July 27, 2016 588.2-608.9 20.7 Miles Awake before dawn, and already a thick clay odor like the soil is baking. Skin sticking to nylon, remnants of a long-evaporated sweat. Guzzle water, but wetness barely grazes the mouth and only as it passes; all is sandpaper and paste a moment later. I am dried out to the cell. A throbbing headache constrains my motion, but I force myself up and begin packing. This is as cool as the day is going to get. Hiking moves blood and water around to depetrify tissues slowly. Stiff muscles warm and relax, tongue and throat moisten, the dull aching in my head subsides. I gradually emerge from a zombie plod into a living stroll. The constricted half-meter square in front of my feet dissolves into the boundless half-light pre-dawn desert. Windmills spin whimsically in the rising light like pinwheels in a row. Stars twinkle out like birthday candles granting wishes. I awaken to my place in the world, here, now. This alive presence is only temporary, but it is the reason I come out here. Unlike the routine, repetitive days in civilization that are easily forgotten, out here every day counts. When I return to that other world months from now, this will be a reminder of what life can be and a caution against mindlessness. Can I bring this feeling back to the city? To a house? To a job? The sun comes up and with it, it seems, another ten degrees. I follow a dirt road for miles through scrub brush and manzanita. It winds up, down, and around hills aimlessly and endlessly. I can never see very far ahead because the manzanita reaches above my head, but it seems like the sun finds its way to zenith almost immediately and stays there most of the day, so the high bushes bring no benefit of shade. In the afternoon I pass a small cabin off the side of the dirt road. It looks lived in, but there is no one to be seen. It serves primarily as a reminder that I have not seen a living soul since the bus driver dropped me at the trailhead yesterday. A few minutes later I pass rocks arranged in the dirt to mark mile 600. I wonder how many miles I’ve actually hiked at this point. I've skipped around so often that I can't keep track. I feel a pang of guilt that I haven’t yet hiked past the 500-mile marker, and due to the fire, I probably won’t this season (in fact, it will be almost two years before I finally pass that milestone) Two more miles brings me to a spur trail to my next water source—Robin Bird Spring. It's late afternoon now, but I didn’t want to stop for lunch before I got to water. If this is dry, I still have a liter and a half. It probably won't be enough to get me to the next one without a few waterless miles, but I probably won't die. As I approach the first greenery that I have seen in days, a blur of sandy fur races toward me. Before I can make sense of what I see, wings explode up and away, and the streak pulls up short. A bobcat has just barely missed her prey—a gray dove—possibly because I startled her mid-attack. The prey is forgotten. The bobcat watches me warily for a moment, then scurries away to a safe distance. She's a beautiful, powerful creature, sculpted with muscle and sinew. My wits return after a moment and I scramble to take a picture with my phone as she watches me from tall grasses. The camera is insufficient and only captures a couple pixels of her before she darts away again, out of sight. The spring is flowing freely and it only takes me a few seconds to fill my water bag this time. I filter and drink deliciously cold water while I sit in the shade of a large tree. I soak my bandanna and wash my face, then soak it again and lay it around my neck. It’s such a relief from the heat that my eyes begin to water. I stay for close to an hour, eating lunch, splashing water on myself, and cautiously watching the brush in case of the bobcat’s return. Is this what it would be like, I wonder, not for the first time, if I were the last human on the earth? The early evening brings more trees and relief from the heat. I pass several seasonal water sources, all bone dry, and a few barbed-wire fences, each of which has a trail register. I check and find Goat, Earthcake, Sprinkler, and a variety of even more temporary friends who I have met along the way. It strengthens me, finding the names of friends here. I hike faster as if it will help me to catch up to them. It won’t, of course: those friends are long gone, and in a couple days I will take a week away from the trail.
In the evening I take another spur trail to a final water source and an empty campground. The water is flowing heavily into a trough. I fill up and then find a campsite on the fringes, nestled between trees. I prepare a Knorr's side for dinner and then climb into my tent just as dusk begins to fall.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Author
Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
Categories |