One of the coldest nights on trail so far. Windy, but not violently so. I wake first and let Lindsey sleep. The calm pace of the trail seems to have opened a space in my mind for thinking. I write in my journal about money: Money is a means to an end. It buys security. It buys power. It buys status. It buys adventure. It buys gifts. The trick, then, is to buy what you really want. Don’t pay overmuch for security if what you really want is adventure. Don’t buy status if you crave free time. Don’t buy someone else’s dreams. Live your own. I am thinking of the micro-coercions that we impose on each other daily. The look that says “you’re doing it wrong” every time we see someone make a different choice than we would make. The light teasing when someone does something that’s out of sync with your tribe, like dye their hair an unusual color. Even a loving concern can be used as a micro-coercion if it is based on your own set of goals for the person rather than their own wishes and desires. I am thinking, most especially, of my desire to thru-hike this trail in a single summer. To do that, I need to quit my job. And to do that, I’ll need to put up with micro-coercions from friends and family. Death by a thousand micro-coercion cuts. The biggest one of all, the one I don’t have a good answer for, the one that if I’m honest scares me too, is “What are you going to do for money after you get back?” Because the truth is, I have no idea. It’s safer to just keep my job and section hike in the summers, even if I’ve grown to hate my job. I don’t have the courage to face the micro-coercions yet, so instead I’ll just fall into line, plod through a monotone existence, and push my dreams into an endless future that never arrives. Kill me now. This line of thinking might seem morose, but really I’m girding my loins for battle, encouraging myself to take the step that I know that I want to take, which is to quit my job and complete the rest of the hike in one go. But that’s a battle for another day, and it’ll take more than a journal entry to build up the courage to face all those micro-coercions. For the time being, I’ll just enjoy being out here. When Lindsey wakes, we break camp and hike a ways before breakfast. Within a half hour, we cross over the top of the mountains and start a long, slow descent. We pass Billy Goat’s cave, which is a tiny bivy-sized hole cut into the side of the rock. I wonder whether it is named for the trail celebrity Billy Goat, or if the name goes back further. The ecosystem changes drastically, from burnt out desert to lush chaparral. I marvel at how quickly the vegetation changes between one side of a mountain and the other. We look for a good place to eat breakfast, but the chaparral is tight along the trail, so no place is forthcoming. Eventually we find a small ledge right on the edge of the trail. We haven’t seen many hikers since two days ago, so we shouldn’t be in the way. Our feet hang over the edge of a small valley, dangling near prickly-pear cactus, and we cook oatmeal and drink hot chocolate-flavored instant breakfast. Northbound hikers suddenly seem to come through on an assembly line. Every few minutes is another group of two or three. We expect that some of them would be hikers we’ve met over the past few days, but they are all fresh faces. One of them whistles cheerfully as he comes around the bend—a pure, joyous tone. It’s the sort of morning for whistling. When we start back down the hill, Lindsey’s knee starts to bother her. I give her my hiking poles to help her brace on the downhills. Our pace slows considerably, but we aren’t in a rush, so it’s fine. We reach the 100-mile mark, which is just some stones next to the trail. Mile-stones. This pun will delight me for hours. We high-five and take some pictures. By the time we make it to Barrel Springs and refill water, I can tell that Lindsey hurts. We rest for a while in the shady grove. When we finally get back up, she is almost hobbling. The trail crosses a road and follows a jeep trail down a sandy wash before entering another ecosystem—desert again, but greener desert—and we hike along a small canyon. Lindsey’s knee stabs at her again, worse this time. We break, only a half mile from our last break, and she tells me that she’ll have to stop after we get to Warner Springs. I’m sad for her, but I’m also a little relieved; I had planned to do more miles each day. We discuss options for getting back, and it quickly becomes apparent that we have different expectations: she wants me to stop, too. I have three more days of spring break, and I’m not ready to stop, and we get into a small argument about it. She wants to finish the rest of our vacation together, and while I want that too, I’m also worried about the heat later this summer. I only have a couple weekends to break off chunks of the trail before I can start it in earnest in June, and I need to finish as much of the desert as possible before then, or else I’ll be in the Mojave in July. As we argue about options, I realize that this might be about something bigger. I’m going to be away for a couple months this summer. Maybe she’s worried that I care more about the trail than about her? That part of my reason for wanting to go away hiking for months at a time is to get away from her? I try to allay her fears by talking about them directly. She says she’s not worried about that, but somehow it diffuses the tension and we both get more creative about options. We decide that she’ll get a ride from my mom tomorrow morning and drive up to Idyllwild for the night, and I’ll hike two more days with bigger miles, and then stay in Idyllwild with her on the last night. She’s excited to explore the little mountain town, so it’s a compromise that makes both of us happy. I call my mom and arrange a ride for Lindsey tomorrow morning in Warner Springs. The new desert section doesn’t last long, and soon we are in long deep furrows of meadowy pasture. We pass a sign that tells us we are on Indian reservation land—this is the reservation where my adopted brother and sister were raised! We get to eagle rock in the afternoon and stop to climb around, take pictures, and eat lunch. The rock formation looks so much like an American eagle that it’s hard to believe it’s natural. After lunch, more pastureland. Cows lie in the trail like cats on a windowsill, so we hike in the grass instead. Bright orange poppies cluster like constellations and galaxies among the green slopes. We dip into the canyon of a small creek, and again the scenery changes. What is this, the fifth ecosystem today? We break by the creek and talk to a family out for a five-day section hike. The boy is about ten years old and the girl about twelve, and they tell us they hiked the PCT last year. The parents tell us stories of their experiences in Washington: an open water bottle tipped over in the night and soaked their sleeping bags, a broken femur ended the boy’s hike. They plan to go back this summer and finish the section the boy had to skip.
We hike a little further upstream and find a wide sandy area that extends far enough away from the creek to set up camp. Another hiker we haven’t met sets up camp nearby and we talk briefly. He just finished his military service and is hiking the PCT while he figures out what he wants to do next. Lindsey and I read our books through the evening. We can hear the dispatcher’s announcements from the nearby fire station. We must be closer to town than we thought.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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