I push my stuff into the dry part of the tent, pull on my clammy clothes and climb out. The night is chilled and foggy. My light reflects thick puffs of breath and penetrates maybe 10 feet into the surrounding fog. Out in the gloom the forest is alive with drips plinging into umpteen puddles otherwise there is nothing but me and my clouds of breath.
I settle onto the wet bench and fire up the Jetboil. My fingers numb, I tear open the coffee packet with my teeth. I manage. The coffee is hot and profoundly delicious, better than I ever imagined — no coffee ever tasted better, like some pernicious proof that suffering makes life fuller. I sip slowly. The sky blues, the fog lifts, the sun paints the peaks pink. It's shaping up to be a fine day. Time to get rolling.
I break camp and repack. As I push all my stuff into the Mariposa, I get agitated; There is a ton of crap here! Nearly 200 separate items of it. Two pounds of tent. Two ounces of air pillow. A six-ounces of satellite communicator. One-third-ounces of titanium spork. Ten and a half-grams of divided Diamox tablets. Seven grams of waxed dental floss. Three-quarter ounces of Bic lighter. Two-and-a-quarter ounces of clean underwear. Twenty-four ounces of Picky Bars. The list goes on and on.
Back home nothing seemed superfluous; every item was scrutinized under a bright light with a proper dose of fret. Now it just seems like a bloat as does all the mountains of stuff that fills our closets and will one day be spread out on a lawn to be picked over by bargain hunters. John Muir hiked the Sierras in a sweater with a loaf of bread. If we met, I would surely seem preposterous. I guess that's who I am so let's get on with it.
The Zumwalt Meadow trail cuts worn, wide and mostly level path through the woods. The forest is shady and brown. Birds flit in the dappled light and shifting shadows that create the impression of movement. The air is acrid with dust, pine and fir. No rain fell here last night. The tread is powdery dry from overuse and drought. The rhythmic crunch of my boots, the rattle of the JetBoil deep in my pack and whoosh of breath are the only sounds. There are no other hikers on the trail today.
I cross the long metal trestle that spans the Kings River. The green torrent sweeps below crossing up the signals to my brain making me dizzy. I go with it. I'm flying on a trestle powered by the roar of water on rock into the river spray going nowhere.
The bridge lands on a marshy, wooded peninsula that divides the Kings River from Bubbs Creek. A ravaging horde of mosquitoes awaits me. I'm suddenly in a swarm. I swing and swat again and again. I smush 5 into black smudges on my cheek. They are on my hands. I'm breathing mosquitos. They taste bitter. It's futile. I dash ahead thinking a mosquito can travel but a mere mile and a half an hour, but the forest is full of them. I must have DEET.
I head for a log, drop my pack and grab the spray. (Note to self: stash DEET in the hip-belt pocket.) I spray everywhere. For good measure, I spray the air twice. My skin sizzles with chemicals, but the horde retreats just out of reach, hovering up and down and back and forth, like the Empire hatching an attack. I breathe easy and look around. I'm in a cozy clearing with a tidy black pond fed by a moss-coated seep, surrounded by ferns and carpeted with a foot-deep carpet of detritus. A hobbit would be cozy here.
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| The Sphinx and Avalanche Peak. Cross Mountain in the distance |
The trail levels off to an easy grade. I pass a doe and a fawn who keep an indifferent eye on me as they ruminate. Suddenly I'm hungry. I decide to grab a snack up ahead at the Avalanche Creek junction.
A Dad in his 40's and his son have camped at the junction. Dad wears a heavy, disco-era plaid shirt, wool cap and camo pants. He is cinching their tent to the bottom bar of his external-frame Jansport like the one I carried for years. The kid is probably twelve. He also wears camo pants. A Chullo cap with strings is pulled down past his shoulders and, despite the chill, he just wears a sooty T-shirt. He is whittling at a green stick the size of his forearm with a knife that could field dress an elk. A fire smolders in a camp ring.
I drop my pack and take a seat on a well-worn log. "Mind of I join?"
"It's a free country," says the man. "We're just heading out."
I point at the Jansport. "I loved that pack."
"I wouldn't give mine up," he says and points at my Mariposa. "Those internal frames are crap. They don't transfer the weight right. Wouldn't take if you gave it to me."
I take no special offense. I figure no harm is meant. I grew up with people like this fellow. He's not intending to be rude. Some people just need constant reassurance which they get by reminding others of their mistakes. I don't envy his kid.
"Where ya'll off to?"
"Up to Sphinx Lake," he says.
The kid chimes in,"We're fishing for golden trout." And, just in case I missed it, he asserts his point with a nod of authority. He then peels a perfect curl from the stick.
"That's some knife," I say.
"It's my Pop's, I'm just using it. I'm making an light sword." Without breaking his concentration on his stick and the knife he says, "I bet you don't know how to whittle. You always push away, until you know what you're doing. Right Pop?" He pushes one curl off the end and starts another. "Ever gotten the same dollar mister?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, you pay at a store and then the dollar goes to China and you get it back later."
"No. why?"
"My friend Davey does it. He keeps all the numbers. I'm gonna do it too."
"Isn't that a lot of numbers to write down?"
"Not if you use a cell phone," he says implying that use of a cell phone should be obvious any idiot .
"Good point," I say. This kid's brain works a lot faster than mine; I've been condescending and outsmarted. No pride in that, but I remind myself that, being retired, I no longer need to keep up with twelve-year olds.
Then the kid asks, "How come you're hiking by yourself?"
Dad interjects, "Leave the man alone."
"It's OK," I say because, as a matter of pride, I would like a chance at redemption and besides this kid is asking something that interests me. "My friends ask that."
"What do you tell them?"
Now I have a chance to say something important. Something that will stick. Something this kid might remember. I could say I no longer have friends who hike. I could say that I've got a screw loose. I could say that the mountains are a church. I could say that getting older is a lonely business, so you might as well get used to being alone. But instead, I affect a mock-serious frown, like some daft uncle, and say, "I tell them I want to."
"Really?!" he replies and adds emphatically, "I don't ever want to. I like hiking with my Dad."
Before I can remind him that his Dad isn't always going to be around and before he can spit out another question, his father sends him off to the creek to fetch water for the fire.
"Sorry," says the Dad with a shrug. "That boy has a lot of questions."
"No problem," I say, but I'm was sorry he sent the boy away. I felt there was more to say.
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| Bubbs Trail |
The trail heads steadily up following the folds of the mountain. Now and again it approaches the creek near a pretty fall with a pool or a rapid. RV-sized boulders line the way. The peaks grow nearer. I enter a meadow. The tread is a sticky mud. The path is hidden in overgrowth of corn flower, mule ear, lupine and blue bells. Across the way I see a Ranger. He wear a fishing cap, a day pack and a gun on his hip. He's must about my age, slightly paunchy, tanned with a neatly-trimmed grey beard. We meet in the meadow. He is cordial but terse. "Got a permit?" he asks.
"East Lake."
"Be careful crossing the creek," he says. "It's pretty high. If it rains, I'd be real damn careful." Have a good one," he adds with a touch to the brim of his hat and heads off the way I came.
The trail continues up; so does the temperature. Cumulus clouds are sailing in from the east. It's hot and humid. I strip down to my shorts and continue the climb.
"I'm Silvy. This is QuickStep," says the woman.
"Where you headed?"
"We're headed out," she says. "We just SoBo'ed the JMT. The monsoons blew us out. The trail was buried in snow. We couldn't get across Trail Crossing. There wasn't any way we could get down to Whitney Portal."
"Turned it around a Guitar lake," adds Quickstep. "We just did that mother-fucking Forrester twice. Twice! And I'm motherfucking hungry."
"We ran out of food this morning," explains Sylvie.
I drop my pack and offer some trail mix. After a few perfunctory refusals, I shake about three ounces into their titanium cook pot. We chat a bit and I decide to get moving on in case the weather changes.
"Thanks man," says Quick Step. "I'm gonna write you up in my blog."
The trail continues up. I pass 8,000 ft. It's now well into the afternoon. I'm feeling the pack and the altitude. There's still another 1,500 feet ahead. I shouldn't be tired. I probably needed more sleep.
I take a break in an shady creekside campsite for a lunch of Justin Almond Butter on tortilla, and a handful of jerky. I listen to Bushtits jostling in a nearby bush and keep an eye on the swift moving puffy clouds and a grey cloud bank gathering in the east. I know I should pick up my pace, but they say it doesn't usually rain at night in the Sierras. I decide to lounge around for the better part of an hour. When I shoulder my pack, it feels really heavy and my legs feel like lead. After a while it feels good to be moving again. I still have plenty of reserve.
I cross another beautiful and muggy meadow and there it is, the cut off to East Lake junction. Easy to miss. In a few minutes, I'm at the creek. It's rolling and high, above the knees, but not terrible. I drop my pack and feel the water. Numbing. I've fallen in more than once. I decide to take a breather and get focused with a Picky Bar.
Three hikers appear on the opposite bank. Two women and a man. They remove their boots and roll up their pants. A woman wearing her hair in a red buff is the first to step in. She crosses without acrobatics. Once on the bank I give her a thumbs up. She smiles back. "Not too bad," she yells back to her partners. A woman in a duck-billed cap is next. She struggles a bit in the current. Finally the guy strides in and crosses quickly. About two-thirds of the way he slips, but bounces up immediately with a hearty "Whooo!" His clothes are soaked, but he's fine. They laugh.
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| Bubbs Creek crossing |
"I don't think 'Samwise' is gonna stick," says Samwise affecting a quarrel. "They think I hike like a hobbit." In truth he is a slender myopic sort not the least bit hobbit-like.
"It could be worse," I say. "you could be Dunkin".
"I like it," proclaims Ghost.
"I like it," seconds Peachy.
"Got a trail name?" asks Ghost
I shrug.
Peachy wraps arm around Ghost for my benefit and says, "She got 'Ghost' on the PCT."
"I don't think mine's is going to stick," Samwise reminds us and lays down on the log. "How much further?"
"No far. There's nice little campsite just down the trail," says Ghost.
"Where have you guys been?" I ask.
"We looped over Colby Pass," she answers. "Then took the High Sierra Trail over the Divide to South American Lake and crossed over Milly's Pass to Lake Reflection."
I nod ambiguously. I don't know their route, but I'm not letting on. I'd like to think I could keep up, and despite knowing better, I act as if I could. It would be so easy to forget myself, and lapse into behaving like I'm still their age and even become part of their trail fellowship. I sigh with the secure knowledge that our thoughts are private and our dignity safe.
Ghost comes across the path and sits on an adjacent rock a few feet away. She is dark-eyed, fair-complected and a fit. Her hair is dirty. Her clothes stained by sweat. She conveys a very appealing, easy kindness which makes me inexplicably nervous. "May I ask a favor?" I know I will consent before I even hear the request. "Our water filter is clogged. Could we..."
Without a moment's hesitation, I hand over my Sawyer filter and squeeze bag. "I've heard of these," she says and takes the filter to the creek where she squats next to Peachy.
"It's been an amazing hike," says Samwise. He's been paying only half attention. His arm is draped over his eyes. "I was scared shitless crossing Mount Erickson. Ghost is fucking fearless."
I see the two women aren't having much luck with the filter. I join them at the creek and filter a pint as an example. Peachy instantly masters the process. There's a distant rumble over the Divide. We all look up. A few gray-bottomed, puffy clouds are sailing by. I go back to my stuff and remove my boots for the crossing. Ghost follows.
"Going to up East Lake?" she asks.
I tell her my plan. "If the weather holds." And then I add, "Congrats on the PCT. That's something."
"It just determination," she says. "I'm sure you could do it."
It's something I want this seemingly nice woman to believe. Worse, it's something I want to believe, but then I'd like to believe I could learn Bach Toccatas or master the Feynman Lectures or become a perfect husband. These well-meaning encouragements simply temp desires that end in romanticized longing or, worse, regret. But I can see she means only to be sweet and supportive in accordance with the way of the trail, so despite everything I know I say, "I'm thinking about it."
She reaches for my forearm and says, "Well then the PCT is a must!"
Funny thing is, for that moment, I believe it.
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| East Creek crossing |
 |
| East Lake |
I hear voices, or I think I do. Maybe it's a pika. I circle around the perimeter to be sure. Behind the boulder, not 50 feet away, I discover 4 men and 2 women sitting around a fire sipping wine from goblets. They are speaking French, but stop when they see me. I say hello.
"Hello." says one of the men.
"I didn't mean to startle," I say.
There's an exchange in French. I don't understand. They are all bundled in big puffy coats, thick scarves and clean wool caps. They are four of Z-packs' Hexamid tents in the adjacent clearing.
"Nice tents," I say. I point to my camp. "I camped just over there and didn't want to surprise you."
"Thank you," says one of the other men. The rest start blankly at the fire.
After an awkward silence, I say my goodnights and I return to my camp feeling perfectly unwelcome. I heat some water to hydrate my chicken noodle dinner. I stare into the jetboil flame thinking over the day, but the bugs are getting bad and I cannot concentrate. I take my dinner into my tent to hydrate. As I eat, it starts to drizzle. The temperature is dropping. It'll be an early night. I can just hear laughing from my neighbors.
I wake at eleven. I was having a nightmare. Lilalee was in an accident and I wasn't there. I doze. I dream I'm hiking in a desert looking for a PCT trail marker. I awake to find I am breathing hard and can't catch a good breath. I doze. I come home to find the house was vandalized and Lilalee has left. Everything is lost. I awake panting. I sit up. It is pitch black. I look out. It is sleeting. My mind is running from one bleak thought to another. It will be a long night.