Meeker woman hikes the Pacific Crest, Appalachian trails

By Doc Watson
Special to the Herald Times
MEEKER | Saying that Meeker resident Linda Bakkar is a hiker is like saying Arnold Palmer was a golfer. Having completed the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 2012, at press time, SoulFlower—her current trail name, changed from Blue Butterfly—was already on the final leg of her goal of finishing the Appalachian Trail (AT).
Originally from Seattle, Bakkar moved to Meeker to be close to her son, Dr. Bakkar, head of the surgical team at Pioneer’s Medical Center. It was while living in Seattle that the desire to hike the PCT hit her.
After doing many week long hikes along the PCT in Washington, it was in 2008 that Bakkar and two friends decided to take the big plunge.
“Starting at the border with Mexico in 2008, I tried to do it in a ‘thru-hike’ (from beginning to end all in one season), but I got to the Sierras and my pack was too heavy and I got stress fractures in my lower back and had to get off,” she said. “So, when I got back on, I did it in big sections.”
Having already done the entire state of Washington in her previous week-long trips, she did 700 miles that first year, another 600 in 2009, other sections after that and finished in 2012.
The PCT has received a lot of attention in recent years due to the book “Wild,” written by Cheryl Strayed, and the movie of the same title with Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon playing Strayed.
While both the book and movie reflect the norm of that day of a large pack weighing some 50 pounds, Bakkar emphasized that hikers today carry a pack of only about 25 pounds; some, called “ultra-lights,” are even lighter. Packs themselves, for example, weigh only about five pounds, and many tents, like Bakkar’s, weigh only a little over two pounds.
As Cheryl Strayed did with her book “Wild,” Bakkar has also written one about her own journey. “Blue Butterfly: Walking Through Grief on PCT” is about

what she learned along the way. The trip helped her to work through some things, such as the loss of her husband of 48 years—“the love of my life,” she said—and she hopes this soon to be released book will help others.
A few months after her husband passed away in 2014, Bakkar got a phone call from a close friend—his trail name is Billy Goat—who has hiked some 43,000 miles in his career. Even though she had never been an AT hiker, her friend invited her to a gathering of AT hikers, who readily received her as one of their own. It was then and there she decided to hike the AT.
After doing about 700 miles of the AT, she decided to go back again and do the whole thing. Returning to Georgia in April of last year, she got as far as Waynesboro, Va., in June where, ironically, after hundreds of miles of rough terrain, she caught her foot on a branch along the road into town and fell and broke her hand.
Fearing that if she went home to Seattle she would never return to finish the trail, she came to Meeker instead while she healed and “fell in love with the town and the people.” While she returned to the AT about six weeks later, she realized it was too soon, so she left the trail at Harper’s Ferry, returned to Meeker and bought a house in Sage Hills.
In the months since, she has hiked around here to, as she put it, “keep my hiking legs.” She added that hiking China Wall is very similar to the PCT. In contrast, the AT is extremely difficult—it’s wet, rugged and steep up and down hiking.
While there are dangers along the way, Bakkar doesn’t think about them very much. She’s seen many bears, for example, but says “the only ones that really bother you are the ones in national parks that are used to people and their food, kind of like Yogi Bear looking for a picnic basket.”
Of far more concern to Bakkar than bears, in fact, especially on the AT, is lyme disease, which is carried by ticks. She, therefore, treats her cloths with permethrin, an insecticide, is careful not to sit on leaves and logs and checks for ticks every day.
Technology has now made such hiking safer. Not only are there phone apps to help hikers navigate the already well-marked trails, but they can also carry a personal GPS tracking device. The one Bakkar carries has a “check-in” button that lets up to 10 people know she’s okay and where she is. The “track” button enables her contacts to track her progress using Google Maps. It also has an SOS button that alerts GEOS International Response Coordination Center of emergency situations and initiates a rescue.
With a laugh, Bakkar added that “you better be in dire need before you press that button because a helicopter is sent to get you. Thankfully, I haven’t needed that!”
As for food, Bakkar dehydrates much of her own. She also re-supplies along the way. While the PCT requires one to carry about a week’s worth of provisions between stops, the AT requires only three or four days. Her drinking water is supplied by using the Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter System, which is very popular among hikers.
On the AT this very moment, Bakkar’s planned finishing date is late July. She is actually considering doing it all one more time as a “thru-hike,” about a six-month trip. Quite an ambition for a 70-year-old!