Monday, May 30, 2016

Upwards to Wrightwood

May 28-30

My pace had been increasing. I tend to think of hiking pace not on a per-hour basis, but as a daily range. I cannot hike much faster than 3 miles an hour. I could once, but I'm not 25 anymore. I can, however, hike all damn day without stopping. I call this style of hiking "inexorable." When a shoe company sponsors me, that's what I want the model of shoe to be called:
"You get a new pair of trail runners?"
"Oh yeah. Check out these Montrail Arno Inexorables."
They would be the best shoes, I promise.
Anyway, my range is creeping up -- 20, then 25 miles, now up to 30 miles a day. But too many big days in a  row can begin to cause all sports of hard-to-address issues for me (shin splints, plantar fasciitis, etc). Wrightwood, a cool mountain town, was coming up. I had a package at the post office there, and with the Memorial Day weekend, I couldn't pick it up until Tuesday.
So for many reasons, I decided to take a zero-mile day in Wrightwood. Of the hike up from Cajon pass to here, there is not too much to tell. It is a long, long ascent, starting right on the San Andreas fault amongst giant rock outcroppings and ending in another sky island, this time the Angeles Crest, along Highway 2. Lots of day hikers were out for the Memorial Day holiday. Pretty cool to see so much diversity -- lots of brown people in the woods. Very exciting! These are our national mountains, and for too long it has seemed to me that only white people like myself were enjoying them. The report from the mountains on this weekend is that we are ALL out here right now.

Rock outcroppings along the San Adreas fault above Cajon Pass
I hiked up, then hiked down along the Acorn Trail into town, had a burger and beer at the Yodeler. Stayed at a "Bed and Breakfast," which was both very cool and very odd. They picked me up in an old Ford Contour without any plates -- very auspicious. Turned out to be a house right outside town with over a dozen hikers, all of whom had eaten at the free cookout they'd had. I was directed to a bedroom but forbidden to sleep on the bed itself. can't really blame them, the way I smell(ed). And that's what the sleeping pad is for. 
Next day, I hiked another few miles on the trail, then met Lily. Today I am... well, so far I am writing blog posts. Tomorrow is Mt. Baden-Powell, a tribute to the founder of the Boy Scouts, and then ever onwards. Next stop: Agua Dulce and the Saufley's Hiker Heaven. I sent myself some new shoes and socks there, a very significant carrot.

Wilderness what? Just show me to McDonald's

May 26-27

Out of Deep Creek, the trail crosses the flood plain of the Mojave River. There's a dam, but no water; the map warned me that Here Be Quicksand, but I didn't see any (like you said, Dan). I always get lost at this point, and I kept this tradition. The trail then wends it's inevitable way across a ridge to manmade Silverwood Lake, which is beautiful but seems weirdly out of place in this hot arid clime. It looks really nice but is infested with aggro dudes on JetSkis. In this way, it creates a perfect microcosm for our entire nation in this summer of 2016.
From the lake, you head up a drainage, onto a ridge... then some stuff happens... there are little hills and things... To be frank, it's hard to keep track of very much, because I was so focused on the goal at the end of my day:
The McDonald's at Cajon Pass.

Such an institution that it has its own sign
McDonalds has a bad reputation, I know. For some reason, we pile derision on it while we swear to ourselves that In 'n' Out is somehow "authentic." Yeah, I like In 'n' Out too, but they are reputed to run a training facility out in the desert that sounds like something out of Going Clear (great book about Scientology, read it right away). And McDonalds, at least the McDonalds at Cajon Pass, is like a Norman Rockwell painting for our times. It is completely racially integrated/diverse, the employees look happy, and my god they even have kale on the menu. No joke. I mean, people were holding the door open for each other. I'm lovin' it.
As to the food? I did not have kale. OK, actually, I did, but only as an afterthought to a Big Mac meal. This is as good a time as any to introduce the notion of Hiker Hunger. (Fellow hikers feel free to let your eyes gloss over.) Long-distance hiking is a sport (or pursuit or time-waste, whatever) that seems to be desigend to burn maximum calories. You just exercise all day at around a 70% pace -- rarely do I strain, but never am I still. I seem to burn around 4,000 calories a day this way. As a practical matter, this can be a drag, because you have to carry all those calories on your back. But it is also like having a superpower: You can eat a lot more than normal without ill effect.
I got into the place around dark, ate a huge amount of junk, and then hiked back out. I wasn't tired by the meal, I was rejuvenated. If I had driven by that Mickey D's and had the same meal, it would have been followed by self-loathing and gut-shaking remorse. As it was, I climbed to the top of a canyon and lay myself down in the tall grass for a night of peaceful rest, awoken only by the coyotes. It's all about context. 

I am on the wrong team

May 26

I woke up warm and toasty but with frost on the sleeping bag. I have always loved that, and it refreshed me considerably. Jake reminded me that the day's hike would take us past Deep Creek Hot Springs, a very popular clothing-optional natural hot spring. He expressed his natural, completely wholesome hope that beautiful women would be there in various states of undress. I rejoined that in my experience wilderness clothing-optional hot springs are cool, but usually their clientele tends toward male, old, and weird.
The trail took us down Holcombe creek and then across to the Deep Creek drainage. The trail here is very spectacular, set on a shelf usually high above the stream below. You hike in arid desert but hear, see and even smell the water below. I stopped upstream from the hot spring to get some drinking water (downstream has significant levels of old weird man pollution, also some elevated levels of fecal coliform), then walked into the hot spring as the afternoon was getting good and hot. 
Lots of people there, hikers as well as locals. Also a large group of Russian-speaking youngsters. I took a look around and did the natural thing: Got naked and jumped into a hot pool. I am of German extraction, and we Teutons do love to bathe naked. (Here's a weird fact: Freikoerperkultur, which is to say nudism, was one of the only facets of German counter- or sub-culture that Hitler couldn't quash. Yes, it would've been better if it had been a respect for human rights.) So I'm sitting there getting ood and hot, when I notice that
everyone
else 
is 
wearing
clothes. 

What the hell? What happened to American Freedom and hippies and all of that? Where's Dennis Hopper to back me up on this? Dead? Really? Oh yeah that's right. There was this one guy who was also naked -- middle-aged, wearing only a very sensible broad-brimmed sunhat and a daypack. If he was at Burning Man, he'd've been a shirt-cocker. He was lecturing some poor young female through-hiker on how her pack weighed too much, although he himself was clearly not hiking any further than his car. When he finally left her, he promised he would "be back to check up on you later tonight." This was not a guy on whose team I wanted to be. I slinked back to my backpack and put on my shorts.
Still and all, a dip in a hot spring and a swim in a cold pool are very refreshing. I fairly glided the remaining miles for that day and slept in a pocket site way up on the side of the canyon wall.  

Big Bear Blahs

May 25th

Big Bear is a very beautiful place. It has all the ingredients required for it to be so: There are flowering cacti in bloom, rocky mountain faces, vistas that open out to widest stretches of southern Nevada; pine trees, everything.
But as I left Lily and Jasmine and hiked along the ridge north of Big Bear Lake, I didn't feel inspired. I felt down. It was partially leaving Lily, and partially the letdown after a swashbuckling detour adventure. It was primarily that my own personal set of memories and anxieties was on their A-Game.
My friends all know that 2014 was, to put it mildly, a bad year. Jennifer Matz, whom I loved very much and for whom I was the primary caretaker, died of cancer. I lost my job of ten years. My whole life seemed to be coming down on me, except that in retrospect, it did not seem to be doing so, it did.
So the classic trope here is that a person experiences trauma, goes to wilderness, has some transformative experience, and comes back fixed. This is not only the basis of That Damned Book (Wild), it is one of the foundational narratives of our nation, or maybe of humans. We Americans definitely love this story.
And it has, to a remarkable degree, worked for me. I am a calmer, more responsible person now than I was prior to hiking the Triple Crown. I like to think that I handle adversity pretty well, and rarely panic when the shit hits the fan. I certainly had this in mind when I set out to hike this year -- that I wanted to tame my grief, anger, shame, and guilt.
I had a amazing conversation with Madeleine Matz, daughter to Jennifer, on the eve of my departure. We were sitting next to the Gandhi statue at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, munching on blueberries. She cut right to it and asked if I was hiking to move on from Jennifer. (Jennifer was a direct person, and in this respect the apple didn't fall far from the tree.) This is a really important question. I responded that I was, and am, not. I want to annex these feelings I have, incorporate them into my life so that they are part of me, not apart from me. Put another way, I want to accept them.
All well and good. But what does that process of acceptance look like on a concrete daily basis? I cannot say. I can say that thoughts about that time, my Very Bad Year, what happened to my career, my love for Jennifer's kids, what her loss has meant to my life, these thoughts hunted my thoughts all day like spear-fishers. What use to me were all these rocks, when what happened had happened? There didn't seem to be any line connecting them or my actions in walking past them to a sense of peace or respite.
But all you can do is hike. It's like yoga or something: You place your faith in the practice and hope for a better day. I slogged my way through to the Holcombe Creek valley, found to my delight that Jake (of Montana and the mountain-lion bow-hunt, see previous entry) was there. It felt good to see someone I knew. The temperature dropped below freezing, and I burrowed down into my bag and chalked that day up to experience.
whatever (sigh)


He is Heavy, and he is my brother

It's occurred to me that, given the lag time between experiencing this stuff and writing about it, I should start dating these entries with the times when they occurred. I'll try. This one covers May 23rd and 24th...

Wild or Mild?
The trail climbs down from the San Jacinto range into the desert as if it regretted having made the decision to do so. Switchbacks upon switchbacks upon switchbacks. My map told me that it takes 16 miles of trail to cover a distance of 4 miles as the crow flies, and I believe it. The trail seems to take on a personality of it's own, and said personality is that of a spoiled four-year old being asked to leave the carnival and go to the dentist. It meanders; it dallies; it sulks; it searches out every last possible wrinkle in the landscape as it descends. Granted, it descends many thousands of feet, from a crisp alpine environment to a sere, sandy true desert (replete with Interstate and casino). But you kind of wish the trail would just rip the band-aid off and be done with it.
And during the many hours it took me to make my way down, my mind was filled with the question of how to handle the trail closure ahead. (The trail route runs through a huge area closed in the aftermath of the Lake Fire in 2013.) To a one, the other hikers around me said they were going to hitch around it. It seemed like hiking to Ziggy and the Bear, a pair of trail angels, was the plan. Shuttles were available there.
But you know, it just didn't sit quite right with me. This is not a question of judgement or purity, but more just where I am as a hiker. When Heavy and I hiked the Continental Divide Trail, there was a lot of road walking and detouring. We accepted it and did it. There wasn't really any other option for us, and we learned to make the best of it. Jeep trails, having two tracks, allow for two people to walk abreast of each other, talking about noble issues like beer and whether Tokyo Drift was really part of the Fast and Furious movie franchise. In this way, we walked over mesas, along snowmobile trails, across ranges and states.
And I knew that if Heavy was with me, I'd hike the detour. It wouldn't even ha e been a question. Without him, I felt pretty conflicted. I did not relish the prospect of a long walk along a busy highway, which thw detour entailed. The last 25 miles of the detour was along forest service roads through waterless high desert and had little info available. Heavy is very physically brave and wouldn't have been fazed; I am what is technically known as a "chickenshit" and therefore the voice of caution. We had a slang term for this dichotomy: Wild 'n' Mild. Sometimes I acted the Wild fool (no relation to the damn book), especially when we were yucking it up in some mountain town; sometimes Heavy would. We kept each other in check. Just another reason we make such a good hiking team.
As the desert floor got closer (slowly) and the forbidden closed San Gorgonio range loomed up its other side, the Heavy sitting on my right shoulder convinced the.lily-livered coward on my left to shut up. I decided to hike the detour.
I called Lily a let her know I'd meet her in Pioneertown, the halfway point of the route, the next night. The valley floor was a sandy, windy mess; the interstate was ugly, as they usually are; Ziggy and the Bear were very sweet, and supplied me with some needed extra calories; and as the sun set, I headed up along the PCT towards the detour. I slept that night just above a wind farm, the whistling turbines setting an odd soundtrack to my dreams.

All roads lead to Pioneertown
I got up and out with first light the next day. Anxiety makes a great morning stimulant, I find. I had some eight miles of PCT left before turning off for the detour, and they were enjoyable -- sun rising on grassy slopes, where cute cows ate cute plants. I crossed beautiful Whitewater Creek, and then turned off the PCT at Mission Creek.
The first leg of the detour tool me on manicured trail through a huge non-governmental desert preserve run by the Wildlands Conservancy. Very impressive! I passed a stone lodge with great maps,  then the trail turned to road. Some odd ruined stone bungalows on the left with what looked like the ruins of a swimming pool; no time to explore, I gotta make it to Pioneertown. (Sorry there are no photos of this, my phone was chronically low on battery.)
The dirt road then hit Highway 62, the 29 Palms Highway. This is a busy, busy highway. Lots of tractor trailers, and lots of giant pickup trucks piloted by men that looked like they would have liked TruckNutz, but the wife wouldn't let it happen. One did have a sticker declaring the vehicle a "Pantie-Dropper," which is pure class. My route description had me walking along an old roadbed to the side the highway for a while, but that was a sandy weedy wreck of a route. There was a dirt access road for awhile, but it petered out. After a while, I just shrugged and walked the road. For what is a road but a very well-marked trail? And this particular trail had a Circle K, which had hot dogs and sodas. And, not saying I would ever indulge, but they also carried a certain beer-and-tomato-juice canned beverage called a "Chelada," which, when poured into a Nalgene, looks just like Gatorade. Just for my readers' general education, should such a fact ever come in handy for you. 
And on I walked. About nine miles out from Pioneertown, Lily and her (our) friend Jasmine found me and pulled over. Never been happier to see a Subaru!!! They gave me a Pepsi and took some stuff out of my pack to speed me up, then drove ahead. 
Thank you Jasmine for capturing true joy in a pic!

And off again. My feet were starting to feel the miles, but after I turned off the 62 onto Pioneertown Road, the country changed from scrubby flats to a high desert moonscape, knobs of red rock lining every ridgetop. The people changed too -- everyone waved, per traditional rural manners. And then, as the sun was starting toward the horizon, I came to Pioneertown. 
There's a lot to be said about Pioneertown, but for now suffice it to say that it is a delightfully weird village set high up in the middle of the desert mountains. Lily and I have been here before, and we absolutely love it. There is a movie-set western Main Street where they re-enact gunfights on a weekly basis; there are chickens you can feed from a vending machine, 25c per handful of feed. And there is Pappy and Harriet's, a bar/grill/music venue. I got there before Lily and Jasmine, and reclined into a sofa and a beer. It was my first 30-mile day on the trail so far, and the sensation of relaxing was that pure heaven that is brought on by simple luxury following significant exhaustion.
Lily and Jasmine showed up, we ate like kings, retired to the campground, and slept.

Stretches of joy
The road out of Pioneertown...
...did not end well for all motorists.
The next day's hiking was a very pleasant surprise. First, there was a lot of water set out along the route by residents who wanted to help hikers along. Thank you residents of Rimrock! The road turned out to be gorgeous, winding up into Burns Canyon and topping out at a crazy-looking mine surrounded by slagheaps of fine red mud, followed by a huge serene desert meadow. This road gave the PCT a run for its money, in terms of beauty. And then, finally, I rounded a corner and saw that beautiful PCT trail blaze, all snowy peaks and pine tree. I was home again! I hiked on to a road crossing, where I met Lily and Jasmine walking up the trail toward me. We went to camp, ate steak and potatoes, and again I felt I must be the luckiest man on trail this year.
High desert panorama. C'mon, click on it, it's worth it.

HUGE THANKS to Lily and Jasmine for supporting me through this section! Lily keep believing in me, and to my own shock, she keeps being correct. And of course to Heavy, for teaching me the ying and yang of Wild n Mild. 

The Cowboy Cure

Idyllwild is a nice little town, but I was glad to see it in my rear-view mirror regardless. There was this guy who kept following me around town, and it was thoroughly unnerving. He looked kind of homeless and had a very hunted look in his eye, and wherever I went in town (pizza place, library, coffee shop) he always seemed to show up a little bit afterwards. He'd come inside the establishment, lope around the perimeter, sneak a glare at me, pause at my pack, and then sidle out. Once he stepped right in front of me on a sidewalk, so that I had to step around him. To add to the creepiness, he was about my height, my build, my hair color... and you know what? I look homeless too! So there was essentially a down-at-the-heels doppelganger imbuing the whole town with a freaky-deaky sense of paranoia.
Of course, Idyllwild is not a big town, so it could have been coincidence. Maybe pizza-library-coffee are his stations of the cross. But the thing about feeling paranoid is that it doesn't always help when you recognize you're just being paranoid. You know what does help?
Walking out of town! And so I did, up the steep streets, past innumerable antique shops, art galleries and fancy homes. When I was almost to the trailhead, which is situated right at the head of the valley in which the town sits, I was passed by a carful of fellow through-hikers. Turned out to be Killer and a very nice young man by the name of Captain Underpants. We proceeded to huff and puff our way up the Devil's Slide trail, which would finally take us back to the PCT, appropriately located right on the top of the ridge. Man, it can hurt it retake the crest!
We were presently passed by a young man bounding up like Q-Bert. He announced he liked it steep, because he was "from New England." I'll have to fact-check this personality trait with my friends from the East. Anyway, we fell into talking about the upcoming fire closure -- some 40 miles of trail were closed in the heart of the San Gorgonio wilderness, and without a good detour, hikers were hitching around a much bigger chunk (rather than hike to the closed section and then hike back out). The New Englander said he was hitching, reasoning that the Pacific Crest Trail Association hadn't told him he needed to hike those 60 miles.
The PCTA probably didn't tell him he needed to hike any of the damn trail, I grumbled to myself. Like don't do us any favors here, buddy. But while his ego could have been taken down a notch or two, I can totally relate to his position: Fire closures prevent you from hiking linear feet of trail, but they can help you achieve the larger goal of through-hiking the PCT. Achieving that goal matters. I skipped a big chunk of the Northern Sierras in 2008 due to fire, and was grateful for the free miles.
All of which begs the question: What is a through-hike anyway? Lots of opinions here, and most nice people rapidly respond that everyone should Hike Your Own Hike, which is to say, you will be defining it for yourself. Let your conscience be your guide, as they say.
My conscience was riled up by the discussion. What was I gonna do? Hitch around with a shrug and a grin? Break the law and hike through the closed section with a copy of the Monkey Wrench Gang under my arm? Or hike a detour? I had found maps for one at the Idyllwild library, plenty of road-walking and lots of extra distance. Hmm.
It was cold up on top of the ridge. Little patches of snow left on the ground in a stately pine forest, with a keen breeze sharpening the chill. When we passed an old abandoned-looking horse camp, I dropped down off the trail and made camp for the night. The sky had nary a cloud, so I decided to "cowboy camp," which is to say make camp without setting up my shelter. There was a fire-ring with a perfect flat spot right in front of it, so I decided to really cowboy it up. I made a fire and let it warm me as I bedded down next to it. The whole mess of the day -- my ghoulish double, the hike up, the question of the closure -- melted off as my consciousness did.
It's cold in the San Jacinto range! Iced up moss along the stream

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Desert Rats


I walked out of Warner Springs with Don and Lily, Don identifying birds in the stands of oak as we went across a valley floor. It was fine hiking, although I had by now acquired a blister underneath the pad of callous on the ball of my foot. My fellow hikers will know what I am talking about, and how crappy this is; it is a deep, deep blister, one that would require some home surgery to lance. I have no intention of draining it right now; I am just walking gingerly.
It has, in a happy turn of events, miraculously made the pain from my long-standing plantar fasciitis go away! This is, if it holds, a really big deal. I haven't been running for more than a year because of this injury, the result of overtraining, not stretching, and wearing those damned Blundstone boots for a week once while in Japan. My injury is actually not even usual fasciitis, apparently, but a nodule of scar tissue that has built up as a result of fasciitis. This scar tissue is never supposed to go away... But for right now, it's rays of pain have been eclipsed by the right shining beacon of a damned blister right in the spot I use to walk with.
My escort turned around after a couple miles and I pressed on and up into higher elevations, the grass surrendering mostly to brush and cacti again. The cholla cacti look so cool when backlit by the morning sun, their spines glowing bright yellow. It was another desert day during which water would dictate my plans. I had plenty, drank lots, and planned to pick up my maximum capacity when I reached a tank later that day.
I'll admit that while hiking in the desert every day is a real joy, the landscape at some point ceases to give you much stuff for building a narrative, if, say, you happen to be trying to impose one because, say, you have a blog. It's just a lot of pale sand, big skies, landscape wrinkled and the trail lovingly exploring every wrinkle. More Moby Dick, more Slim Jims, more water, also there's a big fucking rattlesnake in the trail, I wonder what podcast is next, OH SHIT THERE'S A RATTLER. Sucker was as fat around as a healthy kielbasa. I got to had to throw rocks at it for like ten minutes before it sidled away.

Yeah, y'know, life does not occur in a neat narrative, but rather is a bunch of routine punctuated by moments of terror and exhilaration. You go to the gym, to work, to the pub, to sleep, rinse wash repeat, until one day you get into a wreck, or you find out you are having a kid, or your best friend is diagnosed with cancer. I have always appreciated that the trail is the same; it has much the same balance of tedium and shock. OK, admittedly, there are more opportunities for randomness on the trail. But it sort of feels the same.
[Disclaimer for people who worry, among them my dear Mom: Rattle snakes are not the grand danger they are made out to be in westerns. They only strike in defense, give you lots of warning, and are actually pretty hard to rile up. I have often stepped over them; Lily stepped over one on her hike back to the car. And the bites aren't actually fatal, unless you are otherwise weakened.]

Chihuahua Valley Road cuts across the trail at mile 127 in the middle of some quite barren hills adjacent to Anza Borrego Desert Preserve. A guy named Mike Herrera lives a little ways down the road, or at least he has a house there. These days, he's known for having a big tank of water that hikers are welcome to use, plus a shady zone with country music and (judging by the napping dude and ample empty cans) sometimes lots of beer. I filled my tank, ate a snack, and remembered the first time I'd met Mike...
(Cue flashback dissolve)
Back in 2008, I was at the road crossing staring down at a sign. The sign depicted a person in a cougar suit chasing a woman in a cheerleader costume, and, unrelatedly, invited hikers to come down for the big epic Cinco de Mayo party that was happening. It was May 3. And totally silent. What the hell, I thought, and I went down to the house. There, I was greeted by three rather quiet, taciturn young Mexicans, who informed me that "Mike wasn't home," but that I was welcome to his scotch. It was like 95F in the shade, so the scotch wasn't really the perfect refresher, but somehow I managed to get it down. A couple other hikers were there too. The hosts were at pains to keep us there, imploring us to wait for Mike, who by dark was still not there. His scotch was also gone from the premises by now, but there was a lot of Mike's beer, and lots of hikers by now. I have seen lots of horror movies, so was pretty sure they were going to surround us and start the ritualistic killings any time now. Better have another beer and scout out escape routes. I remember having a passionate discussion about whether or not Jack Benny was gay. Was Mary just a beard?
And then, at like 1 am, this guy pulled up in his pickup towing a smoker behind him, hopped pout, lit a cigar, and declared that he was Mike. Having made his fortune manufacturing the millstones that Frito Lay uses to grind it's corn, he had purchased this home. He liked to party, and lo and behold, his new home happened to be right in the path of a herd of reasonably well-adjusted homeless people on their annual migration. It was, and probably still is, a match made in heaven.
(Back to the present)
There sure wasn't any party going on at that moment, so I packed up and split. I camped at the head of a gentle canyon. Just as night fell, another hiker from my start date, a Canadian woman named Killer, walked in. She's kind of the ur-Canadian is as much as she is unfailing nice and a great listener, etc, so it was cool to have some company.

Another day, another hunt for water. This time, it was at Tule Spring, a reliable standby of the southern PCT. There had been rumors that it had gone dry -- the drought is still real, people -- but other rumors that bit was flowing free and clear.
When I got there, I didn't find the spring, but instead found a guy named Tom stiocking a water cache. When I told him of the reports that the srpouing was running, he re[plied that "they can just get their sweet asses over here and see if it's running, 'cause it isn't." He was that kind of guy -- proud, profane desert dweller, member of the backcountry horsemen. He proceeded to tell me at some length that the stretch ahead of me was populated by pot farmers of Laotian and Hmong descent, and they were intimidating the locals. "I don't mind pot, but this, it's all cartel stuff," he said. That sounded... totally absurd. I mean, why not posit that Nigerian fur smugglers had set up shop? But he seemed to know what he was talking about.
And I took him at his word. There is a truth that most seasoned backcountry traveller know but do not frequently discuss: Anarchy is real, and it generally begins about 5 miles past the nearest trailhead. You never, ever see cops in the woods or desert. Normally, I love this. People are kind to each other, helpful, protective of one another -- anarchy is not just real, it also works just fine. My punk friends oughta buy packs.
But there is another side to it. Anyone who has spent time in Southern Humboldt county knows that wilderness and the drug trade combine to create a fertile breeding ground for violence. Just google "Humboldt County Murder Mountain." And as I rounded a corner and saw what was plainly a commercial indoor pot grow a mile away on the next ridge, I had to admit that Tom's story was probably more than mere nativist Fox News stuff. I saw another, then another, then another. Quonset huts, big broken-down trailer, shipping containers, and always the tank for diesel and the tank for water. There was one a half-mile away, then finally one just a 1/10 of a mile off the trail. A posted sign warned hikers not to ask the local "farmers" for water. The thought would never have crossed my mind!

totally bogus surf, brah

I hit one more cache, one I hadn't even known of that featured a surfboard, and descnded down to Hwy 74. I hit the highway, ate a burger and drank a beer, and proceeded to walk into Idyllwild to resupply. You cannot take the actual PCT here, as it remains closed following a forest fire in 2013. Pretty sure the fire's out, guys. Anyway, that closure is nothing compared to the one in front of me, which will mean I'll probably have to take a bus from the I-10 to Big Bear. Totally bogus indeed. 

Idyllwild is Idyllwild: I ate nachos, went to karaoke at the local bar with some other hikers. A local kid talked about stage presence and then performed the most admirably devoted headbanging I'd seen since '97. We watched a 50-something guy who had been drinking for seven hours pick up a woman way out of his league. She had been talking about her grief, her husband had died a mere six months ago. He was boorish, or at least seemed that way in his pickled state. The other hikers were kind of scandalized. 
"Forget it, guys" I told them. "It's Idyllwild."
Then I sang Merle Haggard, which cleared the room, and we went back to camp.

You like that pack?


Yes, the trail is crowded. I chided my old PCT pal Eric Limprecht (aka the Croatian Sensation, the Croat for short) for declaring the PCT over and done on Facebook. People have a right to be out here, and many people are delightful to be around. If I have found this experience to be so transformative, allowing me to release a lot of my rage and materialism, why shouldn't others have that? Wouldn't that be good for us as a people?
All well and good, but when the next evening found me rolling into a tent city at the Rodriguez Truck Trail water tank, I began to see that the Croat had a point. Like 20 tents arrayed around the precious tank. There are just a lot of folks at these campsites, and we are surely having an impact on the desert. Just the amount of nitrogen we are adding to the soil via pooping must be a shock to the system. I mean, imagine 2000 people pooping in your local city park over the course of four months. It would be a different park, even if everyone carefully buried their scat 6" deep etc etc. 
I set up my tarp in a pitch that could only be described as "provisional" and got my allotted eight hours of sleep/listening to space age fabrics smack around in a 40 mph wind. Woke up, had coffee (Rwanda Gitesi from San Diego's Coffee and Tea Collective -- tea-like in body, pipe tobacco and barely-ripe currants in the cup, and yeah excuse me I am still a total coffee geek even while in hiker mode). Hiked out of camp with a dude named Jake from Montana, who told me (among other things) that his dad had once shot a mountain lion with a bow. He reported that the meat was mild, but stringy. I mused that it was cool that Hercules had moved to Montana and was having sons, because who but a demigod goes out into the woodsw with a bow and comes back with a dead lion. 
We plowed down to Scissors Crossing, a set of road crossings in the exact middle of nowhere. There was a water cache here in 2008, but sometime in the interim the people maintaining it stopped because of some hiker malfeasance. Yes, the trail is crowded. What exactly the hikers had done is unknown to me, although I remember prominent trail angel Meadow Ed was always muttering to himself that hikers were "washing their privates" in the water. The word "tea-bagging" was often used by him in this context. POD, Disco, back me up on this.
The missing cache sucks, because the next stretch of trail takes you up into the brown, brown San Felipe hills, where the trail canoodles around on a contour line for like 20 miles without ever touching water.  I searched every nook and cranny of the underpasses. Found: One young dude with a guitar, who was apparently trying out for the role of Contemplative Young Dude With Guitar. I don't know, maybe it helps him get laid. He could learn a real song first, though. Not found: Any water. Ah well, they tell you not to rely on caches anyway. I had just enough water to make it to the legendary, still stocked Third Gate Water Cache, some 17 miles into the hills. I put on my big boy pants and started hiking. 
More hikers. Hikers everywhere. Yes, this trail ius crowded, and with that crowding come the natural social ills with which the AT has had to contend for so long: Broism and poorly played string instruments. I passed two women with no clear connection to each other who were each vying for "Kooky Girl with Ukelele." (Amber, you're not kooky per se, and yours is a banjolele, so you are in the clear. Tim, yours just fits you so well. Plus you both can play.) 

I came into camp at the cache, filled up, and as I was doing so was accosted by an Average White Bro.
"So, you like that pack?' he asked. 
I glanced at my pack, a wee little frameless jobby from ULA. I do like my pack, so I told him so.
"Looks like it has a lot of miles on it," he said with raised eyebrows.
"I, uh, yes, sure. I used it prior to the trail," I answered, kinda non-plussed. 
"Yup, I can see the wear and tear. That's why I got THIS pack. I wanted one that could really hold up, y'know?" he said, holding aloft his Hyperlite Mountain Gear pack. Well, not really aloft, He was kinda straining under the load. But as aloft as he could. 
[Side note: Hyperlite is a new company making gear much like ULA or Gossamer gear or Z Packs... but with an added design gesture of machismo and about a 20% upcharge. The aesthetic implies the gear might make you into a snow ninja. Maybe it's great stuff! They are sponsoring my friend Fidgit in her trans-American trek, so that's cool. It definitely has provided a gateway for Bros to get into ultralight gear.]
So you can all guess what happened next.
"Oh yeah," I replied in an offhand voice. "Thing is, I've used ULA packs on all three of my hikes in the Triple Crown" (BOOM) "and I just love them." God, sometimes I love that bomb. 

The next day I hiked down through open grassy meadows, past eagle rock (a rock that looks like an eagle, go figure) and into the hamlet of Warner Springs, where I was met by Lily and her father Don. We camped a bit away and ate steaks and potatoes baked in the coals. Don went birding, a pursuit I seem pretty well destined to pick up, given its reliance on being in the woods and staring into the middle distance a lot. Lily brought me Sierra Nevada beer and all my spare gear -- I want to take a second out and just thank her for everything she's done and is doing to help me. The biggest thing is just understanding that I needed to do this, and that I love her. Everyone please say thank you Lily!!!

the weirdest yucca of all
The brown, brown hills
a solitary poppy along the way

A Hundred High Fives


Day Two

I kissed Lily goodbye a mile down the trail the next morning, and got myself into gear. Plugged into a podcast (Hardcore History, a strong recommend) and came to terms with the fact that I'd be lugging lots of water up Mt. Laguna, twenty miles away.
Except I wouldn't be, as there happened to be an 50-mile ultramarathon on that section of the PCT that very day.
Those who know me know I am, or was, a semi-serious runner. I raced. And I knew that wilderness ultras mean wilderness aid stations, which meant... Water! And better yet, it meant lots of runners on the trail. Those who know me very, very well know that I love giving and receiving high fives.
This was like hitting the jackpot. Water and high fives? I started cranking up the trail, passing many many hikers taking siestas (this trail is seriously crowded), many of whom made comment about my wee pack (I pack light these days, what can I say), just making it rain. Rain high fives. And, of course, drinking all that nice free, uncarried hydration drink. It tasted like Magic Sizing smells, but who the hell cares -- given that it was cold and weighed nothing, it also tasted exactly like winning at the races. 
Some runners were perky, others had obviously "bonked" (when your body stops tolerating all this nonsense and decides to tell the mind to go fuck itself, there won't be any more pain-free running today). Then there were the slow ones, lurching and stumbling toward greatness.  There was a whole gang of people from Baja Mexico, obviously a running club. The whole thing gave me a great sense of hope. Here are people who are taking time away from their daily travails to achieve something that has no monetary upside, nothing but the pride of completion. I stopped at 100 fives, which was just about when I rolled up onto the ridge and the cool pine forests of Mt. Laguna, with it's attendant cafe and store.
I barely made the store before close, buying some 10K empty calories. I then sauntered over to the cafe, where I was directed to the "hiker table," a large communal table set apart from the others. It was another hint for me of how the social frame conditions of the Pacific Crest Trail have changed. I mean, the table was fine, and I enjoy the company of my peeps pretty well, but it did feel a little like being asked to use the side entrance. Then again, I also smelled like the animal exhibits at the state fair, so maybe that's all it was. 
My dinner companions were three: A gentleman named Howard whom I've been seeing off and on since the beginning. A very young man going by the name of Hero, rail thin, with wire-rimmed glasses. And a college kid, or one who had just graduated from college, who had a kind of rambling story about hiking with this one girl, but then she hiked ahead, and he was doing a section. Whatever, he was quick-witted and great company.
First, we sized each other up. Where are you from, how many miles are you doing; if you've ever watched chickens who do not know each other meet for the first time, it was kind of like that. Everyone wants to know how to place those around them in a social order. Hero started by announcing he had hiked from the Mexican border THAT DAY. That was a 40-mile day, not unheard of but certainly on the more extreme end of things. Howard was hiking at a 20+ mile pace, as was I; I decided to execute a maneuver that Lily and I call "dropping the T Bomb," T for Triple, as in Triple Crown of American Long Distance Hiking thankyouverymuchgoodnight. It is closely related to dropping the A Bomb, A for Antarctica. By the way, have you asked Lily about Antarctica? You should, it's very educational.
The T Bomb has the effect of shutting down the conversation, which is cool because then everyone can eat. Also, hiker dudes stop trying to tell you what's wrong with the way you hike/pack/eat/rest. It unfortunately also puts a target on your back, such that competitive hikers are always trying to be faster and compare themselves, whereas I just want to eat Snickers, listen to Moby Dick on audiobook, and stare into the middle distance. 
So yeah, I dropped the T bomb, ate my burger, ignored the admonitions of my companions that I was a fool to walk out that night, and walked out along the trail. As dark fell, I nabbed a flat spot in the forest off the trail and settled in for a fitful night of sleep. 
like trippy, dude

Returning to form- border to Lake Morena

Day One

I was as nervous as a schoolboy on his first day when Lily and I pulled up to the monument at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. What was I thinking? I was too old to face the physical challenges or reap the psychological rewards of a long trek of self-discovery. And anyway, the trail is overrun with dilletantes in the wake of that damn book (and corresponding damn movie). My day had come and gone.
Or not. We snapped pics and starting walking north at an ambling pace, and everything I ever gleaned from circa 10,000 miles of wilderness travel snapped right into place. I felt at home. I felt healthy. I could breathe.
Lily turned around after a couple miles and hiked back to the car; I'd see her that night at a campground. I looked ahead, drank water, and let my anxieties erode in the stream of footsteps.
Open landscapes dominate the PCT in Southern California. It's my favorite chunk of the trail. The horizon can encompass a dozen named ranges, and as you focus on  your direct, close surroundings, there are cacti and wildflowers in bloom. Cholla and prickly pear with their paper-rose blooms, yucca's tall stalks that remind me of early Yes album covers.
And, of course, there are the other hikers to focus on. The trail is indeed crowded, a topic to which I will later return. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the PCT's popularity is that it is attracting less experienced hikers.
Consider the Silent Warrior. I found him sitting like a latter-day Buddha on the side of the trail at mile 5, his pack beside him. Said pack had a lot of objects strapped to it, including a wooden paddle (like for a canoe) that had been wrapped in duct tape. We exchanged pleasantries, ignoring the paddle and the question of its utility in a desert. He was clearly proud to be the Silent Warrior. And who would be able to hear him approach, given that he seemed to be wearing Ugg boots? He seemed pretty hazy on such details as where the next water was, or where he was.

This could be dangerous for him. And it didn't used to happen like this on the PCT -- the crew that hiked this trail was almost entirely veterans Appalachian Trail hikers. Not so any more. Well, I couldn't save him, so I wished him luck and got on with it.
The day progressed and got hotter. As noon approached, I met a lot of hikers taking "siestas," hiding from the heat at midday by scrunching under shrubbery. Some were sleeping, some making lunch. One dude had crept deep up into a pile of boulders, apparently clinging to the underside of one rock like a lizard. I tossed him a hello and moved on.
Noobs, amiright? As a decade-plus veteran of DPW, I am pretty accustomed to laboring in full sun, so I just hike through the day. As long as I have water, I'm good up to 100F or so. But here's the thing. I, Mr. Triple Crown himself, began to sense that I was runni g short of water. At like mile 10 -- of 20 that day -- I checked, only to find that my tank had run dry.
What a damn fool I am, I thought. I knew what this meant -- Taylor Maurer (hereafter referred to by his trail name Heavy) and I had run dry in New Mexico several times. The Continental Divide Trail is wholly untamed, and in that southern desert, you have to get water where you can or keep hiking until you find it. That was my situation. It meant I'd be uncomfortable. I would walk into camp irritable and parched, but I would still be walking safely into camp.
Safe does not mean comfortable. When I talk about being seasoned at wilderness travel, much of what I mean is being able to discern what side if that line you are on.
At any rate: I made it just fine, nothing injured but my pride. And that night, as Lily and I walked around the hiker site in the Lake Morena campground handing out beers to celebrate, we learned that I was far from the only one that had run dry. I met a gentleman who cheerily told me he had been medivaced out. By helicopter. And rumor has it he was the seventh this year. I try not to judge, but I know my DPW peeps will feel me when I say the following: Drink water, dumbass.
Or, alternately, your own urine. That's what yet another hiker I met that night had done. I have to say, I love this dude. He ran out of water, recognized his situation, and made the tough choice in a completely matter of fact way. That is the essence of a wilderness survival mindset. It is also, probably, the result of that idiot Bear Grylls' urine drinking fetish on his survival-themed self promotion show. I asked him so you don't have to: It tasted mettalic and thoroughly gross.  Anyway, as long as we have dudes willing to drink pee rather than call for help, the terrorists haven't won.

prickly pear going off. the blossoms are bruised red until they open in canary yellow

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Achieving escape velocity

Sometimes I think that the most exciting portion of long-distance hiking is the preparation. It is, after all, possible to imagine the trail as an endlessly scenic and enjoyable series of late-80s Busch Beer ads... from the comfort of your home, that is. The reality is that there is almost always something to keep it real -- mosquitoes, heat, cold, or just gold old chronic pain.
250,000 calories on the hoof...
But I can't wait. I know what I am getting into, or think I do -- I've hiked the PCT before. It's a pretty high snow year, but after the CDT in 2011, I don't think that phases me too much. (The prospect of carrying clunky snow gear does, though.) I'm kind of worried about how popular my Number One Trail has gotten -- there will seven times  as many people attempting this year versus my thru-hike in 2008. But maybe that will be fun; I like talking to most people pretty well, and take great joy in silently judging the others. So pretty much a win-win for me. What I also expect: A lot of staring at my feet, a lot of broad horizons, a very good night's sleep, the smell of water as you approach a spring, the feel of sand and pine duff and granite beneath my feet. And lots of giant ants. Lots and lots of really big ants.
After a busy month of travel, Lily and I are back home preparing for departure; she'll be living in LA for the next month, then Berlin, then DPW, then to sea... I've got nothing on her, adventure-wise. I love that she gets this about me, and is supporting me (literally and figuratively) on my trip.
And packaged for shipment
We're down to the punchlist stuff: Clearing out for our awesome housesitters, packing vehicles, last loads of laundry and last trips to REI. Lily and I are both the kind of people who always have out most productive moments in the last five minutes we spend in the house each morning -- there is always a cluster of things that seems necessary before departure. We call this process "achieving escape velocity." We are not naturally gifted at it. But thrillingly and against all odds, this giant departure is spinning up, gathering momentum, and is about to escape Berkeley's gravity.