June 16, 2016 Mile 404-430.5 Today is the first day that I feel truly optimistic about the trail. I slept well, without startling at noises in the night, and somehow the loneliness doesn’t seem to be affecting me as much. Perhaps it’s knowing that there are hikers behind me as well as in front of me. Or perhaps it’s just this beautiful weather. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it. It seems the trail has finally moved away from highway 2, and into true wilderness. The desert brush is colorful and varies enough to have an unkempt feel. A couple deer spring into the bushes, and I’m getting more cheerful by the moment. I begin to think again about potential careers. I circle back between a few different buckets that have sustained my interest over the years: Psychology, Philosophy, Writing. I’ll continue as a musician for the rest of my life, of course, but I’ve grown weary of the constant hustle and small rewards. Even the stability of teaching hasn’t kept me from a break-neck pace of life. Concerts, football games, basketball games, rallies, parades, and competitions—not to mention the after-school rehearsals, transportation and facilities paperwork, instrument repairs and inventory, and all the regular teaching duties—have kept me in a state of constant burnout. As the trail wanders through the brush and yucca, I settle on Psychology. Over the last two years I’ve spent a lot of my free time studying learning acquisition and practice principles, and I find it fascinating. I’m enthralled by the way the mind works, and how it processes and stores information. This could sustain a career, I think. Of course, I don’t entirely trust my own long-term judgment: I have a tendency to get excited about a particular path for a few days or weeks, until I latch on to something else and decide that this is my true calling. I’m consistent only in that I stick to those three buckets: Philosophy, Psychology, and Writing. Otherwise, I’m a career roller-coaster. But this morning, Psychology feels right, and I’m lost in reveries about what it will mean to be a psychologist. The research side sounds a little laborious, but I can easily see myself compiling swathes of research into compelling arguments about the nature of our thought processes. And it seems a natural fit that I would be teaching classes. So maybe not so much a researcher as a professor. I come to a campsite, and I can tell that it’s been recently vacated. The dirt is pressed flat and someone has poured water out recently enough that it hasn’t dried yet. I look up a hill and see a couple hiking away. Nice to see some other people out here. I catch up to them soon after my breakfast break and try to make conversation, but they avoid eye contact and respond curtly to my attempts. As I hike away, I can’t quite figure out if they are high or just incredibly anti-social. Something clicks, and I realize that they have must have been fighting. The brush disappears, and a sparse forest opens up. The trail is just a compressed line in a vast field of dirt dotted with trees. A piece of paper held to the trail by a rock tells me there’s a rattlesnake ahead, but I see no snake, and nowhere for it to hide. The paper might have been there for days or even weeks—it’s not dated. I pick it up and pack it away. I start downhill, and now the few trees drop away. I’m in another recent burn zone. So far, it seems like nearly half of the areas I’ve passed through have been burnt in the last few years. The miles fly by as I dodge poodle-dog bushes on the way down to the summit fire station, and a hot day gets hotter. Around lunch time, I arrive at the station, grateful to be on a road away from the poodle-dog bush. I walk through the parking area, defenses down, and almost walk face-first into an overhanging branch of poodle-dog flowers. I make it to a picnic table—two men in dirty uniforms are eating their lunch next to a red cooler and a large backpack. They tell me the cooler is for hikers, and it is! Trail magic! I grab an apple and an ice-cold coke and chat with them for a few minutes. They’re biologists working for Pacific Gas and Electric, out here to study how the native plants are repopulating the areas that were cleared out when new power-lines were put in. It sounds like an interesting, outdoorsy job, and I find myself wishing I had gone into the sciences. A hiker with a big blonde beard returns with water, and introduces himself as Achilles. He makes instant mashed potatoes with spam for lunch, and we chat for a bit after the biologists leave. The heat is oppressive now, but I continue on, heartened by the fact that there seem to be more hikers around now. Almost immediately, the poodle-dog bush starts up again, overgrowing the trail and slowing my pace as I dodge and weave. It smells like pot, which seems funny when I pass mile 420. There is an alternate here, to avoid the miles of poodle-dog bush, but the PCT Facebook group says that it’s passable, and I don’t really want to do another road-walk. A couple miles later, I’m wishing I had done the road-walk. I don’t think I’ve touched any of the horrible purple flowers yet, but there are four more miles of this noxious weed to go when I see a short side path leading up to the road-walk alternate. I take it and breathe a sigh of relief. I take a few minutes for a snack break—it seems I’m hungry nearly all the time, now—and then start to walk up the road. It’s steep, with cracked and crumbling asphalt, with no cover at all. The maps tell me this road was closed to traffic after the fire a few years back, and needs to be repaired before they will reopen it. I look for rattlesnakes and walk near the center of the road. Sweat rolls down and my shirt clings to my skin. I check my phone several times for service, but there is none. I want to talk to Lindsey. I miss her, and I miss Deuce, our dog.
I get to the top of the mountain and start a small descent to a closed campground. I stop a little earlier than normal and read my book at a picnic table after I set up my tent. The sun sets over layers of mountains and sets the wildflowers aglow.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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