Storey - I promise not to suffer: a fool for love hikes the Pacific Crest Trail

PRAISE FOR I PROMISE NOT TO SUFFER
National Outdoor Book Award 2014 Winner

With wonderful turns of phrase, a keen observant eye, and self-deprecating style, Storey is a consummate story teller. In the end, we come to know her as someone with a ticklish sense of humor and a willing sufferer with a heart of gold.
Judges review, National Outdoor Book Awards

.... an enjoyable and frank memoir that will appeal to those who have taken or want to take similar journeys, whether hiking or of the heart.
Library Journal

For anyone who has ever wondered if they have what it takes to push her boundaries, to attempt an endeavor the magnitude of the Pacific Crest Trail, this book will inspire.
Womens Adventure

I Promise Not to Suffer by Gail Storey is a true adventure memoir.... [Storey] explains how the experience changed her marriage, and how it changed them as individuals, eventually giving her insight she would not have found otherwise.
Peter Greenberg, Travel Editor, CBS News

Storey is refreshingly honest... at once humorous and sensitive. Woven among the accounts of harrowing trail mishaps and setbacks, as well as the celebrations of hard-won mileage ticked off and delightful and odd friends gained, it all makes for a strong sales pitch to anyone with half a foot in a boot toward taking on this daunting treknot to mention that their suffering turns out to be quite the delightful read.
The Denver Post

Some have called Gail Storey the Nora Ephron of the wilderness. With her own unique wit, Storey shares Ephrons commitment to creating and tending a long, nourishing marriage. I Promise Not to Suffer is a portrait of a union that does not fray or break under pressure but is forged, toughened, and tenderized.
Sara Davidson, author of Leap!, Loose Change, and The December Project

In perfect indecorous fashion, [Gail Storey] claws up rocky mountainsides, sweats sticky-stinky across deserts, postholes through snowfield mushall the while grappling for balance, not to drown in roiling creeks or deep-water matters of the heart. From her quest to blossom into the consummate trekking partner, she emerges, most dearly, as an unabashed sister to us all, and definitely a woman-of-the-wild.
Kathleen Meyer, author of How to Shit in the Woods

Ultimately, though, this is a love story. Thats why, when Gail eventually leaves the trail and Porter continues on without her, the trail name he is given by other PCT hikers is Porter-and-Gail. The story of Porter-and-Gail is one of passion and survival, a story that demonstrates how to pair yourself with another person in this world, through good times and bad.
The Daily Camera (Boulder, Colorado)

For the reader, though, the journey is not so much a linear undertaking marked mile by mile on a map, as it is an emotional journeytaking us into the depths of our own lives subtly and gracefully as Gail navigates the emotional terrain of woman, wife, partner, and daughter.
Female First

At times humorous, but always heartwarming, I Promise Not to Suffer lends credence to the belief that immersion in nature is healing and uplifting, purifying and spiritual. Only those who have gone forth and discovered it themselves can truly attest to this, but writers such as Storey allow glimpses into the sacred places of their experienced communion with the wild and with themselves.
Summit Daily News (Colorado)

If you think its challenging to hike the Pacific Crest Trail solo, a feat author Cheryl Strayed describes so well in her bestselling book Wild, try it with your spouse. Gail Storey has given us another PCT gem.
North Shore Book Notes (Gloucester, Massachusetts)

I PROMISE NOT TO SUFFER

GAIL D. STOREY

I PROMISE NOT TO SUFFER

A FOOL FOR LOVE HIKES THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

THE MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS
is the nonprofit publishing arm of The Mountaineers, an organization founded in 1906 and dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas.

1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98134

2013 by Gail Storey

All rights reserved

First edition: First printing 2013, second printing 2014

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distributed in the United Kingdom by Cordee, www.cordee.co.uk
Manufactured in the United States of America

Copy Editor: Kim Runciman
Book Design and Illustrations: Heidi Smets Graphic Design
Cover photo composite by Heidi Smets. Trail photo Tami Asars; skirt and legs
Veer; boots Getty Images.
Author Photo: Dana Rogers
Map on : Porter Storey

The author gratefully acknowledges the editor of Pilgrimage magazine, in which the excerpted piece Wind appeared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Storey, Gail Donohue.
I promise not to suffer : a fool for love hikes the Pacific Crest Trail / Gail D. Storey,
Barbara Savage Memorial Award Winner.First edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-59485-745-4 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-59485-746-1 (ebook) (print)
1. HikingPacific Crest Trail. 2. Pacific Crest Trail. 3. Storey, Gail Donohue
TravelPacific Crest Trail. I. Title.
GV199.42.P3S76 2013
917.79dc23

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-745-4
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-746-1

For Porter Storey, MD FACP FAAHPM,
Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (a.k.a. my husband)

CONTENTS

GRATITUDE

THE JOURNEY FROM SUN-SCORCHED, snow-soaked, tear-stained journal pages to a completed book is as long as the Pacific Crest Trail. First, thank you to those whose help was crucial to our survival while we were on the trail: Colleen Sweeney, who shipped us our resupplies; Jan and Bill Pollard, who rescued Porter from a weather-torn detour; Randy Turnbow and Martha Rice, whose kindness and cabin were a refuge; and Marcia Gerhardt, who brought her sewing machine as close to a trailhead as she could to mend a shredded tarp.

A new washing machine to Jeff and Donna L-Rod Saufley and a lifetime supply of taco salad fixins to Terrie and Joe Anderson, for your warm hospitality when we needed it most, and wings to all the trail angels whose jugs of water kept us from dying of dehydration. Thanks to those whose guidebooks and shared wisdom proved indispensable: Yogi (Jackie McDonnell); Ben Schifrin, Jeffrey P. Schaffer, Thomas Winnett, Ruby Johnson Jenkins, and Andy Selters; Benedict Gentle Ben Go; and Leslie C. Croot. To the Pacific Crest Trail Association, 2,663 miles of thank-yous. We would have been lost, literally, without you.

Raucous thanks to my rockin writing group: Julene Bair, Elisabeth Hyde, Lisa Jones, and Marilyn Krysl, for bringing your extraordinary literary talents, not to mention champagne and dinner, to the table. Were it not for you, well, lets not go there. Thanks also to discerning readers of the manuscript Jacqueline Damian, Margi Fox, Emily Fox Gordon, Janis Hallowell, Vicki Lindner, Jan Pollard, Connie Shaw, and Priscilla Stuckey. To Boulder Media Women, thank you for your support and irrepressible joie de vivre.