October 9, 2016 Mile 2577.2-2592.4 15.2 Miles The rain continues in waves all morning, but the breaks get longer. By 5:30am when the alarm goes off, we’ve even gotten a couple of forty-minute rests. But it’s raining when the alarm goes off, and I decide we’re going to sleep for another hour. When it gets light around 6:30 I wake the others. We have to get moving now. “My stuff’s all wet,” Brian objects. “Mine too,” I say. “We’ll stop and dry it out when we get some sun.” If we wait until conditions are better, we’ll never finish this trail. And now it’s time to put my cold, wet clothes back on. I yelp and whoop and howl as I put on my sodden, mildewy, and ice-cold shirt. I can’t help it. With Roadside and Brian making similar noises, we sound like a pack of hyenas. We pack up under dripping trees, grateful for the break in the rain but still miserable. We try to force cold, stiff muscles into action, but all they want to do is shiver. My hands and feet throb with pain. Eventually we get everything packed up and set off through the dripping trees. I try to stay back with Brian and Roadside—Brian has traveled from Southern California to hike with us—but I can’t get warm and I have to hike at my own pace. I’ll wait for them when I can find some sun. I pass the couple that rode the shuttle with us. They must have stayed at the other campsite and left early. A half hour later I arrive at a river roaring down a steep slope on the left. It calms just before it meets the trail, but it’s wide and I can see no way to cross it without getting my feet wet. There are rocks protruding, though, so maybe I can find a way. I look and look for almost ten minutes, to no avail, when the couple catches up. Now the three of us are looking for a way across. I still can’t find anything, so I decide to just get my feet wet again. I briefly consider taking off my shoes and socks, but I know that’ll be painfully cold and one step on a sharp rock could spill me into the river, causing much bigger problems. Besides, my wool socks can trap the cold water and warm it up like a wetsuit, right? I leave my shoes on and plunge in to mid-calf. The water is even colder than I expected. By the time I’ve taken five steps, I’m worried about frostbite, but there’s nothing for it now, I’m committed. I keep walking, fifteen, twenty steps. The cold pain seeps into my feet further than I could have imagined. It’s so bad that it’s causing a headache. It’s about forty steps across the wide ford, and then I’m out with relief. I look back to see the couple taking off their shoes and Roadside and Brian come around the corner. I wave across at them, but I can’t stop now, I need to get blood back into my feet. I know Roadside won’t take it personally, but I hope Brian doesn’t feel like I’m ditching him. The first steps on dry land are unimaginably painful. Every step sends steel spikes through my feet. I stifle a shout, hold back tears. As the blood comes back into my tissues and warms them, they start to feel better. But they are still cold and wet. I wonder if it would have been better if I had taken off my shoes. A little while later I find a small patch of sun. It’s not enough to dry out gear, but it’s enough to warm myself and wait for Brian and Roadside. I yank off my pack and dig out my bag of pastries. I peer inside. Just a cinnamon roll. I peel the plastic wrap back halfway. Just halfway, I think, just half today. I sink my teeth deep into the sticky, doughy goodness. Oh god. This is so delicious. The sour taste of bread, the gooey glops and crunchy crusts of spiced sugar that sates that fathomless and piercing hunger. Chew slowly, I think, eat mindfully. Try to savor the moment and enjoy it fully but oh god it’s so good. Oh god it’s so good and I just need another bite and another and I’m swallowing big hunks of it before I can even finish chewing. Wait. Wait! Don’t eat it all. Let’s save some for tomorrow. Half. Half today, half tomorrow. It will be so good tomorrow, but one more bite first. One more bite and then I’ll be done and one more bite again because I’m still so goddamn hungry and there’s no way it could be this good tomorrow and why not? Why not just eat the whole thing it might be stale tomorrow and it’s so good today and there’s only what— three?—two? more bites and then it’s gone. Gone. I should have bought two. With a sigh I ball up the plastic wrap. Then—with a self-conscious look back up the trail—I unwrap it again and lick the remnant icing clean. I stand around for a long stretch. Ten, fifteen minutes? It’s hard to tell in the stillness. Where the hell are they? I’m getting cold again despite the sunlight. Everything is still damp, except for my feet which are full-out wet, and I’m antsy. There’s a road crossing a few miles ahead. I’ll wait for them there. I cross a log bridge and then the trail turns west, parallel to a highway. A side trail goes out to the highway and a parking lot, but my trail continues west for another mile and a half to a different parking lot. Someone has left an unopened can of Mountain Dew near a bulletin board, but more sugar right now would probably cause me to spontaneously combust. I leave it for another hiker. Hand-scrawled notes to different hikers are posted on the board: you’re almost there, congrats on your accomplishment, we’ll meet you at the pass. I turn and stride uphill toward Rainy Pass. The pass is marked by two parking lots, one on each side of the road. I cross to the northern side and an asian family in a van stops me to ask if I’ve seen an asian hiker. I haven’t, not anytime recently. They thank me for the information and give me an orange. Clouds hang low over the pass, but the parking lot itself is in sunlight. I sit next to a low wall, unpack all of my damp gear, and stretch it all out like meat for curing. The sun comes and goes, but it’s never strong. I’m especially worried about my thermals, which I put on while I was still damp last night. If they don’t dry out now, I will have another cold night. I eat lunch, and then I wait. I wait for an hour and a half. I wait until I can’t stand it anymore, and I finally walk down to the other end of the parking lot, down near the road. Maybe they’re taking a lunch break too, and just didn’t come this far. A couple of day-hikers come from that direction, returning to their cars. I ask them if they’ve seen any hikers coming that way, but they haven’t. I go back to my pack to wait some more. A minute later a car drives up. “Hey, your friends are at the other lot!” It’s the dayhikers I just met. I thank them and then jog down and across the street. Roadside is there, but not Brian. He’s drying some of his stuff, but he packs up and we walk back up to where my stuff is. “Have you seen Brian?” “Yeah, he was just a little ways behind me. He was having trouble with his belt. I’m sure he’ll be here in a few minutes.” Roadside unpacks his stuff next to mine. Between the two of us, we’ve covered as much open space as half a basketball court. The sun is still spotty, but some of my gear has started to dry out. We wait for another hour with no sign of Brian. “I’m gonna go back and look for him. Can you wait with the stuff?” “Yeah, sure.” “Where did you last see him?” “At that log bridge.” Crap, that’s like three miles back. That shouldn’t have taken him much more than an hour. “I hope he’s not injured.” I’m worried that he’s badly injured. Even if he had a sprained ankle, he would have likely hobbled his way to a parking lot by now or let another hiker know. Without my pack, it’s really easy to move. I jog down the trail and cover the distance to the junction with the bulletin board in less than a half hour. No sign of him. I decide to go check the other trailhead. If he was injured, he might have gone out there to look for a ride. No luck. I jog back, then down the rest of the way to the bridge. Still no luck. He’s gone, without a trace. On the way back, I stop to scan the bulletin board. If he bailed here, maybe he left a note. I don’t see anything new at first, but then in the top corner of one of the handwritten notes, I find a small message with three stars around it. “pls tell zigzag that I had to bail. will meet at final terminus. -Brian” Relief. At least I know he’s safe, although I still don’t know whether he’s injured. I decide to go back up along the road. A young man with a bobble-head Jesus on his dash picks me up almost immediately and drives me back up to Roadside. I tell him about the note. I’m bummed that Brian won’t be able to finish with us, but it’s a relief in a way; he wasn’t prepared for the weather or the pace.
A trail angel brought Roadside a bag of bananas, oranges, and cokes while he waited. It’s way too much for the two of us, but we drink a couple cokes and have a couple pieces of fruit each before we go. Roadside wants to take it easy this afternoon and I agree even though I’m dying to bite off more miles. We start our climb away from Rainy Pass, up toward Cutthroat Pass. Though there have been tons of dayhikers passing through here all day, they’ve mostly gone home. The few hikers we see are on their way back down. We climb up into a large basin and find a place to camp among the huckleberry bushes near a brook. The mountains create a frosted bowl all around us. Tomorrow, we’ll climb over those. We set out our gear to try to dry it out, but it’s too cold and my longjohns are frozen stiff by the time I climb into them. I get my hands wet pumping water and it takes all of dinner to warm them up again. It starts to rain, and we climb into our tents before dark. Tomorrow, we’ll climb over those mountains. Only a few more days of this cold. God, I hope it doesn’t storm again before then.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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