It's been almost two years since this all went down. I remember the way my guts were mixed up when I first started walking north from the Mexican border, how the contents of my stomach felt liquefied and tangled: fear and awe were woven together inside of there. It felt like I was about to leap from a precipice. The distance ahead was totally incomprehensible, I tried not to think about it. The sky was too huge, too bright. The desert landscape was strange, unlike anything I had known, the dust clung to my skin. I wanted to turn around, to go home. I wanted the lizards to stop pestering me, the sun to stop following me. Eventually, though, my head became steady, the muscles in my legs began to show new definitions. I adjusted, adapted, kept walking.
It was the beginning of an experience that would eventually grow inside of me and gestate into something that utterly consumed me, lifted me up, amplified me, drove me crazy. I wanted to become stripped down: to possess almost nothing, to be literally homeless, to forget who I was, to disappear. It was an experiment to see not only how far I could get along the trail, but also to see how deeply I could submerge myself into the nuances of the landscape. The longer I was out there, it seemed, the further I fell into the world of ten thousand things, of mountains and rivers, of rocks and birds. I wanted, most of all, to recover the experience of being outside and to rediscover an intimacy with landscape that has been lost in an era of electricity and automation. I wanted to step outside of abstractions and into reality.
The best way to become intimate with a place is to pack a bag and walk. By walking, we sense the essence of a place: subtle changes in landscape, climate, vegetation type, geology. We experience the meaning of geography. By walking for months, we begin to sense these variations on a continental scale, we begin to sense the bigness of the world and the smallness of ourselves.
While walking, I was haunted by a phrase that I remembered from Samuel Beckett. It was something to the effect of, "I can't go on, I must go on". It seemed to perfectly encapsulate the absurdity of it all: the daily endurance of heat and pain, aching muscles and enormous hunger, blisters, homesickness, the constant tension between wanting to quit and simultaneously choosing not to. There was this sense that I never really understood why I was doing it, going on. I was sometimes plauged by a feeling of sincere futility, that the loneliness and physical pain was just plain pointless. To work through such feelings, and to go ahead in the face of absurdity, was one of the most important things I learned on the trail. Something deep inside compelled me to keep hiking. When my friend, Nick Gulig, asked me why, I struggled to come up with adequate reasons and resorted to saying, "I just have to do this."
These journals are the hard data of what went on. They are my best attempt to bring back something sensical from an experience that would otherwise seem unreal. Over the months, I carried small pocket sized notebooks (the less weight, the better) in my pack and tried to be diligent about writing. Even when I was too tired to lift a pen, I at least tried to scrawl out a single sentence. I have arranged the journal entries in chronological order, from spring to autumn. As well, they are sequenced geographically: from the Mexican border, through the Sierra Nevada, into the Cascades, up to the Canadian border. From south to north. I have also included the mass email correspondences that were sent out as updates to friends and family from the various towns that I visited along the trail.
Even now, years later, I continue to be haunted by the trail. I'll be standing in line somewhere or walking down the sidewalk, and suddenly I'll be back there, completely transported. The parched air of the Mojave will scald the back of my neck or, for just a moment, I'll return to my frigid body, hunkered down on a saddle in the north Cascades, cooking ramen noodles and reading maps. The sun will be setting behind a high wall of peaks and I will know that in a few miles, I'll have to hike into the valley and start looking for a place to sleep. I will know that the next morning, I will wake up and keep walking north.
I still miss the trail, everyday.
May 3
And now that Crystal has driven away I feel a pit opening that threatens to overtake this whole idea of coming out into the mountains. Here I am at this lame county park beside a reservoir, the light goes across the grass at a sad angle, casting everything in bronze. Without her, I find this silence truly terrifying. I wish I could call her back here and give her my truth, the totality of everything I have held back or anyway I have ever failed her. Why have I chosen five months in these mountains? I wish I had chosen her for five months. Five uninterrupted months of her laughter and skin. I feel dizzy and acutely sensitive to this light and those birds moaning off in the trees. How have I ever allowed myself to love someone enough to miss them like this? I miss everyone right now. I feel painfully alone right now, surrounded by birdsong, quaking leaves, and fading light. Good god, it is time for me to go into the mountains, go into myself.
May 4
I suppose that loneliness is part of the tradition of hermitage. After crying, sleeping, and then walking 18 miles, I am still unsure about this decision as I was when Crystal drove away. While climbing today, my dissatisfaction did not emanate from the mountains or the trail. Instead, I felt very deeply a poverty in 4-5 months of solitude versus 4-5 months with her. Now, camped in a high meadow of Jeffrey pines and tall grass wonderful, indeed, how could I deny that? The wind sends ripples through the grass. I chose to be here, in the raw land. But, in that choice and in my own blindness I did not realize that I have robbed myself of a woman whose presence is like a dynamo in my heart. So, what do I choose? Her or solitude. Her or this adventure. Tomorrow morning, I will cross a road and a mile down that road there is a general store I will call her then.
May 5
From a general store phonebooth Crystal and I spoke. Me, shuddering with confusion that she soon set at ease. She insisted that I feel it out, walk the next seventy miles to Warner Springs and then decide whether or not to leave the trail. Already I feel better, enjoying the trail more. Indeed, she was right, I would soon feel claustrophobic in Menomonie or the lost opportunity of the trail would eat away at me. Yes, I may regret the decision and regret is parasitic. Most importantly, she said that my walking would bring us both strength. This is not just my adventure.
Spent most of the day in stocking cap, crossing a 6000' ridge. Gloriously difficult, brutalized by straight line winds, each gust woven with the spray of the ocean, emanating from the coast (less than 60 miles from here). Walked along a ridge with vast stands of jeffrey pine and black oak to the west, creosote bush and manzanita to the east. Forest on the high western side, desert lay down below in the east; two life zones. I watched the heavy coastal clouds roll up the hills and fall back down in a curve like a rain-shadow, keeping the forest perpetually saturated and the desert perpetually dry. It felt good to be traversing this knife-edge between such different worlds, the trail weaving like a thread through two tapestries.
Tonight, I am not so sure. The wind hasnt given up and tarp is like a thin napkin, whipping and almost breaking open. I have six rocks holding down each stake. Rain is coming. This could be a bad night. Potentially sleepless.
Spent most of the day in stocking cap, crossing a 6000' ridge. Gloriously difficult, brutalized by straight line winds, each gust woven with the spray of the ocean, emanating from the coast (less than 60 miles from here). Walked along a ridge with vast stands of jeffrey pine and black oak to the west, creosote bush and manzanita to the east. Forest on the high western side, desert lay down below in the east; two life zones. I watched the heavy coastal clouds roll up the hills and fall back down in a curve like a rain-shadow, keeping the forest perpetually saturated and the desert perpetually dry. It felt good to be traversing this knife-edge between such different worlds, the trail weaving like a thread through two tapestries.
Tonight, I am not so sure. The wind hasnt given up and tarp is like a thin napkin, whipping and almost breaking open. I have six rocks holding down each stake. Rain is coming. This could be a bad night. Potentially sleepless.
May 7
The lizards scurry across the rocks like wind-up toys, they dive towards the shade of a bush and watch me as I pass them by on the trail. The air is furnace-hot and the charred skeletons of burnt Manzanita trees twist skyward like blackened sculptures. Each rock stares back at me from its source: the roaring belly of the earth's interior. The desert is a surreal and fantastic place, though difficult to endure with my northern blood. The ocotillos rise up from the floor, strange antennae 20 ft. tall leaning towards their god, the sun. Outside my tarp, a pack rat is working in his subterranean tunnel, pulling down plants by their roots and adding them to his nest. I watch the plants disappear into the ground. For a moment, the heat makes me hallucinate: the hunk of granite becomes a lizard, the juniper twig becomes a snake, the cactus begins walking towards me. I drink gross amounts of water just to keep walking. I wear a wide brim farmers hat to keep the sun out of my face. I rise before the sun, so that I can walk in the cool of the morning. I walk late into the evening to take advantage of the cool of the dusk.
May 8Dear Friends, Misfits, Colleagues, and Allies:
This is a mass email. My apologies for being unable to write to each of you individually, but time constraints force me to address you all at once. This marks my first communication from the Pacific Crest Trail. Seven days ago, I left the Mexican border (a long wall of corrugated iron) with a full pack of gear and seven liters of water. I have been camping alone and hiking alone. This has been a very desolate trail so far. I have made it to a town called Warner Springs (population 207,elevation 3,327 ft.) that lies 110 miles north of where I started. Just 50 miles north of here is San Jacinto peak, which currently hasalmost ten feet of snow at its summit. The forest rangers will not allow us to cross the high country unless we are equipped withcrampons and ice axes, which I am not currently carrying. Already, my plans are having to be changed as most of California's peaks are dangerously iced-over. I will most likely be forced to circumvent the high peaks that are snowed in. I know that discretion is the better part of valor. Eventually, I may go around the Sierra Nevada's (where they are still receiving snow even this week) and jump ahead to Oregon by mid-June. For now, my plans are to keep hiking as long as the weather and the health of my body allows.
You are all in my thoughts.
All my best, Bill
May 11
I have been left with a glowing confidence and optimisim about friendship after visiting with Josh Macknick. Both us meeting from points of deep transition, emerging from worlds of strangeness. For him, Thailand. For me, the mountains. To reunite, easily. Beer in Julian, drunk on wine outside the Warner Springs ranch, acres of prefab housing in Temecula, the mall, dinner and banter with Judy and Norm. He dropped me off back at the trail this afternoon.
Climbed along a charging stream for 5 miles, into the highlands, the water hanging like a necklace down the mountain, the trail criss-crossing the stream until a panorama was reached of a sea of rock outcrops and cloudless sky and horizon of silhouetted peaks.
May 14
The long march towards the high snowfields atop San Jacinto peak. Rumors amidst hiker crowds have escalated my anxiety about crossing the snowed-in area. People say you cant find the trail or snow is four feet high or you go sliding along down the slopes. I heard all of this last night at the state park in Idyllwild, spent that night dreaming of a cruel world of rock and ice, failed attempts at crossing, feelings of entrapment and confusion. I have heard dreaming is an evolutionary tactic that began with primitives to help prepare psychologically for difficult tasks such as hunting, warfare, childbirth, who knows. Anyway, snow has been on my mind, vividly and acutely haunting me. I cant wait for the anticipation to end, the rumors, the psyche out. Tomorrow, I will cross with a nice couple I met today in the mountains.
Today began by weaving along rock piles of weathered granite, protruding boulders, a lunar landscape. Much climbing has led us to 7000 ridgewalking the best and highest hiking yet.
Hitchhiked yesterday into Idyllwild, picked up by an indian in a pick-up truck. He told me that this peak, according to the Cahuilla, is occupied by Tahquitz, a cannibal monster who is perched upon the crag and forbids travel without the price of being eaten. Apparently, no indians ever went up to the summit area of the mountain it belongs to Tahquitz. To me, this speaks to the sense of danger that I have felt while approaching this peak. Visually, it is high and intimidating, capped with snow. The hike up has been arduously long and impatient, slowly crawling thirty miles upward. But, danger is something to learn from, a territory to be entered quietly and thoughtfully, with respect. Danger is a temple, walk into it and be transformed.
May 16
The approach to the snowfields was a step-by-step process, of course, through narrow saddles and high crags. Imagine a trail blasted with dynamite (literally) out of the side of a drastic cliff face, the trail sitting like a shelf squeezed onto a vertical plane. Then, imagine traversing this vicious upwardly mobile path carved into the stone, turning the corner and seeing the path buried in snow. How to move forward? A man named Andy explained to me the science of kickingsteps, of leaning into the mountain, of directing the body's weight correctly. His wife had more trouble than me, she tensed up and couldn't go forward or backward -- stranded on a ledge of snow crying. We need skills out here you cant anaylyze your way through, you must move precisely, a tandem action of muscle and bone. But skills arent enough, a part of you must simply leap forward through the fear.Eventually, we moved out of the steep wall passes and into a bowl with broad topography, but in doing so we lost any hope of finding the trail somewhere beneath the thick plates of snow. Out of the danger of sliding off the mountain and into the vast nowhere of the snowfield. We used a compass to locate a point called 'Saddle Junction', 3 miles away, where the trail bails down into low country and out of the snow. We read the 2D contours of the map against the 3D contours of the real world, finding landforms that matched, using them as guides.Also, along the way we discovered two hikers disoriented and spun around in confusion, miles from where the thought they were. This was a grim image of what is possible, of the consequences of true danger -- no signs or trail to follow.While crossing this ridge, sweat bulging from my forehead and a pinpoint of pressure in my shoe where a pebble lay, eyes gauging downward in acute concentration of feet shuffling forward -- a sudden understanding that the mountain too is moving, crushing upward inches per year, beneath the pressure of two fault lines. I stopped to consider this. Looking out at the lower hills, stone folded in on itself, the landscape looked different to me: dynamic, in motion,moving without moving.The sheer task of moving forward, of becoming a mammal crossing a desolate landscape. My joints fused to the shoulder of the mountain and my eyes welded to the arc of sky.
May 18
Crossing the surreal heat of San Gorgornio Pass under the hypnotic drone of wind farms. Todays heat, destructive and fierce. Last night, peering out at Interstate 10, the smear of red and white lights, the subsonic sound of all that collective traffic in the distance, the moonlight wavering against the foreground of burnt desert: a strange feeling that I belong to such an alien world, that the hive of pavement and automobiles is all too familiar to me. Under the umbrella today, my own private microclimate. The heat exploding against my pores, I feel that I am participating in the rituals of the desert the struggle against the sun and the endless search for water sharing in the experience of heat and scarcity. Now, camped alongside a river valley of bleach white marble boulders a snow fed stream crashing out there in the dark.
Crystal. You should be out here in this place that we discovered, this garden of sun and stone. You should be with me. All the names return to me in your voice: ocotilla, senna, cholla. In this way, the plants taunt me with your presence. But I am a stupid hermit in a stupid tradition of self denial, alone among peaks. I know exactly how your cheek feels against the back of my fingertips. What drives me to deprive myself of a woman that I love and who loves me? What is it about raw country that tempts me away? Does the experience of it really enhance me? I can hear her calling the dogs in and I awake to see her hair like a river on the pillow.
Crossing the surreal heat of San Gorgornio Pass under the hypnotic drone of wind farms. Todays heat, destructive and fierce. Last night, peering out at Interstate 10, the smear of red and white lights, the subsonic sound of all that collective traffic in the distance, the moonlight wavering against the foreground of burnt desert: a strange feeling that I belong to such an alien world, that the hive of pavement and automobiles is all too familiar to me. Under the umbrella today, my own private microclimate. The heat exploding against my pores, I feel that I am participating in the rituals of the desert the struggle against the sun and the endless search for water sharing in the experience of heat and scarcity. Now, camped alongside a river valley of bleach white marble boulders a snow fed stream crashing out there in the dark.
Crystal. You should be out here in this place that we discovered, this garden of sun and stone. You should be with me. All the names return to me in your voice: ocotilla, senna, cholla. In this way, the plants taunt me with your presence. But I am a stupid hermit in a stupid tradition of self denial, alone among peaks. I know exactly how your cheek feels against the back of my fingertips. What drives me to deprive myself of a woman that I love and who loves me? What is it about raw country that tempts me away? Does the experience of it really enhance me? I can hear her calling the dogs in and I awake to see her hair like a river on the pillow.
May 24
The daily heat is beginning to wear me thin. We travel along the shadeless slopes carpeted with chapparal shrubs. All day the sun is a beam of light concentrated through a magnifying glass on the crown of my skull, following me as I walk. By midafternoon, I become delusional, nearly stumbling down the trail, the heat radiating up from the rocks, my mind rocking back and forth. The plants are too short to offer consolation in the form of shade. The trail is like pavement, it consists of crushed granite and broken twigs that have had no chance to decompose in this arid world. Sometimes, I can feel the moisture lifted from my skin and replaced with dust, large crackshave formed on the bottom my feet. There are several forms of relief from the heat. Scooping a handful of frigid water from a snow-melt stream and splashing your face with it. Climbing high up above 7000' into the crisp climate of tall shady pines and fields of snow. The little umbrella that I open up at high noon creates a portable microclimate, at least 15 degrees cooler within its circumference. Even the most shallow gust of wind brings me great satisfaction andprovides the illusion of air conditioning.My shoes are disintegrating. What started as two smalls holes in each shoe havegrown into gaping openings at the toes and the sides. It is less like shoes and more like two pieces of rubber tied to me feet. As I walk, gravel pours into the shoes and pebbles bite at the bottom of my feet. As I walk, my toes stick out and bang against rocks and cause me toscorn the ground. I will have to walk another fifty miles until I get a new pair in the mail.
A park ranger (camped tonight at a State Park) offered to take us to town for groceries. He never showed up and we were disappointed, ditched. Hours later, while we were just falling asleep, he found us and apologized. He had been held up by a drowned man that he could not resuscitate. That the ranger thought to apologize at all is amazing.
Game trails run like faint incisions across the cloth of the hills used by coyotes, rabbits, bobcats reminding me that the PCT is just another trail amongst a whole matrix of paths.
May 28
Climbing out of the San Andreas fault zone, a valley studded with creamy Yucca blossoms each flower hung with thousands of white bulbs and the low lying chamise shrubs that crawl along the ground, 17 miles up along a maze of tectonically deranged ridgelines slowly witnessing the change in vegetation and climate the sun burning the sides of the hills. While approaching the summit, looking backwards at the San Gorgornio and San Jacinto ranges, seeing the last 200 miles of vast space through which I have crossed. All the past moments of my travels compressed into a single backwards glance: struggling and climbing and sweating and crossing rivers and kicking steps into snow.
May 29
A half day today, hiking out of Wrightwood. Due to excessive snows along the Baden-Powell ridgeline we had a 12 mile detour along the vacant Angeles Crest Highway a road that begins in the city of Los Angeles and twists high up into the San Gabriel mountains. There is no traffic along this highway right now on account of impassable conditions: rockslides, avalanches, missing sections of road, etc. I scrambled along the many obstacles of the two lane highway, parts of the road sunken down and wasting away back to the mountainside, other parts of the road had been reclaimed by massive piles of scree, boulders, soil, and chunks of ice. Lone trees lying on the pavement, their torn roots like a head of hair sprawling across the yellow lines. Meltwater from the above snowfields cascading off the edge of pavement, driving downward into the mountainside below. Not a single car, two lanes to myself, an eery tone of apocalyptic vacancy accompanied by a sense of peace. Above me, the snowed in ridgeline, the peaks circumvented by this road, my chosen alternate route. Walking along the road, I was able to recognize the quality of a closed road. What a gift to the mother Big Horn sheep, to have this road closed, for the violence of 60 mph traffic to be absent, to be free to cross the road with her kids. To wander along a whole new side of the hills, no longer divided by the cruelty of motors. Without traffic the road becomes a benign strip of pavement. The snow like lace on the mountain.
May 30
It was an absent-minded day today: I got lost three times. My head was wrapped in distant thoughts of autumn days to be spent with Crystal or future graduate studies or other comforting daydreams. My first detour resulted in my missing a switchback and wandering across a sheer slope of loose scree, ending up on a very precarious slope where the mountain seemed to crumble under each step miniature rockslides. Stupidly, I was convinced that I saw a faint trail and that it would eventually become more distinct around a corner. It never did. At one point, I stood there, feeling shipwrecked and confused, without any stable footing, each rock like a sharpened object. I felt tricked. It was so hard to move, I was sliding further down with each step. I had to get off that part of the mountain. Eventually, I saw the trail far off on another hillside and from that, I was able to intuit where I had gone wrong. Another rock scramble across the slanting piles of stone and I had found the trail. Two other incidents not worth mentioning, but equally as frustrating and time consuming.
June 3
Hello to everyone -- Now, after 454 miles north of the Mexican border, my skin is several hues darker and I can feel the precise ache of each microscopic bone in my feet. Having crossed the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains, I am now lying low at the house of a very generous family in Agua Dulce, California. The Sierra Nevadas loom ahead on the horizon. Some parts of the Sierra have received record breaking amounts of snow this winter, as much as 15 feet of snow is still rumored to lie at the high passes even now in June. So, I will be skipping around the Sierra's and will soon be taking a Greyhound bus to Vancouver, British Columbia where I will begin hiking south from the Canadian border and hope to reach the Sierra by autumn after the snow has melted. I look forward to the big woods and dramatic peaks of the Northern Cascades.
All my best, Bill
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June 7
Hello again,
Suddenly, in a moment of clarity, I've decided to pass up my bus ride to Canada. I'm going to push onward towards the Sierra. While there will certainly be snowy conditions there, the information I have recieved has led me tobelieve that the high elevations will be passable. As of right now, snowfields are beginning around 11,000'. Snow level reports show that the melting rate is unusually high and there will be significantly less snow by the time I reach the area. This means that I still have about 12 days of desert walking until the Sierra faces me down on the horizon. I will have my ice axe ready to go and I am prepared for a 400 mile stretch that will probably be the most beautiful challenge of my life. If you'd like to send any mail my way, here is an address.
Bill Hogseth c/o Kennedy Meadows General Store PO Box 3A-5Inyokern, CA 93527
June 8
As I write this, my greyhound bus rolls north towards Vancouver without me. The bus left from Palmdale today while my boarding pass lays in a garbage can and I am camped at 5000, under a grove of sprawling black oaks, overlooking the vacant Antelope Valley.
I have abandoned my decision to bypass the Sierra. After much vascillation, I have decided to push through whatever snow and ice may lie on those high passes. Although I have chosen the most dangerous of the two alternatives, I am happy because I am answering the call to adventure. Despite my fears, I will go out into the snow, I will cross the swollen rivers, I will jab my axe through the plates of ice. This was an opportunity that I had to accept: the opportunity to engage the real world at its highest frequency and its most immediate intensity, the greatest challenge that has ever been offered to me. To refuse the offer is to refuse life. Fear had been the strongest emotion guiding my decision to get a bus to the northern end of the trail and to walk south, allowing the snow to melt in the Sierra. My fears were fed exclusively by my imagination of a ruthless and murderous landscape, but the truth is that I dont know what the Sierra will look like until I go up into the high country and see for myself. I must at least try.
The decision feels right. I will get to experience the thrill of walking out of one world and into another. From chapparal and parched air into cathedral granite and torrential rivers. The land will shape-shift right beneath my feet, the drama of transformation. In a way, taking a bus up north would have been giving up on the whole idea of continuity, walking in a single direction. The experience of a flowing landscape: the scrubby chamise disappears and the foxtail pine comes spiraling out of the ground, the dessicated basins of sun-bleached gravel turn into alpine meadows flooded with snowmelt. Until then, more monotonous chapparal and tomorrow: the Mojave.
Chapparal is my least favorite word right now. I dont feel very eloquent tonight.
As I write this, my greyhound bus rolls north towards Vancouver without me. The bus left from Palmdale today while my boarding pass lays in a garbage can and I am camped at 5000, under a grove of sprawling black oaks, overlooking the vacant Antelope Valley.
I have abandoned my decision to bypass the Sierra. After much vascillation, I have decided to push through whatever snow and ice may lie on those high passes. Although I have chosen the most dangerous of the two alternatives, I am happy because I am answering the call to adventure. Despite my fears, I will go out into the snow, I will cross the swollen rivers, I will jab my axe through the plates of ice. This was an opportunity that I had to accept: the opportunity to engage the real world at its highest frequency and its most immediate intensity, the greatest challenge that has ever been offered to me. To refuse the offer is to refuse life. Fear had been the strongest emotion guiding my decision to get a bus to the northern end of the trail and to walk south, allowing the snow to melt in the Sierra. My fears were fed exclusively by my imagination of a ruthless and murderous landscape, but the truth is that I dont know what the Sierra will look like until I go up into the high country and see for myself. I must at least try.
The decision feels right. I will get to experience the thrill of walking out of one world and into another. From chapparal and parched air into cathedral granite and torrential rivers. The land will shape-shift right beneath my feet, the drama of transformation. In a way, taking a bus up north would have been giving up on the whole idea of continuity, walking in a single direction. The experience of a flowing landscape: the scrubby chamise disappears and the foxtail pine comes spiraling out of the ground, the dessicated basins of sun-bleached gravel turn into alpine meadows flooded with snowmelt. Until then, more monotonous chapparal and tomorrow: the Mojave.
Chapparal is my least favorite word right now. I dont feel very eloquent tonight.
June 10
A wonderful ninety miles still twelve more until I get to the town of Mojave for more supplies spent walking and camping all alone, talking to myself and to the Joshua trees, being submerged in something truly quiet. The noise is my brain muted by the drumming of footsteps.
Today, Ive had the trail all to myself, not a single other hiker. This solitude has enhanced an otherwise drowsy and all too hot section of trail, apparently there was no corridor of public land through which to route this section of trail, so we are doomed to walk along the Los Angeles aqueduct and follow barbed wire fences and run from crazed dogs and travel through a maze of abused jeep roads. It was exciting, however, to be in the true Mojave desert amongst acres of Creosote bush and Joshua tree. You can see evidence of the Creosotes competitive advantage, how it has gained an edge in the deserts vegetative community by secreting toxins from its small leaves so that no other plant can survive within a short radius of the Creosote. What you end up seeing is a horizon dominated purely by the bush, each individual spaced equally apart from one another. The absence of any other human beings today has certainly amplified the feeling of desolation. The brute vacancy of the landscape.
I walked all morning. Then, at the top of the day, I found a bridge over Cottonwood Creek that offered the only shade for miles. Shade is shade, makes no difference that it was manmade. There, I waited out the dazzling heat of high noon for a couple hours. I made some macaroni and cheese, then took a nap, did some reading and then faded back to sleep. Each day is scheduled around shade. The strategy is always to walk until you find a place where the sun cannot extend its vicious reach. It makes no sense to rest by stopping and sitting in the sun, better to maximize your time in the shade by just walking non-stop until there is shade.
In the later part of the afternoon, while crossing the desert basin, driving western winds were shoving me off the trail and forcing me to constantly regain my balance. They would come at me from the side and then shift to strike at me head on. Even now, camped out in this canyon, the winds cycle firecely overhead, producing a sound that is oceanic and engrossing. Apparently, these winds are typical of this region, cool and moist Pacific air from the west clashing with the super-hot air of the Mojave. It is good to be lashed by this acute weather to feel your muscles react and your skin rise up. This is partly what I was initially seeking in coming out here, experiencing all the conditions without having the luxury of the Weather Channel or air conditioning. Where does the coyote go during a storm? How does the bobcat escape violent winds? A mammal endures bad weather, it doesnt flee from it by adjusting the thermostat.
The desert sky is a translucent dome. A veil of glass filled with ether. The sun stalks me. The Joshua trees look like people; looming above me, raising their stilletos, stretching upwards.
June 13
It sounded like a shrieking trumpet. It stopped me on the trail, the penetrating volume of it. I looked back down at the saddle, from where I had just climbed up and from where the sound originated. Then it came again, this time as a fully charged cry; shrill, piercing, gnarled and incredibly loud. Its sound carried such a clarity that I swear I could hear the individual vibrations of the animals vocal chords. I knew it was a mountain lion. It was a distinctive sound, totally unmistakable. It was the sound of otherness, a sound that sends you out of your body reminding you of your mortality, your fragility in the face of something predatory. It was a good sound for me to hear. It left my truly rattled. I continued walking up the trail, after being momentarily gripped in awe, not wanting to break my pace nor to encounter the animal face-to-face. But what was the yell? Was it a defensive cry? Was it hunting? What kind of emotion was contained in that sound?
The mountains are beginning to change as I take my first steps onto the batholith of the Sierra Nevada. The mountains show more exposed granite and are shaped more fluidly like true plutons. The forests are more dense. The lichen is brighter, almost flourescent. This is happening right before my eyes.
Interesting experiences this week while sleeping without a shelter, out under the stars. Days ago, while sleeping beside an old dirt road in the desert, next to the buried LA aqueduct, several off-road jeeps circling me and rearing their headlights at me. An extremely frightening moment to be awoken suddenly by the grinding of motors, to be suddenly exposed by spotlights of halogen. One of the trucks halted, its two beams burning my eyes and its engine idling. For a moment, I was convinced that I would soon see the shadows of men jumping down from the vehicle and I would be surrounded by a gang of them. But, thankfully, nothing happened. The truck pulled away and left me back in darkness. Looking back up, the desert sky lucid and punctured by stars. I fell back asleep. Last night, camped overlooking the basin where Edwards Air Force Base is located. Unreal lights streaking across the sky accompanied by the sound of powerful but distant engines. The lights arranged in shapes that resembled no plane I had ever seen. Occassionally, the lights would burst and glow, revealing an aircraft that appeared closer to alien than military.
While walking, I touch things just to verify their reality. The spackle of lichen on rock, the chips of bark on a Jeffrey pine, the solidity of a pebble between my fingers.
June 14
I have been putting in a series of 25 milers to catch up with a good group of friends who I want to go through the Sierra with. I am hoping to catch them before they enter the high country.It was too hot today while I was completely exposed, a total lack of shade. We worked through a world of Joshua trees and monstorous boulders and loose gravel slopes. It wasn't just the ferocity of the sun but the ground reflecting and amplifying the waves of heat back at me. I my body begin to throb, being irradiated in an ultraviolet bath. By mid-day, while marching on, I had something that resembled an out of body experience as the heat seemed to penetrate my skin and occupy the space inside my limbs and my muscles seemed to work automatically. I was lifted up above, watching myself walking down there on the ground, the heat filling my head. Somehow, I just kept walking.
The heat saps my energy, forcing me to take refuge under a cluster of Joshua trees, which provide scant shade. Inevitably, my body shuts down and I fall asleep for a little while -- there is nothing more strange for a boy from Wisconsin than waking up from a good dream only to remember that you are a speck lying alone in the vast center of the Mojave desert and the sky is so bright when you open your eyes that you might as well be dead, throttling through a tunnel of light towards something unknown.All the caches were full of water today, for which I am grateful it would be a very different desert without those supplies of water left to us by anonymous but sympathetic folks. I doubt that the people leave this water out for us have any clue the degree of immense satisfaction they are delivering. It is true that I am not walking alone, there are others who are watching out for me.
Another night sleeping in the open, two peaks lurk darkly above and a half moon coming up.
June 15
It seems like each new set of peaks we traverse becomes more and more carved, more angular, more timbered. The Sierra is emerging. It is as if there is a slow twist of the lens and the whole range comes into focus, a vague outline of peaks becoming more crisp and clear as I walk north. We got our first real view of the high Sierra today. They rose up on the far-away horizon like an army of granite waves surging upwards, snow-flanked titans, an elevated world lying imminently in my future.
I began the day today just before sunrise with my new hiking partner, a gentleman who goes by the name of Mountain Goat. We climbed around huge knobs of lichen painted rock while the sun was still hidden on the east side of the mountain, perfect timing for sure. On the other side of the valley the mountains were burning. Upon reaching an upper plateau, we met two hikers named Rabbit and Nitro, then cruised through a flat ridge of burnt pinyon pines during the high heat and made twenty miles before 3pm. After a reunion at Walker Pass with Sage and Allisa, I hitched 20 miles down the highway to an isolated desert town called Onyx. The town consisted of a single gas station and a post office, the buildings bleached by sun. We watched the wierd local characters go in and out of the gas station while gorging ourselves on microwave burritos, corn dogs, ice cream, and gatorade. We bought snacks to bring to our friends waiting back at the trail and got a hitch back to Walker Pass in a big semi truck that was hauling hay along the two-lane highway. As the sun fell, we hauled four miles up onto a crest where are now bedded, out in the open, currents of wind breaking against the ridge.
It is truly a crime not to hike into the late evening the light goes pale against the rock, shadows lengthen into shapes like continents, the air cools to a pleasant temperature, you feel strong from a full days hike perfection.
June 21
Enter the Sierra: an arduous climb up from the Kennedy Meadows region. We crossed meadows that are braided with ribbons of rivers, climbed along slopes of sculptured stone, through canyons studded with lodgepole pines. All of this work being done with twelve days worth of food on my back, prepared for a long term immersion in the high country. A true leap, for me, into the vivid unknown. There have been rumors along the trail that the Sierra will be impassable due to record amounts of snowfall during winter months. They say the high passes will require a full regalia of mountaineering equipment. They say that there will be hours of postholing. They say the strength of the rivers will sweep us away.
We have assembled a fine team of hikers, all of us marching together out of Kennedy Meadows, feeling strong enough as a group to enter the snowy passes, those very areas that everyone has warned us not to enter. We have chosen to stay together and help each other across this range. There is a sense of commitment amongst us all, a togetherness to assure ourselves that we are not alone.
As we climb higher and higher the air becomes thinner. The snow, too, becomes more abundant, filling in the slopes and sitting in increasingly larger patches. As we climb, my nervousness is mounting, my spine is siezed with the tension of foreboding, the imminence of danger, the unknowing of what really is lying ahead. I hide my anxiety about the upcoming passes by telling stupid jokes and stupid stories, trying hard not to psyche myself out. On the other hand, a sense of joy as we all climb farther and become engulfed in a carved landscape of twisted pines and jointed boulders and still frozen lakes. My nervousness is also a survival instinct. Nervousness as in all nerves active and alive, the body fully narrowed on the singular physical task of hauling a pack across the hills where our lungs gulp for oxygen and our feet crash through plates of frozen snow.
I fell yesterday. A stupid fall, the side of my shoe slid along a wet and greasy log. As I fell, the forty five pounds strapped to my back swung like a heavy pendulum, carrying me down with it. The crash was hinged on my ankle, which rolled inward as I hit the ground. I lay there looking up at the clusters of needles on a foxtail pine, admiring the patterned swirl of its wood. Then, slightly stunned, I realized that I had fallen and that I was in pain. Katie and Luna rushed over. I had to unbuckle my pack to even stand back up. So, now I am entering the high Sierra with a weak ankle that is wrapped in an ace bandange. A stupid fall that happened at the worst possible time, compounding my nervousness.
While climbing through a thicket of willows to get water, I see that the willow buds are still closed and I realize that spring hasnt even arrived here.
Enter the Sierra: an arduous climb up from the Kennedy Meadows region. We crossed meadows that are braided with ribbons of rivers, climbed along slopes of sculptured stone, through canyons studded with lodgepole pines. All of this work being done with twelve days worth of food on my back, prepared for a long term immersion in the high country. A true leap, for me, into the vivid unknown. There have been rumors along the trail that the Sierra will be impassable due to record amounts of snowfall during winter months. They say the high passes will require a full regalia of mountaineering equipment. They say that there will be hours of postholing. They say the strength of the rivers will sweep us away.
We have assembled a fine team of hikers, all of us marching together out of Kennedy Meadows, feeling strong enough as a group to enter the snowy passes, those very areas that everyone has warned us not to enter. We have chosen to stay together and help each other across this range. There is a sense of commitment amongst us all, a togetherness to assure ourselves that we are not alone.
As we climb higher and higher the air becomes thinner. The snow, too, becomes more abundant, filling in the slopes and sitting in increasingly larger patches. As we climb, my nervousness is mounting, my spine is siezed with the tension of foreboding, the imminence of danger, the unknowing of what really is lying ahead. I hide my anxiety about the upcoming passes by telling stupid jokes and stupid stories, trying hard not to psyche myself out. On the other hand, a sense of joy as we all climb farther and become engulfed in a carved landscape of twisted pines and jointed boulders and still frozen lakes. My nervousness is also a survival instinct. Nervousness as in all nerves active and alive, the body fully narrowed on the singular physical task of hauling a pack across the hills where our lungs gulp for oxygen and our feet crash through plates of frozen snow.
I fell yesterday. A stupid fall, the side of my shoe slid along a wet and greasy log. As I fell, the forty five pounds strapped to my back swung like a heavy pendulum, carrying me down with it. The crash was hinged on my ankle, which rolled inward as I hit the ground. I lay there looking up at the clusters of needles on a foxtail pine, admiring the patterned swirl of its wood. Then, slightly stunned, I realized that I had fallen and that I was in pain. Katie and Luna rushed over. I had to unbuckle my pack to even stand back up. So, now I am entering the high Sierra with a weak ankle that is wrapped in an ace bandange. A stupid fall that happened at the worst possible time, compounding my nervousness.
While climbing through a thicket of willows to get water, I see that the willow buds are still closed and I realize that spring hasnt even arrived here.
June 22
Awoke today on a ridge spotted with islands of snow, nests of boulders, and columns of distorted foxtails. Far too cold to get out of the sleeping bag, just below freezing, so we waited for the sun to break over the peaks and hit us with a shaft of warmth. Packing up my gear was complicated by the frigid stiffness in my hands, the inability of my fingers to operate in the cold. The elevation is mixing up the insides of our bodies headaches, diarrhea, fatigue making it harder to keep moving.
A wicked preview of what lies ahead in our future. I was shocked when we arrived at the torrents of Rock Creek, the white lashing arms of water split by hidden boulders, the blunt sound of all that moving water. We just stood there and looked at it in disbelief. On the other side of the river, the trail continued onward and disappeared up a slope of trees. All we knew was that we had to get to the other side. Another hiker, who was camped nearby, appeared behind us and informed us that we could find a log upstream. A moment of relief, for sure. Relief, however, framed by the unspoken knowledge that soon enough there would be many more rivers without any logs to cross on. After balancing across the log, a precarious situation in itself, we struggled vertically up the walls of Guyot Pass, which sat just below 10,000, still too low to be snowbound. While climbing, I tried to imagine what the incline would look like if it were covered with snow and I shuddered.
Camped now over 10,000, right below the summit of Mt. Whitney. I plan to stay put here tomorrow, while the others go up to the summit. I look forward to a slow day, resting and exploring the meadows, wandering freely amongst the rivers and ridges, absorbing the immensity of the Sierra. I know that my ankle can use some time off and I may be able straighten out my head before we cross Forrester Pass the very next day.
Awoke today on a ridge spotted with islands of snow, nests of boulders, and columns of distorted foxtails. Far too cold to get out of the sleeping bag, just below freezing, so we waited for the sun to break over the peaks and hit us with a shaft of warmth. Packing up my gear was complicated by the frigid stiffness in my hands, the inability of my fingers to operate in the cold. The elevation is mixing up the insides of our bodies headaches, diarrhea, fatigue making it harder to keep moving.
A wicked preview of what lies ahead in our future. I was shocked when we arrived at the torrents of Rock Creek, the white lashing arms of water split by hidden boulders, the blunt sound of all that moving water. We just stood there and looked at it in disbelief. On the other side of the river, the trail continued onward and disappeared up a slope of trees. All we knew was that we had to get to the other side. Another hiker, who was camped nearby, appeared behind us and informed us that we could find a log upstream. A moment of relief, for sure. Relief, however, framed by the unspoken knowledge that soon enough there would be many more rivers without any logs to cross on. After balancing across the log, a precarious situation in itself, we struggled vertically up the walls of Guyot Pass, which sat just below 10,000, still too low to be snowbound. While climbing, I tried to imagine what the incline would look like if it were covered with snow and I shuddered.
Camped now over 10,000, right below the summit of Mt. Whitney. I plan to stay put here tomorrow, while the others go up to the summit. I look forward to a slow day, resting and exploring the meadows, wandering freely amongst the rivers and ridges, absorbing the immensity of the Sierra. I know that my ankle can use some time off and I may be able straighten out my head before we cross Forrester Pass the very next day.
June 23
A day of rest under a cloudless sky, beside a loud Crabtree Creek. Rose up slowly after the others made their way out of camp, headed towards the summit of Whitney. Had a warm cup of tea with Katie and then explored the topography surrounding our base camp in Crabtree Meadows. Found an apex of weathered granite that allowed a panorama of towering peaks, like fangs above the lush meadows, the lodgepoles seem to be stitched onto the sides of the mountains. How great just to sit still, listening to the snow melting water falling drop by drop into a pond, observing the foxtail growing somehow from a crack in the boulder. Slowness of dripping meltwater, quiet undulation of wind against rock.
Since leaving the desert of southern California, it feels like Ive disappeared. The Sierra stands in contrast to the overly developed landscape of southern California. The interstates, the powerlines, the jeep roads. Everyday there was evidence of human intrustion, every view offered a vision of a manipulated land divided by parcel lines, irrigation circles, strips of road, reminders that I was never far away from the all too human world. Here, though, in the Sierra, the meadows are defined only by the curve of river, the streambanks cut by bending water, and the mountains are shaped only by the glaciers that retreated long ago and now only by the timber that swells up the slopes and the snow draped along the peaks.
In all my thousands of miles of hiking, I have never felt anything comparable to the Sierra it is a place removed, too high and too desolate to fit into the narrow parameters I formerly used to define the world. Anything I say about the Sierra will sound like a cliche. This is to be expected: great things resist description. These ranges are a high kingdom of stone and sky, a self contained nation of frozen lakes and ice glazed peaks. It feels like I have disappeared completely into another world, nothing else exists outside these walls.
My mileage has been reduced from about 25 miles per day to about 15 per day. This is a result of steeper and longer climbs, as well as the lack of oxygen at these high altitudes. Struggling uphill, each step is puncuated by a shortness of breath, as if I were sucking through a thin straw. The benefit to a slower pace is that it allows me more time to absorb this place.
Tomorrow we begin to cross a series of snow covered passes, each one a gateway to another matrix of peaks and rivers, new drainages, new ranges. These passes are the most dangerous and challenging aspect of the Sequoia/King's Canyon region. They are said to be high and steep.
This year, they are going to be especially snowbound. Everyone has warned us to stay away, let the snow melt and return later in the year. We are opting otherwise. My imagination has painted a
treacherous picture in my mind but my legs and lungs feel strong enough to charge the precipices.
A day of rest under a cloudless sky, beside a loud Crabtree Creek. Rose up slowly after the others made their way out of camp, headed towards the summit of Whitney. Had a warm cup of tea with Katie and then explored the topography surrounding our base camp in Crabtree Meadows. Found an apex of weathered granite that allowed a panorama of towering peaks, like fangs above the lush meadows, the lodgepoles seem to be stitched onto the sides of the mountains. How great just to sit still, listening to the snow melting water falling drop by drop into a pond, observing the foxtail growing somehow from a crack in the boulder. Slowness of dripping meltwater, quiet undulation of wind against rock.
Since leaving the desert of southern California, it feels like Ive disappeared. The Sierra stands in contrast to the overly developed landscape of southern California. The interstates, the powerlines, the jeep roads. Everyday there was evidence of human intrustion, every view offered a vision of a manipulated land divided by parcel lines, irrigation circles, strips of road, reminders that I was never far away from the all too human world. Here, though, in the Sierra, the meadows are defined only by the curve of river, the streambanks cut by bending water, and the mountains are shaped only by the glaciers that retreated long ago and now only by the timber that swells up the slopes and the snow draped along the peaks.
In all my thousands of miles of hiking, I have never felt anything comparable to the Sierra it is a place removed, too high and too desolate to fit into the narrow parameters I formerly used to define the world. Anything I say about the Sierra will sound like a cliche. This is to be expected: great things resist description. These ranges are a high kingdom of stone and sky, a self contained nation of frozen lakes and ice glazed peaks. It feels like I have disappeared completely into another world, nothing else exists outside these walls.
My mileage has been reduced from about 25 miles per day to about 15 per day. This is a result of steeper and longer climbs, as well as the lack of oxygen at these high altitudes. Struggling uphill, each step is puncuated by a shortness of breath, as if I were sucking through a thin straw. The benefit to a slower pace is that it allows me more time to absorb this place.
Tomorrow we begin to cross a series of snow covered passes, each one a gateway to another matrix of peaks and rivers, new drainages, new ranges. These passes are the most dangerous and challenging aspect of the Sequoia/King's Canyon region. They are said to be high and steep.
This year, they are going to be especially snowbound. Everyone has warned us to stay away, let the snow melt and return later in the year. We are opting otherwise. My imagination has painted a
treacherous picture in my mind but my legs and lungs feel strong enough to charge the precipices.
June 24
Waking to see a dim light saturating the sky. Eyes refuse to open. The frigid air sharpeningitself against the tip of my nose peaking out of my sleeping bag. Immediately, with trepidation, I acknowledged that today was the day we will cross Forrester Pass the first of nine major passes and it will reveal to us the general condition of the High Sierra. How much snow will there really be? Will we be able to get up and over? With the trail deep under many feet of snow, will we be able to navigate our way across with only a map and compass? How bad will it really be? These thoughts made it particularly hard to get out of the sleeping bag today.
We began our day at 10,000. We would eventually reach Forrester Pass and top off at over 13,000. We then would have to work our way down off the pass, into the below valley, ending our day somewhere near 10,000 again. It all sounds so simple.
These are details of the day: the first mile held three river crossings. We stayed dry on the first river, hopping over ice-coated boulders. However, we had to get wet in the next rivers. A fraction of a degree away from freezing, the water transformed my feet into solid frozen chunks, totally numb. Hit them with a hammer and they shatter. It took five minutes of walking, after getting out of the water, for sensation to return, the blood stubbornly flowing back to the feet. We climbed up from the rivers, through aisles of misshaped pines. After pushing upwards, the topography leveled off and we hit a wide plateau. Our view opened up to an expanse of continuous snowfields walled in by high geologic fortresses of rock and ice. Lots of snow, I thought, and still more than 2,000 of vertical gain remained to be climbed. This began the long and slow approach upwards to the pass across the snowfields. Now, in early summer, this snow is pretty old. The first big storms last winter came in September and by early May most of the seasons snow had fallen. Ever since, it has been melting and refreezing into what are called "sun cups". Walking across this kind of terrain is exhausting and tedious. You are constantly stepping in and out of frozen potholes, often losing your balance or falling completely. The miles come slowly and your energy drains quickly.
By the time we approached the base of Forrester Pass, we stationed ourselves onto an island of exposed rock emerging from the snow and, armed with map and compass, we tried to identify the pass. It took a few minutes to get our bearings: shifting the map flat on the rock, aligning the compass on the map, and finding key landforms. We all agreed that Forrester Pass was straight ahead a narrow avalanche track, a vertical swath of ice cutting down along the wall our agreement was confirmed when we saw three figures, dotted tiny against the snow, slowly crossing the very top of the chute. I was taken aback at the sight of these three indistinguishable people hanging out over that amount of space. This image stabbed me with a primitive and instinctual fear, to retreat from the situation, to go back out the way we came, to turn around and hike away. Somehow, my fear of death, which was very real at this point, was over-ridden by something: possibly a surge of adrenalin, possibly a desire to prove this to myself, possibly a fear of embarrasment that exceeded my fear of injury/death. Something, I dont know what.
We decided to aim ourselves to the right of the chute and traverse up the sidewall until we reached the top of the ridge, where we would then have to work across the chute. Upon reaching the vertical ascent up to the pass, we all unsheathed our axes and began switchbacking up the slope. I led the group for several traverses and then, still nervous and fatigued, handed the job over. Almost all the way up, the snow broke out into dry rock, giving me an opportunity to rest and gain a view of the basin. We were only a short climb away from reaching the avalanche chute. I walked there slowly, methodically placing each foott, gathering enough energy to push myself out onto a series of steps perched along a slant of ice, hanging over a thousand feet above the floor. Looking down at my feet, the crunch of gravel under each step and the feel of solid ground beneath my heels, I tried to imagine that crossing the avalanche chute would be just as simple. Thirty easy steps. Like walking down the driveway to get the mail.
June 26
After crossing Forrester Pass, the group convened and, following much discussion, a decision was made to leave the trail and get more supplies because the amount of snow was simply slowing us down more than we had anticipated. With twelve days of food on our backs, we had planned to cover a minimum of sixteen miles a day in order to travel about 175 miles. Since we hit the big snowfields, we covered only ten miles in a full day of hiking. Our logic concluded that if the upcoming passes will be just as slow going as this last one then our food will only last us ten days, instead of twelve. So, it is onward to Kearsarge Pass and then beyond to Independence, a drowsy town on Highway 395, RVs passing through on summer vacation and fishermen heading up to the high lakes, sitting at the very crook of the mountains, where the Sierra rises straight out of the desert.
Looking up at the Sierra from the bottom of this arid floor, I see these monuments of pure rock protruding vertically in piles against the placid blue sky. From down here, the mountains appear ominous and mythological, like an autonomous world that can only be entered with utter heroism, with limitless determination and strength of spirit. High up there is a place categorically distinct from this desert, composed of avalanches, waterfalls, foxtails, marmots, snowfields, meadows. Ive never seen anything like this before.
Resting has allowed me some time and distance to calm down about the upcoming passes. The danger exists, yes, but clarity of the senses is the antidote to letting these conditions overwhelm me. My focus must be totally narrowed around the action of my limbs, the fundamental contraction and expansion of muscle fibers, the simple motions; rather than the massive emptiness of space hanging below me or the flight of icy stairs extending above me. I must break the next one hundred miles into a series of manageable footsteps, the soles of my shoes shaping steps in the snow, the stem of my axe braced firmly between the mountain and myself.
Yesterday, I was surprised to awake to see my bag coated in frost, the moisture emanating from the nearby river where we laid out our camp. Shoes frozen into stiff blocks, noses running with cold snot. After we had finalized our decision to get more supplies, we began eating voraciously from our foodbags. Our decision had suddenly released us from our former food scarcity, from the meager rationing. My breakfast consisted of an oatmeal bar, two Snickers bars, and several granola bars. While walking, following the downstream flow of Bubbs Creek, we passed through a stand of annihilated pines, crushed and splintered into a chaotic mess of debris. The smashed poles all slanting away in the same direction. Evidence of a recent avalanche. Looking at the shattered trunks, I wondered what would happen to my own bones under the force of such an avalanche. Recognition of my own fragility, that the mountain is the boss. I am here under the terms of the Sierra.
June 28
Sleeping on a slab of granite tonight. The surrounding range always feels so much colder once the sun goes below the canyon. Rock shedding heat so quickly.
Crossed Glen Pass today with simplicity. The south side, from where we approached its walls, was dry enough to find the switchbacks exposed. It was a matter of simply walking to the top of the pass without having to play mountaineer. The north side, however, involved a nearly vertical climb down, planting my heels in miniature snow steps, one at a time, leaning in on my axe, trying to control the weight of my body against the pull of gravity. Once the slope became less steep, we all dropped onto our butts and whirred down the mountain, eventually gaining dry land again once we had dropped below 10,000. Once off the snow, we wove in and out of glacial lakes sitting like potholes in the valleys. Now, camping high again, around 10,500.
With all the snow, there is so much meltwater draining from above. Whole meadows and forests are turned sloppy with sheets of melting snow. Before the morning is done, we have already lost the dream of dry feet. We go trudging through the ooze, through the rivers, the slush and the snow, through the ice, through the mud.
June 30
Two passes in one day, marching like a zombie across snow plains to approach the sheer icy walls of Pinchot Pass. Using our topographic maps we were able to aim ourselves correctly across the landscape of sun-cupped snow and into a glacial basin from which we would have to climb out of. For about a half-hour there was some debate amongst the group as to what peak was what and in what direction we should travel in relation to the surrounding landforms. Is that peak a thousand feet above us or only three hundred feet? Have we traveled a full mile or only a half mile? Where is that river on the map? What about the three lakes sitting somewhere just below the pass? When everything is buried under snow, travel becomes more complicated. A decision was made, which turned out to be correct, a testament to the effectiveness of the democratic process. While traveling along the side of the wall, gaining more and more elevation, planting the stem of my ice axe into the mountainside as I kicked steps into snow, working my way onto the higher slopes; I felt the nerves in my neck tightening into a knot, the muscles in my shoulders hardening and stiffening. My movement was becoming more rigid, like an old machine whose joints lacked lubrication. I was too wound up. Fear was having me concentrate too acutely on each individual step, thinking I was always about to slide away. Too much fire running through the grains of my muscles. Pausing to look up: ahead of me laid tracks in the snow leading upwards to the brink of a wall and below me dropped curtains of snow clinging to the drastic granite walls. I said this to myself, "Loosen yourself up, man. Be a god-damn ninja. Unhinge your shoulders, loosen up, move like a ninja over this mountain. Let your body glide." Immediately, something was released, leaving my body feeling decompressed, and I floated gracefully up the staircase of ice. I moved swiftly to the saddle, which revealed still more snow on the backside.
The other pass, Mather Pass, was even more hairy. Very fatigued by a series of river crossings in the afternoon, the sun threatening to set on us and harden the snow in a freezing darkness. We approached the base of the pass, cooked dinner to regain some energy, then argued about whether to wait until the morning to go up and over. While we argued, the rock loomed moitonless above us, waiting. Rabbit was scared, Elsa was crying. Batteries and Freight Train were both adamant above getting over tonight. I remained neutral, saying that I honored peoples fears and but that I also acknowledged the logic of crossing the pass tonight. Eventually, we decided to hit it and we started climbing. We cut horizontally below the pass, following its contour, kicking steps. After crossing the chunky remains of an old avalanche, we made it to the vertical rock face where the trail switchbacks were still buried in snow, forcing us to use our ice axes and ascend straight upwards. Again, kicking steps and using the firmly planted ice axe as leverage. This lead us to the top of the pass, over 12,000 feet, where a cornice of snow had formed from a winter's worth of storms, a lip of snow arcing like a wave of water over the rock, very difficult to climb over. As we dropped away, still in snow, darkness caught us on our way down, forcing us to make a quick decision to sleep on a crop of rocks, surrounded by an ocean of ice. Falling asleep, watching the milky way gradually fade into view against a jagged foreground of cold peaks, I felt that I was on another planet completely, hurdling through space. Feeling detached from the earth, enclosed in a foreign landscape, remoteness, rock and ice.
July 1
There is a glare of white emanating upwards from the snow, reflecting light in all directions, burning all exposed skin up the sleeves of my shirt, the legs of my shorts. There are suncups, deep trenches of ice, grooves and depressions repeating endlessly for acres impossible to take a complete stride. There are rocks that radiate heat, forming haloes in the snow. Buried rocks form hidden caverns that crash down when stepped upon leaving you up to the hips in snow. There are streams that run beneath the snow, carving out subterranean tunnels and you can hear the gargle of moving water beneath the crust of ice. Exposed streams, you must find a snow bridge and hope it doesnt collapse as you tip-toe across it or you just walk right through the stream. There is a lack of oxygen and the lungs thunder inside chest, beating against the thin layer of atmoshphere. There is sweat staining the eyes. There is the whiplash dance, like a marienette, along the grooves of snow. In the morning, there are icefields. In the evening, there are plains of softened slush. During the night, the world freezes again.
July 10
My old journal has been returned to me by Sage, here at Tuolumne Meadows, a wonderful gift to be able to write in this now. A wonderful two days spent resting and exploring Yosemite like a tourist, after 200 miles of exhausting travel over nine High Sierra passes. I swear that Yosemite valley is the most gorgeous thing I have laid eyes upon, the embrace of its conifer canopies and the strong shadows of granite towers. Despite the tourists and the stores, I felt something lunge out of me while I was there.
My group of fellow hikers has turned out to be a solid bunch. They have all provided me with the assistance necessary to get through the most difficult stuff of my life: crossing windswept cornices, climbing straight up snowy ledges, keeping a sense of humor on long wet cold sloppy snowy pass crossings. We roll across this land, keeping each other in balance and helping to mainatin ourselves to keep our northward pace.
July 12
Balloons of rock protruding above the timberline. My feet propped up on a pine, my body laced with ants, my mind half asleep in the sun.
The sun is down and I am sealed inside my shelter away from the torrents of mosquitoes. We are camped around 8800, which is considered low for the Sierra, in the crevice of two canyon walls. A very hard day, dropping down into glacial canyons only to climb straight back out along the canyons opposite wall, through pockets of lakes and high hidden meadows, ruggedly narrow switchbacks. We crossed eight rivers today. Despite 22 miles, we were still able to fit in two naps as well as some reading. Annies mac-n-cheese for dinner tonight, again. Above me, the rocks rise bare and build into shapes: gnarled spires and bulging walls, scoured bowls, knife edges. I am able to aquaint myself with these shapes by walking across them, tracing their contours with the soles of my shoes. I am a small thing in a big place.
July 13
I killed thirteen mosquitoes tonight in a single hit to my knee. They form a jacket around any exposed skin. You know its bad when you can clap your hands in the air and take out ten of them. Biblical swarms darkening the air around you, clinging to the netting of your tent.1,000 mile mark tomorrow. I can feel the fatigue has set in that I would like to cure somehow -- a weariness in the muscles dragging me down, a pervasive stiffness in the bones, a general absence of energy and an abundance of hunger no matter how many Snickers bars I eat. Ittruly feels like I've traveled 1,000 miles.
Crystal arrives in Tahoe soon, she will certainly contribute to my rejuvenation. Most likely, but hopefully not, a nosedive in my spirit once she leaves.
July 14
Started the day with an apple and coffee served to me in my tent by Bloody Knuckles, then moved onto a spoonful of peanut butter and chocolate chips from Freight Train, then a brand new trowel from Pepperjack to take shits with, then placebo jerky at lunch from Batteries, still more at dinner with pudding from Frieght Train one hell of a great birthday crossing Sonora Pass along weird new volcanic ranges, turning away from Sierra granite and towards the lower tip of the Cascades. As a finale, a rich and surprising chocolate peanut butter Jello no-bake cake was served up on the top of Sonora Peak and shared with spoons by everyone. Five of us have managed to squeeze onto a notch, perched high above the road, surrounded by crags and layers of ranges.
A joyous day crossing Sonora. Very little technical demand, but with all the pleasures of high mountaineering. Views to the rear of the farewell Sierra, hard edge back ranges piled with white, a stretching ahead of us is the gentle curve of a new geology. A long and slow climb upwards, a quick descent down a north-facing wall of snow; sliding and skiing. I even had to self arrest at one point.
Thoughts today of our damaged land sequoias once slanted in Kearsarge Pass, grizzly no longer haunting these slopes, Yosemite Valley turned to Disneyland California is less complete.
July 17
Approaching Tahoe, views of the lake today, after 155 miles and 7 days, across immensely varied landscapes: granite canyons in Yosemite, volcanoes past Sonora, red foothills toward Tahoe. With each new land type, the trail itself takes on new characteristics: kamikaze climbs or meandering undulations.
Todays synopsis: Awoke with gangs of mosquitoes coating the bug netting. Feeling energy deficient: a pervasive stiffness and an insatiable hunger gnawing at my stomach. Batteries and Pepperjack climbed "The Nipple". Swimming and washing in Lost Lake: watching the salt from my shirt bleed into the water. BBQ chicken, Gatorade, watermelon, apples, crackers all gifts from weekend campers parked at Long Lake we walked on happy and full. Two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale found in an ice cold stream while fetching water. Slushies from snow piles and marijuana with Nabor J and Chowda. Traversing steep snow slopes while stoned is very difficult. A traffic of day hikers while we approached Carson Pass (where Kit Carson carved his name in a tree). Fantastic crescent shapes of sun washed snow clinging to open slopes giving off streamers of water perfectly sculpted. All in all, a fun day of surprises and gifts and many breaks. Somehow, with all the fun, we still covered over 20 miles. This 160 mile section has had me dragging my feet at times, but on a day like today I feel strong, despite the constant feeling of food scarcity, the heat and the hunger.
July 21
Crystal arrives shortly, easily returning into this thread of my life, with laughter and understanding. I am eager to share the details of this experience, for our eyes to share the same angles and views.
This has been an experience of shifting gears. A constant transition into varying ecosystems, from the desert to ice and from granite towers to lava flows. From the close knit friendship of a tribal group to the self reliance of hermetic travels, from the bizarre otherworldliness of these mountains to the familiar comfort of Crystals presence. Continual adaptation, shapeshifting, new selves emerging and called out from each new landscape, from each new situation.
Collect water from the stream, a ribbon braided against rock. Make stair steps in the slabs of ice, a softening crust under the bleaching sun. Shift your weight, pouncing across boulder fields deposited by long ago avalanches. The suck of mud swallowing sinking shoes in meltwater floodplain meadows, collecting the winters history of cornices and shelves. Go from ice glazed rock and prehistoric fanged peaks into the sweep of flower drowned pastures in a matter of hours. Haul your food, haul your shelter, haul your bed, haul your water. Your maps, old letters, pocket knife. Haul everything from peak to peak. Watch the cumulus pile up above Banner Peak, observe how the moisture collects into shapes and columns. Go looking upstream for just the right log to balance across above the angry white froth of a flooded creek. Walk right through the water. Reconstruct old Dylan songs in your head while going across a scree slope, recollect old girlfriends while under the pine canopy. Dip your cup into a pool of fresh meltwater. Help your friends get over the passes. Find the route, look for the best lines, trudge forward, lean into the mountain, kick good steps. Get lost, get found. Dig a hole in the ground and squat above it. Observe the chaos of the forest floor. Comb your beard. Never stop moving forward. Wake up and do it again.
Hello everyone.
Finally, after over 700 miles, I have reached a computer with internet access. Currently, I am taking a day off at a gentleman's home on theshores of Donner Lake (yes, the site of the legendary Donner Party). A wonderful 60 mile hike with my girlfriend, Crystal, who returns to Wisconsin tomorrow. Continuing to hike north, I have left the treacherous and exciting ranges of the Sierra Nevada and I am entering the more docile peaks of northern California. I am both relieved yet somewhat sad to leave the high elevations of the Sierra Nevada. Excerpts from my journal are below to better describe the hundreds of miles of ice and rock that I have traversed since I last communicated with you all.
Best regards, Bill
Finally, after over 700 miles, I have reached a computer with internet access. Currently, I am taking a day off at a gentleman's home on theshores of Donner Lake (yes, the site of the legendary Donner Party). A wonderful 60 mile hike with my girlfriend, Crystal, who returns to Wisconsin tomorrow. Continuing to hike north, I have left the treacherous and exciting ranges of the Sierra Nevada and I am entering the more docile peaks of northern California. I am both relieved yet somewhat sad to leave the high elevations of the Sierra Nevada. Excerpts from my journal are below to better describe the hundreds of miles of ice and rock that I have traversed since I last communicated with you all.
Best regards, Bill
July 29
Crystal came and then left with blisters on her feet. Made love by Velma Lake and watched the highway lights from Tinker Knob. She is my best companion.
Awoke on a steel catwalk of an abandoned fire lookout, suspended above a narrow butte and hanging out over the sky. The rising sun: streaks of atmospheric violet and hydrogen orange. We had made a push from the bottom of the Yuba River valley, climbing to the summit of the Sierra Buttes, where the lookout awaited us. Starting in the late afternoon, we climbed a relentless ascent of five thousand vertical feet. Daylight faded all around us as we continue to push upwards, across the blocks of mountainside. By dark, we were working on an abusrdly steep jeep road that led to the fire lookout. Then, sets of stairs, empty space below. Then, the tower like an eagle's nest on the peak. A beautiful place to wake up.
Yesterday, I was ready to quit this whole thing. In an attempt to find water, I made a sidetrip off the ridge, following a jeep trail to a lake that appeared on the map. After pumping a few quarts, I continued down the road, assuming that it would return to the trail as the map seemed to indicate. After an hour of wandering through a maze of interconnecting roads, it was clear that I was not going to be led back to the trail. Sitting down to collect my mind, I was unable to locate myself on the map. Frustration built up as the realization solidified that I was lost. I continued to walk, hoping to find a way out of the mountains. To get to a major road, hitch to the nearest town, and count my losses. Strangely, I came across an empty youth camp on a small lake. There was a guy there in a canoe with his daughter. He had a pistol strapped to his leg, not sure why. We talked. He showed me where we were on the map and it turned out I was only two miles from the trail. He filled up my water before I departed. My frustration, though, had not been resolved. I had lost nearly a full day of hiking to a stupid navigation mistake. So, to make up for lost time, I hiked for over ten more miles until midnight. The darkness played tricks with me, swarming with miniature sounds, snapping twigs and the flush of wind -- putting me on edge and stirring up images of cougars. A few sudden explosions of crashing branches, probably just deer, sending me out my skin, forcing me to stop to settle my heart rate. So, to give the deer fair warning of my presence in the dark, I began singing aloud and clapping along. If there was anyone camping in the forest that night, they must have thought a lunatic was in their midst. I collapsed at midnight on a logging road, mosquitoes attacking and too tired to care. Tonight, sleeping next to the drone of the Feather River.
Crystal came and then left with blisters on her feet. Made love by Velma Lake and watched the highway lights from Tinker Knob. She is my best companion.
Awoke on a steel catwalk of an abandoned fire lookout, suspended above a narrow butte and hanging out over the sky. The rising sun: streaks of atmospheric violet and hydrogen orange. We had made a push from the bottom of the Yuba River valley, climbing to the summit of the Sierra Buttes, where the lookout awaited us. Starting in the late afternoon, we climbed a relentless ascent of five thousand vertical feet. Daylight faded all around us as we continue to push upwards, across the blocks of mountainside. By dark, we were working on an abusrdly steep jeep road that led to the fire lookout. Then, sets of stairs, empty space below. Then, the tower like an eagle's nest on the peak. A beautiful place to wake up.
Yesterday, I was ready to quit this whole thing. In an attempt to find water, I made a sidetrip off the ridge, following a jeep trail to a lake that appeared on the map. After pumping a few quarts, I continued down the road, assuming that it would return to the trail as the map seemed to indicate. After an hour of wandering through a maze of interconnecting roads, it was clear that I was not going to be led back to the trail. Sitting down to collect my mind, I was unable to locate myself on the map. Frustration built up as the realization solidified that I was lost. I continued to walk, hoping to find a way out of the mountains. To get to a major road, hitch to the nearest town, and count my losses. Strangely, I came across an empty youth camp on a small lake. There was a guy there in a canoe with his daughter. He had a pistol strapped to his leg, not sure why. We talked. He showed me where we were on the map and it turned out I was only two miles from the trail. He filled up my water before I departed. My frustration, though, had not been resolved. I had lost nearly a full day of hiking to a stupid navigation mistake. So, to make up for lost time, I hiked for over ten more miles until midnight. The darkness played tricks with me, swarming with miniature sounds, snapping twigs and the flush of wind -- putting me on edge and stirring up images of cougars. A few sudden explosions of crashing branches, probably just deer, sending me out my skin, forcing me to stop to settle my heart rate. So, to give the deer fair warning of my presence in the dark, I began singing aloud and clapping along. If there was anyone camping in the forest that night, they must have thought a lunatic was in their midst. I collapsed at midnight on a logging road, mosquitoes attacking and too tired to care. Tonight, sleeping next to the drone of the Feather River.
July 30
Perched on top of Spanish Peak; 7000, overlooking the wide valleys and bending slopes of northern California, the clearcuts and reservoirs and roads and endless layers of ranges extending north to Lassen and south to the Sierra Buttes.
An extensive climb out of the Feather River valley this morning. Amongst a thick air, woven with humidity, sharp slopes carpeted with dogwood, alder, big leaf maple; densely shaded and darkly enclosed in curtains of vegetation, sunlight distilled through a filter of branch and leaf. Climbing with staggered breath upwards from the valley bottom, conifers begin to appear and then oaks, the sunlight breaking through an evermore open canopy. The columns of pine throw shafts of shadows until, finally reaching a saddle, the slopes are fully exposed and carpeted by manzanita. From gully to summit.
An alternate route took us along a road to a lake resort for lunch cheeseburger and chef salad where we met a guy named Bill with his puppy Thumper. I enjoyed his company. He spoke in a plain but sloppy tongue. Hed been all over these hills, knew every jeep road and every little valley, the history of its use. He bummed me a cigarette on the porch, in exchange for me listening to his stories. He worked for the utility company, cleaning brush away from lines. Most would disregard the guy as uneducated but I admired his working knowledge of this place. He told me about the origin of A Tree a place where I had just gotten water the day before a surveyor stamped a red fir when scouting a route for a railroad that never got built. I wanted to hang out with this guy. Go fishing, drink beers, drive the jeep roads, listen to more stories.
Its taking me a while to get the feel of northern California, to settle into the modesty of its subtle hill-strokes.
Perched on top of Spanish Peak; 7000, overlooking the wide valleys and bending slopes of northern California, the clearcuts and reservoirs and roads and endless layers of ranges extending north to Lassen and south to the Sierra Buttes.
An extensive climb out of the Feather River valley this morning. Amongst a thick air, woven with humidity, sharp slopes carpeted with dogwood, alder, big leaf maple; densely shaded and darkly enclosed in curtains of vegetation, sunlight distilled through a filter of branch and leaf. Climbing with staggered breath upwards from the valley bottom, conifers begin to appear and then oaks, the sunlight breaking through an evermore open canopy. The columns of pine throw shafts of shadows until, finally reaching a saddle, the slopes are fully exposed and carpeted by manzanita. From gully to summit.
An alternate route took us along a road to a lake resort for lunch cheeseburger and chef salad where we met a guy named Bill with his puppy Thumper. I enjoyed his company. He spoke in a plain but sloppy tongue. Hed been all over these hills, knew every jeep road and every little valley, the history of its use. He bummed me a cigarette on the porch, in exchange for me listening to his stories. He worked for the utility company, cleaning brush away from lines. Most would disregard the guy as uneducated but I admired his working knowledge of this place. He told me about the origin of A Tree a place where I had just gotten water the day before a surveyor stamped a red fir when scouting a route for a railroad that never got built. I wanted to hang out with this guy. Go fishing, drink beers, drive the jeep roads, listen to more stories.
Its taking me a while to get the feel of northern California, to settle into the modesty of its subtle hill-strokes.
August 2
Still punching out 25's hiking with Hobbles towards Lassen National Park. Good conversation and good hiking.
A sweeping climb up from the North Fork of the Feather River (and the hospitality of the Braatens) 5000 vertical into a carved river canyon. Much of the trail densely overgrown with sharp thickets of manzanita and other shrubs, forcing me to do battle with chest high limbs attempting to consume me. It reminded me of when Vietnam vets talk about elephant grass, slicing their hands and reducing their vision down to a few feet. I am fortunate that there is no one trying to kill me on this trail.
We have officially entered the Cascades, with northward views of Lassen Peak, rising up out of the unbroken timber layer, its summit still snowbound even in August. We have been spending more and more time under tree cover, traveling across rolling mountains whose summits are punctuated with chunky spires of lava.
I feel strong. Movement is automatic. The land rises to meet my footstep.
Still punching out 25's hiking with Hobbles towards Lassen National Park. Good conversation and good hiking.
A sweeping climb up from the North Fork of the Feather River (and the hospitality of the Braatens) 5000 vertical into a carved river canyon. Much of the trail densely overgrown with sharp thickets of manzanita and other shrubs, forcing me to do battle with chest high limbs attempting to consume me. It reminded me of when Vietnam vets talk about elephant grass, slicing their hands and reducing their vision down to a few feet. I am fortunate that there is no one trying to kill me on this trail.
We have officially entered the Cascades, with northward views of Lassen Peak, rising up out of the unbroken timber layer, its summit still snowbound even in August. We have been spending more and more time under tree cover, traveling across rolling mountains whose summits are punctuated with chunky spires of lava.
I feel strong. Movement is automatic. The land rises to meet my footstep.
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