To the Gorge by Emily Halnon

Author:Emily Halnon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2024-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Mile 236, Willamette National Forest

We’re on the north side of the Twins when we spot people running toward us—and hear them coming. I squint at the cheering pair of runners. It’s my friends Sarah and Gracie, who have run in from Charlton Lake to meet us.

Sarah folds me into a jumping hug. Her blond hair flies all over.

“Emily!” she squeals. “Holy shit, look at you!”

Gracie is talking a mile a minute as she gives me a rundown of all the people waiting on the lake.

“Everyone is there!” she says.

“And you should know that Dilly just went on his first paddleboard ride,” Sarah adds. I picture little Dilly, floating around the lake, looking at the water with his curious and mischievous gaze, with his one ear cocked to the sky, and grin at the thought.

We become a freight train of runners charging down the trail. More friends run out to meet us as we get closer. We’re seven strong by the time I see a flash of sapphire water through the trees and know we’ve got just steps left for the day. We get to a fork in the trail and break with the PCT to head down to the shore.

The scene at the lake takes my breath away. Evan is hovered over a grill, with a tower of sausages, rolls, and condiments next to him. Huge coolers circle the campsite, and I don’t need to open them to know they’re packed full of good Oregon IPAs. A rainbow of tents sits on the shore of the lake. Joe has his PT table set up in case I need bodywork or a massage. There’s a roaring fire with a dozen camp chairs circled around it. Nearly my entire running crew is here, along with many of their family members. Well over a dozen people total, including my friend Dan, who’s been too injured to run with us for years now but was a huge part of my introduction to trail running in the Pacific Northwest.

“I heard about this and knew I couldn’t miss it,” he said. His sandy brown hair is still wet from swimming across the lake.

I remember meeting my Tuesday night running friends on my third week in Oregon. It was immediately clear that they were a special group of humans. We’re a motley crew—who would never know each other without running. Middle-aged dads, sober vegans, conservative engineers, liberal high school teachers, and a thirty-five-year-old writer on a mission to run across the state of Oregon.

It’s an unlikely group, but it works in the most beautiful way.

When I had to move out of my house a year after I moved to Eugene, I asked if anyone could help lug my stuff to my new apartment. The Hunt showed up en masse with pickup trucks and Honda Elements, and the entire move lasted all of seventeen minutes as they toted every box and piece of furniture into vehicles and drove three miles up the road.

My fourth day on the PCT feels like that seventeen-minute move all over again.

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