September 11, 2016 Mile 1923.8-1961.5 28.7 Miles My dreams are filled with trees. My waking life is filled with trees. Trees, trees, trees. Every one of them different, every one of them essentially the same. I am sick to death of trees. Give me a view! As we walk through the trees, I am struck by the strangeness of life. Animals are born with very little structural variation. A human has one head, and with rare exceptions, two arms and two legs. Whatever variations we have are relatively small. A tree, on the other hand, has infinite variations, and many of them are rather large. Its branches and roots can vary in number, shape, and size. It can even have two trunks! It seems to me that a tree has a fundamentally different DNA algorithm than a human. It can change the structure of the tree based on the environment it finds itself in. A human’s DNA algorithm, on the other hand, is much less flexible in creating the structure, but it leads the human to be far more adaptable in other ways, like inventing an umbrella and choosing to use it only when it rains. We are still in tree limbo for much of the morning. At one point the forest spreads out a little and we can see farther, but the only thing that farther away lets us see is more trees. Many of them are draped in Spanish moss, a pale goblin green that hangs lazily over everything like Dali’s clocks. There are a few lakes, but it’s all much the same as yesterday. At one point I pass a small pond called Island Lake. The eponymous island is a round hump that reminds me of the giant turtle in The Neverending Story. In a couple of days, a couple friends of mine will come to this exact lake on their way back from Burning Man. When they post pictures of it on Facebook, I’ll recognize it immediately. By 11am, we’ve done 17 miles. The Oregon terrain is easy that way. There’s a burn area with a view to the east, and it has service. We’re making good time, so we decide to do a mile long side trip to Elk Lake Lodge. I stay at the junction to talk to Lindsey for a few minutes while Roadside goes ahead, but the call drops after a few minutes and I hurry down after him. I catch up right before we get to the restaurant. There are cars everywhere. People, too. I’ve lost track of the days of the week, but I’m certain it’s got to be a weekend and this is a popular brunch spot (when I check my phone at the restaurant, it turns out today is Sunday). There are families and groups of friends. There’s a short wait at the restaurant. It’s cool enough that we decide to sit inside. There’s a longer wait for the patio, and the restaurant has big windows so we can look out on the lake. The view is a relief. It’s nice to be out of the trees, if only for a little while. At the bar, PBR and another hiker sit watching football on TV. They’re rooting for the Seahawks intently and I gather they’re both from the Seattle area, though I don’t think they knew each other before the hike. Possibly even before today. I’m envious of the instant rapport that sports can create between fans, but I’ve never been all that interested. Roadside has a little crush on one of the waitresses, an athletic brunette. She’s not our server—that’s the bartender—, but we’re seated close to the entry of the kitchen so she walks by often during our meal. It suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t seen many female northbound hikers since the Sierra. In Southern California they outnumbered the men, but now they’re rare. I wonder why that is. The first explanation that comes to mind, that many of them quit, doesn’t seem right. Women are better adapted for endurance, and besides, I’ve seen plenty of them finishing the trail on instagram. That brings to mind a different theory—perhaps they’re just better planners. They’ve finished the trail already, or are up in Washington about to finish. Maybe I saw more women in Southern California and the Sierras because I was skipping around the trail. Now, I’m behind the pack, so the people who are left are those who have been taking their time (or, like me, got a late start). This seems to fit better with another piece of evidence—most of the thru-hikers remaining are young, in their early twenties. Less likely to be worried about the coming winter. I haven’t seen another thru-hiker in their thirties for weeks. When we leave, a couple with a young kid is waiting for a table outside. While we’re packing away some snacks we bought for later, they ask us questions about thru-hiking. All the questions that we’re used to: How do you filter water? Where do you get your food? How many miles are you hiking every day? Do you worry about bears? They express admiration, even a little envy. It puts a spring in our step as we head back up the trail. The climb back up to the trail passes in a flash, and soon we are back in the trees. They seem to be getting shorter. That means there’s more sky and sunlight to enjoy. After three days spent almost entirely in the trees, it’s like someone has lifted a weight off of me. And then the terrain changes completely. We find ourselves on a pumice plain, battered by a chill wind that rose up suddenly from the west. A wide, squat mountain that resembles a purple quarry heap dominates the view ahead. It is South Sister, one of a trio of closely spaced volcanos. In 2000, the US Geological Survey discovered tectonic uplift, a potential precursor of an eruption. Of course, tectonic movement is slow until it isn’t, so it could be another two thousand years before it blows, or it could be tonight. I’m going to hope for another two thousand years, since we’ll have to camp soon. We can see two other hikers across the plain, but they disappear out of sight into some dip of the land that is invisible from where we are. Another pair of hikers pop up from a different hidden seam. As they pass us I can tell they aren’t thru-hikers. They don’t have that gaunt, weathered look, and they’re too clean. We don’t stop to talk—the wind is brutal and we all just want to get past it, back into the trees. I can’t believe it—almost the first moment out of the trees, and I want to be back in. We humans sure are good at being discontented in all situations.
I haven’t noticed much in the way of altitude change, but as we get closer to the mountain, it starts to seem as if we are on a high mountain plateau, an effect that’s reinforced by the wind and the scoured land. The top of the mountain doesn’t look all that far away. If we weren’t racing winter, a side trip to the peak would be completely reasonable, or at least it seems that way from here. Mountains have a way of defying expectations about the nearness of their peaks. The lack of comparative features at the top and the tapering to the top creates an optical illusion that makes it seem like peak is much closer than it is. There’s also a tendency for the tops of mountains to be much steeper and covered in scree, both of which slow the pace to a stumbling crawl. A side trip would probably take much longer than I expect. We make a slight climb to a ridge with tall firs, and a wooded valley drops away to our left and drains westward. The trail skirts it and then plunges inside the eastern side, then climbs back out to the north. It’s another complete change of terrain, as unexpected as any we have seen so far. Will all of Oregon be like this? As we come up over the northern lip of the canyon, we see a small pond with no outlet at the bottom of a deep round basin. Tall trees line the upper edges of the basin—they are thrashing in the wind. It looks protected down there. It might be the last, best chance we have for a campsite out of the wind. We decide to take it. Dinner is a cold, hurried affair, but we are grateful to have the worst of the wind passing above us. From the looks of the writhing trees, it could be much worse. We could be worrying about the structural integrity of our tents, chasing pieces of gear, and bracing every few seconds to keep from getting knocked over. Down here I may be cold, but I’m removed from the violent whipping so I can watch the trees dance—they make the wind visible. I can see individual gusts race across the wall of pine needles like a shock wave, then the reverberations as the branches spring back into place. There’s something peaceful in the midst of all this violence, but only because I am removed from it. I’ve noticed something similar in my own mind recently. All of the emotional and physical thrashing that my human body does, I am able to look at as if detached from it. Hunger, fear, tiredness, soreness, worrying what people think of me—all of these things are still present, but it feels like I’m separate from them. I’m looking at them from a place of peace and protection, as if I'm watching through a window. As we climb into our tents, I start to wonder whether I’ll be able to keep this detachment when I return to civilized life, or if it’s something that I’ll only get to experience on the trail. I certainly hope I can keep it.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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