Artist John Raux hung out with the Gramicci crew for a day just after completing his five and a half month hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. I had heard a lot about John and really liked his artwork that was hanging on the Gramicci walls. So needless to say I was excited to meet him and hear about his trip. I was curious to know why he decided to do such a long hike and if it would be a huge influence in his future artwork.
Have you had a lot of experience hiking or have you done any trips like the one you just did?
No, my mom always made sure that we went for one big canoe trip a year or go car camping. I grew up in the Mid West so we would go out to the lake and build a fire to roast marshmallows and make smores. This [hike] was not smores. It was more than work, but it wasn’t work. It was more then an adventure, but it was not always adventure. I am not sure if that is the right way to explain the experience.
What books did you read to prepare yourself? What other kinds of preparation did you do?
I read pretty much three books, but only one did I really pay attention to and use as my guide. It was Ray Jardine’s Pacific Crest Trail Hiker’s Handbook. [Pacific Crest Trail Hiker’s Handbook: Innovative Techniques and Trail Tested Instruction for the Long Distance Hiker] He is one of the innovators in the thru-hiking world, as well as climbing and sea kayaking. He teaches, in his book that you need to pack light, and figure out how to deal with wet and cold. Hikers on the trail have a saying that once you do a thru-hike then, you are prepared to do a thru-hike.
The hike throws things at you that you can never be prepared for. You can’t learn some of those things just from reading a book. When I first started on the trail a lot of hikers thought I knew what I was doing because I sewed my own bag. It looked like a light weight set up but they didn’t see my other bag that had things in it that I was clipping onto my lightweight bag that was loading it down. Later on in the trip, I ended up just carrying one light weight bag.
Where does the trail start and end?
It starts in Campo, CA on the border of Mexico. The technical end is at the border of Canada but most people hike thru to Manning Park, BC.
Was there ever a point in your hike when you wondered why you were doing it?
The first day of hiking it was 114 degrees. I got lost. I dropped my therma-rest and pedometer. I was alone and I didn’t know why I was out there. The second day was much better, because I hiked more at night so it was cooler. It wasn’t until I woke up at 4: 00 AM on a ledge with lightning striking the top of the mountain that I went back into asking myself why am I doing this?
What were the people like you met while hiking?
There were all sorts of people on the trail, everyone from multi-millionaires, retirees from Microsoft, the owner of Whole Foods, to starving artists, x-military people, and obviously handfuls of people that are very nature conscious. I am trying to avoid the word hippie but that’s really what they are. They are new school hippies.
Let’s backtrack for a moment, how did you become interested in the PCT trail?
When I was painting a couple paintings outside of the Gramicci booth at the Outdoor Retail show in Salt Lake City the PCT trail booth was set-up directly across. I met Liz Bergeron the executive director of the PCT Association, because I did a mural that was auctioned on eBay with the proceeds benefiting the PCT Association. Throughout that whole experience, I got to know Liz and learned about the PCT, and thought it was pretty cool. I thought maybe this was something I could do. A year and a half later, I was on the trail.
How is the experience of hiking the trail going to influence your artwork?
I don’t know. I think the experience is artwork, and I’m just going to make some paintings because of it. I really think what I have to say is all just scratching the surface of what I have just been through. Words really do an injustice to describe what it’s like going through it and what you see. It’s otherworldly.
Are you planning on doing another hike?
Not right now. I don’t know what is going to happen next. I think I will just take it one step at a time.
What was your greatest discovery while hiking? Is there anything that you discovered about yourself?
That’s a tough one. Um, the funny thing about being in the woods, mountains, and desert for so long is that so many things are experienced, but have no words to describe them. As soon as you put words out they still don’t quite capture what you mean. Absolutely, there have been all kinds of self-discoveries. I think it might take the rest of my life to unravel what I know, if that makes sense at all.
What was the scariest part of the trip or scariest moment?
It had to be the last day, or second to last day, when we couldn’t see the trail any more because of the snow. The sun was starting to get blocked, so the snow was hardening. We had minimal gear. We knew there was going to be snow, because we started out that day in snow, but neither me nor the guy I was hiking with were prepared for what we got, which was snow up to our waist, a blizzard and it was only 23 degrees. When you have switchbacks, and steep declines and inclines, and you don’t know where the trail is, it gets into a place where it goes from being an adventure, to not being smart. Reaching the point where we turned around, where we both knew we couldn’t keep going, that was the scariest moment. It would have been 10 times scarier had I known there was cougar tracking us at that point. I didn’t find out luckily till the next morning.
The night before was terrible. It was so cold. My body heat melted the snow underneath me and formed an uncomfortable ice bed. We had to thaw my shoes in the morning with my alcohol stove. I couldn’t feel my toes. I probably had frost bite.
There were lots of moments that were scary. Maybe that wasn’t my scariest moment. I think my scariest moment was when I passed these day hikers and I knew there was a creek off the trail like half a mile, and I asked them if there was water up ahead and they said yes. So me, being waterless, I kept going and the next water wasn’t for like nine miles up and down. I mean it was like an insane stretch to be waterless. After that, I never listened to a day-hiker again.
Did you ever get sick?
I had the flu twice and I caught Crypto-sporidium. It’s this sickness you get from bad water. I was treating most of my water, but somehow I got it anyway. Basically, to put it nicely, you can’t go a mile without having to go to the bathroom again. If you haven’t had enough fluids or food in you then you will start to throw up stomach acid.
How did you treat Cryptosporidium?
Well, you hike out. The actual story was I was going up Mount Whitney and I got up to the pass. Just shy of the top, I thought I had altitude sickness so I went ahead and went down. It didn’t stop anything though, I found out it starts everything. The next two days I luckily was hiked out by two other hikers to Shepard Pass, which was really beautiful, but we had to bushwhack our way through to get to a town called Independence. We didn’t know the trail was not maintained. I stayed in Independence for like five days. Krypto has a cycle where it will die off after a few days.
We’ve heard a crazy story about a food fight with a bear… Please share.
I awoke one night to a big black bear only 6 inches away from my face. I had a bear can with all my food safely tucked away, but realized the bear was after my trail mix and fish oil in the bag. My natural reaction of course was to scream at the top of my lungs meanwhile the bear took off down the hill with my bag. My fellow camper and I started throwing rocks and yelling at the bear to get it away from my bag with all my belongings, not to mention, this was the backpack I had sewed myself for this trip. After the rocks didn’t work, I got a surge of adrenaline and decided to fully charge the bear- I charged toward the bear with my arms flying over my head and yelling at the top of my lungs. My friend called to me, “just get the bag & run!” Luckily, the bear had already feasted on my trail mix and fish oil and so by the time this screaming crazy haired man had charged the bear- he was no longer interested and went on his way and I was able to retrieve my beloved bag. I did, however, lose my voice for a couple weeks after all the screaming.
What did you miss the most while gone?
While on the trail generally everyone obsesses about food. You are very hungry all the time. There’s like a hump that you get over, but by then you just can’t stop thinking about food. I think there was a point in the beginning, where I was eating six or seven Power Bars in the morning and that was after eating a big breakfast. It was getting crazy and I just couldn’t carry enough food. I would always leave a post office in a town with the package of food someone sent me thinking it was way too much to eat and then realizing I didn’t have enough. I think I actually did really well with food though. If you were leaving with a minimal amount of food or what you thought was ok then it probably wasn’t enough. I was way into bartering and trading with food. I had an excess of Cliff Bars from the very beginning, so I was always trading those. That was my currency on the trail.
Who was the most interesting person you met on the trail?
I would say this guy we called Mr. Fusion. I don’t actually know his real name. He’s an economist from the West Coast. He ate primarily Little Debbie’s, which is how he got his name. He would eat anything as long as it had calories. His friends would send him these packages with costumes in them. He once had on this crazy purple wizard costume with a silver sash. We were always playing some kind of game so we had all these dares going on. When we were in a well-traveled part of the trail we made him wear the wizards costume. His name then got changed to Lord Fusion because of the costume.
Another character was this guy named Stomp from Quebec who was kind of rough and tumble. He’s like a big guy with all these tattoos and yet he makes this really delicate, beautiful hand-made furniture. It’s absolutely amazing. It was his second time on the trail and he basically was our map without a map. He knew every turn and every detail.
Did you stay with a group of hikers for a long time?
From Northern California to mid-way through Washington, I was pretty much with the same group of people. We named ourselves the Slack Pack because we didn’t hike very fast. Well we all could all hike fast if we wanted to, but if there was an opportunity where we could take a break and swim, then we generally did. We really enjoyed it out there instead of pushing for a speed record.
Were there a lot of people like that on the trail who were trying to hike fast?
Absolutely! Don’t get me wrong, those people were great too. I got to hike with the guy that broke the speed record this year. His name is Tattoo Joe and he made me do a 33-mile day hike. At that time my average mile was 21 a day. Later on it was between 25 and 30 miles on a normal day. But again, we were the Slack Pack, so one day it could have been 14 miles and then the next day 30 miles.
Joe took under three months. He was done with the trail when I was in Oregon. I saw him in Central California and he started a month after I did. It took me 5 months.
Over all how would you describe the adventure you just had?
[The trip] was a thrill, and I can’t explain how absolutely beautiful it was. To see the North Cascades, not only capped in snow but covered in snow. In a place where you can’t get to and probably shouldn’t go to. It was magical and we were just experiencing things that nobody else does.
Learn more about John’s art and his journey at johnraux.com