Saturday, May 7, 2016 All the other backpackers are still sleeping in their tents when I depart at 6am. Overcast skies. A cool earthy smell from recent rain gives the morning a laid-back feeling. It’s a good morning for walking quietly alone. My knees hurt, so I am slow and careful as I walk downhill across the campground. Every time I forget and switch to autopilot, a painful twinge reminds me to step more carefully. The Halfmile alternate leaves the campground through the back, tracing a small gulley heading North. After three-quarters of a mile I reach a junction: straight or left. I’ve somehow forgotten the maps for this section, so I check the Guthooks PCT app on my phone to see which direction to go. It doesn’t load properly. Neither does the Halfmile app. I take my best guess and go straight ahead. The trail follows the gulley, cuts across it, and a mile later I'm at a vertical fiberglass marker that says “illegal trail”. Crap, I must have taken a wrong turn. I look closer, and it also says “Motor Vehicles Prohibited”. Maybe they mean it’s illegal for off-road vehicles. I decide to take a chance and check it out; I don’t really want to hike another mile back. The trail turns again, and I come across a small memorial built of rocks, pine cones, and flowers. A small bit of motorcycle helmet, too. I wonder if this was a dirt biking accident, and the next bit of hiking is spent thinking about mortality. I tend to think about it a lot anyway. It’s so easy to just disappear off the earth. An accident of health or something physical like this dirt bike accident, war, murder, drowning. There are so many ways to go, and no real rhyme or reason to it. It seems like most people avoid thinking about it most of the time, or find ways to explain it away. The religions give us afterlife or reincarnation, but to me, these are beside the point. Even if those ideas are true, it doesn’t excuse us from the need to do something with this life. After all, what’s the point of a second life if you didn’t do anything with the first? And often, people who orient themselves around the next world are selfishly irresponsible about this one. They impose their beliefs on others, trash the world, and make excuses for not taking action during times of moral crisis by calling it “all part of God’s plan.” Well, what if God’s plan is that we take some moral responsibility and actually do something about the horrible things that are happening in the world instead of assuming everything is going to work out in the end? These are the thoughts that are running through my head as, step by painful step, I work my way further into what is starting to look more like a burn area. I’m just about to turn around, when I reach another junction. I take out my phone, and sure enough, I am nowhere near where I should be. Luckily, someone has written PCT in the dirt, with an arrow pointing to the small trail on my left. The trail is eroded, but it clearly heads in the direction where I now know the trail to be. I head out through wild, unkempt lands, surrounded by charred tree trunks and millions of wildflowers. Hundreds of birds flit between shrubs and leafless branches. Despite the fire damage, it is disarmingly beautiful. It banishes any trace of negativity and I lose myself to the birds. This is magic. I emerge onto a dirt road. Signs on either side of the road tell me to stick to the road and keep out of this burn area. I feel badly, despite the sublime experience I’ve just had. The Guthooks app tells me that I am back on the alternate trail. The road climbs uphill for a long while. This is harder on my sore muscles, but much easier on my knees. Eventually, I reach a network of paved roads passing through a cabin community, and I am spilled out onto a highway, which will take me the rest of the way to town. A pickup truck stops. The driver is a guy in his late twenties wearing acid-washed jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut away. He asks if I want a ride, and this time I don’t refuse. My knees hurt, and I didn’t come out here to walk on paved roads. It’s farther to town than I imagined. We talk about Northern Arizona University, where we both went to school, because I noticed a sticker on his back window. He tells me about his experience with Idyllwild, that he moved away because of all the drama, but he missed home and now he’s back and things are better. He doesn’t tell me what the drama was, but the way he talks about it, it seems to hint at a broken relationship. He drops me off at Jan’s Red Kettle, a restaurant that Yogi’s guidebook tells me is a favorite among hikers. I thank him and offer him a little money for the ride. He refuses. I leave my pack outside with several others, a little nervous to leave so much equipment sitting unsupervised. Inside, I order two breakfasts even though it’s almost lunchtime, and I finish them both. I read my book and check Facebook on my phone. I’ve really only been away for a day, but it feels like it’s already been weeks. The PCT is working some strange magic—it feels as if there was no break between the sections of my hike, and the hiker hunger, loneliness, and physical toll have all come at once. I am tempted to stick around town for a while, but I know I had to get moving. Miles to go before I sleep, and all that. I follow the Guthooks app through side streets and up a steep empty trail until I find the parking area for the Devil’s slide trail. Suddenly, people are everywhere. I climb in short spurts, stepping off to the side for thick swarms of people, and I’m glad to catch my breath. I am now firmly out of the desert, and deep into a pine forest. A dusting of snow lines the trail. Then it thickens and covers the ground. I climb for hours, more and more tired as I go. My knees are doing better since brunch, but it might just be the endorphins. The turnoff for the Mt. San Jacinto arrives, and I take it. The forest drops away, and thick thorny bushes replace it. The bushes create a narrow corridor that can only fit one person at a time, so we all have to take turns moving from one open spot to the next, and my progress is slow. The trail gets steeper, and soon I am stopping after every few steps. I just don’t have the energy. But I keep on until finally, about 4pm, I make it to the top, 10,834 ft. Unfortunately, the weather has conspired against me, and the only view I have is the inside of a cloud. I take a short selfie video, and that’s all the time I have to rest. Brian is probably already waiting for me at Fuller Ridge, and I still have a long way to go. On my way down, I find myself packed in between a large group of hispanic hikers, about 30 in all. The one in front of me doesn’t realize I’m there, and starts speaking to me in Spanish, thinking I’m his friend, who is behind me. When neither of us answer, he turns around and is surprised to see my face. I pass them when they break together in a flat, snowy area. This side of the mountain has a lot more snow. Much of it is in small, icy hills that lay across the trail, and I find myself slipping often on the downhill side. This is hard on my knees. One time in particular, near the end of the day, my right knee buckles under me, I cry out in pain, and I am limping for the next couple miles. My hips, too, feel like they’ve been taken to the limit. I finally reach Fuller Ridge just before dark. Several tents are around, but Brian is nowhere to be seen. I hike a little farther, to a road. There is no cell service here. I sit down on a log to rest and decide what to do, and Brian’s Jeep comes around a curve less than a minute later.
We drive back up to Fuller Ridge, set up camp in the dark, and make ramen for dinner. When I wander off into the dark to pee, I am hobbling. I don’t know how in the hell I’m going to hike tomorrow.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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