June 25, 2016 Mile 750-766 (+2 to Crabtree Meadow) I’m talking with a recently retired botanist. His trail name is Second Breakfast and we’ve been commiserating on the difficulties of being away from our wives for so long. He doesn’t say how long he’s wanted to hike the PCT, but the hike is his first retirement adventure, and I get the feeling he’s been looking forward to it for a long time. He exudes positive feelings and the altruistic self-confidence of someone who has nothing to prove and just wants to enjoy the company of other people. I like him immediately. We move aside to let Breanna pass us, and I notice she’s wearing a panama hat. It really is distinctive. I hadn’t realized that I had already seen her at Kennedy Meadows and followed her for a short while the day before. When she gets about ten yards in front of us, she turns and asks us if we mind if she hikes with us. Of course we don’t, and so the three of us beat an allegro non troppo down the moderate decline. Breanna learns what I already have about Second Breakfast. When he tells her that he’s a retired botanist and his wife is a biologist she says “That’s two members of the dream team! The group I hiked with before, we were saying that a perfect hiking group would be a botanist, a biologist, a geologist, and a meteorologist.” We pick his brain over the next couple miles. He identifies foxtail pines, columbine, shooting stars. Breanna is right, it’s fun to have a botanist along. She hikes ahead of us and pauses to let us catch up, looking over her shoulder to talk with us. It seems like it must be awkward hiking for her, but I’m glad she doesn’t just disappear down the trail. Second Breakfast and I are talking about my mixed-up plans for finishing California (out at Bishop Pass, jump to Tuolomne Meadows and hike North to Carson Pass, jump back to Bishop Pass to meet my wife and hike to Tuolomne, then jump all the way back to Agua Dulce to hike the missed section to Walker Pass before taking a week off and then jumping back on at Carson Pass), when Breanna turns around and says “I’ve got a trail name for you.” I’m surprised and wondering what it might be. What has already made such a distinct impression that it already deserves naming? Do I have a weird quirk that I’ve never noticed before? Maybe it’s something to do with music—I told her that I used to be a music teacher, and that always seems to be easy pickings for a nickname. I just hope it’s not Mr. Holland. Please don’t let it be Mr. Holland (not that I have anything against Mr. Holland’s Opus, it’s a great movie, it’s just such an obvious choice for a music teacher). “Zigzag.” She says it over her shoulder as we continue hiking. “Why Zigzag?” I ask. “You don’t like it? That’s fine, I’ll keep thinking about it.” I finally get a trail name and I’ve accidentally rejected it in under three seconds. “Wait, but why? What does it mean?” “It’s okay, I’ll come up with something else.” “No, I don’t dislike it, I’m just curious how you came up with it.” “You know, because you have to go jump back and forth between different parts of the trail.” “Oh, okay. Zigzag.” I try it on for size. There are some other associations, of course. Trail switchbacks. Rolling papers. The former is perfect for a through-hiker. Oh, let’s be honest: so is the latter. It might be a little disingenuous for me to self-identify as someone who rolls a mean joint, but people can make whatever assumptions they want. The PCT isn’t a job application. In fact, that might be what I like most about it: that I don’t have to chafe against arbitrary social norms. “Yeah, I like it. Zigzag.” It feels like me. We stop at a large flat campsite with room for at least ten tents for Second Breakfast’s second breakfast. He explains that this is his real breakfast—he just snacks on some granola for first breakfast. It’s time for my oatmeal, too, but even though Breanna doesn’t eat, she stops with us anyway. It’s unspoken, but it feels like the three of us have created a hiking group. Aside from the first week with Lindsey, this is the first time I’ve hiked together with others for more than a few minutes on the PCT. After breakfast, we immediately start a steep climb. Second Breakfast falls behind and tells us to go ahead without him; he’ll catch up. Breanna and I talk on and off throughout the morning about movies, books, music. Her favorite books are “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed. I haven't read either but the O’Brien sounds intriguing and I file it away in my mind. How consumerist this is. It is far easier to talk about what we consume—books, music, movies—than the things we create, even though the latter is far more relevant to who we are as human beings. Perhaps this is because most of what we create tends to be defined by our jobs, which most of us want to avoid thinking about. Or perhaps it’s because what we consume tends to be more common between us, whereas what we create tends to be what distinguishes us from one another. After the first giant climb, we head through a winding downhill section. The trail is steep and filled with roots, so my attention is focused on my next step, and something weird happens. While we’re talking, I see or imagine a swimming pool in the periphery of my vision, there among the trees. It happens several times, and always vanishes when I look up. I shake my head as if to clear my mind. In the afternoon we meet a group of hikers who tell us that they left Kennedy Meadows a week ago but have barely been able to hike because they have been ill. They got sick on their third day out and are just now feeling strong enough to hike again. Since today is my third day out of Kennedy Meadows, this worries me. Breanna and I talk about when to hike Whitney tomorrow. We both just assume that we will hike it together. I like the idea of trying to make a sunrise summit. She’s chagrined by the 2am start, but willing to make it happen. She tells me that she feels bad because she stole me away from Second Breakfast, but I tell her it was just a matter of time before I would have had to leave him to hike faster anyway. A good hiking partner needs to have a similar pace and a compatible personality. Both are important, but pace kills more hiking partnerships than personality ever does. We have another big climb and then a short descent to Whitney Creek. There are close to twenty hikers here, some in the river, some on either shore, all of them new faces. We cross and rest for a bit. A young girl called German videotapes her partner The Swede as he does a dance in the river. They have been videotaping this dance every day, and The Swede is going to combine all of the dances in a mashup for Youtube. Breanna tells me that she joined the dance in Kennedy Meadows with 40 others. He invites others to join him, but the cold snowmelt hurt my feet to cross. Other hikers seem to agree, so he dances on his own.
We make the short climb to Crabtree Meadow, where at least fifty tents are hidden among the trees. Breanna and I set up about halfway down and wander around, talking with other hikers. I give one hiker a pack of Ramen for his wife, who has been sick for a couple days. When did they leave Kennedy Meadows? Five days ago. Now I’m even more worried about getting sick. We turn in before dark and set our alarms for two in the morning.
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June 24, 2016 Mile 725-750 It’s a cool fresh morning as we all pack up together. I slept like a champ. I’m strong and energetic in a way that I only seem to find in the cool, clean air of the mountains. We all depart separately, but the morning is spent leapfrogging one another in detached camaraderie. Maybe this is my group. Maybe we’ll camp together right to the end. Except I’m not continuing through to the end. I still have to jump back and complete the sections I haven’t done. And take a week off. By the time I get back to where I leave off, I’ll be a couple weeks behind them. That sucks. At the first water source, I untie my green bandanna to wipe off the dirty water bag so it doesn’t drip down my Sawyer Squeeze filter and contaminate the clean water. Most of the morning’s group shows up while I’m filtering. I quickly fill up four liters—probably too much, but this part of the Sierra isn’t as flush with water as it will be in a couple days, when we reach Whitney and join up with the John Muir Trail. I’m already learning to plan my water carefully. Too much water, and I have to carry unnecessary weight. At 2.2 lbs per liter, four liters makes a big difference in the feel of my pack and my energy levels throughout the day. Too little water carries the obvious problems that come with dehydration if you don’t have another place to fill up, but even in places with plenty of water it’s a drag to stop and filter every couple miles. Luckily, my momentum stays with me this time, and I quickly put another couple miles behind me. The trail turns east and teases the edge of a long narrow meadow. I want to go explore the meadow and see what I can see, but I also feel the pull of the trail. I’m in a hiking mood, not a wandering mood. I drive on. I start to sneeze, and I blow my nose alongside the trail. I reach back for my green bandanna to wipe off the remnants of my snot rocket. Crap. It’s gone. I must have forgotten it while I was filtering water. Hopefully one of the hikers in my group picked it up and will return it to me when they catch up. The trail crosses directly through the meadow, which curves gently out of view on either end. I start another big climb. Granite abounds again, this time in stacks of rounded yellowish rock. I’m no geologist, but this granite looks older than the glaciated silver granite of higher elevations. Bony trees and logs are sculpted with the deep gouges and gorges of a desert canyon. Desolate and striking. At the top of my climb I see the first hiker in miles. He’s sitting in a gap that opens out to a view of the eastern desert. He’s talking to someone who isn’t there, and I’m confused for a moment. Then it hits me. Cell phone coverage! I haven’t talked to Lindsey since she dropped me off five days ago. I probably won’t talk to her again until I exit Bishop pass in another week or so. I find a place nearby and give her a call. “I didn’t expect to hear from you for another week!” “Yeah, I just found a small spot with service. I miss you.” “I miss you too.” Then she starts asking me to make decisions about my health insurance, which we’ve had to change since I left my job. She’s just trying to make sure I’m safe, and I have left her to deal with everything without me (which is unfair to her, and for which I am grateful), but the rapid-fire with which she describes the problems and the options is overwhelming to the mellowed, decision-free state of mind I’ve settled into over the past few weeks. I’m annoyed, in part because I thought we had already made these decisions, and mostly because I have to bring my mind back into the civilized world. We get into a small tiff. I try to express the zen state of my mind and how I shouldn’t have to deal with these insignificant details. It sounds lame to me as it comes out of my mouth. Lindsey is taken aback by my annoyance and parries with the quite reasonable point that this is stuff that needs to be dealt with. I try a new tack: yeah, but does it have to be the very first thing that we talk about? I haven’t talked to you in days. Lindsey counters: I don’t know when I’ll get to talk to you again, and I just wanted to take care of it so we could talk about other things. I feel misunderstood. She feels unfairly attacked. She’s right of course; we do have to deal with it. And although it takes some effort on my part to concede the point, I get past my hurt feelings and we solve the problem. But the argument puts a strain on the rest of the call. We talk for a little while longer before we hang up, and then I start to worry about the strain this hike might put on our marriage. Before I leave, I feed my Facebook addiction for a bit. Three more hikers, none of whom I have seen before, show up and stick around for the cell coverage. Camel, No Shit, and Zippee haven’t caught up yet. I depart the gap feeling more lonely than when I arrived. In the early afternoon, I stop for lunch in the middle of a long series of wide downhill switchbacks. The soil is gravelly, and stocky trees are spaced out evenly enough to provide long views but still thick enough to block out everything except for the trees themselves. It’s a strange combination that feels both safe and solitary: I am completely isolated and alone, but I can also see far enough to know that there are no imminent threats. After lunch, I hike in solitude for miles. I know there must be many other hikers out here, but I haven’t seen any for hours. I’m starting to feel lonely again when I reach the junction for a water source. A dozen hikers fuss with packs, discuss upcoming features of the trail, and munch from zip lock baggies of various snack foods. I am acknowledged but not necessarily greeted, and one of the hikers points the direction to the stream where I’ll get my water. It’s a flat quarter mile to the stream. Another hiker is just leaving as I arrive, and he tells me where to go to avoid the yellow jackets that are swarming around. I fill up my foldable bucket and carry it back to the junction. Only three hikers are left when I return: Rafiki, Josh, and the hiker who I met at the water source, whose trail name is Seacrest. They are friendly, and a couple miles later I catch up to them again as they are finishing dinner at a trailside campsite. A bold chipmunk harasses us as we eat, hoping to discover or steal a morsel of food. I finish my dinner and tend to some new blisters I’ve developed as they go off a short distance to soak their feet in a nearby stream. I can hear boyish shrieks of delight just past my view as they plunge their feet into the fresh snowmelt. I hurry my dinner and join them. As they depart, Seacrest tells me they’ll probably camp at Chicken Spring lake. That’s still a few miles off and I’m pretty exhausted, but it seems like a good place to aim. The last leg of the day takes me uphill again. I reach a junction with a few hikers saying goodbyes as some of them head down a side trail for a resupply. Only one of them is continuing on—the girl in the distinctive Panama hat that I saw at Kennedy Meadows. I hike the next uphill behind her and she quickly leaves me in the dust. It’s getting close to sundown and I’ve already hit twenty-five miles for the day. A bowl-like meadow tips out to the west, and the trail crosses near the top of the rim. I hike just a short ways up a side trail to the eastern rim—it seems like the view should be spectacular in this light. It doesn’t disappoint. I snap a few pictures and then notice a girl eating dinner nearby. She asks me where I’m planning on camping tonight. “Probably Chicken Spring Lake,” I tell her, “but I might stop sooner. I’m really tired.” “There’s another campsite under that tree if you want.” I think about it for a few seconds. “Yeah, if you don’t mind some company.” The campsite is close to hers, but someone has constructed a small rock wall between the two. Mosquitoes come out as soon as the sun is down, so we both climb into our tents and talk through the wall for while. Her name is Breanna (which I quickly forget and try to remember on and off for the rest of the night), trail name Sprinkler (due to a mishap near the Tehachapi wind farms that I won’t describe), and she’s from Wisconsin (the childhood home of John Muir, she reminds me). We talk for about an hour. I’m enjoying the conversation, but I’m tired and this is the longest continuous conversation I’ve had in weeks so I tell her somewhat abruptly that I need to go to sleep. She seems a little taken aback and I’m immediately worried that I’ve offended her. One of these days I’ll learn to communicate like a human being. It would also be nice to remember people’s names sometimes. But these are worries that I’ve lived with for a long time, and they form no barrier to a rapid descent into sleep.
June 23, 2016 Mile 702-725 I am surprised that I don’t have a hangover after yesterday’s all-day drink-a-thon. When I leave Kennedy Meadows, most of the camp is still asleep, including Jim and Danielle. I hope they catch up later today. A short road walk leads me back to the trail, and then I wander through a meadow. It’s quiet out except for a few bird calls. I’m still close to town, but there is no engine noise or much of anything else. In fact, I suddenly realize only one or two cars passed all day yesterday, despite the fact that the town’s main road ran right next to the porch on which we sat and talked. I pass a campground and a metal box for a trail register. I open it to see who has come through here, not that I’ll recognize any of the names. Inside are two unopened Coors Light. Coors Lights? Coorses Light? I guess this is a case where the adjective comes after the noun, so Coors should be the pluralized word. Coorses Light seems to be both correct and hilarious. I chuckle and look over the register. It’s mostly names that I don't recognize, as expected, but it looks like Zippee came through last night. I decide not to bring the Coorses Light with me. It crosses my mind to just chug one right now, at seven in the morning, just for the freedom from convention, but then I’d be responsible for packing it out, and I don’t think I’ll have room in my bear canister. Besides, it’s Coors Light. A small footbridge crosses a babbling river. If you were to ask me where my love affair with the Sierra began, I’d have to tell you that it was with the water. Somehow, the sound of water in the Sierra is more mellifluous than anywhere else in the world. When, after three or four days in the High Sierra, I invariably receive the gift of apophenia, the voices that I hear just out of reach are elvish, or at least how I imagine elvish voices must sound. The sound of Sierra water is what pulls me out of my blindfolded internal monologue and opens my senses to the magic all around me. The fountains and brooks and rills are the cantus firmus upon which the birdcalls and wind in the trees work their counterpoint. And this little river, singing and chuckling against the rocks, is the opening motif for a symphony—more Mozartian elegance than Beethovenish majesty, but every bit a masterwork. Yeah, it’s fair to say that I’m excited to enter the Sierra Nevada. I pass a couple of male hikers and they pass me over the next few miles of uphill. By midmorning, we have all reached a long meadow, framed from behind by our first snow-capped peak. We exchange photography duties, chat briefly, then depart separately I stop for a snack a little later, and even though I’m by myself, I don’t feel alone. Around lunch time, I come to an arched bridge over a sandy, slow-moving stream. Seven or eight hikers sit nearby: some eat lunch, some filter water, and a few just sit and chat. The heat has steadily risen all morning, so most of the hikers have found spots in the shade. Zippee is here, and I’m surprised to have caught up to her already. I eat lunch and settle into a heat-induced stupor. It feels so nice to just rest here with my shoes off. Everyone else seems to feel the same, because we all linger long after lunch and water are taken care of. Eventually, hikers peel off one at a time and continue on. Each one recedes into the distance for thirty minutes or so before finally disappearing around a curve. A new group of hikers arrives. Their bustle makes me feel lazy, so I finally muster the energy to get up and get going. Granite is more plentiful here, as is the forest. Stripped trees stand like stolid soldiers between suppler pines and firs. I begin to climb. And climb. And climb. Each set of switchbacks zigzags toward a sloped ridge. Just as we approach the ridge and can see the other side, the trail switches back. It continues uphill, but not as quickly as the top of the ridge. The trail switches back again, heads toward the new, higher point along the ridge, teases me with another view over the top, then repeats it all again. At least the view is pretty. I’ve climbed high enough to have a commanding view of this part of the Sierra Nevada. It’s blanketed with dark green forest, with putting green patches of meadow scattered throughout. No lakes yet, but the wide view is still spectacular. On one of the last flat sections of the day, I catch up with Zippee again. We break and chat for a little bit, then start a climb.
“Why don’t you go first,” she says, “I think you’re a little faster than me.” I start out first, and the first few switchbacks are okay, but then the climb starts in earnest. I’m dead, and I feel it in my cells. I have to pull to the side and let Zippee pass. About a half hour later, I catch up to her sitting with two other hikers, setting up for dinner at a campsite. Dapper Dan tells us how he plans to continue on after dinner because he doesn’t want to attract bears. This is standard advice—bears are attracted to cooking smells, and it makes sense to camp somewhere else. But as Zippee points out, someone else is probably going to camp here. There are so many through-hikers coming through the area right now, that wherever we end up camping will probably have been some other hiker’s dinner spot. Dapper Dan laughs and agrees that she's probably right. The other hiker is quiet while he eats. He packs up and leaves with no more than a few words. He seems tired. We all understand; it’s been an intense climb nearly all day. Zippee and I reach the crest at about the same time, and we decide to look for a campsite together. We come upon Camel, who is a small asian female, and her hiking partner No Shit, who got his name by making it over 500 miles without having to take a shit in the woods. Zippee has met them before, but for me it’s the first time. They both stay in their tents to avoid the mosquitoes that have recently emerged, but they are friendly and easy to talk to. Three more hikers arrive a little while later and set up camp with us, bringing our campsite to seven people. We all stay up a little past dark, talking from our tents. I drift off while the conversation continues around me. June 22, 2016
Mile 702-702 (0 Miles) Unlike most of the two-hundred-ish hikers here at Kennedy Meadows, I wasn’t up late dancing and drinking and partying on last night, so I’m wide awake shortly after it gets light out around five a.m. I’m told this place sells pancakes most mornings, but that won’t be until seven, so I laze in my sleeping bag and read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don’t know much about what made this book so famous, but if I were to guess, it would be the fact that the structure seems so much more intricate than most novels of that time period. The way he sets up scenes to reveal small bits of information must have been fresh and novel to audiences at the time. Many current novelists seem to have polished and refined those ideas, and especially made the transitions less clunky, but for a novel written in the 1800s it’s an enjoyable read and I don’t feel like I have to drag myself through it like I do some classics. I’ve actually been fascinated with this idea for some time, and I mull it over for a while: certain ideas spread into the larger culture, and are often absorbed by them so completely that the originator of the idea eventually seems uninspired or unoriginal. The early pioneers of Rock n Roll, for example, are rarely listened to nowadays except by aficionados, and many of their songs seem rather ho-hum compared to the innovations of later times. But those later innovations were tiny compared to the sharp musical break that started Rock n Roll. Similarly, the composer Franz Josef Haydn is rarely considered as great a composer as Mozart or Beethoven, but the most well-known features of the classical style—particularly the sonata-based symphony and string quartets—were really Haydn’s inventions. I suppose the iPod would be another example: MP3 players existed before, but nobody celebrates the inventor of the MP3 like they celebrate Steve Jobs. Over time, we seem to value the apotheosis of an art form over and above the initial creation that made that apotheosis possible. I get up a little before seven to get in line for pancakes. I take my book with me, but I don’t have to pack up today, because I’m not going to hike. Before I started the PCT, there were only a couple places where I really wanted zero days: Kennedy Meadows South and Ashland, Oregon. Ashland, because so many people rave about the food and feel of the town. And Kennedy Meadows South, because of the sense of community and camaraderie among hikers that was expressed in every trail journal I read. There’s no line for pancakes. There are only seven or eight people awake, and most of them are taking care of chores to get ready to start hiking—filling water, packing a tent, repacking a resupply package into their bear canister. The cook asks me whether I want plain, M&M, or blueberry pancakes. I’m tempted to go with M&M pancakes, but I’ve been eating M&Ms every day, and I haven’t gotten much fruit. I opt for the blueberries. I stuff myself with pancakes as the rest of the camp slowly comes alive. Hikers are starting to pick through a dozen hiker boxes on tables alongside the store, which are mostly beat-up shoes and nearly empty canisters of fuel. It seems like it’s all garbage, but I guess you never know what someone might find valuable. I walk back to my tent to check on my stuff and brush my teeth, and pass Jim and Danielle, who have moved and are setting up their tent in a recently vacated spot. I jokingly ask Jim if he’s ready to get started drinking. They tell me they’ll join me in a few minutes. When I return to the porch, it has gotten busy. Along the wall, multi-outlet powerstrips are plugged into one another and spiderweb out into cell phones and battery packs. I look for a place to charge my phone, but every outlet is occupied. Hikers are everywhere, but they all seem engaged in their own conversations with friends they have hiked with for weeks. I overhear one hiker say that he’s been waiting four days for his resupply to show up. Wow, I hope my resupply is here. I take my seat at the far end of the porch and dive back into my book. Jim and Danielle show up a few minutes later with the first six-pack of beer. We sit and chat and get to know each other. They are friendly, kind people. I’m grateful for the company. Around lunchtime, I go into the store to pick up my resupply, if it’s here. I walk in barefoot and grab a bag of potato chips, a gatorade, and another six pack of beer before I walk up to the counter. The man at the counter asks me for my last name and has me sign a clipboard while he walks over to look for my package. I watch him with some trepidation while he searches. It takes him a couple passes through the stack, but he does find it. I stack the other items on top and then lug it all out to the porch. We continue drinking through most of the afternoon. We cheer for hikers who arrive, tell each other stories about teaching and our lives, give each other recommendations—music, movies, books—, and compare experiences through the different sections of trail we have already hiked. Danielle tells me that she and Jim followed my footprints through the overgrown sandy section of trail last night, and how she was calling me Saint Nick for getting them through that section. I wonder briefly if that will be my trail name. As we’re drinking and talking and eating lunch (a veggie burger for me), I notice the other groups around us. I can see at least three hikers reading books by themselves. I strain a little to try to see what they’re reading, of course. There seem to be five or six tight-knit groups of four to six hikers each. Nearly everyone is caucasian, tan, and a little dirt-worn. A few distinguishing characteristics stick out from the mass: a neon yellow shirt, an 80’s-style tank top, a tie-die bandanna. A distinctive white panama is worn by a tall girl sitting on top of a table. She’s the only person on the porch sitting on top of a table. She laughs with her group as someone hands her a bottle of beer. By the evening, I’m starting to feel like I may have monopolized Jim and Danielle’s attention today. I know that I have a tendency to stick with people I feel comfortable with, especially when I’ve been drinking. I hope they haven’t felt stuck talking to me. As it gets dark I’m feeling pretty bloated from the beer, and a little dehydrated. I tell Jim and Danielle that I’m planning on leaving fairly early in the morning, and I hope I see them ahead on the trail. I get their last names so I can look them up on Facebook later, when I have service again, and head off to get some water and go to bed. June 21, 2016 Mile 672-702 I wake about 5am. Last night Zippee asked me when I wake up because she was afraid to disturb me, but I told her I’d be up before sunrise. I think maybe she planned to hike with me, because when I get ready to depart she asks “You’re starting without breakfast?” “Yeah, I usually hike until a little after sunrise and then stop to eat.” I’m not trying to be anti-social, I just figure she’ll catch up when I stop. But maybe it comes off that way. I’m a natural at breaking rapport, and I often don’t notice until later reflection. The trail is still following the eastern edge of the mountains, and I glimpse the lights of small cities in the valley below. A light, dry wind reminds me that I’m still in the desert. I pass three tents in the darkness. The light gradually emerges, and I stop in a clearing next to the trail to make breakfast. Three people pass before I finish boiling water, then another two as I’m mixing it with the oatmeal, then Zippee comes by. I smile and say hi, but she’s guarded. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m avoiding hiking with her. If I want to hike with other people, I’m going to have to learn how to talk and behave around them. I see her again at a water trough, and we talk a little more easily, but we continue hiking separately after we finish filtering. I pass through a forest as the day gets hotter, and a rattlesnake slithers toward me on the trail. It seems unconcerned by my presence and slides off the trail and around me, holding its rattle aloft. I’ve entered a burn area, with a few husks of trees placed across the slopes like tombstones in a cemetery. I slowly climb uphill. At the top of a ridge, I get my first view of true Sierra: snow-capped granite peaks that extend into the distance. Part of me is excited—I love the Sierra like a 6-year-old loves Disneyland—but most of me is hot and tired, and I feel a little guilty that I haven’t hiked the whole way here. I stop near a dirt road and eat lunch with a view. Seventeen miles already, not too bad. At this pace, I might make it to Kennedy Meadows tonight. That would make for my first 30-mile day! I decide to go for it. The trail winds down around a long bare canyon. Only one or two bare trees appear over the next few miles, so I use my umbrella to slough off the worst of the heat. My knees begin to ache on the endless downhill. Near the bottom of the canyon, I find a bit of shade and people napping. A large granite boulder under a tree has a young couple. A trio is stretched out on sleeping pads in the shade of a couple bushes. It’s that part of the afternoon where the world seems to agree it’s too hot to hike, but I just haven’t gotten into the rhythm that everyone else seems to have hit. A water source I was depending on turns out to be dry. I stare at my map in shock. It has to be over 100 degrees, the next source is miles away and I am down to a few ounces of water. I have no idea what to do. A couple nappers rouse themselves nearby. They tell me to head downhill in the wash—the water reemerges in about two hundred yards. I’m relieved. Sure enough, two hundred yards downhill a small stream emerges between the bushes. Several hikers are already here, napping in the shade and snacking on energy bars. After I fill up, I start a long flat section. Pine trees appear again, and clumps of small bushes. Grasshoppers leap and click and rattle ahead of my tromping feet, yellow jackets wind through the air in purposeful paths beyond understanding, and small beetles cling to my clothes one at a time, each lifting off just in time for another to come and take its place. One particularly obnoxious bug seems to enjoy biting my elbows about every forty steps. I swat at one or the other elbow to try to kill the damn thing, and am successful about half the time. I’m hopscotching with a couple. The girl is carrying a silver umbrella just like mine, and I comment on how useful it is in this heat, and the guy jokingly grumbles that she stole it from him. A short while later, the three of us reach a branch of the Kern river. It’s just a small stream here, but it looks ripe for a swim, or at least a sit—it’s only about a foot deep—, and we all strip down to our underwear and jump in. I’m low on energy, which makes it difficult to talk. I’m awkward for a bit, but I try to chat with them anyway. I’m glad I do. They’re friendly and I relax quickly. Jim is on his second through-hike (the first being the Appalachian Trail), and Danielle has just joined him recently, after she finished her school year as a Montessori teacher. As a former teacher myself, I find it easy to talk to them. However, our conversation is interrupted when Danielle jumps up and shouts that there’s a snake in the water. We all jump up and I see the snake coming toward me. I’m trying very hard to get both feet out of the water—a difficult feat in the middle of a river—and it comes right up to my leg and almost seems to sniff it while I’m trying madly to get away from it without hurting myself on the rocks. It turns downstream and slides away through the water. We decide we’ve all had enough of the river and pack up and head on. I hope to see them again at Kennedy Meadows. Despite the snake attack, the river was refreshing, and I feel cooler. I hike into the early evening, out of the river canyon and out into a large basin filled with knee-high bushes and tiny pink star-like flowers. This must be Kennedy Meadows, but I don’t see anything that looks like a town, just an abandoned cabin disintegrating nearby. The town must be behind that rise up ahead. I cross the 700-mile marker and take a picture. I feel guilty again: I missed the 500-mile and 600-mile markers. How does this possibly count for anything? There’s a tradition that the hikers who are relaxing at the Kennedy Meadows Store cheer for arriving hikers to celebrate the end of the desert. How am I going to feel when they cheer and I still have desert to finish? The trail cuts around a hill and down into a sandy wash with tall bushes crowding the trail. It’s difficult to pick out any trail, as footprints go in nearly every direction. I push through and eventually find one of several trails all heading pretty much the way I think I’m supposed to go. I am so tired. All I can think about is the food and beer that is waiting for me at the Kennedy Meadows Store. Plus, there should still be a ton of hikers there. Maybe I’ll find a good hiking partner or even a small group to hike with. A couple pipe gates later I reach a paved road. I turn right. A hiker comes down around the bend. He tells me that today is hike naked day (that’s true, I had just forgotten), and that I’d get some really big cheers if I walked up to the store naked. I laugh and consider it, but I’m not really one to try to draw a lot of attention, and I don’t know much about this town. I don’t want to piss off a bunch of locals or get in trouble with a police officer hanging around. I decide against it.
It’s another quarter mile to the store, uphill on asphalt which seems much harder on my tired, blistered feet. I turn a corner and there are people everywhere. A large patio area has at least forty hikers. Twenty more are milling about between the store and the 15 port-a-potties that frame a dirt lot. I can see a TeePee and at least thirty tents in the trees behind the store, and it looks like they go back a lot further than that. I hike up the dirt lot toward the patio, expecting the congratulatory cheer, and nothing happens. Nobody notices that I’m here. Perhaps that’s as it should be. Maybe I don’t deserve accolades for finishing the desert, since I haven’t actually finished the desert. Still, I’m a little sad. When I do finish the desert later, there won’t be anyone around to congratulate me, and this moment is a moment I’ve dreamed about. Worse yet, the store is closed. There will be no hearty meal or beer tonight. But I’m also proud—I hiked 30 miles today. That’s no small feat, especially with the blisters and the heat. I find a campsite near the back of the lot, next to a dirt road. Nearly every possible space is filled with a tent. I set up, and Jim and Danielle show up while I’m cooking dinner and they take a spot across the dirt road from me. We agree to grab a beer together the next day. I go to sleep to the sound of noisy reveling hikers, but I sleep straight through the night with no problems—I’m completely spent. 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. |
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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