Claire Henley: Adventures West (40 Days And 40 Nights)

  • Tuesday, September 29, 2015

(Editor's Note: Chattanoogan Claire Henley started an adventure of a lifetime on the remote Pacific Crest Trail in April. Along the way, she had many adventures and found herself a husband named Big Spoon).

The Andersons had hosted hikers for 16 years. They started trail-angeling because Joe (aka Papa Joe) was going to hike the PCT himself all those years ago, but ended up injuring his knee and couldn’t take the trip. The couple therefore decided to put up hikers that year so Joe could at least get a taste of the thru-hiker lifestyle. As Big Spoon and I assembled our taco salad at the picnic table, Papa Joe told us that he discovered the people on the trail to be the most fascinating people he ever met. He figured that must be the case for anyone who could stand at the border of Mexico, look beyond, say to themselves, “I’m going to walk to Canada,” then actually do it. Thus, he and Terrie decided to house hikers each season because of the people and their stories. And when he took a closer look at Big Spoon and I, he paused, then said, “Wait a second, aren’t you two the couple that got married on the trail?” 

Big Spoon and I nodded our heads and said simultaneously, “We are.”

“Huh,” Papa Joe said, as if he disbelieved. “That’s either going to be terrible, or it’s going to be great.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll be great,” Big Spoon confirmed before we joined our fellow hikers on the couches. 

Even that night, Big Spoon and I could tell the dynamics between us and our friends had changed. The hikers we knew hardly spoke to us. The Tallyhos sat far away. One hiker, Half-Time, came over and said in a genuine tone he was proud to be in our presence. But other than that, there was something about the fact that Big Spoon and I had gotten married so quickly that put a wall up between us and everyone else. 

After dinner, we set up our tent in the backyard in the red, intertwining manzanita forest. The forest was enchanting in the clear cool night with the stars brightly out. We could hear the hikers in the front of the house mingling and dancing to the music. Big Spoon and I were tired. It took a lot out of a person to get married and still have to make your daily miles.

We decided to take the next day off at Casa de Luna. After a month of hiking, this made for my first zero on the trail. My body was ready for a day of solid rest. When I awoke in the morning I sat up in the tent and looked straight ahead. Things were sinking in that I was married now–to a man I had known for a month and had dated less than two weeks, mind you. When Big Spoon woke up, he could tell I was doing some retrospective thinking about our very sudden wedding. He placed his hand in mine and told me a story. 

Not long ago, while living in New Jersey, he found an ad for free coal and, having a friend who owned a coal stove, went to the home to pick it up to give to his friend to have heat for the winter. The elderly couple who owned the home had died, and their son was giving away as much of his parents’ things as he could. The son led Big Spoon to the dark basement where 1,500 lbs of coal lay in storage for the taking.

“The son was an otherworldly sort, big into reading peoples’ energy,” Big Spoon said to me in the tent. “And as I loaded the coal into my truck, he asked me what I did for a living.”

“But still the oak tree held its ground/ while other trees fell all around./ The weary wind gave up and spoke./ How can you still be standing Oak?”

-Johnny Ray Rider Jr., “The Oak Tree”

On our first day of being married, Big Spoon and I hiked 21 miles through the desert to Casa de Luna, the home of Trail Angels Joe and Terrie Anderson, where a mass of hikers flocked each year for rest, fun, and food. We arrived right after sunset to the happening home in the hills. Many of our friends were there, wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts the Andersons provided and eating taco salad and drinking beer on the outdoor couches while classic rock roared from the inside speakers.

Big Spoon told the son he worked as an engineer for the Department of Defence. This took the son by great surprise, so much so that he stopped Big Spoon from loading up the coal and said, “You don’t belong there. There’s a dark energy there, and I see that you are surrounded by a white light, the whitest light I have ever seen surrounding another.”

Big Spoon thought the son was a little out there. At that time, never once had he considered quitting his good and stable job at the DOD. “Then it hit me not too long after I got the coal that the son was right. The DOD wasn’t where I belonged. It didn’t satisfy my purpose and drive in life,” Big Spoon said. So he quit his job, did some traveling, and wound up in Florida where, of all places, he learned about the PCT. 

“All of this to say, Claire, everything happens for a reason. And you and me, we happened for a reason, too,” Big Spoon said. 

Let it be known I had no doubts about Big Spoon and I getting married. It was a knowledge deeper than knowledge I had that told me I was meant to be his wife. I was merely curious as to what triggered us to marry so fast, especially since we were both highly cautious people and deeply analytical about each and every decision we made. So I felt profoundly blessed after he told me the story about his white light. For I now saw that God sent me a guardian angel for a husband: one, I believed, who would love and protect me until death did us part.

***

We left Casa de Luna the next morning, and now it was just Big Spoon and me. Over the next three days we hiked 67 miles through the Mojave Desert to the spread out town of Tehachapi at mile 558. The three day stretch took us through reaching Joshua trees, along the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and between farms of whistling wind turbines. The days were our hottest yet and, beyond the aqueduct, water was scarce. In Tylerhorse Canyon on our last night before reaching town, Big Spoon and I cowboy camped because we were too beat-up tired to set up the tent.

It was a hard stretch through the deadly desert–a mental and physical test. The good news was Big Spoon and I persevered. As a result, when we walked out of the trying trail onto the road, a Trail Angel named Kris (who had heard of Big Spoon and I getting married and got in touch with me days before to devise a plan to pick us up in Tehachapi) was there waiting in her blue Honda. Kris was an undercover Trail Angel for reasons that shall remain confidential. Therefore, it meant the world to Big Spoon and me that she chose to run us around town to do our errands, followed by letting us sleep in her beautiful home off Mariposa Road.

Furthermore, because Kris knew of our marriage so far away from loved ones and home, that night for dinner she cooked prime rib, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli in celebration of our wedding. She had her dining room table set with crystal champagne glasses, and there was even a wedding cake with two rings on top. Big Spoon and I were overwhelmed by this Angel’s meaningful gesture. We had been in the desert nearly 40 days. Our minds, bodies, and souls had been tried by wind, snow, heat, and now the depth of marriage, too. 

And though we had over two-thousand miles to go on the PCT, that night at Trail Angel Kris’ feast, it felt as if we had made it to the Promised Land. For we had made it through a difficult section, and now we were submersed in a celestial grace.

* * *

Claire's first book on her adventures while living in Colorado can be ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/51-Weeks-The-Unfinished-Journey-ebook/dp/B00IWYDLBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394801373&sr=8-1&keywords=51+Weeks

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