August 12, 2016 Mile 1184.7-1203.8 19.1 Miles I’m going to attempt an in and out today. So far I’ve stopped overnight in every town I’ve passed except Wrightwood. I’m only about 6 miles from Sierra City, and I need to do more than 6 miles today if I’m ever going to finish the trail. And I am going to finish the trail, I’ve decided. Yesterday was just a low moment, and this is something I’ve wanted to do since I was 14 years old. I know I will regret it forever if I quit now. Besides, I feel great this morning. I’m off to a late start for me—5:45—but still early for everyone else. The morning starts through a lush valley with water everywhere. Pretty soon I hit a turnoff through a campground—everyone is still asleep and all their car-camping gear looks luxurious—and then walk down Wild Plum Road toward Sierra City. The road follows a creek, and as the morning heats up the swimming holes along the way look better and better. Still, I have an appointment with breakfast. Maybe even with two breakfasts. No way I’m stopping now. An old man with a very dirty shirt and a walking stick is walking the other direction. “Where are you from?” he asks. “The Central Coast,” I reply. “I’m from South Dakota, where the men are men, the women are few, and the sheep are used to it.” And he walks off without another word. Sierra City is a short strip of a town—a couple inns, a couple restaurants, and a big red general store. I stop into the first restaurant I see, the Red Moose Lodge. I find a table near the back and order coffee and two breakfasts. A lady comes by and asks me if I’m a through-hiker. She gives me a five-dollar bill and tells me to have a great trip. I thank her and try to decide how to spend the money best. Ice cream, perhaps? I really can’t think of anything except food. At the general store there are a bunch of hikers. Brewhiker, CK, Fireball (who was bit on the testicle by a fire ant—ouch!), and the Baptist, as well as some other hikers whose names I don’t know. Yogi Beer gets dropped off by a car a little later. We’re all drinking beer next to the store while we pack our resupplies. The baptist has seven boxes! Some of it is food, and there’s a new pair of shoes in there, but I can’t imagine what else he might need. I’ve got a new pair of shoes, too The general store serves one-pound burgers. Everyone except me orders one, and I don’t see a single one of them finish it. The store makes me a giant vegetarian sandwich instead, and I can’t finish that either. I’m sort of hoping to fall in with one or two of these hikers so I don’t have to spend so much time alone anymore. Especially for camping—it gets scary out there at night. So I’m just sort of hanging out, waiting for someone else to say that they’re headed back to the trail. But it seems that some of them are flipping up to Washington, and a couple of them are going to hitch to a nearby town for a beer festival. I have to doubt they’re going to finish the trail. I finally decide to hike my own hike and head back out to the trail alone. On the way out of town I pass a library, which is just an old house with books on the patio and a slotted box to put money in. I find a book I haven’t read by Greg Bear, one of my favorite science fiction authors. It costs fifty cents, but all I have is a dollar, so I drop that in the box. I’m a sucker for a book sale. The trail is a steep climb up miles of long switchbacks. I stop to fill up water at a spring with yellow jackets flying everywhere. They don’t seem concerned that I’m there, and after a minute of trepidation, I stop being concerned that they’re there. I fill up my full seven liters for the climb to the top; the next water is a long ways off. The switchbacks finally come to an end near the top of the valley. The trail cuts a long line, visible for a mile or more, along the decomposed granite and manzanita bushes that make up the slope. I can see all the way down to Sierra City. It seems so close, even though I’ve been hiking for hours. Eventually I make the final climb up and over the ridge. I find a place to camp about an hour before sunset. It’s tucked away behind a dirt road that leads up to the top of a peak where a firetower keeps watch over the entire area. My campsite has a commanding view, too. I’m looking off toward the sunset and writing in my journal when an old couple comes down the road. They tell me about working on trail crews and about other hikers that they’ve met. They are incredibly enthusiastic and don’t wait for each other to finish talking. I’m laughing and enjoying their company, and then all of a sudden they’re hiking back to their car and I am alone with my dinner and my journal and the sunset. I don’t feel lonely, just contentedly alone. The view is phenomenal. The valley where Sierra City sits extends as far as the eye can see, winding back and forth through the dark green hills like a perfect braid. The sun starts to settle toward the horizon and my mind starts to settle with it. I open up a kind bar and chew it slowly, mindfully. I can taste every ingredient: the crunch of the peanuts and rice puffs, the smooth sweetness of the chocolate, the grains of salt that make it pop to life. I take a drink of water and focus on the taste—I’ve never noticed before how sweet water is—and the cool feeling as it runs down my throat. I am sitting on a dirt hill, looking out at the sunset and then, something happens. How do you describe enlightenment? How do you describe heaven? All the things in my head—all the thoughts, judgments, descriptions, sense of independent self, status concerns, desires, aversions, delusions—they all drop away like a curtain. What is left behind is something like pure experience. There are still thoughts, but they are clear perceptions (and a little voice in the back of my head is going “Woah. What is happening right now?”). There is still a sense of self, but it is a connected sense, a sense that I am of the environment and a part of the world, not a separate entity. Every force I exert on my surroundings is exerted back on me: I feel the pressure as air enters my lungs and the release as it exits; I am simply one force of its motion, created from its chemical reaction within my cells. I don’t look out and perceive the beauty of the sunset, imposing myself upon it and creating meaning; instead, I find that I am open to it and it fills me with its beauty. It is not here for me, I am simply its recipient. My mind is stiller than it has ever been, and it feels peaceful in a way that it has never felt before. I am highly alert, but it’s not a buzzing, scattered energy, it’s a focused, clear, powerful awareness. Is this enlightenment? Did I just get enlightened? I can feel ego inherent in those questions, but I don’t push them away, I just let them go. They aren’t important right now, I can always think about them later. Right now, what’s important is just staying with this experience for as long as it will allow me to. I sit there, watching the sunset and the hazy shadows spread over a gigantic view, for what seems like hours but must be shorter. The sun oozes over the horizon like an egg yolk over the edge of a counter. It slips away, but I stay on my pad in the dirt, the fool on the hill. To be honest, I am afraid to move—I might scare this experience away. Eventually the pain and numbness in my legs gets too intense. I move slowly. Thoughts are already creeping back, but they are fleeting. It is easy to see them each separately. I can look at a thought, hold it up in front of me and examine it; I can see its sources and where it is headed, and then I can let it go.
I focus on getting ready for bed, one slow, mindful task at a time. There is no temptation to hurry or try to do two tasks at once. Brushing my teeth, I am focused on the sensation of the toothbrush against my gums and teeth. Zipping up my tent, I am intensely aware of the sound of the zipper, the rustle of the cuben fiber. I pause between each task to acknowledge its end and decide what task comes next. It is effortless. I am relaxed and content in a way that I have never been before. When I rest my head on my inflatable pillow, a smile spreads across my lips, my forehead, through my shoulders and hips and belly, I even feel the smile in my toes. I am here. Now.
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August 11, 2016 Mile 1153.9-1184.7 30.8 Miles I’m back into old habits; I’m up just after 5, on the trail by 5:20. The morning starts with a quick climb up and over and back down to cross under the I-80. I decide to go to the rest stop to use the restroom—who knows the next time I’ll get to use a flushing toilet. The cinderblock walls and flat concrete ground seem so foreign and unnatural, I start to feel uncomfortable. Get me back on gently sloping dirt surrounded by trees and composting pine needles. It’s only a minute more before I’m safely on the other side of a chain link fence, protected from an invasion of the artificial. It takes a little longer for my gut to relax and feel safe again. In the midst of my civilized life, I would never have imagined that something as simple as walls and right angles could make me feel so uncomfortable and claustrophobic. Is this something new, or have they always had this effect? Have I simply been too overwhelmed by other stimuli to separate it from the general malaise? There’s a temptation to paint all civilization as evil, but I didn’t feel the same way at the Donner Pass Ski Resort yesterday. That place felt more alive, human in a way that the rest stop does not. The rest stop feels mechanical, bureaucratic, manufactured. Whatever it is that makes me so uncomfortable, I’m happy to be away from it. I reach a junction and for the first time in days I have to check my map. I’m not really feeling the uphill, but that’s the way I have to go so I set my resolve and chug along up the trail. It’s only a couple miles to Castle Pass and then over into a big meadow. The meadow contains a small lake and a wooden cabin called the Peter Grubb Hut. It’s one of two shelters on the PCT where hikers can camp for the night (the other is way up in Washington). Nearby are two horses, a donkey, a dog, and a llama, all grazing freely through the meadow. Their owners are camped behind the hut. I consider climbing the ladder that seems to be the only entrance and looking inside, but Brewhiker and Not You mentioned that they planned to sleep here, and it’s still early; wouldn’t want to wake them up. I continue on. The trail is being gentle today. More ups than downs, but nothing is steep. The hard granite of the last several days has all but disappeared, replaced by soft dirt and scattered pumice among lilting forests and meadows. It’s a walk in a park. Brewhiker passes me in a valley. Apparently he saw me pass the hut as he was packing up. He flies by and I don’t try to keep up. A half hour later I am startled by a short hiss behind me. It’s Brewhiker again, releasing the yeast pressure in a Smartwater bottle that he is using to brew beer as he hikes. I don’t know when I passed him. Another few minutes and I am passed by Yogi Beer, the hiker with one eye who camped near us last night. He offers me a squirt of Mio to flavor my water, which I gratefully accept. Even the pure Sierra spring water can use a little flavor from time to time. The day continues to be pleasant and easy. I break atop a volcanic outcropping with a view of three different meadows among the forests below, then lunch at another high point with views back to meadow lake. Early in the afternoon I reach my planned campsite at Mule Ear Creek. It’s too early to stop and I’m tired but not spent, so I decide to push a little farther. I hike with Yogi Beer for a little bit; he takes a side trail to a campground. “I’m not really Yogi Beer if I can’t find someone to give me a beer,” he says.
Past Jackson Meadows reservoir, into a state park. The forest has a greater mix of hardwoods, fewer pines. There’s a faucet, then a road walk—no cars pass by, no people exist. In the wilderness, I expect to be alone. In these semi-civilized places, it feels wrong, dangerous somehow. It’s like I’m being watched, or like all the people have fled due to some imminent danger. I’m suddenly very lonely. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home. There’s nothing to do except keep hiking. I try to self-soothe with Thich Nhat Hanh’s mantra, but I’m stuck in a negative cycle and it’s hard to break out, hard even to focus on the mantra. I’m exhausted. The trail leaves the road and climbs a hill beside it, eventually leaves it entirely. At a clearing between two hills I meet a mother and daughter, both of whom are older than me. They are the first people I’ve seen in a few hours. Would they mind if I camped nearby? No, they don’t mind. I exchange a few words with them, but really I’m too tired to talk and it’s buggy out, so I make ramen for dinner and crawl into my sleeping bag. It’s only while I’m writing in my journal that I realize that I’ve broken thirty miles today. My head is heavy, my eyelids are heavy, everything is heavy. I sink into a deep sleep. I wake up from a bad dream, my heart thumping, my memories filled with violence. I’ve had night terrors since I was a kid, but they seem to have gotten much worse in the past few years. Snap! I shoot up, fully awake now. What was that? I check the time: 2:55am. Something is definitely moving out there. I shine my headlamp out, but I can’t see anything. I lie back down. It moves again, closer to the tent this time. I sweep my headlamp around again, and this time whatever it is goes crashing through the bushes a short way up the hill. I focus my light on it, but all I can see is a single glowing red eye. It only pauses for a moment, then it’s off again, crashing and thrashing through the forest. I lie awake for over an hour, startling at every little sound. It was probably just a deer, I tell myself. But I don’t believe it. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home. August 10, 2016 Mile 1129.7-1153.9 24.2 Miles Another early start. The sun hatches in the east as I cut along a western ridge, views of placid Lake Tahoe between us. I remember another early morning in a kayak on the lake. My dad looks down at his compass, asks me “which direction is north?” I think for a second, point out my best guess. “Pretty close,” he says, and points ten degrees over. I just finished the sixth grade, where we made compasses out of magnets, needles, styrofoam and water. Ever since, I have been obsessed with pointing out north and checking my sense of direction. I don’t know whether it is something innate or practiced, but today I can feel that the ridge points due north. It feels like I can see all the way to Canada and the trail’s northern terminus. I am so lucky, so grateful to be out here on the PCT, where sunrises and myriad other moments are a part of my daily experience. It’s one thing to seek beauty, it’s another to set your life up to experience it every day. PCT, I love you. I pass ski resorts. The lifts and clearcuts aren’t my favorite things to look at, but I guess they’re better than condos. At least the wildlife has a chance and can pass through undisturbed part of the year. These empty resorts seem strange in the summer. I’m walking through what seems like civilization, but there isn’t a person to be seen. It feels like I’m being watched, like a small, fearful community is hiding in a post-apocalyptic world—don’t let the stranger see you, he might bring disease or destruction. I climb down through one resort (the empty ski lift is operating for some reason), then back up to another ridge. I chant my new mantra in time with my feet: Calming, Smiling, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment. Calming, Smiling, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment. Soon I’m grinning like an idiot, staring with wonder at the colorful mules ears and sage and indian paintbrush that adorn the sandy slopes. This truly is a wonderful moment, I think. A lady comes by and I give her a wide grin and shout an eager “Good Morning!”. Too eager, I think. I’ve startled her out of a reverie, shocked her even. But she seems infected with my good vibes and laughs and good mornings me back, a little less enthusiastically perhaps, but still happily. When her friend hikes by a moment later, I dial it back a notch. Less infectious, but better calibrated, I think. She asks me about water along the ridge. I have to tell her there’s none. “None?” she says. “There’s some water right after the switchbacks in a few miles,” I tell her. “After the switchbacks?” “Yeah, you’ll go down and cut across and there’s a little stream next to a meadow.” “A little stream?” I smile and wish her well. I’m pumping my legs and lungs at full capacity, striving toward a high point along the ridge. When I reach it, a hiker is stretching out her legs. “Doesn’t it feel great to stretch after a big climb?” she says. “Yeah,” I lie. I have no idea if she’s right. It does sound like a pretty good idea, though. She seems like a hiker’s oracle, waiting up here to drop truth bombs on unsuspecting thru-hikers. I drop my pack and do some stretches while I scan the horizon. I’m not bendy at all and I look like an idiot. Squaw Valley, Tinker Knob. Wow, this area sure aims for offensive. It sure is pretty, though. Mostly, I stay high on the ridges. There are few trees up here and I can see way ahead to a strangely-shaped, monolithic mountain, and across to Lake Tahoe, which begins to slip further behind. The miles fly by as I’m calming, smiling, and trying to stay in the present, wonderful moment. I’m only occasionally successful, but it feels good the entire time. It’s nice to step out of my own head. I plunge down to Donner Pass. There’s an old railway tunnel off the side of the switchbacks that looks like it would be fun to explore, but not today. I have more exciting things to look forward to. Donner Pass Ski Resort. Free beer! Food! The olympics blare on the TV while I sip my free Coors Light (Thank you DPSR!) and wait for an obscene amount of food to cook. I introduce myself to Brewhiker and Not You, who are sitting at a nearby table taking advantage of the wireless to check in with family and friends.
I devour my food as soon as it arrives. The veggie burger disappears in seconds, the fries are dipped in the a la mode of my pie, and I buy a second beer to wash it down. Brewhiker and Not You take off. A minute later, a young, blonde, leggy hiker comes in and sits next to me at the bar. From across the bar, a guy who has been sitting silently by himself comes over and tries to start a conversation with her. She politely brushes him off. He goes back to the other end of the bar and goes silent again until he asks for his check and leaves. She introduces herself as Poundah, and we chat for a bit about the trail. She and a couple friends are going to skip ahead to Ashland tomorrow. The writing’s on the wall—we’re all too far behind schedule and won’t make it to Canada at this rate. She convinces the bartender to give her a couple extra beers for her friends before he closes for the night. On the porch we run into a middle-aged male hiker who Poundah seems to know and they have a curt conversation. When he takes off his sunglasses to wipe them off, one of his eye sockets is just a pucker. He goes inside to get a beer before they close, and Poundah and I walk together to a campsite a half-mile away, just off the road. Pretty soon her friends Whistler and Paramount arrive. They are a super-friendly couple who seem genuinely happy to meet me. Whistler in particular has a natural enthusiasm and wants to know everything about me. He compliments Paramount and Poundah to me and doesn’t sound like he’s just flattering. He’s got charisma, this one. I find myself wishing that I could flip ahead with them and be part of their group for a little longer. Temporary friends. The hiker with one eye arrives—Yogi Beer is his trail name—and camps right on the trail. He comes over and chats, but Poundah seems annoyed and gives him a cold shoulder. I don’t know him and I barely know Poundah, so I am in no position to judge, but I wonder what has transpired between them. Whistler has a green ukulele, which gets passed around while we all make dinner. Mason Jennings comes to mind when it’s my turn. I play “If you ain’t got love” with a couple stops and starts as I try to drag lyrics up into memory. My voice is out of practice and I’m shy, so I pass it on after the one song. Poundah has a breathy alto voice that she uses to good effect and Whistler has a light tenor that is perfect for a campfire. Paramount doesn’t sing, but she still adds a lot by her presence and full attention to the group. I’m grateful for the camaraderie and peaceful vibes, and I go to sleep feeling connected and happy. August 9, 2016 Mile 1107.6-1129.7 22.1 Miles At first light I wake, pack, and set out into the cold damp morning. The light is everywhere but on me, which gives it a surreal, detached quality, like I’m looking at framed color photos. Fontanellis lake startles me when I come around a turn and the noisy thoughts in my head are interrupted by the quiet lapping of the shore. The sudden emptiness is disorienting, almost painful. I become aware at once of a sadness within me and simultaneously, a soothing presence in the beauty of the lake. I want to sit with it, to heal myself in the balm of this beauty. I settle for a half-measure, which is to stop and filter some water. It seems I am afraid to confront the sadness within me and I need something to distract myself. But the beauty is no longer available, either, not with the immediacy and intensity it was. I find myself grasping to reclaim the mental state that revealed such beauty, and it seems to slip farther away the harder I try. I stop for breakfast a while later on a glacial-polished rock and read the Thich Nhat Hanh book. A few hikers pass by and stop to chat—one introduces himself as Santa Claus, and he looks the part. He’s even wearing a big red Santa hat. Two-pack has an Australian accent. After they leave I go back to my book. Thich Nhat Hanh has just introduced a mantra for meditation: Breathing in I calm my mind, Breathing out I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know that this is a wonderful moment.” The lopsided rhythm of the last line irks me a bit, but the point isn’t beauty, it’s mindful attention, so I let it go and try to dwell in the present moment instead. It seems like a good mantra to hike to. The miles fly by. I catch myself in my head a lot—most of the time, actually—but I start to hang on to the present moment for slightly longer periods. I had never noticed it before, but the forest had been a place to get through on the way to the big views. Now I look at the forest for itself. The tree bark splits in furrows like erosion patterns, it scratches roughly when I brush my fingers against it. Infinitely varied, endlessly fascinating. So many small plants nestled between the trees. They don’t splash like the bright flowers of the meadows, but they ripple and flow with the soft wind, which I hadn’t noticed either. The dirt itself, stolid and inert, slopes and changes and organizes itself into patterns and designs. There is a whole world in each moment. Thoughts swirl around every observation. They are too practiced, I am too new at this way of noticing. I am lost in thought again. Some of the thoughts are delusions of becoming a Buddhist master, which make me laugh at myself when I realize that the thought itself proves that I haven’t stayed in the present moment. I have a long ways to go. After lunch my feet are killing me. My calluses softened during my week off-trail, and my feet feel like they’re starting the trail all over again. I vow to take better care of them this time and wallpaper them with Moleskin. At Barker pass there is a little cell service. Lindsey and I chat briefly, but the call fails and I can’t get through again. Keep going over the ridge. Lake Tahoe shocks me with its big blueness. Up until now Tahoe has been at a distance, through the trees. Now it fills my field of vision like an ocean. It is so bold, so intensely blue. It releases something inside me, and there is that sadness again, that desire to sit and cry. I don’t understand what that is, and I’m not ready to face it. I know how to pretend it’s not there. I keep hiking. I pass the last water source for several miles without realizing it. I’m most of the way up a set of switchbacks, trying to decide where to camp, when I do. I decide I have just enough to make dinner and have a little to spare. It’ll be close, but I dread the idea of going back for water and doing these switchbacks twice. I enter the Granite Chief wilderness and set up camp a little early. The next campsite on the map is four miles ahead, and I don’t want to hike four more miles today. After dinner Santa Claus, Two-Pack, and Trip come by to look for a place to camp. I walk over to chat with them. Two girls come out of a tent nearby when they hear us talking. Santa Claus introduces himself as Bad Santa. I’m not sure if he just changed his trailname or if I just heard him wrong when he introduced himself that morning. Somehow, with attractive girls in the mix, it seems like he might have adjusted his trailname. The girls are hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail, and we all get into a discussion about gear and foot care that lasts until I break off to make dinner.
I crawl into my sleeping bag and drink my last two sips of water. It’s going to be a true dry-camping night. August 8, 2016 Mile 1081.5-1107.6 26.1 Miles How quickly routines become habits; how quickly they are destroyed! Only one week of waking before the sun to beat the heat in the desert, and it seems to have stuck with me here in the Sierra. A week away from packing has atrophied that routine. I’m back to deciding what to put away next, and my brain is sluggish because my body has forgotten how to sleep on the ground. I tossed and turned most of the night, unable to find a comfortable position. As I noisily stuff my pack, I hear Katie doing the same. She sets off first. The pre-dawn light is peaceful, quiet. I set off in a trance. The forest feels sacred and I step lightly as if walking on hallowed ground. After a while the sky glows brighter. I come over the lip of a wooded basin and a dog barks in the distance below me. I weave my way down among the Douglas firs to the floor of the basin, where the trees spread apart. The aroma of woodsmoke. A dog is barking, closer now. A turn in the trail reveals a campsite. The dog is held by the collar as it barks at me and a small group of people appear to be making breakfast, tending the fire, and accomplishing other camp chores. At a junction, Katie is checking her map. She tells me that the dog came running at her, acting aggressive. She’s pissed. I pass on, still enjoying the trance-inducing quiet of the morning. A while later I stop for breakfast at a granite outcropping next to where the trail begins some switchbacks down. There is a stunning view of Lake Tahoe, my first so far, glimmering in the morning sun. Katie passes by without seeing me, and I don’t call out because I am enjoying the solitude too much this morning. Besides, she and Felix are resupplying in South Lake Tahoe today, and I’m going to keep going. Temporary friends. I won’t see either of them again, today or ever. Continuing down, I am surprised to find how close I am to a road (Three years from now, I will stop at this road on my way to Matterhorn Peak and provide three hikers with a ride to town). The trail passes between a number of colorful cabins, many constructed and decorated to resemble the ski-huts of different snowbound countries. One resembles a Swiss chateau, another has Norwegian rosemåling among its eaves, a third resembles a German Alpenhütte. I wander through this foreign land and think ‘this is temporary too.’ The houses and trees disappear all at once and I am walking through a gravel parking lot. Sunlight glares off the hoods of a thousand polished cars and I feel exposed and attacked. Clean, well-dressed families look at me and quickly glance away as if to simply look at me might spread the filth. I’m not even very dirty yet. My bubble of solitude has been popped, rudely and violently, and I shrink into myself. There is a store that serves fresh paninis here, and although I feel uncomfortable amongst all these families on their hygienic holiday, I know that I won’t get this chance again for awhile. People walk by me by the dozen while I sit on a log and eat my panini and read my book, but no one speaks to me. I slowly come out of solitude and begin to wish for interaction. Everything is temporary, even—especially—my moods. After my early lunch, the trail is crawling with people. This is where all of those cars spilled their owners. Despite the crowds, the lake is serene. Small cabins dot the shores and a small motorboat ferries from cabin to store and back. I find myself dreaming about bringing Lindsey here, sometime in the off-season, getting a cabin and bringing a stack of books to read. Near the end of the first lake two old men with overnight backpacks let me pass and one of them jokes that I need to stop speeding. An hour later I’m breaking on a log near the top of the climb and the two men, probably brothers for how similar they look, stop and chat. “You look like a thru-hiker,” the first one says. “Guilty. But I’ve showered recently.” They both laugh. “Where are you hiking?” “Oh, we’re just going to Aloha lake. We’ll spend a couple days there. We brought our chairs.” This last line is delivered with mischief—each has an aluminum-framed beach chair strapped to their backpack. I chuckle. “That looks relaxing.” I’m a little jealous. I still have a lot of miles to hike today. I continue sitting on my log for another twenty minutes, which feels like an hour. I’m reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s slim book “Every Step is Peace.” It seemed like a good book to bring on a hike. Every couple paragraphs I look down at the basin below me, two sapphire lakes pooled in an enormous bowl. It’s breathtaking. I find it hard to believe that this place is accessible by dayhike, so close to the Bay Area. Someday after we move back there, I hope to come visit here with Lindsey. I finally set off and climb over the lip of the basin. Forest obscures the views except for a couple picturesque tarns along the way. Those tarns help bring me out of my head and remind me that I haven’t been present during the forest. I try again. I feel each step in the soles of my feet as I walk, I look out and try to notice the patterns of light and dark in the trees. It is pleasant and easy for a little while, but before I know it I’m back in the trance of my own thoughts. I’m not sure how long I walk like that. When I awaken again, it is because a lake cuts through my trance like a diamond. Aloha Lake. It looks less like an established lake and more like the landscape has been flooded. Hundreds of granite islands, some with bonsai-twisted foxtail pines, stick up through the water. Behind, massive mountains are carved in great sweeping strokes out of a single piece of granite. Here there be dragons, I think to myself. I pause to take it all in and make a promise to myself: I have to bring Lindsey here. (Two years later, I do—and she brings our daughter along in her belly). The altitude is giving me a headache, so I find a place close to the water to eat a second lunch and pop a couple of aspirin. After lunch I sink back into my thoughts, as much as I try to stay present. They aren’t about much, just the same tired repetitions of old stories. I surface only occasionally. I descend an overflow outlet of Aloha lake, hike around Susie lake, climb up a long slope towards Dick’s Pass—I emerge from my walking slumber to take pictures here. There is a fantastic view of Susie Lake and Aloha Lake with Dick’s peak off to the right and Pyramid Peak in the background. There is also cell phone service, and I chat with Lindsey and text my friend Brian. His girlfriend’s name is Susie, so I send him a picture of Susie Lake and caption it. “Inappropriate,” he replies. Is he joking? My cell service has disappeared, so our conversation is cut off there. I start to worry that I’ve offended him. The climb and the miles have exhausted me again. I’m thinking in a haze. Luckily it’s downhill from here and there are campsites marked just a couple miles ahead, next to Dick’s Lake. I plod down and find a campsite near the northern shore. While I’m making dinner, three college-aged guys set up their tents nearby. We exchange a couple of pleasantries, but I’m way too tired and I’ve spent too much time in my head today to make decent conversation. They seem like they might feel the same way, because they climb into their tents without making dinner. I try to read in my tent for a little bit, but my head still aches and I’m too fatigued to even hold the book up. I’m grateful for sleep when it comes.
August 7, 2016 Mile 1076.6-1081.1 4.5 Miles Someone is shouting. The bus is shrieking. I brace my feet on the seat in front of me and fear the worst. Impact. Crunch of steel, pop and jangle of broken glass. The shockwave passes into my legs but no further. A baby starts to cry big, siren-like wails. “Is everyone okay?” The bus driver asks after a minute. There is no confidence to his question, as if to say I don’t know what to do if you aren’t. A lady up front is talking about her neck. She sounds more upset than hurt. We’re all ordered off the bus to wait alongside the road near a couple of closed buildings: a post office and a shuttered restaurant. On weekend trips in the future, I’ll drive by this area and learn that we were near the town of Strawberry. Someone tells us the bus driver wasn’t paying attention when a car turned onto the highway, and he just barreled on ahead until someone shouted at him. A little later, the driver tells us that Amtrak is sending another bus; it’ll be here in about an hour. In the meantime, the police arrive and take statements. A young german couple who are headed out to do a SOBO section offer me a hard-boiled egg and some trail mix. They have been friendly and curious about my hike when we’ve talked for the past couple hours, and I am glad to spend a little more time in their company before we head our separate ways. Another bus comes sooner than I expected—time is already passing differently—and we all board and finish our drive to South Lake Tahoe. I find a Mexican place to eat lunch, then walk towards the campground. It’s late afternoon and I don’t really want to hitch. At the last second I decide to grab an Uber; it’s not that far to the trailhead and I was going to spend the money on a campsite anyway. I’d rather get an early start tomorrow. When I set off from Carson Pass, I have the settling feeling that everything is right with my hike again. There’s no more vertiginous feeling of the past being ahead of me and the future behind me; all of the past is behind, all of the future ahead. It’s a straight shot to Canada from here, no more breaks, no more flip-flops, just ahead, ahead, ahead. There are small white boulders in the trail that I have to step over and around, and it feels like a different part of my brain is coming back online, a part that’s ready for wilderness, that expects obstacles and looks forward to them. The air is cooler, thinner, and I have to make the choice to let go of conditioned spaces. Solitude settles in on me like a heavy blanket and I have to resist the urge to grab my phone and try to reconnect. It wouldn’t work anyway, there’s no service out here. I hike about a mile and come across a trail runner at a junction. We hike together in enthusiastic conversation. It turns out he was a classical saxophone major in college, so we geek out on wind band literature for a while. It’s strange how all these niche interests keep popping up on trail, and how connected they always make me feel with complete strangers. As it turns out, he is thru-running the entire Tahoe Rim Trail, doing about 40-50 miles a day. Intense. After a couple miles of hiking together he has to get running again to finish his mileage for the day. I wish him well, a little sad that I’ll probably never get the chance to talk with him again. It is a good reminder that everything is temporary.
Twenty minutes later I walk up on Showers Lake and several campers. I am almost past the lake when I meet two PCT hikers, California Katie and Austrian Felix, who invite me to camp near them. Katie is a firecracker who enjoys making slightly inappropriate and shocking comments to get a reaction, and Felix is almost the opposite—quiet, reserved, shy. But he laughs at Katie’s jokes without fail, and they make great company. We all make dinner by the lake and Katie offers me cookies and nutella, which I gladly devour. We talk for a while from our tents as we’re getting ready for bed, and we’re all asleep before 8. I feel settled, safe, and connected. It’s a perfect way to ease back into the wild. July 29, 2016 Mile 630.8-651.3 20.5 Miles The plan: meet Lindsey at Walker Pass campground today, then take a week off trail. It’s her dad’s 70th birthday (her mom is throwing him a surprise party), and then next weekend we have tickets to Outsidelands, a big music festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I’m looking forward to a week of luxury: real cooked meals, liquids that aren’t just variations on water, a bed (as it will turn out, sleeping in a bed will be almost impossible for me and I will pull a blanket down and sleep on the floor more than once), even a hot tub. My alarm goes off at 5am again. I’m enjoying this early waking—I might even continue it when I get out of the desert and I don’t have to worry about slowing down or stopping in the afternoons. I pack up quickly. It would look like a mess to anyone who didn’t know, but I have a spot for everything in my tent, and I could probably pack up with my eyes closed. It’s so routine now that I can focus on the environment around me, like how cool it is this morning. In fact, I realize, I even pulled my sleeping bag over me last night. That’s the first time I’ve needed it in a week. This heat wave is finally breaking, it appears, just as I’m getting ready to leave the desert. Good timing. I’m not sure whether the campground will have water, or what time Lindsey is going to pick me up, so I fill up to my full capacity before I leave—7 liters. This is the last day I’ll have to carry this much weight for a while, I think with relief. From Bird Spring Pass, the trail makes a climb up and around a gully in the south-facing slope of the mountain. The sun emerges while I am in the shadow of the eastern shoulder. It lights up the Mojave from the mountaintops downward. A smear of brown smoke covers the horizon. Is the Sand Fire still raging, I wonder? The trail continues out of the other side of the gully and the heat picks up, but not as bad as it’s been. The air is still cool, which is good because the rest of the climb is switchbacks in full view of the sun. The trail follows just below ridge for a while—craggy cliffs, spiky yuccas and knotted pines hang over the trail. Through the gaps in the rocky ridge it looks like the top of the mountain is covered with shady trees. I want to be there. Finally the trail passes up through a gap and I’m there, out of the barren and in among the trees and plants. The tree cover continues for a while. The trail winds up and down through a series of valleys perpendicular to its northern trend—first it follows a rim as if to go around, then descends along one wall when skirting the valley becomes untenable, climbs diagonally up the other side, then repeats the whole thing through the next valley. The day is getting hot, but manageable. I make good time. I stop for lunch, but otherwise take no breaks until I reach the campground at around three in the afternoon. It is empty: no cars, no people. There are picnic tables underneath rusty pergolas. I drop my backpack at the closest one out of convenience. It won’t provide much shade, but it’s better than sitting in the unfiltered sun. There is a grocery bag hanging from a peg on the side of one of the pergola’s posts, and it looks like there is something solid inside. I go to take a look, and sure enough, there are two beers and two frozen bottles of water. Is this trail magic? I’m not sure. I’m a little worried that someone is going to return to their campsite and find that I’ve plundered their beer, but it seems unlikely. I pop open one of the beers and drink it, then quickly finish the second one too. I read my book for a while. Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami. He’s one of my favorite authors, and usually I completely lose myself in his dark dreamscapes, but today I can’t focus. I reread the same paragraph seven or eight times without retaining a bit of it; my brain is too busy spinning out thoughts. Instead, I stare out at the landscape. There’s a bizarre-looking Joshua Tree right next to the campsite—four trunks in a cluster, each growing at improbable angles like a wind-tube-person at a car dealership. Beyond that there are layers of mountains around a valley to the northwest. I’m looking at a different view of the same valley I saw weeks ago after Lindsey ferried me from Agua Dulce to Walker Pass, and my mind spins forward along the trail to remember a succession of lost friends: Shoes, Zippee, Jim and Danielle, Sprinkler, Earthcake and Goat. It all seems so long ago, but it’s only been a month. I try to read again, and fail again. I am too distracted, with nothing to distract me, and all I can do is stare out and think about how bored I am. I am disappointed with myself—why can’t I just sit still and enjoy the solitude?
After an hour or so, a white pickup truck pulls up. A family gets out. A mom and a young boy, maybe eight or nine years old, walk down to the pit toilets. The dad comes over and offers me a beer. I crack it open as he asks me about the trail, how long I’ve been out, what animals I’ve seen. I’m grateful for the beer and grateful for the company and I tell him about my hike so far. His wife and kid come back and the kid runs off some steam while we chat. Before he leaves, the guy offers me a couple more beers and a bottle of cold water from an ice chest in the back of his truck. I gratefully accept. Within a half hour, I’ve finished the second beer. I’m up to five beers. I try to read again—it’s the only thing to do—but I’m buzzed and more distracted than ever. I stare at the Joshua tree again, for a long while, and it seems like it’s writhing slowly, but there is no wind. I begin to question my sanity. Hours. Now it’s getting dark. Somehow I’m still buzzed. Is Lindsey okay? What if the car broke down? Or maybe she can’t find the campground. There’s no service here, so no way to find out what’s happened. I start to wonder if I should set up my tent to spend the night here. Maybe in the morning I can hitch into a town with service and find out what happened. It gets fully dark, and although I’ve used my headlamp to try and read again I still can’t seem to get beyond a paragraph before my mind wanders off and I’ve forgotten how the paragraph started. It’s frustrating. A car pulls into the campground, driving slowly. I can’t see beyond the headlights, so there’s no way to know if it’s Lindsey. It could be a serial killer. Alone without the ability to contact anyone is a vulnerable feeling. There’s nothing for it except to step into the light when the car comes slowly up around my loop of the campground. The light reflects just enough to tell that it’s our Subaru. I am relieved. Lindsey stops the car, gets out, and gives me a giant hug. It’s only then that I realize how bad I must smell. And we have a long drive ahead. July 28, 2016 Mile 608.9-630.8 21.9 Miles Darkness and shouting. An engine humming. Two—no, three voices shouting in the dark. Two male, one female. Unintelligible voices. Are they drunk? It's two-thirty in the morning. Water attracts life. I’m not sure what else these three humans are up to out here at two thirty in the morning, but certainly they’re collecting water. In truth, their voices are a little like water to me, loud and brash as they are. I haven’t heard a human voice in two days, and only during the brief stop in Tehachapi for the two days before that. I want to rise up out of my tent and cross the campground to them, have a conversation. But there’s a chance that strangers in the desert at two-thirty in the morning might not have the most noble intentions. And besides, it’s two-thirty in the morning. What would I say to them? “Hi, I was just sleeping over there and you woke me up. Do you have any tasty food?” What would I look like to them, dirt-caked and groggy, stumbling into their headlights out of the dark like a phantom? I'd as likely get shot out of fear and shock as not. I just roll over and listen to their shouts in the dark, enjoying the sound of voices and my invisible anonymity in the corner of the woods. In the morning I fill myself with water until I’m bursting at the seams and replenish my bottles. This is a forty-four mile stretch with no reliable water source. In fact, the water report tells me that right now every source from here to Walker Pass is reliably dry. There might be some caches where the PCT intersects dirt roads, but I can't count on them this late in the season. My pack groans under the weight; my hips and the soles of my feet complain louder. It’s going to be a long day. I while away the morning hours inside my head, running over the same ground that I’ve covered nearly every day since I started this trip. Agonizing over my purpose in life, feeling the pain of my regrets, counting my shortcomings. In my better moments, I make promises to myself, set goals, analyze how my shortcomings might be used as strengths. That takes great effort, like channeling a river through a new course, but I can see it is valuable work and I make the effort whenever I remember. Even more difficult is self-forgiveness. It feels wrong, especially when the injury includes someone else. Unkind words spoken out of anger or hurt, broken relationships that I was too young and immature to see my way out of without breaking both of us. At times the mental thrashing becomes so great that it just stops out of sheer fatigue. In those moments I gain something close to peace, and it always surprises me. In those moments I let go of the tangled threads and turn my attention outward, and the great knot inside of me seems to loosen a bit. Today, as the knot loosens and I turn my attention outward, I find myself looking at rows of desert mountains. Not the nothing view of the flatlands, but the first intimations of real mountains—the Sierra Nevada. Scrub and pine are scattered among brassy grasses. I imagine ahead to Walker Pass, where Lindsey dropped me off and I met Shoes. It is simultaneously the future and the past. All this skipping around has me completely scrambled, and I find myself once again letting go of the thread of the trail, the narrative of what my through-hike is supposed to be. Hike your own hike, I think, even if it’s not the hike you expected. I follow one of the ridges on an old dirt road. I can see for miles, but the only evidence that there are other creatures anywhere on the earth are the jet contrails streaked across the sky. The trail drops over the side of the ridge and turns east. A huge valley gapes open below. With my eyes I trace the drainage lines from the northwest and north down and across to where this valley opens into a larger plain to the southeast. The area is enormous and it is difficult to believe that water has carved all this out in a desert that sees rain only a few times a year. I am struck by the massive scale of time that is written here on the face of the earth, and the span of my life seems microscopic in comparison. All my worries and regrets and hurts, as well as my goals and desires, they all seem like the scurrying of an ant in a maelstrom: pointless. My knots loosen a little further. I find more of my consciousness letting go of other concerns and joining in experiencing the present moment. The heat is getting bad, and I start to look for a place to rest and eat some lunch. I might be in ant in a maelstrom, but I can still take care of this body. An old tree is rooted in the slope just above the trail. Its branches are thick like telephone poles and create a half-globe of shady leaves. Under the dome of its canopy I eat lunch and look down on the trail that cuts down through the sandy floor far below, a white line stretching for miles to the east before it disappears around another desert mountain. There is no shade in all those miles, I realize with a sinking in my gut. I am down from seven liters to three and I still have at least 30 miles before the next water source. I consider whether I should stay here in the shade until evening and then hike into the night, but I’m afraid that I’ll be out of water by then, and there’s still a chance that there’s a water cache ahead. I decide to continue. The second I step out from under the canopy the sun reminds me of its strength and superiority. I am starting to feel a little nauseous and beat down. The trail heads downhill and I am grateful for it. It’s a long downhill along the side of the slope. Something flashes in desert floor; probably a mylar balloon. It’s an hour to the desert floor, and then the trail turns over a small hill right before a road crossing. When I crest it a wave of relief washes over my body. There, in the bushes next to the road, are fifty gallon-sized jugs of water. Filled to capacity and heavy again, I start the blazing trudge along the desert floor. I am carrying a chrome-dome umbrella, silver above and black below, that blocks the direct sunlight, but the reflection from the sand is almost as hot and almost as blinding. I am squinting through my sunglasses and a sharp headache starts to form in my temples. When the path is straight and smooth, I close my eyes and hike blind for several steps at a time for a little relief. I come across a backpacker resting in a patchy bit of shade under a Joshua tree. The first human I have seen in days. We exchange a few brief words, but he seems groggy and reticent to speak, like he just woke from a nap, and I am out of practice. I wish him luck. Spiny plants. Dried-out grey shrubs. Dismembered remains of Joshuas. And sand—endless sand that shifts under my feet with every step and rubs inside my shoes and radiates heat. I am ready to be done with the sand. I climb a long rise with flat desert stretching out away. The farther I can see, the more apparent my isolation becomes. And yet something in the simple difficulty of it all gives me confidence. I start to believe in my self-sufficiency and begin to embrace the brutal heat and intense solitude.
A dirt road and a nature-walk display reveal themselves at the top of the rise. I read about desert tortoises and the Mojave desert. I’m back atop the eastern slope of the Pacific Crest, with views down into the endless flatlands. I search for tortoises, but they elude me. I follow the trail north again, skirting the dirt road for a few more miles, digging my feet up and down the sandy slopes. I check for cell service. None. Walk a half mile, check again. Nothing. It obsesses me. My love of solitude was ephemeral, it appears; all I want now is to call my wife. I finally get a bit of service around the other side of the mountain. I call Lindsey and her voice is an oasis, seeping in and banishing stress I didn’t know I had. We only talk for a couple minutes because service isn’t great and I can see Bird Spring pass, where I plan to camp, a mile or so ahead in a saddle that has wider views. That should mean better service, right? I’ll try to call her after I get there. I hike down to the pass. It has a large mountain to the north, a small hill just to the south, and big views to East and West. This will be incredible at sunset and sunrise. A well-maintained dirt road intersects the trail, and just on the other side are 5-gallon water jugs, arranged like a honeycomb, most of them full. I have a couple liters left, but dinner and breakfast to make and another fifteen miles to hike tomorrow. I feel immense gratitude for the trail angels who keep us hikers safe and hydrated. I set up my tent and then check my phone. No service. What a load of crap. This is the most open spot I’ve been in all day. There should be tons of service! I hike back up the trail a little bit to see if I can catch a little bit. I find one bar, then two, but every time I try to call Lindsey the call fails. I try hiking up to the top of the hill. It’s taller than it looked. Only one bar, and the call fails again. I consider hiking back a mile, but it was a choppy conversation the first time and I’m nervous to hike that far away from my gear. Besides, another mile uphill sounds exhausting. I try to call a few more times, but finally I give up and return to my campsite, my book, and an early dinner. |
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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