Pacific Crest Day to Day
Trail Journal
Steven’s Pass, WA to
Crater Lake, OR
10/3/2014 Fred Allebach and Kim Bartlett
August 3 –
Amtrak Train to Seattle, 3 hours late departing Martinez
August 4 – Green
Tortoise Hostel, Seattle
August 5 - Start
Hiking Date 4.3 miles Lake Susan
August 6 - 10.3
miles Glacier Lake
August 7 - 12.7
miles Cathedral Pass
August 8 - 10.9
miles Waptus River
August 9 - 13.8
miles Lemah Creek
August 10 - 8.1
miles Parks Lakes
August 11 – 12.3
miles Common Wealth Creek
Resupply Snoqualame Pass thunder hail and rain
August 12 – 7.5
miles Ollalie Meadows
August 13 – 11.4
miles Daisy “dry” meadows
August 14 – 11.0
miles Forest Bench
August 15 – 14.4
miles small camp by spring
August 16 –
weather broke – 10+miles arch rock shelter
August 17 – 16
miles Sheep Lake by Rainer
August 18 – 7.2
miles Anderson Lake
August 19 – 14.3
miles Snow Lake
August 20 –
White Pass Campground – Resupply
August 21 – 11.7
miles Tieton Pass
August 22 – 6.0
miles Elk Pass held up for storm to pass for the crossing of spine in Goat
Rocks
August 23 – 8
miles Sheep Lake by trail heads more drizzle/rain
August 24 – 13.5
miles Last pond with GI Joe
August 25 – 11.7
miles Killen Creek base of Mount Adams
August 26 – 13.8
miles Swamp Creek
August 27 – 1.2
miles to Road for ride with Rock Ocean to Trout Lake - Resupply
August 27 – 28
ZERO’s Trout Lake Grocery (Wow what connections in 2 days!)
August 29 – 10.2
miles Mosquito Lake Outlet with all the other “boneheadsJ”
August 30 – 13.4
miles Blue Lake
August 31 – 14.3
miles Huckleberry Mountain
This trip is the
reverse of the same exact hike we did in 2008. Instead of ending at Steven’s
Pass, we started there. Every long trip into the Intermountain area has to
consider logistics of fire, snowpack, water availability, bugs, factors that
end up bookending what we choose for beginning and ending points. This year
snow was not bad up north and fires were already burning south, so we plotted a
course with hopefully the least troubles.
This was one of
now, many long distance hikes we have done, 1000 miles on the Appalachian Trail
in 2005, the John Muir Trail in 2006, 700 miles in WA and OR on the PCT in
2008, 900 miles in Nor Cal on the PCT in 2011, Carson Pass to Taboose Pass on
the PCT in 2012, and 650 miles on this hike.
8/3
We finally
reached escape velocity after much prep and disengagement from our day-to-day
lives. It took two weeks to prepare and at that time we had two guests for much
of the time plus work; the pressure was hard, too many things to focus on
besides our trip. Michael and Marianne drove us to Martinez to catch the train
and took us out to dinner, very nice of them, again. As usual AMTRAK was way
late and at…
8/4
1:30 AM we
depart Martinez. Dawn comes at Castle Crags, Mt Shasta is smoked in from
regional fires; we see fires burning right from the train, right out the
window; a train ride through an inferno. Arrive Klamath Falls, along the way we
see western juniper, Klamath Lake, tule reeds, lots of birds, see over towards
Lava Beds National Monument, recall the Modoc Indians, Captain Jack’s War, the
juniper, Alturas, the Warner Mountains, Cedarville and over into Nevada, the
Burning Man area, Black Rock Desert, Pyramid Lake; it’s impressive big country
around here, full of history, landscape, memories, feeling. We have a sense of the
region from previous trips. We have enjoyed getting to know California. On the
railroad siding long trains are stretched to the vanishing point; where are all
those trains going? I feel part of something bigger culturally, geologically,
biologically, escape velocity opens the expansive Fred. Volcanoes are here; we
are in the Cascades, Mt. McLaughlin. Onwards north, there is Mt. Bachelor and
then a stunning view of Rainier at sunset.
From Olympia, WA
and north the train goes right along Puget Sound, with long views of the
Olympic Mountains and peninsula; at the waterfront a sunset glow shimmers as
the train rattles along. Port of Tacoma: we roll through the bowels of main
artery world and national trade networks; there is Vashon Island! The landscape
fills with memories and thoughts. This trip I take no camera, a decision to leave
the digital tech behind, focus more in the present, own it now.
Later in the
evening we get to Seattle, walk @ 1 mile downtown to get to the Green Tortoise hostel,
right by the main entrance to Pike Place Market on the waterfront.
8/5
The hostel and
room was super hot inside with no AC or air; there was a fan mounted in our
bunk; a fellow bunker stayed up late, got drunk, came in, knocked my pack over
and then he ended up sleeping on the floor on top of my glasses; we woke early,
muddled through the breakfast setup and made it back to the station to catch
our train to Everett. Along the waterfront of Puget Sound, the train took us
along pleasing exposures of tidelands framed by a grey, misty, hanging shroud
of moisture; to the north were the Straits of Juan de Fuca, fish and marine
life all out there suspended in three dimensions below the flat plane of the
water’s surface.
I feel a sense
of escaping from the machines; I’m disconnected from the Internet, the quiet
beckons. I don’t miss it, no withdrawal. Kim and I sit next to each other, hold
hands; we’re in this together. The train has taken us in two days what will
take more than two months to walk. Leaving one world, another opens up.
8/6
On the way to
camping at Glacier Lake we swim at another lake, arrive at a campsite where a
mouse is all over the place, inspiring fear it will chew into our packs. The
mouse was wild, searched for food in other places and ignored our packs. A bold
mouse it was. Some other folks camped nearby, a father, son and son’s friend.
The boys were struggling a little, Dad had to carry the son’s pack.
8/7
In town you go
to the bathroom, close the door, drop a deuce and flush it, not much more to
say. In the woods you can’t escape having to deal with your shit, look at it,
bury it, handle the whole scene in a much more direct way and thus shit becomes
a going topic of conversation; how was it? What did it look like? What texture,
size etc.? Shit even inspires poetry: He laboriously lurched a lingering,
lugubrious log.
Furthermore you
can’t say “I have to go to the bathroom.” Because there is no bathroom, the
squeamishness of talking your way around bodily functions is just not honest in
the woods. And so, “I have to shit” is the correct terminology. One time a guy
told us he saw an elk “go to the bathroom”. OK, and then the guy said, ‘so I
went to the bathroom to mark my territory’.
Increased level
of exercise and pressure on your gut from the pack waist strap results in a
more active and immediate bowel movement. You pop a Texan, leave a Brown Recluse,
a Moose Lake steamer etc. We have fun with it.
Stopping for a
water break is a ritual, time taken to appreciate, to notice, to rest, a pause.
The mind buzzes,
walking through a post-glacial landscape large and dramatic in the highest
order, huge forces from the past are now quiet, in remission. We see what has
been carved out. We stay at Cathedral Pass, up high, in the clouds and wind,
jagged mountains right above us, try to keep a low profile for impact, not
squash plants, stay on the rockier substrates.
8/8
Down, down, down
to the Waptus River, find a secluded spot near the river where we can hear all
the river noises. Sleeping next to this glacial river, with the multitude of
sounds, put a spell on me, took me to the bottom of the ocean, rearranged my
mind, dialed me into nature, simplicity, an ancient way to exist, to be. A deep
sleep took me to my roots as a creature among creatures.
8/9
Lemah Creek. California
drought, when you have a common stressor on a common pool resource there comes
the need to pull together to create a sensible common response. A take that
collective limits is a violation of individual rights, is counter productive. If
voluntary conservation doesn’t work, statewide and in Sonoma, need to go to
next step of regulation; 20% reduction hasn’t worked voluntarily
8/10
Parks Lakes
8/11
Commonwealth
Creek. Humans are adapted for strength by cooperation; in a modern context a
different type power and control emerges, based on the few holding all the
marbles. Then again you could see it that groups have always competed with each
other, cooperation is only for the in-group, or for treaties and understandings
about mutually used territory. There’s always been elites, from the time of
civilization and stratified society.
As I look at
socially constructed life, I can break it down by religion, anthropology,
biology, Machiavelli, political, ideological, national, mythical, evolutionary,
technology, art, economy, symbolic, ideas and ideals. These are one slate of
categories cooked up by my ‘reason’, qualities of everyday life that have
become abstractions. I don’t know if I could live in a world otherwise, I’m so
used to seeing it this way. Presumably though, our ancestors lived in a space
where all these categories were unified into one coherent mind and culture,
where all made sense in terms of the whole. There was no art or religion, those
things were folded into the whole as indelible parts.
Being in the
right place at the right time: we come around the corner and boom: blood red
sunrise with a full moon setting, glaciated ridge; let the game come to you,
aligned, in the flow, no wrong notes. This is my trail ideal, kind of like life
as jazz improvisation, a chance to really play with this style on the trail.
This is the culmination of all my indoctrination, all that I have admired and
grew up with.
I reflect on the
Grateful Dead, the symbolism and metaphor, in the music and lyrics, it’s deep
enough to serve. All roads do lead to the Grateful Dead, and they all lead to
you and me as well.
I find myself looking
off the edge of space into the universe, into time and space itself. I somehow
am able to see this, out of a normal presumption that time and space is only a
bubble right in front of my eyes on earth; I never look up, never think in
terms of: where is the edge of the universe? Where does the universe start and
earth end?
“What does your
sparkle truly portend? Shimmering brilliance, light without end”. Ken Nordine.
At some point
there is a divide with faith and reason; reason equals modernity and
fragmentation; faith equals traditional and is holistic. This is the same type
of split between Logos and Mythos, between objective logic and subjective myth;
two ways of seeing and describing the nature of the world. Once I‘ve got this
all sliced and diced just right, how will I know I’ve cut the whole tomato? In
the end all we conceive is a social construct, Logos or Mythos. Even if we
ascertain an objective, fact, reason-based level, that still has to get
filtered back through social construct-ville.
Tomatoes come in
many flavors. If all the disparate aspects were sheep and we were shepherds, we
just try to do our best to bring all our sheep in, don’t leave the black one
out. All gets filtered back and through language. The feeling behind, the
values behind, drives as much as anything what the flavor is; feeling/
preference/ from whence come our peculiar senses of how it is?
What are the
rules of the game? Who are the rules of the game for? The American Revolution
was a merchant’s revolution, now the merchants have become the new aristocracy;
the structure gets bent to give advantage to those in power. All through
history before, the sane type of stuff in different forms. Injustice has always
been with us.
Comparing and
contrasting… for philosophical reasons or for power and control; you just want
to be heard and understood for what you mean to say and be. One person saying
one thing represents a set of open and closed doors. Another person, the
pattern is different. How can they ever block together?
One divide in
understanding is between literalists, between one-trackers and wide-netters. Another divide is stylistic, intimate
enemy-type of stuff: low riders vs. hot rods. Whatever it is, you never get out
of it. It doesn’t matter if you ever get out of car customization arguments as
it is inconsequential. With literalists: religion, politics, nationalism,
things can get much more serious. Intractable dispute, rigid frames.
8/12
Ollalie Meadows.
Resupply, into the bowels of the system, big transportation artery, power
lines, nukes, coal, hydro power, connected buzzing lines, Chevron, then escape
from the roar of the Combine to: endless huckleberries, the peace of a less
desirable section, less people, just a relief to be back in the woods.
A wicked,
tremendous thunderstorm, driving rain, lightning very close. The bottom part of
our tent was underwater but we stayed mostly dry. During a small break in the
rain I got up to dig trenches, took a taste of surrendering to being wet.
Living outside 24/7 for months at a time means you got to surrender to
discomfort, easier to do it with grace and a good attitude.
8/13
Daisy (Dry)
Meadows. Huckleberries! Clear-cuts, much less scenic than our first section
from Steven’s Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. The cloud ceiling has been low with lots
of fog which has obscured the long views of these industrial timber lands and
left us seeing only the spire-tipped canopies close by. We need the wood. Might
as well get it from our own backyard and not foist the effects of the
consumption on some other country.
8/14
Forest Bench. Fog
in the forest, doors and veils through space and time, mystery, unknown.
8/15
Small camp by a
spring. Day #3 of surrendering to rain and wet, the sun has to come out
sometime.
The hike is very
difficult physically, heavy pack, wet tent, the miles seem long, a struggle to
do over 10 miles, carrying water on dry stretches, a hard break-in I guess,
need to lighten: pack, stove, tent, raingear. Lightening costs a lot; we always
think of this now, then back in town forget all about it. We seem to just use
the sane gear we have, good enough, it works for us.
8/16
Arch Rock
shelter. Hiked 14.5 miles to the end of a no water stretch of 10 miles, pesto
dinner, dry tent in rainy weather, smelly bodies, 5 days rainy and wet, met
Medicine Man, who is going for a sustainable engineering degree in Canada, to
work in ag and feed people, a really good kid; he’s a thru hiker, just goes to
show, everyone who drives a BMW is not a prick, every thru hiker is not a jerk.
Sometimes the lowest denominator tends to define groups.
It’s cold, all
the warm gear on. Little birds flying from snag to snag in the fog, I see them
as spirits of all my dead relatives, they have accompanied us the whole hike
and are here in the yard back home now. Out of the corner of my eye, flit,
flit, flit, there they are again: Uncle Bud, Dad, Mambu, Pop Pop, Aunt Sis…
Magical thinking does not seem to rise to the level of a belief system; it’s
fun, play, creative; and who can side-step considering mortality?
8/17
Sheep Lake, near
Mt. Rainier. Foggy, spire-tipped, lichen-draped, cold, quiet forest. Troubles
with feet from 5 days wet sox, cold/ condensation inside tent, hard ground,
struggle to stay warm and comfortable.
Sense of Pacific
NW forest, Noble fir, big trees.
Made 16 miles to
Sheep Lake! Tired, go to bed late (7:30 PM), Sheep Lake is close to trail
heads, full of weekenders, all out in the bushes, everywhere; you know there is
shit under every bush, the water is shit tea; better purify that, people all
have to have a fire and the air is full of smoke in the cool morning inversion;
noise, people, up late, everything you’re trying to get away from ends up
finding you when you don’t go far enough out, when you are trapped by the
weekend frame, not enough time or space to find wilderness when all focus and
population pressure is on the same easy to get to, well known, advertised in
Backpacker Magazine, Facebook kind of places.
You see people
lost in their cell phones, sending pictures and selfies of where they are; headphones
on, they are not present; all becomes life as if it was a Facebook page, a
transparent construction of ‘my reality’, for you to look at… the culmination
of hominin evolution, pitiful.
Starting to
learn the trees: Trees are not easy to ID; they’re not all cookie cutter images
of each other; there is a developmental growth context, the young ones look
diff than the old, juveniles are different, needles look different in the shade
vs. the sun, bark varies/ sun, developmental, crown types and shapes give a
clue. There’s a lot of cross-over in characteristics; these variables have to
be sifted through before you finally arrive comfortably at saying: this is such
and such. There is a lot more to tree ID than just getting one tree here or
there; by walking 650 miles through the Pacific Crest, you see a big variety
over one species, this gives a depth of appreciation for how many diff
phenotypes you get out of a genotype, what the range is. Studying trees has
been an entry point for me, into knowing the landscape in a deeper way. Some
key in through identifying birds, mushrooms, whatever it takes, keying in on
something is a requisite to opening up the larger picture within which all
connects.
8/18
Anderson Lake. Tonight
I’ll be a commissioner! FCA appointed by Sonoma city council to the Community
Services and Environmental Commission.
In civilization,
in the city, the standard ice-breaker greeting is “how are you doing?” ON the trail:
“Where are you coming from?”, “Where are you sleeping tonight?” This is tiresome
to me but what are you going to do? I typically just say ‘hi’ and don’t get
framed by someone else’s auto-pilot, which is not to say I am so great and
conscious as to never be on auto pilot myself.
We get down to a
big parking lot in the Rainier area, a big step-off spot for weekend hikes, day
hikes, sort of near the big WPA lodge there on the east side. This is a perfect
opportunity to Yogi food from people who are leaving and may have some extra.
You’re begging for food, subtly. You set them up, lead them to it: you mention
you’re hungry, ‘oh we have some food…’ I got some Mac-n-cheese dinners, Clif
bars etc., some of this goes straight down the hatch. As I was putting our food
trash in the can I Yogied someone else and they misunderstood what was
happening, ‘you eat from the trash!?’, no just parking lot begging when the
fruit is ripe.
Along the hike
in general we are the beneficiaries of some great Yogiing; we get loaded up by
the generosity of others, are able to eat two diners per person, double snacks,
more coffee, pistachios, Payday candy bars etc. When the opportunity comes up,
I jump right on it. Yes we want food. People typically bring way too much, food
and gear, and after a few days they realize they could divest; we are there to
jump on that.
We find
ourselves moving through the landscape; we see it in the distance, walk to it,
through it; we’re in it; an outstanding view south, from east of Mt. Rainier,
then immersed in hill and dale, drink the water, see the flowers, walk the valleys,
get a sense of WA, the essence of dramatic, glaciated, watery, thick forested Cascades.
I keep getting a sense of looking off the edge of the earth into the galaxy,
the universe, contemplating all of time, Big Bang, Cambrian explosion of life,
animals, rocks, the whole sweep right up to the doorstep of Now. This is a goal
of mine, to open up to an expansive process; getting from Point A to Point B is
just a prop within which these sorts of creative, transformational, awe
inspired thoughts can flourish. This is the inspiration, the solitude, the
renewal that wilderness offers. It’s not really wild, it’s the best facsimile
of that we can get in 2014 given the history and the current population.
Giant U-shaped
valleys come off Mt. Rainier, you can see them, the footprint of the glacier’s
path; they drive down away from the peak of Rainier, off into the distance;
they are the river valleys, the negative imprint of past times; the post-glacial
landscape is always present, fun to be able to imagine the ice, how it carved
everything out; like a life and love carve out mine and Kim’s hearts and the
heart of humanity. The inner landscape becomes a remnant of that which has come
before. You are marked, altered, carved out by the glaciers of your life, of your
culture, love, feelings, meanings, values; life’s events, like so many boulders
embedded in the ice as it flows down and scrapes, molds and shapes your personal
landscape underneath.
8/19
Snow Lake. Sometimes
in order to take a good shit with no monkey butt after, you have to let those
mosquitos just bite your ass; you know their doing it but you have to stay
cool, let them bite, and keep dropping that deuce, if you tense up, you lose
the flow and pinch off too soon, then get monkey butt later. Monkey butt can
last all day, so this is to be avoided. Taking the right moment to shit is
important, wait too long, the shit takes a time out, it’s not ready, best not
to force it, take the right moment, hear the call. The position taken to shit
in the woods is much better and more conducive to complete elimination than
sitting on a toilet seat. When you are squatted over there is pressure on your
gut, on a toilet seat there is none; the natural shit is much better all around.
Kim and I use no toilet paper, do not carry any; we use whatever is out there,
lichens, rocks, sticks, there’s always something you can use. Thus, we leave no
trash, we don’t need to burn TP, carry it; we’re on the other side of toilet
paper, bum wad, mountain money. Fog moistened wolf lichens/ Spanish moss are
the best. Kim collects good pieces to use later. It’s entertaining to see rough
and ready thru hikers, who ‘need’ toilet paper.
Another 14 plus
mile day done smartly by Team Slow, with good endurance and attitude, now at
Snow Lake, quiet, wind, tomorrow: town!
8/20
White Pass/
resupply. The lake is perfectly still and quiet, shrouded by fog, spires of
Pacific silver fir, Noble fir, and wispy Western hemlock all fade into the
misty mystery. Last night the surface of the lake was buffeted and textured by
light winds. It’s cold and damp, all clothes on; Kim gets ready while I drink
coffee.
Going into Goat
Rocks Wilderness tomorrow, a challenging place weather-wise, substrate-wise,
altitude etc. At our resupply here at White Pass we met Maverick, a nice fellow,
someone who shared our take on the trail, as more of a wilderness
transformational experience than an athletic event.
For this
resupply we stayed by a lake near the highway, in a Forest Service campground;
we had a fire, gathered all the old coals and wood left in adjacent fire pits
and got a nice one going; it was cold! A horseman rode by, he saw us sitting on
log rounds by our fire, then he backed up his horse and told us there was a
state-wide fire restriction in place, we could get fined $5000 and get 6 months
in jail… Just as we had settled in to sit by the fire and be warm, we had to put
it out ASAP and afterwards retreated to the tent to stay warm. Later in the
evening many elk came out of the woods and sloshed around the watery grass at
the shoreline to drink, a bunch of them. They come at night; they don’t want
you to see them, as they have no clothes.
Cars drove by
the forest Service road, there was a helicopter, semi truck noise; we’re in the
fucking Combine, got to get out of here and back to the woods, back to the
simplicity, just Kim and I, our food and shelter and a day’s hike; the rest is
the gravy of immersion in nature. Civilization is something you look forward to
for the amenities, getting your resupply food and maybe a treat, but in places
were it’s a gas station or some such, the atmosphere is so fundamentally
unpleasant, I just want to get in and out ASAP. I get nice and quieted down in
the woods, all the industrial hype and plastic food, flashing signs, car noise,
is too much dissonance, too out of control. In the woods you can potentially
control your state of mind; its simple enough; in civilization you get buffeted
by so many things beyond your control, it gets annoying, and, you’re not numb to
it, as “normal”, and so the defenses are down. Back to the woods.
Later, we
noticed Forest Service posted notices that said nothing about a fire
restriction. I asked a ranger and the ranger said: the fire prohibition is for
state lands, Forest Service lands are federal, the state rule does not apply;
so, we put that fire out for nothing. We had relatively few fires in 2 months
anyway; and we sure didn’t and don’t want to start a forest fire. When it is
cold a fire is good. We carry fire starters I made out of paraffin wax, drier
lint, melted into egg carton cardboard, just light the corner and you can start
wet wood. Being able to make a fire is a requisite survival skill; keep that
lighter dry and carry a few matches.
One time we got
caught in some high winds, on a real cold night, pushed the edge some, had a
fire, the smoke blew all over our tent that was 30 yards away, made the fly
smell smoky for weeks, put ash on it that never came out. The coals crept out
of the fire pit and spread in the duff, luckily it went out, could have started
a root fire. The next morn this said wind took away my cool, flustered and
unnerved me as I packed up, shit flapping everywhere, which effected Kim, we
came undone, again, par for the course, but I digress. That you can control
your state of mind is a potential.
8/21
Tieton Pass.
Shifty skies belie coming rain and weather, cold, windy, the dawn breaks
through rangy clouds, the moon and stars appear, disappear, reappear. In the
thick forest an amazing palette of green color abounds. Wolf and other lichen
species drape everywhere.
We stay at an
old hunter camp inside the Goat Rocks caldera; at an anonymous spring we
thought was Tieton Pass Springs. There was a bull elk skull with the antlers
sawed off. The hunters came out here looking for what we are looking for; they
took back, in their own way, the wild spirit of the elk, of nature. In this old
style hunter camp, the horses were tethered right to the trees, chewed them up,
made a mess, high impact, unsightly, but horses are big animals. To pack out
all that stuff, to be high impact, well, that was OK when the West didn’t have
so many people. Now what we have in terms of impact are problems of scale, too
many people.
The hunter
impulse is primal. A hunter is a predator, the top dog; it’s a whole other way
of being; you’re not afraid; others are afraid of you, yet at the same time you
realize hunters can be hunted by bigger hunters.
Hikers on the
PCT carry with them the inheritance of the ancestors, a cocky attitude of the
hunter and conqueror and a landscape devoid of large, dangerous predators. In
the past the ancestors were a tough bunch, with guns or not. Now, after 1000s
of years of domestication we city boys have lost the skill set; we’ve got the
auto pilot that nature s conquered but n
the ground, city boy hikers have no weapons, no knowledge, just assume all is
OK, that the animals left, black bears, mountain lions, will remain afraid of
our legacy.
8/22
Elk Pass. The
trajectory of ‘the individual’ is not set in some kind of interpretive stone as
to what it all means. There is no one way to define it, in history, evolution, religion,
politics, social science, by only one slice of interpretation, by one form of
exegesis, by one memeular structure. i.e. it can’t be by libertarianism alone.
It’s a pretty big ball of wax that includes many threads (nice mixed metaphor
if I say so myself)
What we have is
a gradual emancipation from social constraints, from where the group. There
must always have been group/ individual tensions. As things got more modern,
the individual got more freedom, and more philosophical justification.
Technology aided the process. If you’ve got no guns, etc, you can’t take on the
lions of life all alone.
On the PCT there
are age set differences, teens and 20 somethings, middle age, retired. There
are not that many in the middle as they are not freed up from jobs, kids etc. It’s
not easy to be able to take months off. We can only do this by consciously
taking our retirement up front, laughable that we would even have retirement
given that we don’t like work in the sense of having to perform inherently
undesirable, working class, servant-like tasks simply to get $ to pay the rent.
We cultivate a space if being independently poor. Tactics: very low overhead,
no debt, no kids to pay for, low need to consume status and luxury items,
inexpensive thrift store type tastes, we shoot to save enough to buy the time
to pay rent for the months we are gone. Our rent and expenses are very low all
things considered; we’re happy enough; some call it poverty. The actual cost of
being on the trail is @ $1000 per month; it costs more to have a place and a
life to come back to. The real trail hobos and follow-the-circus types do this
year round, with super low overhead, true vagabonds, wanderers, intoxicated by
freedom yet insecure, always on the edge. The lifestyle appears romantic to the
secure; the reality of it though, the hard edge of homelessness, is another
story. Hobos and drifters who do it more as a choice, I think, have a better
go; it’s a lifestyle rather than forced hard times.
8/23
Sheep Lake. We
stop just before the Goat Rocks knife edge ridge area. Due to big thundercloud
buildup, we turn back and find a camp below in a meadow by a snowmelt stream. The
clouds never blow, yet it was a good safety call. Conservatism has survival
benefits. I go up the hill from camp and look at some big Alaska cedars hidden
among hemlocks and Sub Alpine fir, get some cones and make a necklace that I
leave hanging on a tree.
8/24
By last misty
pond, with GI Joe. There were hordes of people around Packwood glacier, in the
most dramatic section of Goat Rocks Wilderness. The quantity starts to outstrip
quality; the raison d'être, solitude, is lost in mass fervor of alienated ants
swarming out of Seattle to get a taste of dramatic natural honey. They ought to
close some national parks for a year or two at a time, an Edward Abbey-esque
prescription, solitude for solitude alone, minus the people. All the people
cheapen and degrade the land.
The conscious
hawking of a destination or activity, for profit, for fun, for whatever,
cheapens it; it’s the tourist paradox, let the cat out of the bag, no more
mystery, same as Sonoma CA, the hordes destroy what it was they were coming to
see, it becomes superficial, about exteriors, about gear, about what can you do
for ME.
8/25
Killen Creek, at
base of Mt. Adams. We met Joe from Fort Sill, from the Army; he is totally on
the gear. OK, we have to talk about gear, again, people are just so on it it’s
hard to avoid.
I see my first
lodge pole pine at the Waptus River trail junction, then more and more, plus
western white pines, an old favorite. There are few western whites on the PCT
on this Cascades volcano hike that rival the likes of the Sierra Nevada western
white pines. Around Mt. Adams there is a nice diverse conifer forest. We met
Cow Patty at the junction, she did some sophisticated Yogiing on us and got
food; she was strange, odd.
We arrive at a
fantastic camp with view of Mt. Adams, a river, waterfall, glacier view. I find
a lake below to dive in cool blue water, with a view Mt. Rainier. The sun sets
over still water, Mt. Rainier shrouded in clouds; back to the immediacy of the
Adams camp, the blue in the glaciers, crisp, clear air, the sound of the creek.
While the camp is great for all the above reasons, being in a drainage below
glaciers also means the cold air funnels down at night and it gets cold. Watercourses
carry the coldest air off the mountains. If you want to be warmer, camp out of
drainages, up by 100’ or so, it will be considerably warmer. Sometimes though,
the creek side camp is too hard to resist in the sunny afternoon. It’s a short
term thinking temptation you may regret the next morning.
8/26
Swamp Creek
8/27
Trout Lake. We camped
by a bridge above Trout Lake road, same camp we were at in 2008 when Kim’s sons
came to meet us on another PCT hike, same hike as this just reversed. The tent:
Kim loves her little nest, to pack her things away in bags, be secure, have her
mate right close and unable to get away to a computer or other distraction. To
see her light in the tent, in the middle of the thick, dark forest makes me see
something special, how small we are, so precious. I adore her; she melts my
heart.
There is a primo
specimen tree right next to this camp, to the north across the creek, can’t
remember the species, Mountain hemlock I think, maybe Grand fir, a huge tree,
one of the biggest so far on this hike.
The forest
diversity is really nice here. For the tree seeker, the Pacific northwest
forest on the Cascade crest is really fun. After 200 miles now I am
distinguishing many aspects of the trees: crown shape, branch development,
color, needle aspect, cones etc. The trees are coming in to focus. With my interest
in natural history, I make a note to study David Douglas, George Steller,
George Engelmann, Archibald Menzies, all explorer/ naturalists whose names are
enshrined in the trees and animals I study now: Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga
menziesii), Steller’s jay, Engelmann spruce etc. I love this stuff; I can throw
myself into endless study of the explorers and naturalists: Cook, Vancouver,
Humboldt, Darwin, Bering, Barents, Franklin, Bodega y Quadra, Juan de Fuca,
Ulloa, Cabrillo, Vizcaino, Coronado, Cabeza de Vaca; I’m fascinated by this
cast of characters that span the 1500s through the 1800s.
The trees open
all of this up for me, my entry point to history, to the landscape.
8/28
Trout Lake, a
certain quaint rural area of south central WA, above the Columbia Gorge, above
George, WA, near Mt. Adams, an apparently nice, tight-knit community, General
Store at the center with Bev the proprietor.
We meet Lindy, a
Yakama Indian; she described the rough conditions of crime, drugs, booze, child
molestation, corrupt leaders/ special interests, fracking next to Mt. Adams
wilderness on the Yakama reservation. She had been coming to the Trout Lake
store since she was a child and Bev did not know her name. At the general store
hostel we get a queen-size bedroom, 1 of 2 rooms, and being around this hiker
stop, we hear different hiker’s stories.
We enjoy the
hike because of where it gets us; nature is our church, our ultimate muse. It
takes us out of our heads, shows a world of fantastic magic and mystery,
ordered in some way, beyond social construction. The hiking is something we
enjoy doing together; it’s good for our relationship.
I go in on a
huckleberry pie and ice cream with some other hikers. The whole huckleberry
scene is interesting; there are itinerant pickers, Thai or something, from
Seattle, Indians pick on their land, they all use rakes to get the berries
faster. The berries sell big. Bev is a buyer and sells them regionally. One
lady makes 100s of pies a year, selling them for like $25. Some of the pickers
are rough, hard drinking white guys, others are families full of conspiracy
theories, rough and tumble. Wild mushroom harvesting is big too. I have a nice
chat with the husband of one of Bev’s daughters, a Japanese guy. The trail
experience is rich with different things. Trout Lake is a good stop; we decide
to stay another day. Kim hits it off very well with Bev and some of the locals
on the front porch. Kim reawakens her own local roots. I always tell people Kim
is a local, she’s just not local from around here. She loves the small town
feel and has a special appreciation for rednecks, as she is part-ways that
herself.
On the wall of
the hostel is the Desiderata: “… if you compare yourself to others you may
become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons
than yourself.” And “… do not distress yourself with imaginings…” Kim later writes
a Hiker’s Creed based on Desiderata.
Up the road,
Forest Service ladies made me color copies of tree ID stuff from the various
books they had on hand. When you show up and have an interest, stuff generally
opens up for you.
I decided to
make myself handy, as I didn’t want to just sit around all day. I fixed the
sink drain. Bev lent me her car to go down the road to the hardware store to
get plumbing fixtures. I fixed a door, took it off the hinges, cut it down,
planed the threshold, re-set the hinges etc. and Kim made the beds and cleaned
the bathroom and tub. Bev later gave us our tab and lodging for free, plus told
Kim she could have a job next summer at the store if she wanted.
8/29
Mosquito Lake. I
collect Kim-isms, she makes what you call paraphasic errors or literal
paraphasic errors; it’s a brain/ memory storage thing. I write them all down. On
the trail here she called in utero ‘inverto’
and came up with the underwritten
agreement. Some of my favorites are: irresputably
true, Silicone Valley, Samolians, an inert structure of goodness, fluid
in Spanish, arbortorium, degradated,
unchartered territory, periodontical
disease, Telemarket skiing, Stonehedge, emperial knowledge, self actualated,
Barvarian pretzels, complete perplexion,
appleton (appellation), etc. etc.,
you get the idea. My Mom has the same
thing.
Conifer needles
provide an endless exercise in recognizing pattern variation. In Trout Lake you
descend out of the mountains and all of a sudden there are Ponderosa pines and
larches, the beginnings of the dry side forest. A cool part of my tree study is
walking through big regional forests, developing a sense of the landscape and variation
at the level of forests. I’m not just identifying individual trees, I’m seeing
forest assemblages and configurations. Over all the long distance hikes this
adds up to an internalization of just what constitutes Western, intermountain
forests.
8/30
We hike 13.5 miles
by 1:PM and stop at Blue Lake; rain, wind; we have a big fire.
8/31
Huckleberry Mountain.
Foggy morning, mushrooms popping, nice aspects of green.
It takes
patience and forbearance to take care of chores and packing in the dark, cold,
wind; the wind unsettles all. There is no ‘inside’ to run to out here.
Yesterday was a fire drill for harder weather; we get lucky, no snags fall on
us. It is impossible to not camp near some tree that might fall on you.
Sometimes you take more of a risk to get a good camp spot, other times the snag
is too precarious and you just can’t see being under it all night.
September
September 1 – 14
miles Trout Creek
September 2 –
12.1 miles Rock Creek
September 3 –
Long Road Walk to Cascade Locks - Resupply
OREGON STATE
September 4 – 6
ZERO PCT TRAIL DAYS Cascade Locks
September 7 –
10.7 miles Saddle at Trail 434
September 8 – 17
miles Salvation Springs
September 9 –
17.6 miles Paradise Park Trail Junction
September 10 –
4.9 miles by stream in ravine (Timberline Lodge AYCE buffet and Resupply)
September 11 –
16.8 Timothy Lake
September 12 –
14.4 miles Warm Spring Creek
September 13 –
17.1 miles f***ing mud pit Jude Lake
September 14 –
10.2 miles on trail Resupply at Ollalie Lake Resort Store
Camped at Breitenbush Lake
September 15 –
17.2 miles Shale Lake “forever hill 1.8 miles really 4.5” Jefferson P.
September 16 –
11.7 miles Koko Lake Minto Pass
September 17 –
16.5 miles Resupply at Big Lake Youth Camp
September 18 –
13.5 miles Lava Lake Camp
September 19 –
11.7 miles Obsidian Falls
September 20 –
13.1 miles Mirror Lake Sisters
September 21 –
17.4 miles Mink Lake Loop S. Lake
September 22 –
6.4 miles Irish Mountain Stormy Lake
September 23 –
17.9 miles Pool by Bobby Lake Trail Head
September 24 –
14.3 miles Resupply @ Shelter Cove
shared cabin w/Ferdy & Lady D
September 25 –
7.8 miles Geese Lake
September 26 –
13.6 south side Summit Lake
September 27 –
12.4 miles Road 60
September 28 –
10.6 miles Maidu Lake
September 29 –
Broken Arrow hiker/biker camp Diamond Lake
September 30 –
2.0 miles hitch to Crater Lake Mazama Store for ride to Klamath Falls
OCTOBER 1 –
forever Amtrak trip back home to Martinez/Napa/Sonoma
9/1
Huckleberry
Mountain. I’m getting the campsites and days mixed up here. In my journal I
wrote notes the morning after, Kim noted the night of. Hers are the
chronological dates above, my dates are the text; they don’t match. You get the
idea.
“I found my
thrill, on blueberry hill”. We camped on a blueberry hill off trail, on a soft
spot under the trees, away from thru-hikers. Solitude. Sunrise breaks on us at
the top of a mountain in pink, low angle glowing light; “what does your
sparkle, truly portend? Shimmering brilliance, light without end”. A great
eastern WA sunrise with the Columbia Gorge, Mt Adams, Noble fir and cones, the
big sweep, a regional consciousness grows.
As we change
elevations, go into and out of valleys, we see alder, maple, oak on the lower
elevation hillsides, big Douglas firs, cedary bottomlands, we cross rivers,
swim, cross fields and look at the black cottonwood by the stream. Down by the
Wind River we cross a ‘dump line’, below which it rain 80” per year. Micro-environments
interweave through the land, fingering together aspects of elevation, temperature,
precipitation, exposure, latitude, proximity to drainage, soil type etc.
9/2
Start at: Trout
Creek. My hiking is stronger. We got an early start, hiked 12 miles up a steep
grade and down to an old camp at Rock Creek where we holed up for 3 days,
during a wicked storm in 2008. We had a stupid fight over nothing other than
being knuckleheads, ate 2 dinners, in the tent by 5:30 PM
9/3
Rock Creek. The
PCT could be the cure for the obesity epidemic. Hike 500 miles, you can’t eat
enough and you still lose weight.
Kim comes off
with a hard comment or throw and then gets super sensitive if I give a hard
retort, the she loads on all past perceived slights to say ‘all is fucked up’;
she loads it on, gunny sacking they call it, open up the bag of stuffed
feelings and unload all at once. Of course I am entirely without fault because
I am the King.
Heading for a
resupply and small break we hoof it in 16 plus miles from Rock Creek, down long
dirt roads, into Stevenson, WA, along the rail, along the river, over the
bridge and into Oregon, to the same camp area park where we hung out and had a
great time with a thru-hiker named Serpico back in 2008. Kim hits it off with
the host; she hits it off with everybody, very present. I’m more selective, I
need to find somebody interesting; I don’t suffer fools gladly.
9/4
Back in the
Combine at Cascade Locks, we had a great burger and soft serve ice cream. As long
as we have a tree and picnic table, life is good; shade, a place to sit and
work, very nice. After man invented picnic tables he invented paper to provide
a palette for his multitude of thoughts and reflections, and then he invented
‘inside’ so the paper wouldn’t blow away and he could work in peace to register
and record his momentous cogitations. (Now I laboriously transcribe these trail
scribblings nearly two months after we finished, and @ 1 month after the date
of this 9/4 entry, on 10/1. It’s work to get this journal ready for public
consumption.)
I get interested
in the history of Cascade Locks, the discovery, Lewis and Clark, the Columbia
River transport, logging, fire, geology, volcanics, salmon, Indians, railroad,
highway. I’ve always got to have an interest and I find one; I’m lucky that
way; I stay occupied with endless projects, all of my choosing, I get paid for
none, love them all, amateur, from amar, to love; the amateur loves it, not
jaded by professional obligation. This is part of the independently poor
lifestyle, no boss, no rules, no limits, only wide-open space of my choosing.
With my high written/verbal output, Life is the muse, I’m the instrument; I
filter it through, adding perspective and depth as the years roll by.
9/5
Cascade Locks. Kim’s
hip is hurting bad, ibuprofen has no effect. The long 16 mile walk into Cascade
Locks, seems to have given her a repetitive motion trouble. Yesterday we spent
kicking it in the library. We’re staying for the Pacific Crest Trail
Association’s (PCTA) Trail Days festival and also so Kim can visit one of her
best friends from Portland. I decided I wanted
to scope out Trail Days and ask some questions of people, find out how
the PCTA sees the hiking community. This is just as well, as Kim’s injury makes
a good break point.
9/6
Cascade Locks. Very
cool to be among the trains, the tracks, the whistles, the rumbling of the
cars. There’s no hobos, but the sounds…., great. We see Lion Heart, Kim’s
favorite thru-hiker; he hangs out with us; we feed him.
The Bridge of
the Gods, over the Columbia River, was opened for pedestrians only for a half
hour and we went up. This was a great demo of gadgetry: photos, photos, photos,
cell phones, sending pics, not about being here now. This was the first trip
ever for me, for a long, long time, where I left my camera home. I liked it, I
had to take things in as they were, not try to own and capture, objectify the
experience. I’ve got 50,000 pictures on my computer now, how many more do I
need?
9/7
En route from
Cascade Locks to Saddle at Trail 434. I learned at Trail Days that Cuban fabric
came from sailing technology, fibers are fused together in bath, they’re not
woven, Cuban fabric is entirely impermeable, it doesn’t take on water or water
weight, yet it does not take abrasion well, not compared to nylon.. The white
threads in the green fabric, of a ULA pack, are very strong, and costly. I found
I may not actually save that much weight by having a bag done over for my old Kelty
pack frame.
9/8
We walked out of
the Columbia Gorge on the PCT, not the alternate Eagle Creek, almost have our
first day without seeing anyone, just as the day was ending, two hikers appeared,
just as we got in our tent, at the above mentioned saddle at trail 434.
9/9
Salvation
Springs. After reading Machiavelli here on the trail, The Prince, it all comes
together for me about socio-econ relations in Sonoma: defenders of the status
quo are those who to which advantages accrue. NIMBYs are all about the status
quo, whatever it is. They fight hard to keep it. There is a different status
quo for wine, residents, east side residents, foothills residents, servant
class. Each has a peculiar set if interests that they want to see maintained,
i.e. status quo.
In the
hierarchy, upper middle class residents see they are at odds with the nobles.
Servants see little difference between the upper middle and the nobility. In
fact, interests do cut across classes of people, depending on the issue at
stake. In some cases the nobles and homeowners interests intersect, in others
not.
Pretty much what
we have in Sonoma is the nobles, the
merchant class and leisure class’ Silicon Valley new money running the show
while the people get it up the ass
with high rents and prices. The city sides with the nobles more often than not
because from therein comes the money to run the city and pay for the staff. The
nobles will get the disputed trail for their $2000 dogs.
It’s an easy
enough strategy to run the working class out by attrition and high prices, then
they have no voting power, no ‘people’ left. The middle class will become the
new people, the new bottom of the barrel. The
servant people are left then in an unincorporated area with one county
representative instead of 5 council members; disenfranchised, redlined and
gerrymandered.
The Prince: may
be Darius Anderson. The nobles are: winery owners, the Dietert family, the
really rich et al. The nobles are all vying to princedom themselves. The
bourgeoisie are: the merchants who take it up the ass in rent from the nobles. The
servant working class then gets low wages because the merchants can’t afford to
pay high rents ($10-$20,000 a month), sell elite knickknacks and pay a decent wage. So, the bourgeois
and working classes have a possible basis for an alliance against the nobility
and the Prince.
One way to cut
the cake: the servant class and home owners are “the people”; the nobles are
above these, the business class is the new aristocracy. Some homeowners will
try to justify the nobles; they are noble posers.
The I-T and
Chamber of Commerce are lackeys and agents of the Prince and the nobility.
The US is
supposedly a meritocracy, not a system of government based on inherited power
(aristocracy); part of merit is having the strongest, most compelling argument
that satisfies the most sections of the pie. It continually gets worked out in
democracy and representative government. Only now it seems the US has devolved
back, into a plutocracy, the power is concentrated, the money all controlled,
merit is more and m ore an illusion. I smell revolution, the seeds and
contradictions are more and more apparent; we never really got away from our
roots in slavery and oppression.
In Sonoma, who
is the Prince? Susan Gorin, Darius Anderson, the City Council? Or is it a
sandbox of nobles and commoners with a government status quo inertia as the
arbiter of these two groups? Who frames issues before the public? Who are the
mercenaries?
I can’t help but
suspect that a status quo focusing on the nobles is puppet-stringed by the 1%,
behind the economic power curtain. The bourgeoisie, the merchant class is the
new nobility and aristocracy; the 1% is the Lord and King, the Prince. This is all
very much a class issue. To pretend not, to obfuscate this core class
difference of interests, is disingenuous, as to the nature of the issues at
stake.
If not a class
issue, the nobles wouldn’t fight so hard against a decent living wage, or argue
that equity was a taking. In reality
any taking is just the reverse; nobles take the excess value of commoner’s
labor as profit and horde that at the top, while the servants get run out of
town from super high prices and rents, to leave Sonoma as a haven of
self-serving nobles who keep the city council at their command. The council
can’t represent “the people”, if there are no people left in town to vote for
them.
Machiavelli
jibes with the observation that much of altruism is based on self-interest.
We have
ingrained moral capacities of loyalty, harm, fairness, purity, respect for
authority. These then pan these out along the spectrum of interests of
nobility, Prince, people, government etc.
Morals are
instincts at a conscious level; they derive from a deep structure grammar
capacity for them; morals are not to be understood by looking at the content
alone. At some level, it is the interests of a class or subgroup that informs
the content morals. Harm? Fair to who and why? This obviously opens up that
different societal subgroups have different interests and thus will see harm
and fairness differently. This is the academic twist, the one that seeks to
know how it all works; in the overall exegesis, this comes before trying to
justify a particular class or group’s interests. It’s a meta view, one I
habitually take.
9/10
Paradise Park
trail junction. Playing games: losing is not so bad; it’s the playing part that
is fun; take my table game/ Parcheesi attitude to local politics, be clear
about my expectations, have a positive influence, influences based on my
values, treat others with respect, play to my ability.
My basic assumption:
government is good and has a positive and constructive role to play in steering
the quality of life for all members of our community. Government is the
gatekeeper, a balancer of scales, an agent of justice when socio-econ actors
get too out of whack and need to be regulated. If someone wants no government,
they should not be in it, if the message is only to have gov’t do the least;
get rid of ‘em!
We climb up the
long trail on the north approach to Mt. Hood, come across sandy volcanic debris-filled
canyons, cross big glacial creeks, eat major huckleberries, eat lots of power
bars and are still tuckered out bad, maybe dehydrated. A long fucking hill! We
time our arrival for the lunch buffet. The Timberline Lodge, which the PCT goes
right to, was built by the WPA; was that socialism? This is one of the great
WPA projects, a great chapter in US history, hard to see how anyone can knock
where this comes from, outstanding architecture, art, use of materials, care of
construction. This is a national historic site: “This site possesses national
significance in commemorating the history of the USA”. Just goes to show that
whatever historical/ political narrative you buy into, socialist, commonwealth
aspects of American history are worthy of national
significance.
The murals and
paintings of period scenes at the Timberline are notable for the lack of people
represented with cell phones; people were just hanging out talking, they had to
engage, no retreat into devices. It’s almost an alien world in those paintings,
the dance, the band, the social fabric was primo, be there or be square. The
paintings and images show a more socially intimate time, less alienation than
we have going now.
We munched out
big time at the buffet. I said, ‘I’ll never eat again’. We got a small takeout
box each, loaded them to the brim with turkey, pork chops, cheese, veggies,
fruit and at 6:PM, after hiking some miles down the volcano and setting up camp
KDB and I eat all the take out food, 5 lbs. of it! We have hiker’s appetite.
9/11
5 miles south of
Timberline Lodge by a creek. Wilderness, a retreat from civilization, reconnect
with the earth, you hope to find healing, meaning and significance in the
natural order, kind of like Rachel Carson and all the others said.
9/12
Here at Timothy
Lake I took a muddy swim; many of the lakes so far have been hard to swim in
because of low water and no access by stones and no sandy bottom; the muck ripped
my Crocs right off, they were stuck down in the bottom, I had to fish them out
with a stick. Lots of birds at Timothy; we had a fire. There was a crazy baby
osprey squawking madly, endlessly, get rid of it, man alive.
Toilet paper.
People talk about going to the bathroom, but there is no bathroom in the woods.
Your ass and shit are so taboo you can’t even talk about it in honest terms.
People leave TP on the ground everywhere, as if after they wipe their ass it is
radioactive waste. Leaving blue bags of dog shit is the new thing.
I’ve been
looking for larches along the trail and have not seen one, only one in Trout
Lake, off trail and at lower elevation. “We did it on a larch”. Lark? Did it?
9/13
We react to
stereotypes of people we have in our heads, react to an inner dialogue and
narrative rather than what is in front of us. In this way, smart phones are
perfect as they mimic an existent inner process, the phones and Internet access
amplify a narcissistic tendency.
We had a nice
fire in another same camp as 2008.
We’ve been doing
15 – 17 miles a day pretty consistently; got to a shithole lake with thick
muck, can’t even get in. In a lake like that you might try and dive in over the
muck only to be ripped open by a submerged log; I narrowly missed that fate
once. We went through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, right through an
active fire with bunches of Indian firefighters. After seeing white guys after
white guys in Sonoma and on the trial, the Indians looked different, great
faces.
9/14
Breitenbush Lake.
We got as picnic table, had a fire, enjoyed the sense of big expansive water
and sky. The campground is owned by Indians and it is free, a nice twist, contrary
to white guys who need money for everything. It’s nice to get some real hospitality
while your on the trail.
9/15
A fire; the
stars; the wind. Nice and simple. Uncomplicated. Salamanders and water bugs. Not
much to worry about.
For a time I
exist not conscious of being happy or not, just existing. The mind is quiet.
The stars impress directly, past my eyes and into my consciousness unfiltered.
I feel the wind, the warm fire. That’s it. Soon to move, pack, walk, eat. The
body is well worked. There are no wrong notes here. Everything fits, turns out
just as it should and will be. We’re in the groove, letting the game come to
us. We bracketed this, planned it, put ourselves in the position to feel this
deep simplicity.
The faint blush
of dawn comes across the lake against the receding night sky, trees
silhouetted, ducks and animals stirring, whispering pines, fire, just really
nice, horizon of coniferous spires of boreal forest, dark in front of the
glowing, coming sun and day. This grows on you, you open more to this sort of
feeling. We know the potential is here, it’s just a matter of putting ourselves
in place to get it; then it comes on its own accord. We end up finding what
we’re looking for, in the perfect place. Part of what we find is the
inter-relation of self/ consciousness and nature; it’s not all us. The nature part is something beyond
us.
We go 17.2
miles, lots of elevation gains and losses. Kim read the map wrong and said we
had 1.8 miles to get to a lake to the night’s camp. It was actually 4.5 miles. Under
the presumption that it was a short ways, we ate a power bar and started to
chug up the hill, figuring to knock off that 1.8 and be done with the day, swim
etcetera. But the hill just kept going on and on, up and up. I was making a
pull and Kim was behind me by a ½ mile or so. Back where she was, she heard a
huff in the bushes and thought it was I, she said “Fred, cut it out!” Turns
out, it was most likely a bear huffing at her. And, as I saw her on the
switchbacks below coming up, I got the great idea to scare the shit out of her
by jumping out, which I did. It is always too funny to see them jump back, the
look on their face, and then she told me about the real bear.
We got to our
lake, Shale Lake with a nice view of Mt. Jefferson. The volcanoes all blend in,
in the end; my journal has focused on inner things, not as much detail about
where we’ve been on the ground. My ideal is to produce something like Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, philosophy, anthropology and shit mixed in
with the description of a journey plus is little naturalist/ Transcendentalist
fusion on the side.
9/16
Shale Lake. When
things quiet down, in the Fall, after the bulge of thru-hikers has gone
through, you find what you’re supposed to be getting out here, quiet, solitude,
peace, reflection, tranquility, depth, unity with nature.
Where has the
summer gone? It seems to have never actually been here as we started ¾ of the
way north into WA State and at that latitude, it was cold, and as the seasons
progressed, it only got colder, even as we went south.
The volcanoes
are seeping into us at a profound level; going through this area twice now
gives us depth. There is a fire somewhere in the region and the air is smoky. I
see a wolf head in the clouds, faces in tree bark. The trees are old friends,
my relatives from a long time ago, recently reacquainted, after a long
separation on the tree of life.
The first
Ponderosa on the trail south of Steven’s Pass is here, @ 6000’ on a rocky
outcrop. Also, the only larches on the trail south if Steven’s Pass are: south
of Timberline line and north of Ollalie.
When you finally
get done with thru-hikers and find some peace, then come the hunters.
I’m getting a
reflective view of diff chapters of my life, as I look back, walking along,
thinking, I see the book, the chapters, the development.
9/17
Koko Lake. Out
in a wicked burn area after Three Finger Jack, hunters everywhere. We slogged
off trail to a junky kind of camp on a shallow lake.
Contradictions were
built in to the US right from the start, only white male property owners get
the vote, slavery, no woman vote, child labor. We’ve had to overcome this, and
in many ways, we’re still fighting the initial inequality; the same set of
socio-econ relations pertains.
9/18
Lava Lake. We
hiked 17 miles in less than 8 hours, Coco Lake to Big Lake. We like that Three
Fingered Jack, we have a special salute we do wit three fingers. It has been
dusty and smoky, then wet and muddy, what’s worse?
Big Lake Youth
Camp, good Christian hospitality. For the 7th Day Adventists, hell
is not eternal, there is always a chance at redemption. They are healthy, they
eat very well; you know them by their fruit. Somehow I ended up telling a story
about the Mission we stayed at in Mexico, and how the guy had the exact starter
I needed for my truck, just when my starter broke, and a woman said; “how can
people think God isn’t real!” Yet shit, if God can procure starters, why did he
allow the Holocaust?
Whatever about
God, the Big lake Youth Camp folks are really nice and provided excellent free
service with no proselytizing; they are walking their walk. Thanks you; they
are one of the top resupply places on any trail.
100s and 100s of
miles of rich landscape variety we have passed through, lava, fog, Fall ferns,
fire, glaciers, mountains, meadows, geese migrating. These miles endear you to
the land, melt you into it.
We left Big Lake
after grubbing down in their cafeteria, doing laundry, taking showers, and,
they sent us with a doggy bag! We ate that before too long and walked through
burn areas and started to get into more and more lava, as we gained elevation. The
weather turned bad on us just as we got to the cloud ceiling, cold, wind, rain,
and a long ways to go. It was amazing out there, foggy driving rain and wind;
Belknap Crater; it was an exposed difficult stretch; we had to tough it out,
lava substrate very rough, cold, wet, wind chill, had to walk fast and steady
to stay warm; no wind breaks, no shelter, I got ahead of Kim, hoped she didn’t
fall down. We had to stop and eat power bars, out of energy. And then, in the
midst of this big lava field, are two islands of forest that the lava didn’t
get, that gave us a windbreak, then back out into the storm, trying to hustle
to get below the cloud ceiling, on and on we went, seemed like forever, a long 4
plus mile run that had to be made in one shot no matter what, no water or
shelter out there; the lava formations were crazy in the fog, horizontal rain,
heat sucked off us. We saw the situation as we went in, going up hill, the
clouds enveloped us; we entered, we were on, better get out of there ASAP. The
going was hard. I was jacked on adrenaline, couldn’t make a wrong step, my body
was ready.
We got to Lava
Camp at dusk and I made an illegal fire, so what, we were cold and wet, Kim
dried her clothes. Kim had a 40 plus pound pack from the resupply, with her new
lighter shoes, through all that rough terrain. She’s tough.
9/19
Obsidian Falls. Yesterday
was our most physically challenging day yet. Lava Camp, there are always crude,
inconsiderate jerks at campgrounds, people are just dumb and assholes all over.
In Christianity,
each has a piece of it, humanity itself is the cornerstone; Kim has
realizations I note; this is the same with all other paradigms; it’s a pie
diagram, all aspects have a piece of it.
We get a multi
volcano view: Adams, Hood, Jefferson, 3 Finger Jack, Washington, Belknap
Crater, Willamette Valley, John Day Fossil Beds, North Sister, we are immersed
in the landscape, big and little.
Weekend in
Sisters, people, people, people.
9/20
Mirror Lake. Obsidian
Falls area is amazing, obsidian everywhere, the ground glittering with shiny,
brilliant, glossy obsidian of all types and stages of melt, mixed like cake and
cookie dough. I think I see evidence of stone tool working by someone, really
cool. The stars are out big time, waterfalls, Middle Sister, a long view of the
Willamette Valley mountains, very peaceful. Orion seems set in the foreground
against deeper stars in the fabric of space. I remember my dad telling me about
these stars when I was a kid. Dad was a navigator in WW2 on a B-17 bomber.
At Big Lake Youth
Camp they have a cabin devoted to hikers on the PCT, the food resupply packages
go there, there’s a hiker box, and some magazines. One magazine had an article
on New Guinea tribesmen and the look in those guys’ eyes, you could see the
primitive matrix in there, the other human ancestors, the Denisovans, are in
those eyes. Can my mind ever feel that primitive unity? Am I approximating it
on these hikes? Or am I indelibly fragmented into abstract categories as a modern
individual? Could absolutism and literalism be a way to emulate the unity and
belonging we seek?
I see the unity,
the stars, the forces, the energy, the matter, the life, the rotations; I know
it; my mind grasps it, now just to couple that with feeling, so I create a
modern way of being that fuses the secular with spirit. This all gets chunked
into the refiner’s fire here on the trail; back in town I get swept away by the
river of civilization, the dynamic immersion and inspiration of nature fades;
other priorities come up: bills, meetings, other people’s stuff, over-eating,
health etc.; I get swamped by immersion in abstract complexity, lose the trail’s
sense of immersion in a unified simplicity.
The obsidian is
just fantastic, all under foot, crunching , shining, huge masses of it. The
various stages if its formation are evident, some minerals went through the
glass cycle, others not, all mixed together like a pound cake. Pure glass, of
any type, simply cooled/went from the liquid to solid state very quickly, there
was no chance for crystal formation. In the pound cake examples, the cooling
was at varied timing and thus glass got mixed in with basalts etc.
And then, from
behind a Mountain hemlock and over the edge of a volcano: A crescent moon rises
over the ridge, to shine its light on the myriad obsidian littering the ground
everywhere. The stars twinkle; the waterfall hisses, the night sky emanates
mystery and magic. Yeah, primitive feeling bubbling up through my
domestication. I’m getting it.
137 miles left,
could it be, another hike draws to a close? All these moments pass like dew,
the immediate sensation of time in the present changes to memory, to the past,
just like that, the living movement frozen in the past like some kind of psychic
glass cycle. Now, is our time. I’m staggered by life through time and space;
all the life come and gone, yet still remaining; this is as big a mysterious
feeling as any of God or some such, as if the vastness of time and space does
not contain a gravity of being equal to God in every sense; God, if you have to
look at it that way, just personalizes all the mystery to an anthropomorphic
entity, makes it easier for us to relate to. Yet,
time/space/gravity/matter/dimensions are not an entity in the same sense that we view discreet packages of stuff;
what is out there, what we are enmeshed in, is a lot more than an object of
some sort that we can easily categorize. The fabric of time and space is
fucking wild. Like my Dad said, “I can’t possibly put my understanding at such
a large level”. The best you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride, trust in
it. There doesn’t need to be a reason or an intent, that’s just more
anthropomorphizing.
By getting up at
4:30 AM, I find the solitude. This niche is wide open. No chatter from the
hordes of weekenders, thru hikers, hunters, only stars, waterfall, moonlight,
obsidian and my witness. What this solitude and contemplation does, in a facsimile
of wild nature, it puts one in their proper place of importance; it teaches
humility. The bright sun of day, of my identity, is just one star, one sparkle,
one piece of obsidian among many. Humanity is the same among all of life. I am
life yet just one piece of it, indelible yet expendable, precious yet anonymous
and ultimately unprotected from mortality. I am a part of the expression of
life through 500 million years from the Cambrian, through 10 billion years from
the Big Bang, all coming on, all being expressed and passing, the trilobites,
the dinosaurs, the saber tooth tigers, the Neanderthals. The solitude gets me
put into context. This is not all about me. This is way more. I feel the
humility as a rush of inspiration, alone, sitting, the night sky fades ever so
gradually before the dawn, Kim rustles and starts to pack her stuff. The days
pass, the precious days taken for granted in a mundane trance. We’re here!
We’ve got each other. The Big Dipper and Orion melt and disappear a little at a
time before the coming day, as this trip will fade in front of town and city.
This is why we came back to the trail; it puts us in the real, in the natural
cycles from which we emerge, shows us where we really stand in life. The
immersion has to have time to sink in, months to be steeped in everyday,
watching the stars, the moon, the sun, the wind, you start to get it. ‘It’ is
bracketed to be found somewhere between Point A and Point B, in the process,
maybe we get it, maybe not, you have to keep trying; it usually comes.
We have Quality
in Sonoma. I have a place and an agenda: socio-economic-environmental justice.
I want to understand the practical aspects of government and move the needle in
accordance with my agenda, and not be co-opted by the inertia of the status quo.
I want to rock the boat with grace, with reason, open up the ground of primary
assumptions that form values and morals, not with vitriol, not as Don Quixote.
A town does not
have to inevitably succumb to all the worst aspects of gentrification and
tourism. There are multiple classes of people to keep in mind, not just the
nobility. We are not seeing trickle down economics, we’re seeing trickle out
demographics. A bag of cabbage is not adequate compensation for letting the
nobles take over. In town, when you join in the master narrative, it becomes
like the Stepford Wives, you get comfortably numb. The goodness of humanity
does show through with the impulse to generosity, plenty of petty stuff too.
Life in Sonoma is good, it’s tempting to sweep away the poverty, inequity and anything
else that might be sand in the shoe, of the feel good, epicurean, eat drink and
be merry, wine country lifestyle story.
In the balance
the trail restores a sense that people are good. Then you see a thru hiker,
rude, elite, fast, in a hurry, no contact. It’s hard to keep in the movie I
want when there is constant interaction with people who have a different focus.
As I said, the weekenders and section hikers are much more pleasant; they stop,
like to chat, aren’t all about the gear, the outdoors is special because
they’re only getting a little slice; they’re not on auto pilot, sleepwalking
through.
9/21
Mink Lake Loop. We
came through all the big sexy volcanoes and now it’s back to the lakes and the
woods. This is a dry year. It’s been cooler overall and now more as the Fall
comes on. We didn’t swim near as much as 2008.
The grey jays
are fun birds to watch, cute little camp robbers. They come in with a certain
modus operandi, spread out in a platoon, silent, they stake out multiple
vantages, glide and swoop in, one scouts closer, they surround the area; if
their is pay dirt, they move in as a group. From a nearby twig they sit and
look at you, a curious little species. Individual ones are probably different
but in overall behavior, they’re the same.
The sun,
therefore there are eyes to see it. The spinning of the earth and therefore night
and day, hair to shield and to keep warm. The tilt of the axis and therefore
the seasons. The molten iron core and therefore plate tectonics. The sun, heat,
photons, energy, energy packets, photosynthesis, food, carbohydrates, all spun
out of the Big Bang, out of fused elements baked in distant star cores. The
refiners’ fire, I’d say. It’s likely the ultimate order of it all escapes us.
That doesn’t stop the inquiring mind from pursuing a desire to know what’s
going on.
I’m coming at
this as a naturalist, as a secular humanist; this is my base channel. I feel
the same sense of magic and awe that faith-based takes may provide. Religion,
however, is a partial category in the same way science is, they’re both part of
a modern, fragmented sensibility where socially constructed aspects seem to exist
isolated from a whole. Supposedly in the primitive human state, all these
constructions were part of a unified fabric, there was no subject/ object,
“religion” or “art” etc., these things were just part of daily life.
For me to
compare the awe factor between science and religion, is apples to apples.
So, I found a
lightweight metal tent stake. I broke one earlier and needed another for our
rig. Some folks came by and commented about it: ‘the Lord provides’. I guess
the Lord also taketh away. Why would a Lord get involved with something as
trivial as a tent stake? I could easily make one out of wood if I wanted. Why
did the Lord allow all the wars of genocide? Allow us to propagate a huge
extinction event on the very creatures we were supposed to steward and see be
fruitful and multiply? What kind of crazy lesson is that? As a corollary, what
assumptions lie at the base of the origin of human nature? Religions are hardly
self evident or proven in any common sense way. It’s all Wizard of Oz, behind
the curtain type stuff. It requires a
suspension of belief in order to get the faith. To think God is involved in the
minutiae of all lives, I think is a sorely mistaken idea. At some point we have
to be adults and measure our own behavior.
Hikers typically
use a trail adventure as a prop to gain support for a cause, a sick person etc.
and then look for sponsors. Something about the trail makes it a special forum.
Something lends the air that people would want to contribute to this very
special thing, or shit, even read about it on someone’s journal. We get into
this some by announcing the itinerary of our hike and hint that people could
send us food and treats.
9/22
Stormy Lake. We’ve
got wicked thunder, lightning and driving rain right over us. It snuck in. The
weather forecasts we heard were wrong. We’re out on a point buy a lake. Kim is
scared bad; there’s nothing we can do now that wouldn’t put us in even greater
exposure to danger. I rather enjoy the excitement of a close storm.
Yesterday we got
into an area of white fir, another one of Douglas fir. Kim says, “it’s like
everyone went home”; the woods are quiet, only saw two people today. Now,
however, it gets colder, more threat of a snowstorm.
9/23
Stormy Lake, the
quality of our shit has changed to cow plop consistency, for three days now, no
more turds and logs. The limited ingredients of the trail diet may be catching
up with us, no matter how many fiber caps we take.
I have a sense
that population growth overall, in the big cities adjacent to the PCT and AT,
has a correlation with the increased trail use we have seen. Indeed, Portland
and Seattle are among the fastest growing cities in the nation, to the tune of
25,000 new people each every two years, many of these young, recreational
enthusiasts. No wonder we felt overrun in all the attractive, Cascade areas
outside these cities, in the summer season. The trick: go to places no one is
attracted to, places not advertised in Backpacker magazine, learn to appreciate
the mundane forest, cultivate an interest in that (trees, mushrooms, lichens,
ferns) which can be found in less spectacular areas.
The US is the
third most populous country in the world, 318 million people. Up until 2008 the
US population was growing well. The people are here, they want recreation, to
get outside. The simple fact: there are too many people over all to find
solitude in the public lands set aside for such purpose. The more fun,
attractive places get advertised, the more they will not provide the very
qualities people go there to find. We saw this on the John Muir Trail, outside
of LA and San Francisco, people, people, people, 50 or more per day.
Conclusion, the wilderness experience is being diluted and destroyed by too
many people. This is beyond public land management agencies ability to deal
with, they can have quotas, but then they are de-funded and have no staff to
enforce anything.
From the era of
the 1964 Wilderness Act, where the idea was to set aside areas ‘untrammeled by
man’, what we see today in 2014, 50 years later, is one butt load of
trammeling. Kim says “people are starving” for something real, for nature; they
are obese, they have too much and not enough.
Cloudy, somber
Fall days with grey clouds and silvery sun. The mood is everything. It’s still
and quiet, whispering wind in lonely trees. The geese come, trumpeting the
sound of the seasons; they are the living sign of the big wheels turning, the
axis tilting. We walk through a burn area and the wind howls and screams
through the snags. A perfect cool, windy Fall day.
I’ve seen the
geese my whole life, huge masses of them, Canadian geese, in fields in the
Midwest, in the Central Valley of CA, in storms along the Olympic Coast, along
the Willamette River valley; they come from the north, migrating. Snow geese,
Brandt’s geese. When I see and hear them, in the Fall, I’m imbued with a sense
of mystery and fascination. I don’t need a watch or a calendar; the geese, you
know it in your bones, the seasons. The geese reveal the rhythm of the whole
earth; it’s direct knowledge, no interpretation needed, it’s Fall, life goes by.
The various
outlandish claims of energy bars are always entertaining to read: raw, vegan,
organic, natural, made with love etc. Power Bar is careful to not say one word
about natural, they trumpet the caloric, nutritional content. Foodyism is
another ripe area to open up. I’ll hold that one aside for now. Suffice it to
say that Kim and I are not purists, and maybe that translates to not being
purists in anything, generalists, muddy river people.
9/24
Bobby Lake
Trailhead. The grey, barkless tree trunks of the burn areas… a fantastic,
somber and barren landscape. We are connoisseurs of the barren. We called the
Pinacate Volcanic Preserve in Mexico, the crème de la barren. We like the
Nevada Basin and Range desert, the Sonoran Desert, the Mojave, Baja; it moves
us.
On the trail,
with no smart phone or other access to news sources, we are dependent for
weather forecasts on word of mouth. People will say: big storm coming, 3 days
of rain, then we get nothing. It’s not supposed to rain for 3 days, then we get
hammered by thunder and lightning. We did hear about the Napa earthquake and
called home to find out that yes, a lot did shake down in our apartment, it
took Kim and I @ an hour to clean it all up, broken knick knacks mostly, glass.
I prefer the
abstract view: society, history, culture. I look for a meta perspective to
understand. Psychological self-reflection in terms of emotions etc., really
analyzing interpersonal relations, are not my strong suit or my interest yet I
am forced into it by being with Kim. It’s good though, once I do open a few
things up it’s refreshing, a new thing. It’s easier to see this type of stuff
in other people. Once I recognize there is some sort of general pattern, and
that it may apply to lager contexts, then I’m interested.
9/25
Shelter Cove,
Odell Lake, we share a cabin with Lady Darnita (or Danette, Danish super model) and her husband Ferdinand. During a
hard, cold rain it is lovely to be inside with heat, toilet, shower, kitchen,
bed, refrigerator, all the outstanding accouterments of civilization! If they
could only make beds and mattresses more solid and not like the Grand Canyon in
the middle. The technology of mattresses could be a lot better. At the cabin we
get all dried out, munch out well, get our resupply and get all situated to go
back out into the rain and weather again. George sends us 2 lbs. of smoked
salmon, what a treat!
Down at this
lower elevation by Odell Lake we are into the white fir, fun to get into new
tree habitats, which mainly vary with elevation and latitude. I sit in chair,
inside, outside it rains and rains, out on a dock by our cabin I fancied I saw
my grandfather Alfy, getting into a boat, fishing for kokanee. I’ve fancied
that the little birds around us the whole hike have been all my relatives.
Pond life,
ripples of water striders, cloud reflections, all the precious little creatures
to protect with good practice and ethics: don’t swim with sunscreen and DEET
bug dope all over you, don’t get any soap in the water.
9/26
Geese Lake. Dawn
comes, cotton candy clouds reflected in a cold, still pond surrounded by foggy spires
of boreal coniferous canopy; grey, foreboding clouds shift to show pockets of
stars, cold! Mists float across the pond surface.
The mists almost
look like the spirits of people floating along, somehow emerging from the dark
unknown of the lake’s depth. King Arthur. The lake is a concentration of life,
an amplification of life and thus is a good spot to meditate on nature, still,
quiet yet rippling with motion and life force.
Indecisive
Expeditions, the tent pole broke so we are going home. Then we aren’t going
home and will finish to the Oregon, CA border. Back and forth. This time of
season it is at once great for the quiet yet the cold and weather is getting
tough. It has been cold and we have summer gear. We vacillate on what call to
make, stay, go, what? The days count down, 10 and counting. I want to go the
distance, Kim does and doesn’t.
On the trail you
have to adapt to long-term fitful sleep, hard, lumpy, slanted ground, cold,
wet, heavy tent to carry, wind blowing your stuff all around, cut up, scraped
and chafed. You go through it, don’t pay attention to the discomforts, put away
the pain, put away the idea that this is too much to handle; you handle it. You
do get long-term sleep deprived. Then you get a cabin, a bed, and the bed is so
saggy you can’t even sleep, it destroys your back much more than hard ground,
even less sleep.
When it’s
raining you need to cover your pack. But then you need stuff, clothes, food,
water. I need to be able to rig my pack to be able to get at the food, water
and gear when it’s raining and wet. I don’t know if that is possible; surrender
to getting wet may be the best prep.
Diamond Peak,
each volcano has different aspects and flavor. We find ourselves up high, at
the border of the snowline and the cloud ceiling. When we came through here in
2008 the whole area was covered in snow and we were getting lost from not being
able to follow the trail; now we see the land.
9/27
Summit Lake. Kim
is more a pure Christian than 99% of Christians. She says: “It’s about the
heart of Christ, not the life of Christ.” She has the love and compassion in
spades; she came that way; she gives away all she’s got; she’s like a mountain
spring for people, they just want to drink. This is her gift. Part of it though
leaves her open and vulnerable when she might prefer to be less so. The very
thing that makes her so great also makes it hard for her personally. Other
people see the great, not the cost it exacts. She has to deal with the openness
on a daily basis, has the impulse to retreat from people and society, to find
quiet and refuge, on the trail. She can’t turn people down, so her strategy is
like mine with butter, just don’t have it around, try to control the inputs by
limiting exposure. As well, Kim is
attractive and shapely, gives good eye contact, has a nice voice, many guys
then think she is wide open for their advances. I stole her myself.
We hear the
geese at night. They fly by the stars. They swoop noisily into lakes in the
dark of night. They fly over, on into the dark, past the mountains and plains,
settle on this lake or that. They land in Summit Lake. We hear the trains
whistle and ramble on in the distance, calling us to our appointment with a
ride. We got tickets. We’re heading south too, home, return to the Combine.
Like the geese, we only have the resources of our last feedings to get us
through; the future will have to be handled by hook or by crook, by Fortune in
combo with our survival knowledge and strategy.
It is fucking
COLD, wicked cold. Great views of Diamond Peak with fresh snow, big rambling
cumulus clouds, mists on the lake, a small fire, a cup of coffee with
chocolate, everything becomes just right, perfect, it all fits.
Jack Frost has
come. Summertime done come and gone my oh my. The hard season change is a
perfect bookend for the hike, three seasons, time to go, too cold, we’d need a
winter gear, hard weather refit to survive this cold, rain and snow. The
logistics of getting our winter gear now, for ten more days, seems too much,
not worth it. At any time a big snow could come in these mountains, really put
us in bad spot; we need to be smart about the context here. The mountains and
nature have no pity and compassion. Nature grinds up the cute little animals
the same way it would grind us up, harvest us, back to the ashes and dust. Fate
and mortality are waiting anyway, best not to tempt them, if we want to enjoy a
few more days under the sun.
On this hike, in
spite of it being a dry year, I’ve only carried full water once, in the Mt.
Thielsen/ Windigo Pass area, where the deep pumice soil from the Mt. Mazama/
Crater Lake volcanic explosion/ deposition event, absorbs the water run-off. There
are no streams, only a spring here and there. Trail Angels do good for hikers,
the ones who leave water in dry areas are nor just hangers-on. These people are
benefitting others that they will never meet or see. This is paying it forward.
This is ‘it takes a village’. This is the nurturing family model primary
assumption (vs. the strict father model) that lies at the base of a liberal
world view.
We burned a LOT
of calories today with the cold challenge plus hiking and exercise. We could
eat all our food for 3 days in one sitting. This food has to be meted out in a
controlled way, hence we burn way more calories than we consume, for months at
a time, lose major weight, an outcome anticipated and desired, but you get to
be one hungry motherfucker! You get hiker’s
appetite, feared by the owners of buffet style restaurants.
9/28
Road 60, off in
the woods. Winter beckons. We hike strong and still are not warm. Stopping to
eat causes cold issues and the need for more clothing. Clothing modulation becomes
more important, more clothes, too hot, less clothes, too cold; the high tech
aspects come in handy, such as ways to control your hood, unzip the pants in
the middle, draw string at the waist, gloves, hat, unzip the armpit etc. etc.
With temperature regulation, you get too hot pulling a hill, you strip down,
sweat, then the wind wicks all the heat off you when you stop; someone takes a
shit, you have to stop, get cold, put on clothes, take them off. This is where
gear with features comes in handy; in the shoulder seasons, summer gear is not
adequate.
We see the
jagged spire of Mt. Thielsen in the distance. It is revealed and then hidden b
along the mountainous horizon. We get a fantasy going that Thielsen is Mordor
from Lord of the Rings: Ascent to Mordor, Mt. Thielsen, cloaked in clouds,
rumbling in the distance, wind, eerie lenticular clouds envelope the peak,
other strange clouds open and close like funnel spider webs. We’re in a burn
area and regional fires are surrounding, trouble ahead, trouble behind. Fate
unknown. Yesterday was our first day in nearly two months seeing no people.
Other days we saw two or three. Yes, the Fall, after the boys of summer have
gone home, this is the time to find solitude.
The north part
of the Thielsen Wilderness was the first place on the PCT south of Steven’s
Pass to see Western white pine the stature of the ones in the Sierra Nevada.
The bark up in Oregon is sometimes more furrowed than the pronounced plates in
the Sierra.
9/29
Maidu Lake. Doo
Doo Lake, poo poo everywhere, a high use area. Taste of Winter. At the end you
get ambivalent about whether to keep going or go home. It’s beautiful, quiet, magic,
all is worked out, but you are tired and beat up, cold and wet. 5:30 AM, fire,
clear skies, stars, warm coffee, life is good.
From here at
Maidu Lake starts a Headwaters of the
Umpqua hike, 80 miles going west
All that’s left
of our other long distance hikes are memories, gone like the wind, the places
we stayed, the space we occupied, gone, vanished, passed, and so will be this
trip, as our bow wave ripples through time; the wind whispers in the firs and
pines, swoooosh, on we go, waves of what’s happening, breaking on the shores of
the moment.
As we played our
hand to account for circumstance, camp spot, windbreak, shelter, water, we
positioned ourselves to guide Fortune to clear the clouds from Mordor and allow
us safe passage. The Forest did its part and thanks Kim, her generosity
measures out in a tangible way, she put out two abandoned fires we found along
the trail. Nothing wrong with a little magical thinking, eh?
My good physical
energy is thanks to Kim’s great capacity for sacrifice. She molded my Fate and
Fortune by giving me the lion’s share of the food, refusing her fair share.
She’s tough and strong willed like her Mom about certain things, other things
not as much.
We approach the
highest point on the PCT in WA and OR; clear, sun, cold, wind.
And so, within
the constraints of our plans and circumstance, we let the game come to us,
supple, adaptable, open to the moment, we move as way opens. This is our
version of ‘the Lord provides’, our version of how it all works. Move as way
opens.
There is a lot
of personal space to think and daydream as I walk these miles. I rework
chapters of my life, themes, trajectories, unearth patterns and gems I missed
the first time around. My project has always been inner. I’m building a house
whose architecture resides in my mind and heart. To thine own self be true;
walk on the path of yourself and you can’t go wrong; this is about discerning
the landscape and map of one’s own capacities, how they get filled up with
content, getting the lay of the land of oneself. My Dad said when he was 85,
too bad I’m getting so old and decrepit, I’m finally getting it all figured
out.
Interesting that
I’m not into psychology per se, yet I access the same structural spaces via
other categories and indicators. I get self discovery, self depth, only it’s
through me being interested in big stuff, stiff outside of me, that then gets
reflected back onto me. Kim’s project is personal, she works all the data and
experience through a personal lens. We compliment each other and, frequently
arrive at similar takes and realizations (content) via entirely different
cogitative processes.
Mt. Thielsen
puts on quite show, special lenticular hybrid clouds I’ve never seen, like
Swiss cheese or funnel spider webs opening and closing, with sheets of webbing
splayed about. The sharp peak split the cloud mass as if a boat plowing through
water. We sat in awe, snacked, got more groceries on board.
We make over a
20 mile hike out of the Thielsen Wilderness, see a huge blow-down area, result of
a pretty large wind event from @ 15 to 20 years ago. Once out we try to hitch
to Crater Lake, no luck; there is a long dry stretch and we decided not to hike
between Thielsen and Crater Lake, purists we are not. At 5: PM we walk another
mile and a half to a resort store: the pizzeria at the end of the earth. In the
Fall, the rain, summer is done; there’s no one around at all. The exterior of
the building is rundown, drab, hard to believe there would be anything inside.
Once in, voila, warm, safe, friendly people, “sure, bring your packs in”; Kim
piles on the charm; the pizza oven’s gears grind a rhythmic background drone
while muffled heavy metal rock plays. Surreal,
crazy. Odd paintings stare from the wall, quite the place. From the outside
non-descript, crappy even, inside there is a whole scene; it saves us as the
rain starts and night falls.
We get a huge
pizza; I get a Coke, Kim gets a beer. Vagabonds from the mobile home/ RV set start
to filter in; this is the only place to socialize; it’s 20 or 30 miles to
anywhere from here.
We want to get
to Mazama Village at Crater Lake to get our resupply package; it may have beef
jerky. We have to get to Klamath falls by the 6th to make our train;
Kim reserved the tickets by phone at the Odell Lake resort, back in our cabin. Kim
hits it off with the manager Gary. She hits it off with everybody; she sees the
good, admonishes me to be more tolerant. Gary tries to get us a ride to Crater
Lake, to Mazama, to the AMTRAK at Chemult, OR, Kim is offering $25 for gas, no
dice. No RV people step up. Now, as I write, we are at a deserted campground in
the cold rain as night geese fly in to Diamond Lake. The weather is turning
cold.
I’m not cynical
about trail angels now. No one in the restaurant or at the resort would help us
with a ride; all the people who know about hikers have gone home too. Now we
are just dirty vagabonds and strangers in an out of the way shack in rural
Oregon, nothing special, no mystique, no story, no buzz, just two dirty, tired
looking people with big packs, god knows where they came from, sit at the other
end Marge, get away from them.
9/30
Mazama Village,
Crater Lake National Park. Carolyn Davis is the Assistant Retail Manager of the
Mazama Village Store. When I walked in I remembered her from 2008, she took
care of forwarding our bug suits to us and was very nice. She was very nice
again. She loves the hiker scene and was tickled I remembered her.
At the store Kim
meets the trolley driver and arranges for him to pick us up at the end of the
day and take us to Klamath Falls. We wait all day, bitter cold, Carolyn gives
us many free hotdogs, coffee, she takes care of us; we get a shower.
The trolley is
late, Kim is freaking out, the guy finally comes and down off the mountain we
go, though Ponderosa, cottonwoods, into the Basin and Range, the Klamath Basin,
by Fort Klamath, Agency Lake, sweeping Cascades view, all the Indian history,
Captain Jack down in Modoc country, a stunning view of Mt. Shasta, getting back
to our home turf, over to the west is Mt. McLaughlin, train tracks, then Klamath
Lake, a huge Bureau of Reclamation project, salmon, irrigation, tension,
ranching, cattle, fishing rights, Indians. Now hitting re-entry mode, shields
are burning, Sean Hannity is on TV at the train station; I turn it off. I
remain a supporter of government subsidy for AMTRAK.
10/1
Klamath Falls
train station. Long night, a five hour wait for the train, we leave at 4: AM. The
train is always late. Someone committed suicide in front of the train. Dawn at
Dunsmuir, there is Shasta up close, the upper Sacramento River; we crossed
there in 2008 on foot, back into CA, Mt. Lassen, the last Cascade volcano, the
Central valley, California trees: valley oaks, incense cedar, foothill pine. We
pass the Trinity Alps and the Yolla Bollys, I remember hikes with Kim in the
Trinities, trail projects there too.
This is it, end
of the line, once we’re off the big outdoor stage, the contextual magic starts
to evaporate; we’re just not out there anymore.
Kim is charged
up, full of good energy, making friends
with two different women and they talk and talk, just like all these words of
mine.
Hiker’s Creed
(for all time/humanity)
kim d.
Bartlett
As I walk the miles I’ve chosen
My aim and destination shall be
not just for me by also
for the earth itself and all upon it
With the consciousness and knowledge
endowed me
I shall remind myself
what a miraculous adventure life is
I choose to revere it (no matter how
happy or sad; comfortable or miserable;
able or broken I may be)
I am one of the few
I am one of the many
sharing these miles
to respect & appreciate those
whom carved the trail through
mountains, valleys, across streams
and rivers, deserts, & forests
to silently say thank you to those
who gave that we may have;
going beyond the simple path we walk
to all the life that has preceded us
to the wonder of the beginning of the
universe
we find ourselves in
We are not alone even if in solitude
there is a difference
although we seem separate we act in a
whole
This truism cannot be escaped.
As we watch the butterfly flap its wings
Let us know this is us too
Our actions, thoughts & words effect
time & space beyond us
Let us realize our humanity
it’s good, it’s bad, it’s beauty, it’s
ugliness
let us challenge ourselves
to allow others to hike the miles they’ve
chosen,
in the fashion in which speaks to them,
knowing
it is a journey, these miles, this trail
we are given a gift which wants to be
shared
the peace & beauty, the rawness &
embrace
of nature is to great to bottle
it must be free
As we too yearn to be
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