July 23, 2016 Mile 517.6-529.3 11.7 miles Two days off, and I’m itching to get back on the trail. The first day was the trip back to the car and a lovely afternoon/evening with my Uncle and Aunt. The second day was a trip back to San Rafael, Lindsey’s parents’ home, so Lindsey could pick up our dog Deuce before she goes home to Santa Maria. We’re driving south on interstate 5, near Tejon Ranch, when Lindsey’s mom calls to tell us that she just heard there’s a huge fire. She thinks it's near where Lindsey is going to drop me off. I check the news on my phone, and she’s right, it looks very close to Agua Dulce. The road to get there is closed. Even if we were to find a way through, it's probably going to be smoky as hell. If the trail has taught me anything so far, it’s to be flexible, so I check the maps for the next place that's likely to be out of the danger zone and out of the smoke. Hikertown and the dreaded aqueduct. Hikers love to complain about the flat monotony of the hike along the LA Aqueduct, but I'm actually looking forward to it. Ever since I did a paper on Roman Polanski’s Chinatown in college, I’ve been fascinated by the history of California water politics. It's also a perfect place to night-hike, or so I've been told. It does seem a little stupid to try to hike this section of the desert in the daytime, especially in late July. I store the PCT water report on my phone—there are a lot of miles between sources, and some of them sound like they’re drying up. I'm going to have to haul a lot of water, just in case. We pass hikertown on a small two-lane highway and go another 5 miles or so to a store where we pick up a couple gallons of water to fill my bottles. Then we drive back and Lindsey pulls over to the side of the road. We embrace as a truck screams by. “I’m going to miss you,” she says. “Me too. I’ll see you in a week, though.” We have planned a week off-trail for her dad’s surprise 70th birthday party and to go to the Outsidelands festival in San Francisco. “You’re just going to hike through the night?” The sun is only a couple hours from the horizon. The air is hot and dry. “We’ll see. I’ll go until I feel tired. I love you.” “I love you too. Be safe out there.” She drives away, and I feel that strange mix of excitement and loneliness that always accompanies a trailhead drop-off. I climb a hill onto private property. To the west a coyote is on a quest of her own, a sepia cutout in a golden field of dry grass. I stop to take a picture, and she stops to look at me. I start moving again, and she resumes too. I check my photo and realize it didn’t turn out. I stop to take another, and she stops too. We are at least 200 yards apart, but she must be able to hear my footsteps. Two lone travelers sizing each other up, each on their own quest. It feels like a spirit animal moment. A gate, then I’m walking along a cul-de-sac. The houses have collected the detritus of decades of mechanical work. A trail blaze at the end of the road marks a small path through the weeds and up to the side of the aqueduct, which forces the trail to a hard right. It’s open here, like a river with steep cement banks. I follow it for about a mile to the east, then cut north on a dirt road that extends in a straight line about as far as the eye can follow it up to the mountains on the horizon. A large black pipe is sunk into an earthwork above the road. I try to follow it for a while, but the footing is uncomfortable and I move back down to the road instead. I am surrounded on all sides by barren desert except for a house with a couple of workshops that I slowly work my way towards. As I pass by, a pack of dogs greets me with exuberant barking through a chain link fence. I imagine droves of hikers coming through here and setting off the dogs every few minutes and I have to wonder what the owners must feel about us. Shortly after, a truck comes down the road. I am a little fearful, out here by myself at dusk. As they approach, they start to slow. Will they kidnap me? Murder me? Beat me to a pulp as a representative of all the PCT hikers that intrude on their desolate lands? The dusk brings out my worst fears. The truck stops beside me. Two tough-looking guys in their thirties stare out at me. I smile as pleasantly as I can, bracing inside for the inevitable hostility. The driver says “you hiking the PCT?” in a gruff voice.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Do you need any water?” My fear deflates like a pierced balloon. “Oh, thanks, but I just got dropped off a couple miles back and I’m completely full.” “Okay then, good luck.” And they speed off down the road, kicking up a plume of dust that I can see for miles. The sun drops through a gap in the mountains like a quarter into a slot. The game begins. Level one: how long can I hike without turning on my headlamp? The long straight road gradually forks and I take the right fork. It joins up with and follows a different section of the aqueduct. This one is underground, covered by flat concrete not much different from a road. The small difference is in the raised boxes that appear every quarter mile or so in the center of the concrete. The dusk deepens. I navigate by light that pales gradually to the cool white of starlight and moonlight. As the world in front of me shrinks to a few feet, the world above me opens wide. The distant lights of a town to the east feel intimately close. The stars are friendly, companionable. The hard concrete of the aqueduct begins to tax my feet, so I move off of it and onto the dirt road beside. I occasionally hear scratching or rustling off the sides of the road, but I am unperturbed. The desert creatures are living their lives, and it is a privilege to experience their rituals. Joshua trees hold pentecostal poses against the midnight blue sky and I feel I am in a holy place. I am surprised to find that hiking at night is not the frightful experience I had imagined it to be. I am peaceful, sufficient to myself. After an hour or two alone with my thoughts and the friendly night-creatures, the sound of an engine slowly surfaces the threshold of awareness. I turn to see headlights in the distance. I move off of the road and onto the aqueduct and continue walking, headlight still off. As the engine crescendoes, I turn again to watch it approach. It is moving fast. I wonder how it is able to keep such speed on a bumpy dirt road. It gets closer, and I wonder what sort of suspension keeps it from bouncing around. It's unnerving to see those headlights bearing down almost right at me in this expanse of darkness. The engine is roaring now and I can hear the distorted music blasting from inside; is that Skynard? With a start, I realize those headlights aren’t going to pass me by; the truck is on the aqueduct! My body registers the thought before my brain, and I am already in motion trying to force my pack, obese with days of food and water, into sufficient momentum to get off the aqueduct in time. The truck closes fifteen feet in the time I accomplish the first step, then another fifteen as I lean into the second. Seconds stretch long but my muscles can't get ahead of them. I hit the bushes in the same instant that the truck speeds by. Dry thorns and branches stick into my legs and I’m still stumbling after the red glow of the taillights fades into darkness. The truck doesn't slow until a quarter mile down the road, where it swerves to avoid the next box in the aqueduct. Alone in the dark again, I step back onto the concrete and brush the thorns and branches off of my pants. I have reached my limits at level one. Level two. I turn my headlamp to the red light setting. I can preserve my night vision and still have the focus of a little extra visibility. My nerves are a little frazzled, and viewing the world in bloody red isn’t helping. The scratching and rustling around me take on more sinister overtones. I steel myself against the dark, rigid and hyperalert. I crunch along the dirt road for a while this way until I hear something moving on the road ahead of me, just beyond my headlamp. The footsteps sound like a big animal, and maybe more than one. I freeze and listen, staring into impenetrable darkness. I turn my headlamp to white, and squint into the darkness. Two sets of eyes burn directly back at me. They are wide-set eyes, like the head of a great beast. My rational mind tells me cow, or maybe bull, but my primitive self is screaming Minotaur! Giant! I shout, and nothing happens. I shout again and stomp on the ground and the animals run a short ways back. I walk forward cautiously, worried that they might charge in fear or self-defense. My advancing light uncovers a fresh cow-turd. It looks like I scared the shit out of one of them. A few more steps, and the eyes burn back at me again. I shout and stomp again, and this time they run at an angle and off the road. I stay to the other side of the road and pass around them, hurrying to avoid another confrontation. Another hour of tense walking takes its toll on my body and my nerves, and I start to look for a place to sleep. It's around one in the morning now, and I’ll need to wake up early if I want to avoid hiking in the hot parts of the day. I finally find a spot nestled behind a couple of bushes off of an oblique junction with another dirt road. I set up in the dark and fall into a restless sleep. An engine roars towards me and I jolt upright in my sleeping bag. Headlights are aimed right at my tent and they're coming fast! “Oh Shit! Look out!” I yell it as loud as I can. I am going to die in this instant, a violent and terrible death. I put my arms up in front of my face in absolute terror, certain that my next moment will be painful and short. The lights swing away and past me down the road, bouncing as they go. I make a note to myself: don’t set up camp right next to an intersection, even on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I try to calm myself and go back to sleep, but it’s a while before my heart slows enough to even think of sleep, and even when I finally nod off, my dreams are full of monsters and violent car accidents.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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