Month: October 2017

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JMT Day 11 – It’s Hard to Human. Ya Know?

Zero Day in VVR
We wake up late in our little indoors space and begin the process of repacking our bags, gathering our resupply and setting up our tent in the campground. The hotel/cabin/70’s murder palace was nice for one night, but too costly for two. I take once last shower, put on clean-ish clothes and head outside.
There is nothing to be done today, nothing to do. Keith wants to hitch down to Mono hot springs, and so we do the two mile road walk back to the main road, and I get put in charge of securing us a ride. I’m always in charge of hitchhiking, partially because I’m a girl, partially because I have far more experience hitching than Keith, and partially because I’m good at getting a ride. Soon we’re bumping down the road to Mono Hot Springs in the back  of a pickup truck surrounded by construction gear and tool boxes. Dudes in pickup trucks truly are the patron saint of hitchhikers.
Mono hot springs is a disappointment. The diner is closed for lunch now that it’s September. The hot springs are too hot to sit in under the bright sun of 5,000 feet. We eat ice cream and sit in the shade near the creek, listening to the hicks from Bakersfield laugh drunkenly and shout at each other. They’re some of my least favorite kind of people. The people who think that a boisterous drunken persona is as endearing to sober people as it is to other drunks. Families with children give them a wide birth.
The hitch back to VVR is easier (having a sign really helps), and in 15 minutes I’ve waved over a man named Mark, early 50’s, a social worker for people with developmental disabilities living in San Fransisco. God bless Mark, the world could use more Marks.
VVR is busier when we get back. The long weekend is kicking off and a new host of backpackers has just come in off the ferry. Oh yeah, there is a ferry, more on that tomorrow.
Keith pulls the recluse card and goes to sit in his hammock in the campground. I try to read and end up spending the afternoon with a VVR employee named Savanah. She’s a poet, gypsy of a woman, living a transient adventurers life. 22, grew up in a cult, has lived in five states in the last four years. There is a darkness in her past that I can hardly understand.
The cowboys reappear and I’m invited back to hang out with them. It’s not as effortless this second night, and I try to do my best to hold up my end of our weird temporary social agreement. That is the problem with second impressions; they can never be as easy or as effortless as first impressions. A first impression is easy, there is nothing but new things to learn and share. A second impression, that’s what’s always been hard for me to master. I spend a few hours with the cowboys.
Keith asks me to come help him grab a beer and like that I’m saved from this social contract. Now I’m free to join the hikers. Maybe I can talk easier with these rich outdoor folks. Not that it wasn’t fun at points, hanging out with the cowboys, it just wasn’t as easy. Shortly after this the cowboys pack up and leave and for some reason I feel a little bad about this and give several of them hugs. They joke that they’ll be looking forward to officiating Keith and my wedding and call me sweetie and I know I’ll never see them again. That’s a funny thing about trail life. Or the interlude from life that is time on the trail.
There are more hikers here tonight and the conversation is already roaring by the time Keith and I join the circle. Bottles of wine and whiskey are passed around. A small bowl from the cook, trail name Ogre, comes around again and again. Soon we’re all a little drunk and stoned talking about all the things in the way that only people who feel amongst their tribe can do. The alcohol helps ply the conversation, of course. I hear stories about shoes, daily mileage, life, careers, infidelity, and longing. How sometimes you find yourself randomly crying on the trail – I’m not the only one! I think I accidentally agree to buy weed from Ogre the cook tomorrow, if he can get up before the first ferry leaves.
Keith and I go to sleep laughing, making up stories about these people we’ve just met. Creating elaborate fantasies to fill in the gaps in their lives that we have no way of knowing.
The tent tonight feels as comfortable as my home.
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JMT Day 10 – Bears Around an Ice Hole

Bear Creek to Vermillion Valley Resort (VVR)

We’re up early, it’s a town day! The weather is cloudy overcast wet as we pack away all our little items into our backpacks and eat breakfast before heading out. We’re both feeling edgy and ready for a break today. It’s one of those days where all the little things turn into agitating annoying things for no real reason. PMS? Other lady hormones that I don’t understand? Being on the trail has totally wrecked my normal cycle, and I know I’ve been losing weight a little faster than is really sustainable so perhaps that has something to do with it. Or maybe looking for a cause behind every little mood swing is a first class ticket to crazy town and I just need to start moving.
Hiking cures all things, and we don’t have much of a choice anyway. Soon the endorphins have kicked in and we’re cruising down along Bear Creek. The low thunder-heavy clouds act like a quilt, covering and muffling everything around us and soon we’re on the side trail that will take us to VVR, to food, and rest, and snacks, and showers and food.
It’s immediately apparent once you’re off the JMT, the trail is steeper with rocks the size of every conceivable citrus fruit scattered across the trail. Ankle breakers. All in all it’s not a bad hike and soon we can see the damn below us! Halleluja! Concrete and humans.  We rush down the steep descent on sore knees and then we’re facing a two mile road walk and it’s unpleasant but when you’re this close to the think you’ve been thinking about for days it hardly matters. And what is thru hiking anyway besides a lot of small sufferings strung together with moments of pure bliss?
Then there is VVR – Vermillion Valley Resort! Although that’s a very liberal use of the word “resort.” A more accurate description would be a campground with a general store, a collection of rooms/cabins and a shower/toilet block. All of which clearly live in a world where Yelp reviews are irrelevant.
When we arrive there are people sitting around the cafe eating and chatting, they stare baldly at us and I’m not sure what to do. We head inside and there are a million little choices to be made, things to understand, rules to follow. They wash over me and then I hear the magic words “free beer.” We each get a beverage, me cider, Keith some beer that’s fancy and I don’t know the name of. The flavors are so intense I almost laugh aloud. Then we’re eating ok burgers and disappointing milkshakes and Keith convinces me to splurge for a hotel room for the night – a 70’s style interior design pseudo disaster, but there is a kitchen and a shower all for us! A whole room, door, two beds, space that’s not covered in dust and we close that door and silence falls and we take off all our dirty hiker clothes immediately.
Packs explode. Showers. I was my hair twice back to back, and scrub off the days of caked sunscreen and dirt and then collapse into a bed and zone out hard. Holy fucking indoors! What even is indoors? Something between comfort and captivity.
Finally we extract ourselves and go about meeting the cast of characters that have set up camp around VVR, either in transient or more permanent ways.
The sun sets and the hikers begin to mill about. We park ourselves on a bench outside the general store and go about the process of consuming alcohol while a cast of characters ebb and flow around us. We see Fitz, Fitz is here! He’s leaving tonight to go back to his home in Hawaii. Goodbye Fitz, maybe we’ll see you on the trail next year!
We meet a woman hiking the PCT who started June 10th! (What? So late!) She’s only arrived at VVR a day or so ago. Keith and I call her PCT Mom. She doesn’t know if she’ll finish the trail this year. Frankly I don’t see how she can with less than two months until the snow flies in Washington and she’s not even out of California yet. She’s the kind of person who must have lived a remarkably different life from mine. I have so many questions about her real life, but as is the way of the trail we don’t talk about such sundry things.
A dirty hippy Aussie girl who just wants to party. Think we can get some weed eh? She’s staying in the room Fitz left and gave to PCT Mom when he went. Nice gesture.
We meet a man – trail name Pain – whose hiked 3500 miles of the PCT (a 2600 mile trail) and has never made it past Sonora Pass, roughly mile 1000.
Sandy – one of the two women who runs the store. She has the manner of a woman who maybe doesn’t quite know how she got here. Partially jealous, partially resentful mothering type for the hikers that come through all summer.
Next is Charlie Brown – real name or trail name? Unknown. He’s an anesthesiologist from Florida who is out here hiking the JMT solo, spreading his late wife’s ashes on all the high passes. I tell him that’s a beautiful gesture. He tells me about his daughters, both near college age. Life in Florida, and how he became a hiker only after he turned 40. We share a love of snowboarding and generally being hyper active talkative people. He’s one of the first people to ask about Keith and I’s marriage status. I tell him that I’m not sure how I feel about marriage, aside from the tax break. I just don’t know if I want to deal with it. But that could be a whole different blog post. As the sun starts to set Charlie Brown heads inside to eat dinner. While Keith and I try to decide if it’s ok to just have beer and chips for dinner. We decide it’s fine.
Between the rain and the desire to get to VVR it would seem this is the only picture I took this day. I thought the clouds were cool.
Finally, finally it’s dark and I find myself sitting around a fire with a half dozen hiker bros talking in glum lackadaisical tones about the climb over Selden Pass. God it’s uninteresting.
A horse packer from the outfitters down the trail comes over. His name is John and he has the most incredible mustache. Light grey, thick, running down to his jaw line. He looks every part the modern cowboy and posits to the group “A man rides into town on Friday, stays for three days and leaves on a Friday. How did he do it.” Somewhere from deep in my memory, or a drunken bit of logic bubbles the answer: “the horse is named Friday.” John smiles and just like that I’ve earned a place for the night with the packers. I am free from the boredom of comparing hiking boots and pack weight!
The packers are a riotously fascinating group. I can tell they’re both trying to impress me, and be on their best behavior. I have so many questions about their lives, their animals. Who are these people? They entertain all my questions and we play a dice game called Bears Around an Ice Hole.
The Name of the game is in the game.
 
Or in the days of Ghengis Kahn 
Peddals around a rose.
 
How many polar bears are there?
How many ice holes?
 
Laughter, being one of the boys, Keith joins me, and the night unspools before us. Beer, vaguely racist jokes, they’re just some of the billions of people on this earth, what to think of that?
Then the generators go out, the lights turn gone. It’s 10pm and the party is over. The packers head out. Good bye!
We make a last attempt to hang out with the hikers but the conversation is so dull in comparison that I want to scream. Instead I excuse myself, Keith follows, and we head to our real bed to sleep.
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JMT Day 9 – “Oh, Fuck off Giggles”

Just Before MTR to Bear Creek

When I wake up it feels early, but when I get out of the tent to baño I realize that half the people camped near us are already gone. Womp womp, last out of camp again.

Our day today starts with a climb up Selden pass, and it’s a real bitch. It’s hot down here at this lower elevation and humid with trees still dripping from yesterdays rain. Early into the climb we pass a couple of hikers fresh off their resupply at MTR.* This means they have rested legs and heavy packs. They are no match for our light packs and we pull ahead of them and soon they’re out of sight.

* MTR or Muir Trail Ranch is a privately owned backcountry outpost known for charging a lot of money to stay in their cabins, and generally being unwelcoming jerks to thru hikers who aren’t staying there. You can mail yourself a resupply there, but the general consensus is that it’s not worth it.

We spend the entire morning climbing up Selden, Keith making puns behind me “I’ve Selden seen anything so beautiful.” I groan. I’m dripping sweat and the occasional breath of a passing breeze is all that keeps me going. Thru hiking is all about taking pleasure in the little things and every time a breeze blows past both Keith and I stop and sigh with pleasure. Then the breeze is gone and we’re still hiking up.

The top of Selden Pass is like something out of a movie. That movie is probably Avatar – remember when they go to the planet of the blue people and everything is really gorgeous and there are plants everywhere? I read somewhere that they modeled that planet off of the Japanese hanging garden. So really I should have said the top of Selden Pass is like a Japanese hanging garden. Water pours seemingly from nowhere, from between the rocks, and down across the trail. The world is so green here with hundreds of little wild flowers speckling the hills in a riot of color. We’ve been so high lately we haven’t had the chance to see many wild flowers and now they’re here in full force, their brightness is startling and wonderful.

Once we crest the top of Selden Pass we can see Marie Lakes sprawling out below us. It strikes me now – in a way that names on a map never do -that we were at these exact same lakes almost a year ago! Except then it was closer to sunset and the reflection on the water was so beautiful that it literally made me weep which, I didn’t know was something that people actually did until I became one of them. Today the lakes aren’t quite the same, cooly reflecting big puffy clouds against their calm waters.

Keith wants to take a break at the lake to – no surprise here – fish! I’m game to sit around and stretch my legs which are tight from our long day yesterday and my knee is still complaining at me. Unfortunately for both of us, and fortunately for the fish, it’s mid-day and there are no little fishies to be seen, so we continue on. Down towards Bear Creek, passing the campsite we stayed at a year ago when Keith and I were up here tackling a loop over Italy Pass. Memories! I think I could hike through the Sierras and never know them entirely. But then, I’d miss so many other wonderful things. I guess that’s your choice in life, to know a few things intimately or many things only a little. I’ve always chosen the later.

At the bottom of the descent we know we’re going to have to ford Bear Creek. Before the ford a group of giggly girls tells us we’ll have to put our water shoes on to cross the creek. We just smile and shake our heads, this confuses them but they hike on in their heavy leather hiking boots and heavy water shoes.

With our trail runners on we simply walk across the creek – causing a minor scandal amongst another group of hikers on the far side who feel the need to ask us “don’t your feet get wet?:” I stare at them unsure how to answer. The water is above my knees, of course my feet are wet you walnut! But I don’t say that aloud, just “trail runners drain water really well.” I can’t tell they don’t believe me, and they can probably tell I don’t give a fuck about what they think.

We hike on and I ponder all the weird judgement there is around thru hiking. Keith and I don’t carry water shoes because they’re too heavy and we’ve decided that we can do without. Conversely people are constantly mentioning, critiquing would be a more accurate word, our small packs. As thought we couldn’t possibly be happy/comfortable/safe with so little gear. And yet here I am judging those girls for having heavy packs and big hiking boots. Maybe all backpackers are hyper competitive assholes and that’s why we all spend so much time alone in nature. Yeah, that hit’s close to home.

The afternoon is spent hiking along Bear Creek, or as I’ve decided to call it The Creek of Many Faces. The waters are always changing, merging, spilling over rocks in new and exciting ways! Oh mama nature, may I never understand you.

The trail along the creek is lovely and relatively flat for a change, wet from rain we didn’t see, keeping the dust at bay. We’re aiming for a big campground where we hope to camp with some of our fellow JMTers. But when we get there it’s completely empty and nothing is as it should be. Assuming it’s GPS error we hike on and a quarter mile later come along another, smaller, less nice campground and it’s filled to capacity. No Fitz, no Limpy Perkins, just a chubby man camped too close to the water who makes a useless comment as we back track to the bigger, emptier campground.

Back at the correct – but empty – site we make to set up camp and Keith hangs up his hammock, waiting to gloat at the next hiker who comes by. This of course means that nobody hikes past our campground for the rest of the day.

Dinner tonight is bean and cheese burritos – sans tortillas because we forgot to pack them. Perhaps a better name would be bean and cheese burrito soup. It’s still one of my favorites.

Night falls and with it comes the stars. We opt not to cowboy camp because rain is in the forecast. Tomorrow is a town day and we’re both stoked. Showers! Salads! Beer! I try not let myself fall into the trap of constructing elaborate fantasies of the perfect resupply stop, knowing that it will never live up and I’ll only be disappointed. Finally, sleep.

 

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JMT Day 8 – Accidentally Hiking Forever

Upper Le Conte Canyon to near Muir Trail Ranch

Today, for once, we’re up early and on the trail quickly.

Keith is a non-competitive, anti-sports, band kid who grew up to be an engineer and as a result he’s a pretty mellow person. But occasionally he’ll get this weird competitive drive and today that drive is directed at one thing: beating Limpy Perkins to the summit of Muir Pass. Maybe his ego is a little bruised from being repeatedly passed by a hiker with an injury? Or maybe he just wants a win today? Whatever the reason I’m happy to go along with it and hopefully be able to make some miles before it gets too hot.

Even at 11,000 feet it’s warm this morning and we’re hiking in just shorts and t-shirts. Later we’ll learn that all of Southern California is in the middle of a heat wave, but in the moment I’m just glad it’s not freezing up here.

The approach to Muir pass is officially my favorite climb so far. The trail follows a creek that tumbles down the mountain in a series of short waterfalls linking bright lakes which glitter cheerfully as we pass. Soon we’re winding our way across gentle snow fields, already warm and slushy in the early sunlight. This is definitely type one fun, easy adventure, beautifully calm, and before long we’re cresting the pass and are greeted by the Muir Trail Hut. Hello cute little hut with your irregular walls!

Inside the hut we meet Fitz! He’s another hiker that we’ve been leapfrogging for a few days now, and whom I already dislike a little because we saw him camping behind a clear “no camping sign.” Luckily for Fitz he’s pleasant to talk to and entertains us with details about his MYTH (Multi-Year Thru Hike) of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). This basically means that Fitz started his hike of the PCT at the boarder of Mexico and hikes as much as he can in a two week span each year before going home. At this rate it will take him about 10-11 years to complete the entire trail.

While we snack and chat with Fitz a group of older hikers gather outside the hut and talk about “back in my day” and “how the hut used to be.” From their conversation I can gather that the hut is basically the same, perhaps a little better cared for now, and that hiking stories, like fishing stories, only get more outlandish and embellished with time. Before I know it the group is departing down the pass without so much as having stepped in the hut! Is that weird? I think it’s weird.

Fitz heads out shortly after the group, and after a little while Keith and I follow suit.

Two goobers and a hut!

The north side of Muir pass is a gradual descent past a handful of alpine lakes. So blue contrasted with the glittering white of the snow and solemn grey of the granite peaks. While I stop and tape a hot spot on my foot I am passed by Limpy Perkins. There she is! I know she’ll soon pass Keith, and that he’ll be happy that we at least met our/his goal of beating her to the pass.

When I catch up to Keith I can tell he’s excited to tell me about a plan he’s hatched. “What if” he starts “we hiked all the way down to the San Joaquin River today?”

“Yeah?” I respond lamely. Admittedly I don’t really even know what that would even mean for our hike. More miles? Less miles? Good? Snacks?

We settle on snacks while Keith bulls on undeterred by my unenthusiastic confusion. Hiking down to the San Joaquin river would mean combining two days into one, doing close to 20 miles of hiking, and getting into our resupply at VVR one day sooner. Since we’ll be descending for much of  today this is probably the easiest big day opportunity we’ll have.

I’m in! I’m so so in. I start preparing for Big Hiking. We sit down to wolf calories, and I mix two coffee packets into some cold water and chug that which tastes terrible but I’m just here for the caffeine and calories. If I wanted to eat delicious food every day I wouldn’t backpack.

The first mile I have this weird anxiety about hiking this far. My legs have been really tight today and I’m nervous I won’t be able to make it all the way to camp. Conversely I really want to get to our resupply faster so I can stop rationing food. Eventually the calories kick in and the caffeine anxiety ebbs and my legs churn into high gear. The earth passing below my feet.

We wind down into a deep green valley where we are shaded by thick pine trees. This is another blessing as we’re both running low on sunscreen. All afternoon we traverse through bare sections where  avalanches ripped through during the winter. Even in August there are clear signs of the crazy snow year that the Sierras had.

The afternoon is punctuated by little breaks to snack and stretch. Never sitting too long lest our legs tighten up and we have to go through the entire process of warming up all over again. Halfway through the day the rain begins and we don our gear and keep moving. All around us little tents pop up like brightly colored mushrooms in the trees.

We’re getting close to our campground now. A few miles left, two miles left. Stopping to chat with an elated SoBo JMT hiker who tells us about how he scored big at MTR by raiding the hiker box for his resupply. One more mile to go and there are campgrounds everywhere.

Finally at the bridge, at the river, our big day is done! Except it’s not.

The one tiny campsite at the bridge over the San Joaquin is taken by a woman whom I’m sure is a lovely person but in the moment I kind of hate her.

Luckily for us there are several tributaries that we’ll cross in the next mile.

Unluckily for us, all these creeks are dry, and so we just keep hiking and hiking into the gloaming. The sun does a pink and orange sherbet light show above us, and we talk about how we’re both so grateful to be out here. Hiking late isn’t so bad when there are great sunsets to look at.

When we finally get to a viable campground we see 7 or more tents glowing in the dark. And Fitz is here! It would seem we were not the only people to miss the last chance to get water, and now we’re all down here gathered together.

As the last people in camp we sit around eating potato soup by the red light of our headlamps while all around us the other hikers get ready for bed. One by one the glowing tents turn into dark tents as headlamps are clicked off until it’s just the two of us silently slurping soup.

We go to sleep against the white noise of the river rushing past our tent.

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JMT Day 7 – Poor Limpy Perkins

Palisades Lake to upper Le Conte Canyon

One full week on the trail. In planning, I never really imagined what this would feel like. I knew where we’d be, but only in vague terms and locations on a map. Palisades lake was just another day on the trail, someplace I’d never been, and something less important than figuring out the million little details that come with planning a thru hike.

But what it feels like in the moment is something all together different.

Trail life is so remarkably easier in some ways than what Keith and I have started to refer to as “the real world.” Since we’ve left I’ve read no e-mails, social media is irrelevant, I haven’t had to put gas in my car, and the only social interactions I’ve had are either incredibly brief, or are with the one human who I like spending most of my time with anyway.

Conversely, it takes 5-10 minutes of waddling around camp every morning before the tendons in my legs and feet warm up enough for me to walk comfortably, and already I’m starting to fantasize about what types of foods I’m going to eat once we get into town. Mostly I want things like salad, grilled chicken, fresh strawberries. Anything, really, that hasn’t been dehydrated and vacuumed into a plastic bag. But we still have four days including today before we have any option to get fresh anything, so I ignore my salad cravings and try not to eat too many of my M&M’s for breakfast.

We start our day walking into the lush green valley that we can see spread out below our campsite. The novel thing about today is that there will be no passes to climb. We’ll simply walk on calm, flat, mellow, nicely graded trails that are soft! The kind of sigh-inducing soft of fallen pine needles and dirt, the kind of soft that I didn’t know I wanted until I spend the previous six days walking almost entirely on granite.

I know that after this trip is all said and done people will ask me how it was. And even only seven days in I have no idea what I’m going to say. The truth about thru hiking, and backpacking more broadly, is that you’re in some moderate form of discomfort all of the time. Too cold, too hot, runny nose, itchy, sore, hungry, bloated, chafe, thirsty, tired and a hundred more feelings. And then it’s hard you guys. Climbing up mountains is hard, down is hard, exercising every day for 6-10 hours is just as hard as I thought it was going to be. I knew all of this was going to happen, and yet I cannot stop from remarking on it. The low-level suffering of a thru hike is remarkable.

These are the things I think about as I drift through the forest today following the little brown path that will lead me all the way to Yosemite.

Our day is punctuated with snack and water breaks, the last one coming at the Le Conte ranger station where we eat snickers bars while sitting in wooden chairs. Maybe that’s a better illustration of what thru hiking is like: sitting in an unpadded wooden chair will be the most comfortable I am all day until I get to roll onto my glorious sleeping pad, surrounded by my ultra fluffy down quilt and sleep. Thru hiking is the least glamorous, most romantic thing I’ve ever done, and I’m totally in love with it.

My revery at Le Conte is interrupted when several weekend hikers come by to ask if we are the ranger (we’re not), if we know where the ranger is (we don’t), and if we knew why the helicopters were circling this area yesterday and today (again, we don’t). I can sense they’re disappointed in our lack of knowledge, and more disappointed when we can’t get properly excited about the idea of a rescue taking place near by. Shortly after the weekend hikers depart so do we.

Later Keith will tell me that he resents people like that. Only interested when things go wrong, wanting to know the intimate details of some strangers bad day, curious without the ability to be helpful. I have to agree with him.

The sun is dipping behind the ridge of the valley we’re walking through and I know we must be getting close to camp. The problem is that each campsite we pass is full of people, or it’s not really a campsite at all – set up too close to water or the trail. We keep climbing up towards Muir pass, frustrated at others for camping where they so clearly shouldn’t. Frustrated at myself for holding myself to a high standard, why can’t I just be a jerk who ignores the rules like everyone else? But then, where would I garner my elevated sense of superiority from? We keep hiking.

The trees are gone, and now it’s only rocks and uneven patches of dirt as the sun begins to set in earnest. We’re starting to get frustrated when we pass another hiker: It’s Limpy Perkins!

Limpy was a girl we met on our second day, and whom we’ve been leapfrogging ever sense. She told us earlier that she’d injured her achilles tendon (hence Limpy) and was considering getting off the trail at her next available opportunity in a few days (but she’s just so damn cheerful – hence Perkins). Now we see that she’s lost her trekking poles, and has had to erect her tent using a big stick. I feel bad for her, but her camp spot is barely big enough for one tent, and so we march on. Goodbye potential trail friend!

Finally we find a spot atop a big flat rock and set up camp. Technically we’re a little too close to the trail, but at this point we are so close to the pass that we don’t want to keep hiking, and it’s unlikely that we’ll see another person come through this late.

As we’re getting ready for dinner we see our first SoBo PCT hiker! So much for no more hikers coming through.