May 29, 2016 I am curled into a tight ball, muscles taut, trying to convert tension into body heat. My ears feel brittle, the tip of my nose like a hard cold point. The sleeping bag is warm, but not warm enough, and I dread the moment when I will have to get out of it. But there is nothing to force me out, except for my own sense of urgency to make miles, so I wait for my impatience to overwhelm my desire for warmth, and I wrestle my way out of the tent. The others get up when they hear me moving about. I start up the oatmeal and warm my hands around the little camp stove. Brian and Jon dance to stay warm in a beam of light that streams down between the trees. We start our hike by following the creek downstream. There are no waterfalls or rapids, just a small trickle about six inches wide. The valley slowly deepens, and tall ponderosa pines keep us shaded throughout the morning. We follow Brian down a wrong turn—straight when we should have turned right down a dirt road—and dead end at a No Trespassing sign. It’s a quick quarter mile back to the trail, and before long we are climbing back up out of the canyon. Brian and I take turns leading for a while. When he is in front, he takes a nice pace, but every time I’m in front he seems to want to go faster, and I’m not feeling a desire to hike fast today. I decide to go last. The group hikes slower than me, but I decide to just relax into that and take my time. We spend much of the morning walk in silence, and I adapt a walking meditation to hiking. I focus on the feeling in the soles of my feet, and slowly scan upwards through my body to feel the movement of each joint and just be aware of how my body moves. After, I try to focus on my breath for 100 breaths. I fail miserably, but the process has its benefits. I feel light and pleasant, and the woods around me seem more real. I shift my perspective, and I’m no longer standing upright on the top of the ground. Instead, I’m standing sideways on a giant planet. All these trees and plants are sideways, too, held on by a magical force that no one can fully explain. I am tiny and insignificant, and somehow that’s relaxing and amazing, and I am filled with awe for the world around me.. This sort of mental game has a way of making my problems seem smaller. If I am a tiny, insignificant being on the side of a huge planet, only here by some miracle of infinitely small probability, then how important is that email? Does it matter if I do the dishes? All the actions I take for prestige, power, or money—what little effect will they have upon the world? How little does all that stress matter! These are the thoughts I am thinking as the ecosystem changes around me. The lush green valley turns to dry desert forest, with joshua trees and cactus among the pines, and loose gravel to replace the compacted dirt. Dirt roads crisscross the trail. The scenery shifts again, and now short shrubs are dominant. We come over a rise, and we can see a dry lakebed to the north. The trail turns us east along the ridge. After a short stop at some rocks to rest and snack, Brian stops us and points out a snake in the trail. We move towards it carefully, so as not to disturb it, but it doesn’t seem to care that we are there. It’s a pale orange with black band and a narrow head—not poisonous. It slowly moves into the bushes when we get close enough. It’s my first snake of the trip, and I’m happy to have seen him. We stop a little while later for lunch, and now the ridge affords us distant views of the desert to the east. I can also make out a lower shelf of mountains far below us, where a couple of off-road vehicles are kicking up dust. We sit and chat for a while, and I ask Jon questions about a meditation retreat he attended. Ten days! That’s something I’d like to do, but I don’t know when I could find the time. What a shame that our jobs give us such limited time to spend life the way we see fit. Especially when all of our thrashing about has so little effect on the world. The trail dips in and out between desert trees and distant views. Then we are back in the desert forest, surrounded by red dirt. A group of riders on horseback come from the other direction, and we step off to the side of the trail. One of the horses is spooked by us, so we move farther and farther off trail to let it by. The rider is an expert, but she is still barely able to manage the horse, who whips his head back and forth to try to escape. When they finally get past us, the horse takes off in a short gallop before the rider is able to get him back under control. In the afternoon, we pass large houses overlooking the dry lake we saw earlier. We get glimpses of Big Bear Lake further north. The trail is flat and even, and day hikers are plentiful. We cross two roads, and then find a dusty campsite a quarter mile past the second road. Brian’s girlfriend Suzie comes and picks up Brian and Jon, who will stay in a hotel tonight and pick us up further down the trail tomorrow afternoon. Lindsey and I read our books for a while, and then talk with a thru-hiker who joins us at the campsite. His name is Michael, and he has just taken a week off from the trail to recover from a foot injury. I ask him about his time on the Appalachian Trail and pay attention to his ultralight practices, to see what knowledge I can glean and how I can shed some weight from my pack. When we finish dinner, he lays out his sleeping pad and sleeping bag—no tent—and is asleep before we can climb into our tent.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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