June 3
I woke up at the Saufley's, packed up, and anxiously waited. I had sent a pair of shoes, a new sleeping pad, and a couple other assorted pieces of replacement gear to the Saufley's from REI via next-day air. Now, three days later, it still hadn't arrived. The day got hotter, the hours of useful daylight burning away, the ukelele grinding out its maddening dirge.
When a hiker boasted to me that she had been there for four days, I snapped. Trails are for hiking, not hiding from, and these were not my people. I left a note dictating that my ever-wonderful, miraculous fiance would pick up the package and bring it to me in Tehachapi three days hence, and got the hell out of Dodge. I love the Saufleys but that love does not extend to all their acquaintances.
So off onto the trail, we don't need no stinking shade! Except all that bravado wilted pretty quickly in the midday sun. The desert kiln was firing -- hot, dry and white. The trail takes a road out of town, then climbs up into shadeless hills of chaparral. It finally got hot enough that the flies which had been plaguing me left me in peace, but on the other hand my parboiled brain pan was beginning to make me feel the particular overheated madness of Klaus Kinski in a Herzog flick. Sweat was pumping out of me like a spigot and being evaporated just as past. My lips were salty. My neck burned. Get that boat over the mountain!
I woke up at the Saufley's, packed up, and anxiously waited. I had sent a pair of shoes, a new sleeping pad, and a couple other assorted pieces of replacement gear to the Saufley's from REI via next-day air. Now, three days later, it still hadn't arrived. The day got hotter, the hours of useful daylight burning away, the ukelele grinding out its maddening dirge.
When a hiker boasted to me that she had been there for four days, I snapped. Trails are for hiking, not hiding from, and these were not my people. I left a note dictating that my ever-wonderful, miraculous fiance would pick up the package and bring it to me in Tehachapi three days hence, and got the hell out of Dodge. I love the Saufleys but that love does not extend to all their acquaintances.
So off onto the trail, we don't need no stinking shade! Except all that bravado wilted pretty quickly in the midday sun. The desert kiln was firing -- hot, dry and white. The trail takes a road out of town, then climbs up into shadeless hills of chaparral. It finally got hot enough that the flies which had been plaguing me left me in peace, but on the other hand my parboiled brain pan was beginning to make me feel the particular overheated madness of Klaus Kinski in a Herzog flick. Sweat was pumping out of me like a spigot and being evaporated just as past. My lips were salty. My neck burned. Get that boat over the mountain!
God, I thought, I gotta get smarter about how I do this hiking thing.
By and by, I noticed this bizarre track in the trail. The PCT is a dusty thing, and perfect for tracking . One usually can spot shoe brands,and sometimes track their owners, by their tread patterns. Horizontal slanted bars are Montrail, waffles are Saucony, furry-like pawprints are Altras. This track was none of the above, a long wipe right down the trail, no footsteps. I could not fathom what animal or shoe could make such a thing. I saw another hiker a quarter-mile up, the only other soul in the kiln, and decided to ask him when I caught up.
When I saw him, the mystery was revealed, at least partially. The guy, staggering under a big pack, was towing a sled.
A sled. "That's a travois!" he responded to my "what the everloving fuck?" question. "I'm a vet with a broken back, so I gotta be smart." How was carrying a giant pack and then augmenting it with a sled smart, I asked, gently. I try to be open-minded.
"They do it a lot in Alaska," he replied. I looked at the sere, dessicated landscape surrounding us. No tundra. No snow. No caribou. No one sees Russia from here.
"Ah," I said. The heat and the general Beckettian absurdity had pretty well overwhelmed my naturally effusive smartass nature.
I passed him and chewed the phenomenon over in my mind. In a way, I am sure he was being "smart." His idea, his lifehack, had made a ton of sense to him when he planned it. Maybe it made less sense now that he was putting it into action, or maybe, like conservative economic theory, it was a bad theory which is only reinforced by failure in praxis.
I hiked on with my wee little pack, enjoyed the cool onset of dusk, and rolled out the bedroll.
By and by, I noticed this bizarre track in the trail. The PCT is a dusty thing, and perfect for tracking . One usually can spot shoe brands,and sometimes track their owners, by their tread patterns. Horizontal slanted bars are Montrail, waffles are Saucony, furry-like pawprints are Altras. This track was none of the above, a long wipe right down the trail, no footsteps. I could not fathom what animal or shoe could make such a thing. I saw another hiker a quarter-mile up, the only other soul in the kiln, and decided to ask him when I caught up.
When I saw him, the mystery was revealed, at least partially. The guy, staggering under a big pack, was towing a sled.
A sled. "That's a travois!" he responded to my "what the everloving fuck?" question. "I'm a vet with a broken back, so I gotta be smart." How was carrying a giant pack and then augmenting it with a sled smart, I asked, gently. I try to be open-minded.
"They do it a lot in Alaska," he replied. I looked at the sere, dessicated landscape surrounding us. No tundra. No snow. No caribou. No one sees Russia from here.
"Ah," I said. The heat and the general Beckettian absurdity had pretty well overwhelmed my naturally effusive smartass nature.
I passed him and chewed the phenomenon over in my mind. In a way, I am sure he was being "smart." His idea, his lifehack, had made a ton of sense to him when he planned it. Maybe it made less sense now that he was putting it into action, or maybe, like conservative economic theory, it was a bad theory which is only reinforced by failure in praxis.
I hiked on with my wee little pack, enjoyed the cool onset of dusk, and rolled out the bedroll.
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| Get smart, man. Get travois. |
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