August 24, 2016 Mile 1444.8-1474.9 30.1 Miles A note: Somewhere in the last couple posts, my mileages have stopped lining up with Guthook’s mileages. I think that’s due to a change in the trail between 2016 and now, or perhaps new surveying has changed the mileages. Whatever the reason, if you’re looking for these places on a map, they are off by about 3 miles. A “late” morning. I’m up at 6. The clearing, which I had entered in the dark, is smaller than I had thought. It is grassy, with a few cut logs providing seating and boundaries to the campsites here. The grass is long and dewy, and soaks my pant legs when I go to fill my water bottles. The couple camped nearby is just waking up when I come back. We chat for a bit and laugh about the girl’s exclamation last night (“Get out of here, you fucker!”). She’s a little embarrassed; she didn’t realize there was someone else camped nearby. They are friendly and headed northbound, so I consider waiting and hiking with them for the company, but they’re section hiking and not doing as many miles, so I would lose them in a hurry anyway. I have started examining everyone as a potential hiking partner. It’s not that I need to be around someone all day; in fact, I’d probably prefer to spend most of my time hiking alone, but it would be nice to have a little company now and then, to break up the monotony of my own thoughts. Another uphill to start the day. It happens more often than not. I have some clear views of Shasta and the basin around it as I climb. It’s a bright sunny morning, my spirits are high, and I’m charging up these slopes easily. A hiker appears ahead of me, headed the same direction. When I catch up, we both break to chat and catch our breath. His name is Roadside. He’s a bigger guy, with dark skin, a scraggly beard, and thick glasses. We trade bear stories—one was circling his tent the other night and he didn’t realize it until he woke up the next morning and saw the footprints. He’s a nice guy and seems as happy to see another Northbounder as I am. I’m hoping he’s fast enough that we’ll see each other again, and maybe have some more conversations. For now, though, I power my way uphill while he keeps resting. The ridge line is open to both sides. The trail weaves in and out along it; on one side is a view of Shasta and the surrounding basin, on the other, folds of mountains extending into a distant haze. Hunger gnaws at me enough to catch my attention and I look for a place to stop. It’s a glorious spot that I find—sunny, perched on a rock outcrop a little off-trail, views all the way to Lassen, with an enormous river valley and open air below me. I sit cross-legged on dark granite and cook my oatmeal. Roadside comes up a little while later and sets up nearby on the trail. It’s an enjoyable conversation. I had him pegged for Latino because of his darker skin, but it turns out he’s a Native American living in Canada. He used to work as a truck driver, moving tractors and other large equipment between sites, but he was recently laid off and decided to use the time to do the PCT. He likes the trail, but he admits he’s struggling with the solitude. I know the feeling. I pack up. “Great talking with you, Roadside. Hope we meet again.” “Yeah, you too Zigzag.” He’s still eating his breakfast. The next section of trail surprises me: chapparal and scrub oak. The mountain ridge turns south and the trail follows, lots of short ups and downs without a lot of big elevation change. I’m flying this morning, miles whizzing by. Then, before I even notice, I’m on a long, steady, endless downhill. It’s so constant that the soles of my feet begin to hurt. After months of hiking, it’s a rare event that can still make the soles of my feet hurt. A couple of friendly section SOBO hikers stop briefly to chat with me about halfway down, and then I see no one for hours. The chaparral has given way to oak, pine, and now, giant redwood groves. I can see glimpses of clear blue sky and sunlight way above, but the redwood canopy is so thick that it feels like dusk. Some of the rotten tree roots and ant colonies have been dug out of the slope, probably by a bear. Occasionally I hear something crashing around just out of sight, and I am regularly on edge, but I never catch a glimpse of anything, only deep, fern-covered valleys and redwood trunks holding the steep slopes together. For some reason the deep shade feels lonelier than open sunlight, even though I’m just as alone both places.
As I check my map, I notice there’s a parking area below. Maybe there will be someone to talk to when I get there. Maybe they’ll even have food, or sodas. Mostly, though, I just want someone to talk with. I hold this hope in my heart for a long time, long enough that it begins to seem like a certainty. Of course there will be someone there. The trail provides, right? And what I need most of all right now is someone to talk with, to make me feel like the world is more than just the thoughts in my head. I reach the parking lot in the early evening, and it is completely empty. Not a single person, not even a single car to give me hope that I might run into a dayhiker. I am dejected. The Buddha’s second noble truth: the root of all suffering is craving, aversion, and delusion. I am suffering from all three, and badly. Craving company, aversive to the experience of solitude, deluded by my expectations to find people here. I can’t say why this suffering affects me so badly today. I’ve been alone for a long time, and at times it is quite pleasant. For some reason—or perhaps for no reason at all—I just feel a craving to be seen, to be acknowledged as a person. All these temporary friendships give temporary relief, but what I really want is to be remembered, to create lasting bonds that will outlive my presence on this earth. I am unsettled by a feeling of groundlessness, and I am confronted in every thought by the impermanence of my own mind. Moods, desires, thoughts, emotions; each one arises for a time, then eventually falls away, pushed aside by some new experience. For three or four days I have been completely excited about some new career path I’m going to follow after the PCT, then I’ve become disillusioned with the idea and search around for something else. Hell, even my physical pain, as real an experience as I can have, goes through these cycles. What part of all this is me? If I can’t even pin down who I am, how the hell can I expect to leave a lasting impression on anyone else? I sit for a while next to the bridge, eating snacks and hoping that someone else will arrive, but I no longer believe that they will. Eventually that hope passes too. I do the only things I can do. I fill up my water, I let go of my expectations, and I hike.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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