I wasn't sure what was happening but I was certain that something was wrong with my eyesight. I had barely rubbed the sleep from my eyes before putting in my contact lenses and crawling from my tent when the world began to swing from sharp to blurry and back with each blink. Convincing myself that this was temporary, I started down the trail in a cloud of mosquitoes…
Archives for June 2016
White Flag
It was punishment for something, I realize that now. I don't know exactly what past slight or transgression, of course, but I clearly must've deserved this. What we thought had been vicious mosquitoes turned out to be merely the undercard for the main event today. Even while hiking, there would be a dozen on my kneecap alone.
Rugged
Well, that hurt. Today marked a significant change in the character of the trail. What had been consistently predictable for nearly every step of the first 950 miles--steady, moderate grade with good footing--turned into something very different, something more closely resembling the beast of the east--the Appalachian Trail…
Christmas in June
A mid-year Christmas occurred on the side of the road this morning, just after 9am outside the Tuolumne Meadows post office. When I showed my ID, the man behind the counter was happy to unload the five boxes with the same unintelligible last name written on them.
Range of Light
Some days, you simply don't have it and today was one of those days. My legs called in sick to work and that makes the going pretty tough when you hike for a living. Fortunately, only one final pass and 17 miles separated us from Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite National Park.
John Muir Trail
The 7:15am bus from the village in Mammoth Lakes whisked us directly back up the mountain to Red's Meadow where we sat enjoying a cup of coffee in the warmth of the morning sun before starting down the trail just after 9:00. Not five minutes later, a sign displayed a dizzying amount of information...
Zero #7
Whenever I'm cramming in the usual town chores that invariably consume a surprisingly large amount of a day off, it's a brief opportunity that grants just enough physical and mental distance from the trail itself to reflect on this journey as it unfolds. Beneath the beauty that lives on the surface of nearly every footstep, my mind sometimes stumbles upon even more fulfilling ways of seeing into the prism of the trail experience.
Mammoth Lakes
Fifteen miles feels considerably shorter when visions of hamburgers dance in your head. Sleeping next to an alpine lake at over 10,000 feet, no one was surprised that a blanket of cold had settled in to replace the comfortably warm evening of the night before.
Childhood
The ride back across the lake was a 15-minute flood of memory. Between the smell of the two-stroke motor and the mirror flat water, it was impossible for my mind not to drift back through a kaleidoscope of childhood memories on our boat. Staring off into the mountains that began to grow larger at the far end of the lake, I felt the pull of gravity on my eyelids…
Boat Ride
Today was a short story of a near-o to the shore of Lake Edison, where we caught a "ferry" in a small fishing boat to Vermilion Valley "Resort" across the lake.
Right This Way, Ms. Mosquito
The peaceful morning stroll alongside the roar of Evolution Creek was quickly replaced by an unrelenting tide of tiny intruders out for blood. The southbounders passing us with headnets yesterday were our first clue that it had come time for every hiker's favorite part of summer: bug season. At a break before the initial ascent up to Selden Pass, the mosquitoes were voracious…
Fire and Ice
The morning air was dead calm as I climbed through fields of sun-cupped snow. When I caught up with Beardoh and Sweet Pea, we stopped and listened to an eerie silence--no wind, no voices, no chirping birds. No sound, only light.
Memory
Every break spot. Every campsite. Every creekside where we stopped for water and every place we stood to admire the view. I remember them all with such vividness and clarity that it's as if my hike of the JMT with my best friend last year had happened just moments ago. Even in memory, Emily surrounds me.
Water Water Everywhere
Today was a very simple story of one thing, a simultaneous protagonist and antagonist: water. On the one hand, its beauty and abundance are part of what make the Sierra such a pleasure to hike through. On the other, the spring snowmelt has swollen even seasonal streams into bone chillingly cold shin-deep fords.
Double Pass
It's come to this. Model parents, idyllic childhood, college education, advanced degree, solid career. And yet there I was, lying in a gutter while trying to hitch a ride at 6:30 in the morning while Proton slept against a fence. Quite the downfall.
Zero #6
Days off in town are a strange breed. Without fail, I imagine them to be as relaxed and restful as can be, sort of like my new friend Morgan here, the family pug at the Courthouse Motel where Proton, Sweet Pea, Beardoh, Dreamcatcher and I are staying.
Exit Stage Right
A day that begins with the knowledge that a shower and a limitless supply of calories waits at the end of the rainbow is always a good day. Another cold night had me in all my layers again, and the morning brought a fresh veneer of condensation on all of my gear.
Stone and Sky
Now this is the Sierra I remember. Gone were the storm clouds and back was the sapphire blue sky that sets the backdrop for some of the world's most dramatic mountain landscapes. Today would mark the trail's first major pass so we decided to sleep in, start a bit later than usual, and keep a leisurely pace through the morning to allow the snow up on the pass to melt and soften as much as possible.
Winter Wonderland
When I turned my headlamp on at 1am and saw a thin blanket of snow on the ground, I knew it was going to be an interesting day. Minutes after turning in last night, the thunder and lightning show reached a fever pitch as hail began pelting my tent. The rest of the night passed by with lulls and snowflakes in equal measure.
Did I Say it was Hot?
Strange. I don't recall saying it....then again, a lot has changed in the last 48 hours. From sweating in the sun of Kennedy Meadows to looking like it might possibly snow tonight in a mere 48 miles of trail. At 11,000 feet, none of this is a terrible surprise, but it's hard to comprehend such drastically different conditions in such a short span of time. A trail of extremes, yet again.
Pressure
I looked down at the new compression sleeves that gently hugged my calves, wondering whether they'd be the medicine for my slowly improving shin splint in one leg and the newly aching Achilles in the other. When I looked up, the familiar and ever-increasing rock of the Sierra seemed to be slowly surrounding me, a creeping army of stone.
Additions and Subtractions
Five boxes. That's what awaited me this morning when I filed into the Kennedy Meadows General store this morning and put my name on the list for mail pickup. The relief of all of them arriving without issue soon morphed into a pseudo-Christmas-morning unwrapping of each.
A Desert Farewell
It was as if the sun was trying to exact one final measure of punishment, beating us down one final time as a send-off in honor of the previous 700 miles that apparently hadn't been quite hot enough. Miles of hiking through barren, previously burned areas didn't help, despite having easily one of the best water sources of the trail so far to begin the morning.
A Raisin in the Sun
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."
Have Mango, Will Travel
My first true "nearo" day, i.e. a "near zero" miles day, I decided to eschew an alarm for the second day in a row, sleep in, and catch the afternoon bus back to the trail rather than the one that left at 5:15am. As we whiled away the hours, I could hold out no more. The sirens song of the mango I'd been saving as a final treat was simply too great to resist any longer.
Zero #5
Another zero, another day of alternating binges of eating and resting. The closest thing to a semblance of self-control came when, upon eating the first half of a pint of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream, I put the lid back on and waited 10 minutes before eating the other half. Not exactly the greatest imaginable display of willpower, but it somehow seemed important at the time.
Unburned
Forty-five minutes after a final 3:30am wake-up call, Proton and I were off into the darkness. It was a lesson in micro-climates, as certain stretches of trail were easily 10 degrees warmer or cooler than where we had camped…
Inferno
Today marks one month since I set out on the trail from the border of Mexico--it's hard to believe it's gone by so quickly. When my 3:30am alarm went off yet again, I awoke to find that a mouse had taken to using my sandal straps as both a salt lick and a bit of a chew toy during the night despite them being two feet from my head. No major damage.
Water Report
The Milky Way and all the stars that studded the sky were perfectly clear as I rolled out of my tent at 3:30am, bleary-eyed from another night of little sleep. The scheduled days of the desert--waking before sunrise to beat the heat, resting for hours during the worst of the heat, and moving again in the evening--have begun to exact a toll.
Gazelle
The alarm went off at 3:30am, and with it came a change in plans. After battling a stomach bug for the last three days, Gazelle decided it would be best to rest another day in town before taking her woozy stomach out into the heat. It was a disheartening start to the day…