Hallucinating While Thru Hiking

A new day had began as we hiked past midnight, through the dark. I don’t think I’ve ever hiked through the entire night before on trail. On the PCT in 2022 I did a 24 hour challenge with my tramily. We started around 3 o’clock in the morning and wound up hiking until 1am the next morning. That time I accomplished my biggest mileage ever, 54 miles.

I knew that on the CDT this year I wanted to beat that mileage. But I didn’t know that I would attempt to more than double it. I remember feeling very sore after the 40 mile mark on the PCT. So I’m nervous to see if I could accomplish something even more challenging, 120 continuous miles.

As we walked through the night we maintained a scheduled routine. We hiked for two hours and then took a nice break. The breaks were only about 30 to 50 minutes a piece. I felt like that was a healthy amount of time to rest and stretch without getting too tired. I didn’t pack out very much caffeine but I did bring some. There was caffeine gum at the gas station in town which is about 65 mg per piece. So as we hiked through the night, occasionally I would chew a piece of caffeine gum when I was feeling extra tired. But for the most part this evening, I felt energized and alive.

Around 2 o’clock in the morning, we arrived at a water cache. That was an incredible sight in a dry desert section of trail. We took a break there and we signed the trail register. Then we got some water and ate some snacks before continuing on. That next hour we actually hiked right past the first hiker who was set up at camp. I felt so bad because we woke them up as we walked by. I’m assuming they could hear us for a while because of how the trail was. Also, we didn’t know that they were there. So we were talking to ourselves and laughing. All of us probably sounded drunk or high because of the energy that we were channeling as we walked. We were all just walking together and talking and joking. It was the perfect way to make the time fly by and keep energy high and positive.

When we walked past this person they woke up and asked us who we were. We responded and he actually knew Sidequest. I apologized for waking him up when we walked past and then we continued along. After that I think we were even more giddy and cackling even more. The idea of walking past someone who is sleeping when you’re doing such a crazy mission was just absolutely hilarious to me.

About an hour after that, we walked by another hiker who set up a tent. Once I noticed their tent set up I tried to get everyone to quiet down so we didn’t wake them up too. It’s not uncommon to hike in the early morning. So I didn’t feel too bad about waking someone up accidentally. But obviously once I noticed that someone was there we did our best to quiet down and not wake them.

Around 4:30am we stopped off for another break. 9 Lives really wanted to stop and take a nap and maybe rest for an hour or so. But it was freezing cold. I stopped for about 20 or so minutes and ate a snack. Then I started to get a little bit antsy. I was currently feeling pretty energized and I was excited for the sun to come up on our first morning of this mission. 9 Lives pulled her quilt out of her pack and bundled up under it. I was freezing cold just sitting out though. So I couldn’t stick around much longer.

Around 5 in the morning I couldn’t wait any longer. I was cold and I didn’t want to pull my quilt out and get too comfortable. I understand that on ultra marathons it’s very common for athletes to sleep for an hour or two at a time. All you really have to do is set an alarm to maintain your schedule. But I didn’t feel like I needed a nap at this point. We really had only been hiking for under 20 hours. With how many more hours remain I wanted to push on. I might need a nap in the future, but that wasn’t the moment for me.

I packed up and I said goodbye to 9 Lives and Sidequest. I figured they wouldn’t stay much longer and they would catch up to me pretty soon. They said they only planned to stay for another half an hour or so, so I should see them again soon.

When the sun came up on our first morning, I felt amazing! I was filled with energy.

I was still feeling energized and I needed to keep moving. It’s tough to say whether we will be able to stick together for this section. I would love to because being around other hikers is going to make this much easier. But I know that I also need to focus on my own needs and wants for this challenge. So I headed out on my own into the dark around 5 o’clock in the morning.

This next section of trail was all along dirt roads, so it was very nice and easy. I had to do a couple small climbs, but I was feeling very good and they were graded very well too. I got up to the top of a high point right as the sun began to rise on our first morning of the 48 hour challenge. As the sun began to rise, I felt a huge boost and energy. I was no longer as tired as I had been before hiking into the night. I watched a beautiful sunrise over the hills in the distance. The entire experience was very euphoric and I was feeling wonderful.

A beautiful sunrise over the hills in the distance.

The sun came up as I got up to the top of a hill. I could see Sidequest and 9 Lives in the distance. That made me feel a whole lot better and I knew that if I sat for a break soon they would catch up to me. I had to stop off to dig a cat hole at one point. This section is so incredibly exposed that I wanted to do so before the sun came up. Because although you may find a good place to dig a cat hole, it might not be a place where you’re out of eyesight of other hikers. We had just seen a trail register earlier in the night, so we knew that there were about 20 other hikers throughout the section. I didn’t know if we had walked by more campers or tents in the darkness, so I didn’t want to risk someone walking up on me.

I continued walking after that and the sun had come up entirely. It was such a beautiful day. But I think today is going to be the hardest. The idea that we’ve been up for 20 hours hiking and now I have to keep hiking for an entire day is crazy. But I still think the biggest challenge ahead is going to be hiking for 10 hours in the darkness tonight.

Around 7am in the morning, I could still see Sidequest and 9 Lives in the distance. I was jamming out to music and feeling so good. Lately I’ve been listening to Zach Bryan’s Great American Bar Scene on repeat. I just heard this album for the first time when we were in the wind river high route and I’ve been obsessed with it. I had it on repeat all morning and was just feeling so energized by the music.

I climbed a few small hills as the sun rose. It warmed me up and was a nice way to start the new day.

Closer to 8am in the morning, I stopped off to strip off some layers. The sun had come up and began to warn me. I no longer needed my senchi layers, my rain jacket, and gloves. It felt good to take the layers off and get warmed by the sun. Then I waited around for a little bit so the other two could catch up.

When they finally did catch up, we stopped off to eat breakfast together. I decided to finally make a hot meal because I didn’t do so last night. Plus, I was definitely feeling pretty hungry at this point. It was very hard to eat over the night. I did a decent enough job of eating snacks periodically so I wasn’t starving. But I was hungry. So we stopped and I made a Ramen for breakfast. Then I pulled some snacks out for easy access as we continued along.

9 Lives and Sidequest hanging out during our breakfast break.

At this point in time we have been making incredible time. If we could keep at this pace, we would accomplish our goal in 40 hours. I knew that the miles were going to get progressively harder as they added up. By the time we took out breakfast break, we’d been hiking for over 20 hours and had gone over 50 miles. I was just about to cross over the threshold and accomplish my biggest set of mileage yet to date. That is an incredible accomplishment on its own. The only thing more incredible than that is the fact that I plan to double it in the next 24 hours.

We walked for another couple hours after breakfast after and then stopped off for our “every 2 hours break”. I was feeling a little bit tired at this point. We were definitely going a little slower than we had been in the first 20 hours. And as the day continued, it got hotter and our energy got lower.

We stopped off at the next water source, which was a bit of a pond. There are a lot of cows in this area, so some of the water sources are a bit gross. We’re trying to pick and choose the best ones which seems to have the least cow shit in them. After we got water at this source we began a brief climb. I knew that this would be one of our last big climbs for the entire section. We still had a few thousand feet of elevation gain to do, but spread out over almost 70 miles. Which is practically nothing.

Sidequest had fallen behind around this time. So, when we arrived at the next water an hour or so later, 9 Lives and I decided to stop to let him catch up. Around this time I decided to call my dad. I had mentioned to him that we were attempting this challenge. Every night on trail I usually send a GARMIN in reach check in message. This gives my parents my location and lets them know that I made it to camp for the night. When I sent the check to my dad from last night he texted me on my cell phone and asked me, “Were you actually set up at camp for the night? Or are you doing that 48 hour thing?”He knows me too well. I decided to call him and fill him in on what we were doing. I liked the idea of being able to get lost in a phone call and help the miles go by.

My dad is my dad. So of course he’s pretty worried about me doing this challenge. He doesn’t want me to hurt myself and the idea of doing 120 miles in one push blows his mind. For good reason. But I let him know that we were about 60 miles into this point and I was feeling fantastic. I had no idea I could hike so far with absolutely no aches and pains. I can’t even express how crazy it is to me that I am feeling amazing. My feet weren’t bothering me and I was having no tendinitis type pain. I just felt really good and strong. I remember telling him on the phone that I think I could keep going and continue to feel this good the whole time.

After I got off the phone with him, I sat down next to the water source with 9 Lives. I ate some snacks and then we waited for Sidequest to catch up. We wound up staying at this break for probably a little over an hour. This might even have been the longest break that we took for this entire challenge. Or at least that I took. All of us were feeling a little bit lethargic at this point. We were looking down the barrel at almost 60 miles remaining. And we’ve been going for so long. The idea that we were only halfway through was daunting but exciting.

When we left this break, I felt like I was walking in a dream for a long time. I had to chew a couple pieces of caffeine gum to wake myself up. I felt like I was just walking through a haze as we continued on along hot exposed roads through the basin. These next few hours felt like some of the hardest of my life. My body felt good, but I was tired. My eyes felt heavy and the hot sun was making everything so much harder. I was looking so forward to the sun setting on this day. But we have so many more hours of hiking to do before that time comes.

Once again we proceeded for another couple of hours. Then we arrived at the next water source and stopped there to break and fill up. We caught up to Corona, another hiker we had seen earlier in the day. She was the tent that we passed by in the early morning. She was planning to do a pretty big day as well but wasn’t going to be hiking into the night like us. We sat at the water source and once again we’re cackling and acting like maniacs. It’s crazy what your mind and body will do to you when you push yourself to these limits. We apologized to Corona if we were acting weird and reassured her that we’re not always like this. She was very understanding once we explained to her what we were doing. Anyone would understand that pushing yourself to these points is going to cause some side effects.

While we sat at a water source everyone’s energy was very low. I was feeling all right, but I was a little bit sleepy. So I chewed another piece of gum and got another wind. 9 Lives and Sidequest were talking again about taking a quick nap. I just know myself too well to know that I cannot do that. There’s no way that I could fall asleep quickly within 20 to 30 minutes. And you would have to fall asleep pretty quickly in order to take a short nap. At this point, the idea of doing another 60 miles seemed almost impossible. So I knew I had to keep going and get the mileage down to more reasonable numbers before I could rest. I was just trying to maintain my momentum. The little bit of momentum that I did have at this point. 

When I left this spot, I was walking on my own. I had downloaded some podcasts and decided to listen to those to switch things up a bit. I downloaded some spooky stories and thought that it would keep my brain occupied by thinking about them. I ironically, downloaded a podcast about wilderness horror stories. Luckily we’re not walking through the woods and we’re not walking at night. So listening to such creepy stories about the outdoors didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.

When I left that last break I felt like I was asleep the whole time. I struggled for a while to keep my eyes open. I hiked with my sun umbrella because the sun was baking me alive. I started noticing small critters running across the trail. Initially I thought was losing my mind. Until I noticed that they were actually horny toad lizards! They were teeny tiny and so cute. I hadn’t seen lizards like this since I’ve been on the PCT in 2022.

In this section I also walked by a group of wild horses. One of them was right on the trail and I was so cautious walking by. I wasn’t sure what it would do, but luckily it moved to the side and didn’t give me any trouble. That was an incredible site to see out in nature. Wild horses!

I continued on for another hour or so after that. The road was completely exposed and so hot. The sun was exhausting me and I was praying for the day light to end. But all I could do was continue along these winding dirt roads. Some stretches of the road were super sandy. It felt like you were walking through a dream. Your feet would slip and slide and you had terrible traction. That was the last thing I needed at this point. The hike was hard enough on nice hard ground. But slipping and sliding through the sand was exhausting me.

After continuing on for another two hours or so I finally came to the next water source. It was actually a pipe in the water and was beautiful and fresh. Corona was there hiding in the shade of a barrel. I sat there and joined her and we talked for a bit. She’s so nice and is actually from Orange County, CA. That’s where a lot of my family is from. My mom met my dad on a cruise and moved from California to Massachusetts before I was born.

I talked to Corona a bit about this challenge. She was interested and definitely thought it was a bit crazy. She only had to go for another few hours today before she set up camp. But we had to hike seemingly infinitely into the night and then into the next day. While we sat there, Sidequest and 9 Lived arrived. It was so nice to see them again, and I was glad that they weren’t too far behind. I want to keep their company as long as I can.

9 Lived and Sidequest hanging out under her umbrella because Sidequest doesn’t have one.

Leaving there all of us walked together for the next couple of hours. The trail continued challenging us either its soft terrain. After a while, we got off the dirt road entirely and began walking in the brush next to the trail. It was more packed down and much easier for walking. But at this point, I was exhausted. The trail was driving me crazy and I was hoping it would get easier soon. There wasn’t even much elevation gain at all, but this soft sandy ground was horrible. And it was still so incredibly hot out. I felt like I had no energy left. Fortunately, my body was still feeling strong, and I had almost no aches or pains at all. The toughest obstacle at this point was mental. It was hot and I was tired and we knew we had almost 20 hours of hiking remaining. Over the next few hours we stopped off for much more frequent breaks. Everyone was so tired from the sandy dirt road that we stopped off for briefer breaks at much tighter intervals.

Looking ahead on the map it appeared that we will be getting onto better dirt roads soon. Maybe something  but more established. I was hopeful for that. In my mind, I couldn’t wait for some tightly packed ground or maybe even an asphalt road. It looks like we will be walking on asphalt for the last 20 miles of this challenge. But that meant that we had close to 25 miles left walking along these dirt roads. There weren’t a ton of views in this section so it’s just incredibly monotonous. Once again, a challenge like this is so much more mental than physical.

We walked along these lumpy sandy roads for way too long.

After another hour or so we arrived at a spring in a cow trough. We decided to stop off there for dinner because we had access to water. I cooked another Ramen to eat, which gave me a lot of energy. When we had originally sat down, I felt completely drained. But the food fueled me immediately and I also ate some caffeine gum. So far my biggest regret of this challenge was not bringing more caffeine. A couple of those flavor packets with 100 to 200 mg of caffeine would’ve been amazing. But I only have one of those. So my plan is to save it for the last stretch of miles when I knew I would be at my weakest.

We left our dinner spot around 6pm and all of us were so excited for the sun to set on the day. Once the sun set it was beautiful once again. We were surrounded by pink and red in 360 views. The hills surrounding us looked beautiful as the light hit them. And as the day began to end I was filled with incredible energy that I needed more than anything at this point in time. Just as it began to get dark we walked past a really nice camping area. There were actually a bunch of tents set up in the distance. I knew that one of them was Corona because she had mentioned where she would be camping for the night.

Walking along dirt roads as the sun began to set.

As we passed by we joked about stopping there. But we already invested so much time into this challenge, there was no way that I was going to stop now. The only way that I would quit is if my body was hurting. Obviously I don’t want to risk this entire hike for one silly challenge. But I also don’t want to throw away a challenge like this just because I’m tired and exhausted. I knew that hiking 120 continuous miles was going to leave me burnt out. But the only way I was going to stop is if I was hurt or on the verge of hurting myself.

9 Lives up ahead along the dirt road as the sun began setting.

We continued walking along the winding dirt road into the darkness. The stars came out and the sky was beautiful. Every now and then we would shut our headlamps off so we could look up at the Milky Way and the stars surrounding us through the vast desert. It was a beautiful night. But as we walked into the night, those next few hours were some of the hardest.

I remember stopping off for a break along the trail and feeling completely exhausted. My eyes were so heavy and it felt like I could barely keep them open. We sat in the darkness and ate some snacks. But around this time, my appetite was completely lost and I was struggling to eat. Even though I knew that I needed to feed myself now more than ever. I decided it was a good time for my 200 mg caffeine packet. I was just too dangerously sleepy. That definitely made me feel a lot better and help me to push on. But I also didn’t want to drink all of it and eliminate my only resource for energy.

When we left this break, 9 Lives and Sidequest were up ahead of me. I was following behind them practically aimlessly. I remember having many moments where my eyes closed and I fell asleep. I would kick a rock and then wake up and realize I had been asleep while walking. I had no idea that you could hike asleep. That just doesn’t seem possible. Could I have just been hiking with my eyes closed without falling? But those moments repeated themselves over those next few hours. I would be walking and all of a sudden feel like I just woke up. Then I realized that I don’t remember any of the hiking for the last hour. Was I asleep? Or did a part of my brain just turn off and I thought I was asleep. How on earth could I be walking asleep?

The bright orange and yellow sunset was beautiful across the basin.

This trend repeated itself for most of the evening. We would walk for two hours and then stop for a break. And repeatedly I woke up from sleeping as we walked. This was also around the time that all of us began experiencing some level of hallucinations. We had talked about this well before the challenge. I’ve heard that it’s common in 100+ mile races for runners to hallucinate vividly. I didn’t find that I was hallucinating wildly, but I was definitely hallucinating to some extent.

I have the most vivid memory of seeing something out of the corner of my eye while I walked, and I jumped in fear. Then I turned and saw that nothing was there. Sidequest noticed and must’ve thought that I was losing my mind. Later on he wound up talking about this, and he said that he had felt relieved to see that I was starting to break down too. Apparently he had been having some hallucinations and had been feeling out of sorts. So he was relieved to see that I was feeling the same way.

All of us were wobbling and weaving down the trail. We were tired and disoriented, and our minds and bodies were starting to shut down. Repeatedly I woke up to myself, kicking a rock or stumbling over something. Then realized that I had been sleepwalking down the trail. Just simply following behind Sidequest and 9 Lives to the best of my abilities.

We passed by this water cache late in the night. Apparently some other hikers are doing a 24 hour challenge too! They signed the trail register with indicating so.

It made me nervous to think that I could fall asleep while I walked. The trail had many deep holes from certain critters and I was scared that I would accidentally step into one. At one point I woke up just as I stepped over a huge hole in the ground. I was grateful that I was ok and had stepped over it. How did I dodge it though? Was I actually asleep, or wasn’t I?

The sky and stars were so beautiful after dark.

We continued through the night and I felt like we were walking in a giant circle. The trail looked exactly the same with every step that we took. It was like we were doing the same 6 miles over and over and over again. Then we would stop for a brief break. I would eat and I would do my stretching. At this point in the night it was very cold again so I was bundled up in my senchi layers and my rain jacket. And after sitting for 40 minutes or more, we would all make ourselves get up. Every time we felt like we could’ve stayed there forever. So we knew at that point in time we had to get moving again.

At this point, we crossed into the next day and were officially on the final day and morning of the challenge. Though we still had many more hours of night hiking to go before we would see daylight again.