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.