True love in the corduroy canyons June 28

June 28

I had chosen a campsite in some rocks up to the left of the trail. This had some distinct advantages: Slightly fewer mosquitoes than in the crowded trailside campspot, below. I had privacy, not that I had anything to engage in that required it -- it's not like I was washing or anything. But the little nook I'd found between huge boulders was comforting and snug in the fashion of an outlaw's last redoubt.
But nothing's free in this life, and my hideout had the disadvantage that I had serious trouble finding my way back out. Hiking in exhausted after dark appeared to have had the same effect on me as a blindfold during pin the tail on the donkey. I walked down off the rock outcropping in one direction and found a stream and a eager fan club of thousands of mosquitoes: Nope. Returning to the campsite, I used the sun as a compass, which made me feel proud of being a Boy Scout but also told me nothing, because I had no idea what direction I needed to go in.
I eventually lucked onto the trail and started the engine. Legs up, legs down, breath in, breath out. The trail started climbing up and down in an erratic fashion, diving in and out of canyons. These were not like the epic, 3,500-foot ascents and descents of the Sierras. They were quick jabs of elevation, episodic, sporadic, but always there. Our quest for mountain enlightenment had been replaced with high intensity interval training. No longer did John Muir perch on my shoulder muttering about the range of light; this was Richard Simmons country.

People fetishize Yosemite. Lots and lots of tourists from other countries come to see America, and when they want to see the beauty of the west, they take a bus to Yosemite. But honestly, when it comes to this part of the park, it's not easy to see what the hubbub is about. True, it is green trees and grass, black soil and grey rock, white snow and blue sky. But all of those elements have been diced up into small portions and scrambled together into a swamp. The trail bolts up and down like an ant over wide-wale corduroy. It's a wilderness of half measures.
Yes, sad but true, I suspect the northwest backcountry of Yosemite has inspired very little poetry. My ant metaphor may be the grandest homage to date. 

More probably, it inspired the formulation of DEET. Because those mosquitoes? They are real, man. Very real. "Fierce," "implacable" and "siege mentality" are the words that most readily comes to mind in this context. It's hard to convey the phenomenon without having you, dear reader, out to experience it yourself; it's kind of one of those things you must experience to comprehend, and yet simultaneously have no desire to experience. 

I wore long sleeves and long pants all day, although it is really too hot for such attire. I'd place your headnet on, same reasoning. Before eating, which requires removing the headnet, I'd apply DEET to my face. Ah, but when I lifted the veil, a mosquito -- probably like the Olympic gymnastics gold medal winner of her swamp -- manages to dart in and land on your eyelid, a place you cannot use DEET. I now had to drop my food to swipe at her, compounding my anguish.

All day it's like this up here.

There's no real use in getting upset about it, though. I try not to expend mental energy becoming incensed at the LITTLE DAMN THINGS AHHHH. Instead, I try to reframe them. For years, I tried to think about them as weather. Sleet is awful to hike in, yet I do not rage at sleet. No point. Aren't mosquitoes just like sleet?
No, because sleet isn't possessed of an evil intelligence. 

So I have taken this exercise in reframing one step further. I have decided that what mosquitoes are is love. And not just any love; mosquito love is the truest love. Some people will love you for your looks, others for your wit. But the love of a mosquito for a hairless mammal is an eternal love, a love for the ages. 

Love.
Some will die for it. Other will kill for it. Still others will be forced to wait outside my tent all night just for a chance at it. These little ladies I call my "entourage." They follow me wherever I go, just steps behind me. Do I take a swim in a lake? They will wait at the shore. They're dying to talk to me, whisper in my ear, fly into my mouth and die in that rank, peanut-butter-scented cave. I did not ask for this fame, my friends.

My escape that night involved a hasty, eyelid-swatting dinner and a campsite once again up in some rocks next to a long, damp, green swale and a thin ribbon of creek. True happiness for me was shutting the screen door on my tent. The star shuts the limo door, peace reigns, and the blood meals are over for the night.