The Groan Girls (and the wannabe hero boy)

It took them more than a year of preparation. First, Diane had the idea of doing something big for her birthday this year, something as big as hiking the entire length of Oregon. Yeah, big. We didn’t know Diane at the time, but she invited her good friend Rose, who then invited her good friend Kathy, who then invited her good friend Mariella. (The same Mariella of 14 days at sea fame, the second—and last—mate aboard Ñandú in that adventure.) And the all-women gang came to be.

Across four cities spanning 82.5 degrees of latitude, they had video after video meeting to develop a meticulous plan to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) 430 miles (almost 700 km) along the length of Oregon, from the California border to the Washington side of the Columbia River, which would take them about a month. The plan required food to be delivered to them every few days at strategic points, so their first order of business was to find someone generous and handsome, with lots of free time and a large red vehicle that could become their mobile pantry carrying spare shoes and clothing, fuel, and roughly 500 rations of dehydrated food. Ladies, meet your hero Juan. Little did I know that the coveted role of women’s hero was going to be stolen from right under my nose by some guy who goes by the name of Bob.

The preparation was almost as intense as the execution. Kathy took it so seriously that she injured her knee during an 8-mile training hike. On her birthday, no less. Perhaps she forgot she was one year older. As a result, she had to add physical therapy with various forms of silly walks to her list, which already included lots of research and the preparation of 100 dehydrated meals. She wasn’t settling for those terrible commercial meals that most through-hikers rely on. Her high standards only allowed for delicious and healthy home-cooked meals. She offered to cook for Mariella too, and said she’d leave a few rations for me as well. As someone who avoids cooking as if it was the plague, I was elated at the prospect of just needing to boil water to have exquisite meals on the road. So, off she went, bought a dehydrator, a vacuum sealer, and a truckload of ingredients, and started cooking. And continued cooking. And cooked some more… but at some point she figured the whole process of cooking, dehydrating and sealing was so labor-intensive that she scaled back her goal to 50 meals, and said to me: “you have a decent amount of cooking space and paraphernalia in the van, you are capable and resourceful, so you are on your own”. Ouch. I guess I was wrong thinking I was due some pampering as the logistics paladin.

The big day came, and by the end of it their thorough plan was already derailed. A few days prior Mariella flew from Chile. The morning of D-Day Diane’s son drove her plus Kathy and Mariella to mile zero in the Oregon border. At the same time, the aforementioned Bob drove Rose from their home in Washington State to drop her off at the starting point. We were all going to rendezvous 8 days (and 130 miles of PCT) later, including Bob, who would transfer all of Rose’s provisions to me, and I would then officially start my intrepid duties. However, the wildfires said “nope”: the winds had pushed the smoke from the huge Bootleg and Dixie fires to Southwest Oregon, and the air quality was downright unhealthy across the first half of their intended route . The gang decided to start much further north, do the last quarter of Oregon’s PCT, and then decide whether to continue to (fully unresearched) Washington or come back to Southern Oregon.

So it was the unelected hero Bob who drove the entirety of the Groan Girls Gang to the new starting point (all in all, he drove 850 miles—almost 1400 km—in two days). And off they went. And, as Rose wrote later: “On our first day hiking, we were christened The Groan Girls by Mariella.  An appropriate group name for an obvious reason.” Nine days and about 100 miles later, they emerged from the wilderness at the Columbia River. And who do you think was there waiting for them in big style, with a ton of warm pizza and fresh fruit? Who? Yup, surrogate hero Bob! He got all the credit and brownie points! Deservedly, yeah for sure, but that wasn’t the plan! And where was the official but non-acting stupendous hero? Driving 12 hours straight, from California to Bob and Rose’s house.

But then plans changed again, more radically: a family emergency, horrible blisters and a bad knee took down 75% of the team. Kathy’s knee was holding fine, and she was the only one willing and able to continue. So she planned to do one week of Washington’s PCT, but even that plan had to be cut short because of a storm. In the end she did four days by herself, and then we took a slow and fun road trip back home.

The aftermath

The Groan Girls Gang are already discussing what big and crazy thing to do next. For my part, I felt that I missed on all that solo time I was supposed to have in the Oregon wilderness between rendezvouses with the GGG. I ended up spending merely three nights alone, and even then I saw Kathy during the day, meeting her at different points of her hike. I was owed the fundamental human right to miss one’s spouse.

Well, I figured, since I’m a grown man, I can exercise that right, so a few weeks later I just hopped aboard Ñu, pointed her bow north and sheeted in. The best part? I have a big stash of leftover home-made dehydrated meals at my disposal! I just have to boil water! That kind of cooking I do enjoy. As I write this, I’m relishing the nourishing peacefulness of Breitenbush Hot Springs. The words of our very-young-and-at-the-same-time-very-mature solo sailor friend we met in Panama come to mind: “solitude is overrated”. Sorry Mike, but it isn’t. At least not in small quantities.