for water. It isn’t until a few
weeks later that she realizes
she also needs to do a bet-
ter job of fueling her body
with calories if she expects
to cover 40 miles daily over
rough trail conditions.
Anderson makes a jour-
nal entry for every day she
is on the trail, so the reader
is aware of the ups and
downs she experiences,
both in elevation and in
mood.
By Day 33, a little more
than halfway through the
hike, she writes this: “My
body, amazingly, seemed
to have surpassed athleti-
cism and become a machine
… But there was a deeper
meaning behind this sleep,
eat, walk mechanism. It
meant that it was no lon-
ger my body that was most
likely to fail — only my
mind could stop me now.”
But the games that her
mind plays continue to
plague her. Even once she
has passed the 2,000-mile
mark of this 2,650-mile
journey, she still experi-
ences episodes where her
confidence breaks down.
Mountaineers Books
The cover of ‘Thirst’ by Heather ‘Anish’ Anderson.
Eventually, the quest
helps Anderson grapple
with her self-doubt and live
her unconventional life with
more courage. “Thirst” is
introspection wrapped in an
audacious tale of adventure.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael,
who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books,
authors and publishers of
the Pacific Northwest. Con-
tact her at bkmonger@
nwlink.com.