Joy Of Hiking Coeur D’Alene Teenager Youngest To Complete Pacific Crest Trail

Aug. 1: Day 101

“Can’t wait to get to the Canada border! It’s been so long! I never imagined this trip would be so long and physically challenging. It just isn’t the same if you are staring at a map. You can’t comprehend it until you are there.”

From Joy Turner’s trail journal

Three months after finishing the mother of West Coast backpacking trips, Joy Turner is still eating the leftovers.

Trail food and bags of home-dried veggies continue to find their way into dinner at her family’s Coeur d’Alene home.

Other than that, Joy has merged into the normal high-speed routine of a sophomore at Lake City High School. Her wiry appearance doesn’t hint that she’s the youngest person to hike the entire 2,638-mile Pacific Crest Trail in a single season.

She turned 15 on June 7.

The blisters have healed. The trail dust has long been washed down the shower drain. She no longer hikes 13 hours a day, as she did from mid-April through September with her father, Bob.

Returning to high school life wasn’t easy after 160 days in a wilderness where her social contacts were mostly free-spirited, pack-toting 28-year-old adults.

Joy had to make up three months of schoolwork. She still has a competency exam to take. Rigid school district rules gave no credit for the experience of hiking through four life zones and picking up a wealth of knowledge from biologists and geologists she met along the trail.

Administrators even questioned whether she would meet physical education requirements.

Joy finished the epic trip on Sept. 26. Three days later, she began to realize how her being had changed.

“I couldn’t wait to get in that first soccer game,” she said. “But my body wouldn’t work. Before the hike, I was so flexible I could put my feet behind my head. After the hike, I could barely bend over and touch my knees.”

She looked good walking onto the soccer field, but as soon as the running started, reality set in.

“I about died in the first period,” she said.

Her social life was a shambles, too.

“The first week back in Coeur d’Alene, I would come home and like cry,” she said. “I was adjusting to coming off the trail and realizing I had left these friends and I expected them to be the same and they’d changed. They’d gone on without me.”

Few of Joy’s friends backpack. They apparently were intimidated or didn’t know how to deal with a peer who had dropped out of the scene to make a trail her life and home.

“People can understand going on a mission to help other people,” she said, “but I was on my own mission.”

Three months have mended most of the woes. Life is smoother now, and Joy is at ease with having the adventure of a lifetime behind her at the age of 15.

The Turners’ dream was considered a joke at first. The macho Pacific Crest Trail hiking community regarded them as Daddy and The Kid.

The unlikely looking pair was given low odds for completing the grueling walk from Mexico to Canada.

April 22: Day 3

We met some trail crew probably in college that were amazed we were going “all the way.” I’m used to that now. People just don’t expect much from a 14-year-old and her father do they?

Seasoned hikers reasonably assumed that if the bugs and torturous miles didn’t defeat Bob and Joy, they would surely disintegrate under the emotional stress.

Most teenagers are challenged to get along with their parents during a day at the mall. Joy was attempting to endure shoulder-to-shoulder companionship with her 46-year-old father for five and a half months.

But Joy had already proved her mettle. She first expressed interest in bagging the entire PCT after hiking 462 miles of the trail in Oregon when she was 12.

More important, she and her dad were pals.

Getting sprayed by a skunk the second day out didn’t help their credibility. They made few friends in the next five days of hiking to the first opportunity for showers and laundry.

Bob and Joy hoofed through the Mojave Desert and assorted landscapes for a month and nearly 700 miles before they earned much respect.

Somewhere in Southern California, Joy had evolved from being The Kid. Her trail name, Bug, scurried through the PCT grapevine. Everyone wanted to meet her.

May 4: Day 16

The desert. At times the trail would just wander and meander and I wanted to cry. I wanted to say enough is enough! Too many times we take for granted life’s necessities. How often did I just leave the faucet running? I would pump drinking water from a toilet right now.”

The transitions in their bodies were as slow and subtle as the change of terrain from the desert to the Sierras.

“After our first 25-mile day, we said we wouldn’t try that again,” Joy said. “But by the time we were in Northern California, we were doing 25 miles a day on the average.”

The Turners had settled into an almost invariable 3-mph pace.

That’s fast enough to leave professional athletes in the dust.

Bob slimmed from 215 pounds to a trail weight of 185. Joy grew 1-1/2 inches during the 160-day trip and added 7 pounds to her 108-pound starting weight.

“I’m 6-foot-3 and she’s 5-foot-7,” Bob said. “But when we stand side-by-side, our hips are nearly the same height. We had the same hiking paces. And we ate the same amount of food.”

Meals had been prepared and packaged at home before the trip with meticulous attention to weight.

“Everything we carried was dried and required adding water,” Bob said. “But as the miles added up, we began looking for fat. Peanut butter, cheese, salami.”

Their packs began to bulge as their legs toned and mileage increased.

“At the beginning, a five-day food supply weighed 18 pounds,” Bob said. “By the time we were heading north from Lake Tahoe, a five-day supply weighed 32 pounds. And sometimes we had to carry up to 30 pounds of water, too.”

May 30: Day 42

Today was HARD! We only carried four liters since water was only 12 miles away. The first six miles were fairly easy. Then, the trail just dropped down into the desert. Each of us drank EVERYTHING, so when we got there and it was a COW POND - ugh! The water was so dirty. Cows went in and did their business in it and drank it. So we did the best and filtered it. Tasted nasty.

Bob and Joy agree the Sierras offer the most spectacular scenery on the trail.

“Double the size of the North Cascades and you have a poor idea of size and scenery of the Sierras,” Bob said.

But the trip had two periods in which aesthetics were hard to appreciate, and the baggage of quitting was heavy on their minds.

The first was in Northern California. They had been on the trail more than three months and were still in the same state. They had already hiked most of the trail in Oregon and Washington in small sections in previous years.

They could have quit and still said they had walked the entire PCT.

“This was Joy’s trip,” Bob said. “I was just the dad along for the ride.”

Joy chose to keep going. Bob followed.

“I admit the idea of being the youngest was fascinating,” Joy said. “But when I was out there, I was just like anyone else. Mother Nature doesn’t make exceptions for being younger than anyone else.

“The reason I did it is because I wouldn’t be able to do it until after college if I didn’t do it then. And it’s easier to finance it while still mooching off your parents.”

The second crux was in the autumn cold and wetness of the last leg to Manning Provincial Park, British Columbia.

“At one point, it rained continuously for 60 hours,” Joy said. “Everything I had was soaked, including my sleeping bag. I wasn’t getting much sleep. I had all my clothes on and packs over my feet, but I was still cold.

“Dad and I got in the same bag one night to stay warm. We might as well have slept out in the rain or hiked 24 hours. I was warmer and happier when I was hiking.”

Their spirits were buoyed throughout the trip by letters and care packages from home and frequent visits at trailheads from mother Chris and brother Isaac.

On a few occasions where road access to the trail was convenient, Chris and Isaac shuttled the camping gear while Joy and Bob “slackpacked.”

One day, they gobbled up nearly 32 miles of the PCT carrying the bare necessities in daypacks.

The most poignant moments on the trip occurred during Bob’s two kidney stone attacks.

“He was in such pain, and there was little I could do,” Joy said.

Luckily, the second attack occurred a short way before reaching a trailhead and popular PCT wayside called Vermillion Valley Resort. Chris and Isaac were there coincidentally for a rendezvous that quickly turned into a drive to a hospital.

A group of young men who were hiking end-to-end had become family with Joy and Bob by then. They offered to escort Joy on the trail while Bob recuperated.

“That was the most painful moment for me, emotionally as well as physically,” Bob said.

June 23: Day 65

Dad was really hurting and he scared me. Finally, Mom and Isaac left to the hospital with dad. I bunked with Kirk, Conrad, Little John and Special K. We laughed and farted all night. It was great. I’m on my own!

A week later, Bob and Joy were together again and back to their routine. Like many PCT hikers, they warded off both heat and rain with umbrellas. They went low-tech on many items, choosing garbage bags rather than Gore-Tex against the elements.

They had given up the luxury of Therm-a-Rest mattresses for the half-pound savings of a simple foam pad.

Their idea of a great trail dinner was couscous mixed with spices, soups, dried tomato sauce and veggies. Instant mashed potatoes mixed with cheddar or broccoli soup was a staple.

May 9: Day 21

Dad was so tired he started stirring up our mash potatoes with his toothbrush instead of his spoon.

Bob still marvels at how little friction developed between him and Joy.

“You have moments when you need time to yourself,” he said. “Privacy in the tent was simply a turned back.

“We had sessions where I wanted to go on and she didn’t. But we always hiked with the understanding that when one wants to stop, we stop.”

Nike boots had the worst reputation for durability on the trail. Joy was in love with the Vasques that took her the first 1,500 miles. The second pair, however, were a slightly different model that never molded to her feet. Out of the 17 blisters she suffered on the trail, 15 were from those boots.

“It was easier to curse at the boots than take a day off,” Joy said.

When they walked to the last trailhead at the end of the PCT in Manning Provincial Park, tears rolled down Joy’s cheeks. She walked to her mom’s outstretched arms.

“Mom tried to comfort me by saying she knew I’d be emotional at the end,” Joy recalled. “But I said it’s not that, Mom. Just get these boots off my feet.”

Joy finished the trail with a wet reminder of all the miles behind her - the biggest blister of the journey.

“We have always been a close family,” Bob said. “But I think Joy taught me a lot about what she is capable of doing, and she is really capable of doing anything.

“What has struck me most is that I started hiking with a 14-year-old girl and finished with a lovely young lady.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Photos (2 Color)

MEMO: These 2 sidebars appeared with the story:

1. TALE OF THE TRAIL From April 20 to Sept. 26, Joy Turner, 15, of Coeur d’Alene became the youngest hiker to complete the 2,658-mile Pacific Crest Trail in a single season. With the exception of a one-week stretch, she shared the adventure with her father, Bob. * Time required: 160 days, including 20 rest days and 150 miles off the PCT for water, campsites and resupply. * Daily mileage: 2 to 31.5 miles, averaging 19 miles per day. * Daily hiking time: 1 to 15 hours, averaging 13 hours. * Temperature: 22 to 104 degrees, both in California. * Pack weight: up to 35 pounds, averaging 28 pounds. * Blisters: 17. * Longest period without a shower: 16 days. * Highest altitude: 14,495 feet at summit of Mount Whitney. * Highest moment: First good view of the Sierra-Nevada Range in California near Kennedy Meadows. * Calories consumed: 4,000 per day. * Scariest moment: Watching her dad go off to a hospital after suffering his second kidney stone attack. * Biggest thrill: Setting off on her own for a week on the trail while her father recuperated.

2. PCT FOOTNOTES Span of ages: While Joy Turner, 15, was becoming the youngest to hike the 2,638-mile Pacific Crest Trail last season, Calvin Batchelder, 75, was becoming the oldest. Batchelder is a retired carpenter from New Hampshire who didn’t start backpacking until he was 70. He bagged the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia in 1992 on his first backpacking trip. End-to-enders: This year, about 130 “through-hikers” started the PCT and about 70 have finished it. Those going south-to-north, about 90 percent of the total, are finished. Luck factor: The number of people who finish the PCT depends largely on the weather and snowpack. In 1996, 100 started and 60 finished. In 1995, a big snow year, 75 started and only 10 finished. In 1994, 75 started and 40 finished. Buzzwords: Trail angels - Kind people who give hikers rides, water, food and other help along the way. Slackpacking - Hiking with a daypack while vehicles shuttle gear on rare portions of the trail with road access.