September 14, 2016 Mile 1981.2-2002.4 21.2 Miles Last night we called a trail angel in the area to see if we could get a ride back to the trail. She wanted to pick us up early, so we got breakfast at a small bakery-cafe close to the hotel, and now we’re in her little Toyota, riding back up hairpin curves to the Dee Wright Observatory. Her name is Blanche, and she is 72 years old. “My children don’t like it when I go out backpacking for three weeks at a time,” she says. “They think I’m going to get hurt. But I tell them I’d rather be living and hurt then sitting at home watching TV.” This woman is awesome. “I’ve hiked most of the Oregon part of the PCT,” she continues, “I’d like to do some of California next, but I probably won’t finish the whole thing. But who knows. I think hiking keeps me healthy. I think I’ve got a lot of years left.” I used to direct church choirs full of grandmothers, and I’m no stranger to the unexpected force of old ladies, especially the little ones, but this woman is at a completely different level. She probably only stands about five foot two, but you can feel the confidence and power emanating from her. She’s as nice as can be, but something tells me this is not a woman you want to underestimate or—god forbid—piss off. When she drops us off at the trail, I wish we had more time to hear her stories. I want her to adopt me as her grandson and teach me how to live. It seems so abrupt, going from lively conversation to this rugged, silent moonscape. When her little car gets turned around and drives off, the last sounds of civilization fade with her gurgling engine and we’re left with no sounds but wind and the crunch of the gravel under our feet. We take a second to get our packs situated, then we walk out into the ocean of lava rock. The trail is in a channel of the stuff, and often we can’t see beyond an arm’s reach to either side. Only occasionally do we climb out of the channel and get a view of the lava fields. After a mile or two, we do finally climb out of the channel. We’ve been climbing gradually uphill. Every once in a while we’ll pass an island of dirt and trees. They look like they would be the only possibility of a campsite in this ten-mile stretch of sharp lava, though I can’t see any impacted ground from where we’re standing. My ankles are exhausted at the end of the second mile. By the fourth, they’re burning. My brain is tired, too. I have to focus on every step, so I don’t step wrong and twist an ankle. Even so, sometimes my trailing foot catches a sharp rock and flips it up against my other ankle. This is a special hiker hell. A side trail goes a short way to a cinder cone, but I have no interest in spending more time on this terrain. I push on. Finally I reach soft, blessed dirt, and I’ve never been so grateful. As far as I know, the Buddha didn’t have much to say about gratitude, but it seems to me to be the exact opposite of craving. Metta, what is often called loving-kindness in the west, has a similar effect—it melts craving away. When I hear self-help gurus talk about the importance of gratitude it can feel disingenuous, especially when paired with words like “manifest” or “abundance”. Gratitude for the sake of manifesting more into your life is a complete sham. At its core it’s just another form of craving, and so it’s not really gratitude at all. Not to mention that it’s all bullshit. As I hike on this softer ground, I start to wonder whether what I feel is actually gratitude, or just relief. Real gratitude: this feeling of aliveness and peace that I feel when I am outside, even when lava rock is straining and stabbing my ankles. Perhaps gratitude is the wrong word altogether. Maybe the Buddha had it right—I feel loving and kind toward everything and everyone when I’m out here. I feel expansive. This is true abundance, though I carry almost nothing with me. The ground is soft, but the forest has been decimated by a fire. Dead trees are everywhere, scarred and scattered like an army in some terrible battle. But there is life, too. Small saplings emerge from between the fallen soldiers. Garlands of flowers adorn their bodies. The wind has disappeared without my noticing, and the sun is beginning to beat down. I’m taking it all in when a naked man walks around a turn in the trail. He sees me, quickly takes off his straw hat, and covers himself with it. “How’s your hike?” he asks as he passes by. “Not as good as yours,” I laugh. I decide to plug in to some music: Sufjan Stevens’ electropop album The Age of Adz. It’s one of my all-time favorites, a trance-inducing, intimate hero’s journey based on the apocalyptic artwork of a schizophrenic man. Stevens’ mother was schizophrenic, and you can hear raw anger, pleading, and tenderness throughout the album as he reflects on that. The album makes heavy use of synthesizer, treats the autotune like an instrument in its own right, and layers minimalist structures so deeply that you can listen to the album a hundred times and still hear something new every time. And I’ve never listened to it like this. There is nothing to distract me out here, and I can turn my full attention to the music. Unlike most times when I listen on the trail, I decide to use both earbuds—I haven’t seen a rattlesnake in weeks, and the music is in stereo, which demands both ears. From the first song, I realize what a mistake it is that I’ve never listened to this with headphones before. The trail crosses a paved road. There are quite a lot of cars coming through here; I can see why the map said we should use this road to hitch into Sisters. On the other side, there is a parking area with picnic tables and pit toilets. I stop for lunch and to let Roadside catch up. It feels nice to sit, I’ve been low energy this afternoon. After lunch, we start an uphill climb. My energy is better, and I enjoyed the first listen of Age of Adz so much that I decide to listen again. The forest is still decimated by fire, but there are even more wildflowers—purples and pinks and yellows clustered in perfect little bouquets. We pass the 2000-mile marker. Only 650 miles to go! I find a campsite about 6, and Roadside is right behind. As we sit crosslegged on the ground, scraping dinner out of our pots, I decide it’s time to learn a little more about my hiking partner.
“Tell me about your family.” “Okay, well, I never really knew my dad, and my mom died when I was twenty.” I’m stunned. “Oh wow,” I say. “That must have been so hard.” “You do what you have to do,” he says. I have no idea what that means. I don’t ask, and he doesn’t offer any more. I go in a different direction and we talk about lighter things. Music, tv, things that don’t take too much effort and don’t expose wounds. Somehow we get around to pot, and it comes up that I was born on 4/20. Then, for the first time since I’ve known him, he offers a piece of information about himself without being asked: “I was born on December 25th.” It’s curious, the way he says December 25th instead of Christmas. But I quickly move past that and wonder how a birthday on Christmas day affects someone’s self-image. Does that make him feel special or overlooked? Or is it all the same to him? I respond with acknowledgement but nothing more to offer, and then we sit there in silence for a minute. “Okay, I’m going to bed,” he says. “Sounds good. 5:30?” “Yeah.” “Okay, good night.”
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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