August 12, 2016 Mile 1184.7-1203.8 19.1 Miles I’m going to attempt an in and out today. So far I’ve stopped overnight in every town I’ve passed except Wrightwood. I’m only about 6 miles from Sierra City, and I need to do more than 6 miles today if I’m ever going to finish the trail. And I am going to finish the trail, I’ve decided. Yesterday was just a low moment, and this is something I’ve wanted to do since I was 14 years old. I know I will regret it forever if I quit now. Besides, I feel great this morning. I’m off to a late start for me—5:45—but still early for everyone else. The morning starts through a lush valley with water everywhere. Pretty soon I hit a turnoff through a campground—everyone is still asleep and all their car-camping gear looks luxurious—and then walk down Wild Plum Road toward Sierra City. The road follows a creek, and as the morning heats up the swimming holes along the way look better and better. Still, I have an appointment with breakfast. Maybe even with two breakfasts. No way I’m stopping now. An old man with a very dirty shirt and a walking stick is walking the other direction. “Where are you from?” he asks. “The Central Coast,” I reply. “I’m from South Dakota, where the men are men, the women are few, and the sheep are used to it.” And he walks off without another word. Sierra City is a short strip of a town—a couple inns, a couple restaurants, and a big red general store. I stop into the first restaurant I see, the Red Moose Lodge. I find a table near the back and order coffee and two breakfasts. A lady comes by and asks me if I’m a through-hiker. She gives me a five-dollar bill and tells me to have a great trip. I thank her and try to decide how to spend the money best. Ice cream, perhaps? I really can’t think of anything except food. At the general store there are a bunch of hikers. Brewhiker, CK, Fireball (who was bit on the testicle by a fire ant—ouch!), and the Baptist, as well as some other hikers whose names I don’t know. Yogi Beer gets dropped off by a car a little later. We’re all drinking beer next to the store while we pack our resupplies. The baptist has seven boxes! Some of it is food, and there’s a new pair of shoes in there, but I can’t imagine what else he might need. I’ve got a new pair of shoes, too The general store serves one-pound burgers. Everyone except me orders one, and I don’t see a single one of them finish it. The store makes me a giant vegetarian sandwich instead, and I can’t finish that either. I’m sort of hoping to fall in with one or two of these hikers so I don’t have to spend so much time alone anymore. Especially for camping—it gets scary out there at night. So I’m just sort of hanging out, waiting for someone else to say that they’re headed back to the trail. But it seems that some of them are flipping up to Washington, and a couple of them are going to hitch to a nearby town for a beer festival. I have to doubt they’re going to finish the trail. I finally decide to hike my own hike and head back out to the trail alone. On the way out of town I pass a library, which is just an old house with books on the patio and a slotted box to put money in. I find a book I haven’t read by Greg Bear, one of my favorite science fiction authors. It costs fifty cents, but all I have is a dollar, so I drop that in the box. I’m a sucker for a book sale. The trail is a steep climb up miles of long switchbacks. I stop to fill up water at a spring with yellow jackets flying everywhere. They don’t seem concerned that I’m there, and after a minute of trepidation, I stop being concerned that they’re there. I fill up my full seven liters for the climb to the top; the next water is a long ways off. The switchbacks finally come to an end near the top of the valley. The trail cuts a long line, visible for a mile or more, along the decomposed granite and manzanita bushes that make up the slope. I can see all the way down to Sierra City. It seems so close, even though I’ve been hiking for hours. Eventually I make the final climb up and over the ridge. I find a place to camp about an hour before sunset. It’s tucked away behind a dirt road that leads up to the top of a peak where a firetower keeps watch over the entire area. My campsite has a commanding view, too. I’m looking off toward the sunset and writing in my journal when an old couple comes down the road. They tell me about working on trail crews and about other hikers that they’ve met. They are incredibly enthusiastic and don’t wait for each other to finish talking. I’m laughing and enjoying their company, and then all of a sudden they’re hiking back to their car and I am alone with my dinner and my journal and the sunset. I don’t feel lonely, just contentedly alone. The view is phenomenal. The valley where Sierra City sits extends as far as the eye can see, winding back and forth through the dark green hills like a perfect braid. The sun starts to settle toward the horizon and my mind starts to settle with it. I open up a kind bar and chew it slowly, mindfully. I can taste every ingredient: the crunch of the peanuts and rice puffs, the smooth sweetness of the chocolate, the grains of salt that make it pop to life. I take a drink of water and focus on the taste—I’ve never noticed before how sweet water is—and the cool feeling as it runs down my throat. I am sitting on a dirt hill, looking out at the sunset and then, something happens. How do you describe enlightenment? How do you describe heaven? All the things in my head—all the thoughts, judgments, descriptions, sense of independent self, status concerns, desires, aversions, delusions—they all drop away like a curtain. What is left behind is something like pure experience. There are still thoughts, but they are clear perceptions (and a little voice in the back of my head is going “Woah. What is happening right now?”). There is still a sense of self, but it is a connected sense, a sense that I am of the environment and a part of the world, not a separate entity. Every force I exert on my surroundings is exerted back on me: I feel the pressure as air enters my lungs and the release as it exits; I am simply one force of its motion, created from its chemical reaction within my cells. I don’t look out and perceive the beauty of the sunset, imposing myself upon it and creating meaning; instead, I find that I am open to it and it fills me with its beauty. It is not here for me, I am simply its recipient. My mind is stiller than it has ever been, and it feels peaceful in a way that it has never felt before. I am highly alert, but it’s not a buzzing, scattered energy, it’s a focused, clear, powerful awareness. Is this enlightenment? Did I just get enlightened? I can feel ego inherent in those questions, but I don’t push them away, I just let them go. They aren’t important right now, I can always think about them later. Right now, what’s important is just staying with this experience for as long as it will allow me to. I sit there, watching the sunset and the hazy shadows spread over a gigantic view, for what seems like hours but must be shorter. The sun oozes over the horizon like an egg yolk over the edge of a counter. It slips away, but I stay on my pad in the dirt, the fool on the hill. To be honest, I am afraid to move—I might scare this experience away. Eventually the pain and numbness in my legs gets too intense. I move slowly. Thoughts are already creeping back, but they are fleeting. It is easy to see them each separately. I can look at a thought, hold it up in front of me and examine it; I can see its sources and where it is headed, and then I can let it go.
I focus on getting ready for bed, one slow, mindful task at a time. There is no temptation to hurry or try to do two tasks at once. Brushing my teeth, I am focused on the sensation of the toothbrush against my gums and teeth. Zipping up my tent, I am intensely aware of the sound of the zipper, the rustle of the cuben fiber. I pause between each task to acknowledge its end and decide what task comes next. It is effortless. I am relaxed and content in a way that I have never been before. When I rest my head on my inflatable pillow, a smile spreads across my lips, my forehead, through my shoulders and hips and belly, I even feel the smile in my toes. I am here. Now.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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