September 28, 2016 Mile 2314.6-2344.5 29.9 Miles The days have crept their steady crawl, and winter may pounce at any moment. Only luck has kept our hike alive; in previous years, hiking season has ended as early as September 1st, when an early storm has made the Washington Cascades impassable without specialized equipment. No accounts have recommended planning a hike lasting past the fifteenth, and now we are creeping toward October. If the weather holds and we can hold our 25-mile-per-day pace, we should finish in 14 days. I don’t doubt the pace, but the weather worries me. This morning it is cold, colder than it has been until now. The anaerobic chemistry repairing my muscles overnight has kept me warm enough in my sleeping bag, but when I pack up, not enough blood can flow into my fingers to keep them nimble. I operate like a backhoe, a stiff claw scooping and stuffing items into the open pit of my backpack. The land is leopard-print with tiny lakes this morning. I wonder what geologic process has speckled the earth this way. In the early dark, they reflect starlight and fairy dust. As daylight encroaches, the sky blushes and the ponds fill with rosé. Birds call quietly, perhaps in warning of our rough footsteps. This morning we mount an ascent toward Chinook pass. I remember my father’s sturdy white kayak, called a Chinook. Both are named for the native tribe that helped the Lewis and Clark party survive the winters of 1805 and 1806. It would be nice to have some of that magic right now. The pass has pit toilets, and they look new, and like they have been cleaned recently. It seems silly to be this excited about clean pit toilets, but this is our life now. We use the cinder-block walls of the toilets as backrests while we make our breakfast and gaze out over the valley below. People drive up a road in cars look at us askance, but who cares? There are no other backrests around, and there’s nothing unclean about our choice of breakfast spots, despite the associations people carry around. We can see the road wind down the mountain for four or five miles. I wonder what towns this pass connects. It’s strange to be on the edge of civilization and yet so disconnected from it. A couple hikers come through while we’re eating. They are tall, strong young men who look like they should be on the Yale rowing team, not like dirty nomads who have been starving themselves for months. They speak confidently about the pass ahead, with perhaps a touch of arrogance. They are friendly, but I feel inadequate in comparison. Where does that feeling come from? If I had their physical stature, it would give me nothing more that I don’t already have. I might gain additional respect from people who care about such things, but are those the people whose esteem I crave? A half hour later, Roadside and I catch up to them on the way up the mountain. They are pausing every few steps, huffing and sweating. We stroll past easily and wish them a good hike. I wonder, too, about this other feeling, not entirely kind, that puffs out my chest as we stop at the top of the pass and look back to see them far below. What is it that makes us feel the need to compare ourselves to others? I have no need to compete for territory or a mate, there is no survival or replication advantage that I gain by hiking faster than these two men who I have never met before and will probably never meet again. Nor did I stand to lose something if they had outhiked me. Is it hardwired into us? It seems to be a primarily masculine affliction, this drive to competition, although I see women engage in different versions of the same. Whether hardwired or learned, it does seem to ease when I recognize it for what it is: ego. It’s a story I tell myself about myself, a meme that I can release by telling myself a different story, creating a different meme. Hike your own hike. It means many things, but first and foremost, it means to release the stories about status or glory and hike in a way that makes me fundamentally happy. It makes me realize that genuine happiness and concerns about status seem to be fundamentally opposed. Strangely, as I recognize my own ego and choose this new story, I notice another layer of pride emerge—pride that I am able to recognize my own ego, and that I am somehow better than other people for my ‘enlightenment’. I release that, and then notice another layer of the exact same. Perhaps it is hardwired. I turn my attention out, toward the landscape. I am hiking through a series of lake basins framed by pastel cliffs. Greens and golds paint the rock walls and spill into the reflected surfaces of the lakes. They are unexpected hues, august and regal. The autumn air has a dignified quietude that softens my knotted pride. I am humbled before the earth. We stop for lunch, then continue through a long section of easy climbs and descents. Roadside falls back a ways. I continue to examine and try to escape my ego and status roles for most of the afternoon, but each time ends in failure unless I turn my attention to the landscape. Ego always sneaks back in, but I get a temporary reprieve each time I look outward, and it seems like I am able to do so a little longer each time. In the early evening I wind down to arrive at the Mike Ulrich cabin. It is a wooden cabin open to all, situated in the trees on the edge of a meadow. Unnaturally white tule fog blankets the meadow and creeps slowly downhill, but dissipates as soon as it reaches the clearing. On the front porch of the cabin, two fifty-gallon trash bags overflow with garbage. A few beer cans and other scraps of paper are scattered about in the dirt. Under the trees, the vegetation has been cleared and the ground crushed by heavy equipment as far back as I can see. It is a truly ugly place in the middle of a vast sea of beauty. Roadside and I plan to camp here tonight.
I climb the stairs and open the wide heavy door. A fire is blazing in a deep-set fireplace in the back wall and I can barely make out the silhouettes of people in the dark. Voices greet me, both male and female. They seem familiar to each other, engaging in the sort of easy ribbing and playful insults of long-standing friends. As my eyes adjust, I can make out six of them around a thick wood table and benches, four male, two female. Some backpacks are leaned against the walls, and I set mine there too. On the other wall is a ladder leading up to a sleeping platform above. The room is warm and stuffy. “Hey, I’m Zigzag. You guys northbound?” “Hey Zigzag,” one of the guys says. Yeah, we’re all northbound.” He introduces himself, then they go around the table, but the names come too fast for me to remember and I’m struggling to make out faces. “My hiking partner Roadside should be here any minute.” “Cool, man. Pull up a seat. You want a hit?” Roadside shows up a couple minutes later and we go through the same ritual of introductions. A couple of guys get up and go outside. Every time the door opens, the light is blinding. For dinner, each of us cooks something different on our individual camp stoves. The conversation is noisy and filled with laughter, but Roadside and I are mostly left out their conversation. I try to ask them questions, but each time it seems like an interruption and I feel like an outsider. The loudness is jarring to me and makes me feel even more isolated. It is clear that this group has been hiking together for a long time. Roadside and I aren’t unwelcome, we’re just extraneous. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the way things are. The guy who first welcomed me is coming around with a pot and offering a little to each person. He asks if I want some. “What is it?” “Wild mushrooms.” and then he offers the scientific name. It’s dangerous to eat wild mushrooms. Some of them can permanently destroy your liver with a single bite. Some of them can kill you in a matter of hours. Lots of others can make you so sick you want to die. “Sure! Thanks.” He knows the scientific name. That sounds to me like he knows what he’s talking about. I’m not especially afraid of death, but I’m definitely afraid of not living. The mushrooms are tasty, but they aren’t the wild flavor I was expecting. Honestly, they don’t taste all that different from the white mushrooms at the supermarket. I sure hope they don’t kill us all. After dinner, Roadside and I convene briefly about sleeping. We had planned to stay in the cabin, but it’s so hot in here, and so noisy, and the group seems so far away from sleep, that we decide to find a place to camp outside. We wish them a good night and find a place close to the meadow, under the trees. The nearby tule fog creeps down toward us and reaches out tendrils between the trees. It looks like something out of a horror movie, and yet I feel nothing but relief in the cold dark quiet.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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