June 20, 2016 Mile 652-672 Lindsey drops me off at Walker Pass. A hiker is coming by as we pull up, and we chat for a few minutes before he takes off. Damon, trail name “Shoes”, just got dropped off at the Walker Pass campground himself after a zero at Lake Isabel. He’s friendly and seems like he would make a good hiking partner, but pace means a lot, and you can never tell someone’s daily mileage by looking at them. He takes off up the trail and around the side of a mountain as Lindsey and I say our farewells. Maybe I’ll catch up later. Soon I’m headed up the trail too. It’s a barren mountain that I’m climbing, with a sandy trail and no cover. I pass Shoes a mile later as he takes a break, then come across two hikers resting in the small shade of a joshua tree. Giggles, who obviously deserves her trail name, and a Norwegian hiker who has a large American flag folded lengthwise hanging from his pack. They are friendly too, and I break with them for a while, but when we all start hiking again, it’s clear that I am much faster. I pass a couple more hikers, but as it gets hotter, they seem less willing to talk. Each time, I have to explain that I haven’t hiked all the way here. I’ve skipped 200 miles of trail. I tell people that I plan to go back and make up what I’ve missed, but I can tell they don’t believe me. Yellow blazer. Not a true thru-hiker. The hiker adage to “Hike your own hike” doesn’t prevent us from judging one another any more than Jesus’ admonition to “judge not lest ye be judged” has kept the average christian uncritical of others. And the truth is, I do feel guilty. When hikers ask why I didn’t just night-hike and sleep during the day, it doesn’t matter that I know that sleeping in 120-degree heat is dangerous—I still feel like I’ve cheated somehow. There is little water along this stretch, and even at this higher altitude the heat wave is obvious. I pull out my chrome-dome umbrella to protect me from the heat of the sun, and it helps a little. When a sign tells me that Joshua Tree Spring is unsafe (someone has hand-written “Uranium” on the sign, and the guidebook confirms it), I’m tempted to refill anyway, but I’m not out of water yet, and I should reach a safer spring this afternoon. I just hope it still has water. After meeting several hikers in the morning, I see no one for several miles. That changes suddenly when the trail turns around the side of a mountain. First, I see a hiker lying in the middle of the trail. A lodgepole pine casts a spot of shade that is too small for her body, and the shade has drifted so that she’s lying half in the sun. As I walk off the trail around her, she rouses from an uncomfortable-looking sleep and mumbles an apology. 100 yards later, a pair of hikers lies in a larger patch of shade, also napping. This continues for 5 or 6 more hikers, alone or in pairs, all half asleep and sprawled in uncomfortable positions alongside the trail. I start to wonder if I should be napping, too. It’s certainly uncomfortable to hike. I continue on, passively looking for a place to nap and letting my mind wander freely, when a voice startles me out of my reveries. It takes me a minute to locate her hiding in the shade above the trail. She has blonde hair in braided in Pippi Longstocking style, and she introduces herself as Zippee as she packs up. It’s getting a little cooler, she says (I don’t feel it, but I’ve been hiking and she’s been resting, so I take her word for it), and we hike together for a ways. We talk a little, but mostly it’s too hot and we don’t have the energy. Finally we reach the spring and a large shady area with four hikers lying half in the trail. I get ready to fill my water bottles, but one of the hikers tells us that the trail doubles back above and it’s easier to get water there, so instead I get out my sleeping pad and lie down next to them. Zippee does the same. I can’t sleep, but it’s still nice to rest in the shade. After an hour or so, I decide to continue on and Zippee follows. We stop for water when the trail crosses the spring again (it’s further than I expected, and I start to worry that I missed it and will have to go back), and I can’t decide whether to stick around and wait when I finish pumping water before her. She seems to want to hike with me, but I don’t know if she’s going to be able to hike at similar pace, or if she’s attracted to me, or maybe she’s a weirdo. Chances are pretty good that she’s just like me—she’s hiked too long by herself and is just hoping for another person to break the isolation—but I tend to worry about everything, so I continue on. If her hiking pace is similar, she’ll catch up the next time I take a break. As it starts to cool off in the early evening, I reach another long climb. I’m definitely tired now, and ready to be done for the day. There’s a sharp drop-off to my left when a pile of rocks to my right rattles sharply. Rattlesnake! Luckily, I’m past it before I realize what it is. I look at the rocks from a safe distance, and I can see part of it curled and moving slowly in a gap between two rocks. I’ve heard that the most likely to get bit is the second person who disturbs a snake. I don’t feel comfortable letting that happen, so I wait to warn Zippee or whoever the next hiker happens to be. It takes her about 15 minutes to arrive, and she’s grateful for the warning even though the rattlesnake appears to be gone. I hope she doesn’t think that I was just making an excuse to wait for her.
As we continue up the switchbacks, I deliberately find a way to mention Lindsey in the conversation. Zippee tells me that she’s also married. As she tells me about her husband, it becomes clear that part of why she wanted to hike with me was because she saw my wedding ring and knew I wasn’t going to try to hit on her. I feel a little silly and relieved. At the top of the ridge, we stop at a collection of campsites with a fantastic view of the valley, make dinner, and retreat to our tents after a fantastic sunset.
1 Comment
9/1/2017 08:06:29 pm
Zippy! I hiked with her (sort of) earlier in the desert. She's great!
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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