Double Luck

May 31

It can be hard getting the engine going after a zero day, all the more so when you are carrying several days' worth of food. Throw an intense, hours-long ascent into the mix and motivation is oft hard to find.
It was this line of thinking that occupied me as I peered up at Mt. Baden Powell from the parking lot. Lily helped push me away from the Trusty Kia and toward the trail, instinct took over, and I slowly started churning out the steps. Lily followed me for the first hour or so, then we kissed and said goodbye. Pretty sad to leave her, which did not help my state of mind.
But there really isn;t anything to do but go forward. I remember once asking a fellow hiker if they had a strategy for finishing long trails, of which he had finished a couple.
"It's easy," he said, "just don't go home."
True. So rather than go home, I huff-n-puffed up another five or six switchbacks. I came up on four young people, like teenage young, taking a break. Two of them were women and wearing t-shirts from the Marine Corps. The other two were skinny young men wearing what looked like bullet-proof vests.
"Hey guys," I panted, "what's with the vests?"
"We just enlisted in the Marines, and we're doing some extra training," said the taller of the two, puffing out his chest. "These weigh twenty pounds."
My brain executed a somersault as I tried to comprehend people volunteering to carry weight not necessary to their well-being... and then trying to see if it was possible they would like some EXTRA EXTRA training by carrying my pack up to the top.
I asked and they did not.
So I thanked them for their service and moved on. A little later, a very fast young man with light hair loped past me, and we chatted for a minute before he moved on. His name was Brewhiker, because he was carrying a live yeast culture and dried malt extract, and using it to home-brew beer. In his bag. I asked how it tasted -- I used to brew and a backpack is kind of a word place to try and achieve sanitation or temperature stability, both of which are important. He replied it tasted great, and I felt like a heel. At a later point, I actually saw the beer being brewed in a smart water bottle. It looked mile with suspended yeast, and little... Rustic. Well, who am I to talk, I eat M&Ms when I find them on the trail. Brewhiker, I salute you.
We finally got up top around the same time. There was a nifty monument at the peak to Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. I was a Boy Scout and, paramilitary associations and homophobia notwithstanding, I found it to be a great activity. Heck, they taught me to camp, I am grateful. Even more impressive was the 1,500-year-old Bristlecone pine along the way (they had a plaque with the age).

Me and my homie

I was incredibly relieved to be heading back downhill. Just the clear, high-alpine air, crisp even in the afternoon. The pines, the sagebrush. The fat black rattlesnake right next to the trail, waving it's head back and forth like its targeting computers were locking in on my ankle.

>Insert predictable expletives<

Man, those rattlesnakes will WAKE YOU UP. I leaned on my poles, waiting for my breath to subside to normal. As the adrenaline ebbed, the pace picked up again, my eyes watching carefully at the edges of brush for another snake. I knew it was unlikely, given how recently I'd seen the other one, but on the other hand, probability doesn't really decree that an occasion makes a repeat less likely hey there's another giant rattlesna

FUCK

ke right in the path, angry, clearly looking for an opening. 

I think I cleared about 4' vertical with that post-snake jump. I slowly did a 360 rotation just to make sure that, I don't know, the earth wasn't under attack by rattlesnake aliens. I slowly, slowly started creeping down the trail like the guys in action movies do during a gunfight. What could it mean to see two rattlesnakes within five minutes? What sort of an omen was a rattlesnake? I decided to decide it was a good omen, an omen of good luck. I had the Double Luck, that's all.

That night, lying in my bag and staring at the sky, I thought about those snakes. One doesn't see snakes every day, but when you do, it makes a big difference. They are like trout that way -- stunningly beautiful, smallish, cold-blooded predators that make my adrenaline run. Neither is happy to see me close up. Just the one type has venom, which neatly turns the relationship on its head.