June 19, 2016
0 day I’m up earlier than most of the other hikers, so I go out to the internet tent to check my email. Three tents are in the backyard that weren’t there last night; apparently some other hikers have arrived. I have a few emails, but nothing pressing. A dirty hiker named Snot arrives, and I overhear that he is attempting an FKT (Fastest Known Time). It’s 7am, and he’s just finished a 35-mile night hike. I suddenly feel like an amateur. I decide to grab my book and go down to the restaurant for breakfast. On my way, I run into Ezekiel, the Brazilian kid I hiked with a few days prior. He came in late last night, and one of the three tents is his. He gives me a friendly greeting and I invite him to join me for breakfast. It’s a Saturday morning, so the place is packed. We wait for an hour before they finally have a table for us, and another half hour before anyone takes our order. By the time food finally comes, we’re running out of conversation and I feel like my stomach is eating me from the inside out. When we return from breakfast, a few hikers are gone, but almost everyone is still around discussing plans for the heat wave. Looney Tunes, Pixie, Irish, and the Swede are all going to leave at sundown and hike through the night. Seth is giving Christine a ride up to Casa de Luna (another famous trail angel stop about 25 miles ahead). Uhaul asks if he can catch a ride up to Mojave with Lindsey and I, where he’ll meet a friend and figure out what he’s doing from there. We all move in slow motion in the heat. Several of us soak our feet in epson salt around a table outside. Looney Tunes tells us about a hiker whose hiking partner left him to go “pink blazing”—to chase after a girl he had a crush on. It’s not a term I’ve heard before, and they have to explain it. A little while later, Uhaul mentions that he thinks some girl is “yellow blazing”—hitchhiking from place to place instead of actually hiking the trail. They tell me the terms come from the Appalachian trail, where the path is marked with white blazes. Uhaul and Looney Tunes both hiked it two years ago, but they didn’t know each other until meeting here at Hiker Heaven. As conversation continues around me, I reflect on all the different ways we find to judge one another. I wonder if it’s innate in our human power structures—do we gossip and judge to reduce the status of people who aren’t around, thereby improving our own social status? Or is it something else? A guy in his fifties and his girlfriend show up with a six-pack of beer for us. He celebrating his son’s birthday. His son hiked the trail several years ago, and he thought he’d drop by to hear some trail stories. There’s an unspoken sadness to his request, and I get the feeling that his son may have passed away. We chat for a while, then Seth and Christine depart. Lindsey arrives quickly after, and Uhaul and I say goodbye to the others. They’ve been a fun group, especially after the isolation of the trail, and I’ll miss them all. When we stop for gas, I easily polish off a pint of ice cream, then we drop Uhaul off in Mojave and spend the night in Inyokern.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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