Escape to the Here and Now
Ever since my 25th birthday I have endeavored to go into the wilderness for my birthday, April 22, Earth Day. My first ever backpacking trip was a solo trip to a special creek in the nooks and crannies of Big Sur. I'll never forget it: the bright blue skies and light beams carved by cypress and cliffs, the turquoise waters, all composing a newfound sense of discovery and capability within me. Every year since I've tried to gift myself the glory of Nature, sometimes with friends, often alone, to remember who I am or could be away from the demands of the world.
These days I feel pretty content overall with my present circumstances, but I remind myself why I got into backpacking and solo hiking. It was 2013 and I was turning 25. My mother was dying as she endured the final full year of myelofibrosis, a rare incurable disease with a known timeline. I was in the dying throes of an emotionally abusive relationship that had taken its toll on me. And though I had creative ambitions, they didn't really match the drab administrative work I was doing day to day in L.A. in a stoney cloud of post-college aimlessness, all 'adult' and childish. I wanted to get to a reality far from my own, where I could hear some calm. But I was also trying to find a sense of self apart from the sorrow. With so much on the verge of collapse, I needed to find in myself a sense of stable individuality.
Every year I am born again into the light I saw when I first came into the world. This year, I drove towards the setting sun in the day's last few daylight hours. A delightful day of Boo's Organic Oven cupcakes, working at the Frontier Cafe, and glowing friendships and love provided a wind in the sails. Perfectly puffed clouds patterned the desert floor from perfectly blue skies.
Along the 395, I could behold all the great mountain ranges of Southern California: the Sierra, the Tehachapi, the San Emigdio, San Gabriel, San Bernardino, a convergence of tectonic beauties. From these drain the waters that mold the Great Basin deserts. As I crested the desert mounds, the Light came shining down from the mighty Sierra, and the entire world felt celebratory.
I rose up the road into battering winds and torn cotton candy clouds. A stout and rugged set of Joshua Trees leaned along the hillside. I felt a kind of kinship to these hardy beings who lived along a specialized slope of a windy canyon, yearning to the sky. They found a place on this particular perch, happy in their habitat, where others would advance further upslope. And yet to us travelers it's a scenery, a window view of a canyon that has been intruded by mining and paved roads only very recently, its secrets blown. I admired these trees. They seemed a community gathered in solitude.
The road gave way to sprawling meadows. Thunder clouds clung to the far horizons and California seemed bigger to me than ever before. The sagebrush and rabbitbrush glowed blue-gray-green in the fading dusky light. I felt so happy to be alive, to be on Earth in celebration with Her, of Her, by Her, the Mother of us all.
I came upon a campsite and made myself a fire. There were two other sets of campers in the forest, but rarely and barely could I see or hear them. There was said to be a meteor shower that night, but the obscuring moon shone bright that night. She went in and out of clouds, and the campsite would dip and sway in moods. It went from romance to horror film, and all they changed was the lighting.
The Gathering Place
Friday, April 23. I purchased a San Pellegrino orange-prickly pear beverage from the general store, where a young girl cradled a tiny cat and eyed me suspiciously. I then parked at the trailhead near the PCT. Arriving at the same time were a father and his adult son from Boulder, Colorado. They were coming from Sheep Pass Campground in Joshua Tree, right near where I was coming from, and were set for the Lost Coast after the Sierra. They seemed both full of wonderment. I gave them some trail ideas and wished them a beautiful time. Arriving moments later was a group of fishermen, all camouflaged out and slightly grizzled, as if they were about to be deployed to combat. But what could have been a masculine sizing-each other-up quickly became about a gentle recounting of backpacking histories, and we reminisced about hikes along the Cruickshank and Manzana Trails in the Los Padres. One fellow had been backpacking for decades, his friend for just about 8 or 9 years; they were all in their 60s. I've been backpacking about that long as well, I said, since my 25th birthday; yesterday was my 33rd. “But once you get into backpacking,” I said, “you've kind of found eternal life.” They agreed. We wished each other well, and went on our ways.
I often don't wear makeup on my hikes in or out both for practical and defensive reasons. It's funny how if I don't wear makeup, people often ask me for directions, and if I do wear makeup, people often ask me if I need help. It's also a reality that in not wearing makeup, I can read as a threat to others, especially women and feminine folk; I'm aware of how I read as a lone, masculine hiker. I wish it weren't so, but it is so. The benefit of being truly alone, miles from others, is these symbols and signals don't matter in the breeze and vastness, with no mirrors or fears to reflect them. But sometimes you have to hike very far to escape these pressures, and sometimes even in the wilderness, in the supposed comfort of your solitude, you are eaten alive by the nasty gnats of self-doubt and self-disgust, and reminders in your gear and guts of the human world that wears you away. People often seem spooked at the idea of being alone out there, but to me, other people are often the scariest thing of all.
I hiked towards a place I had dreamt of going pretty much since I got into backpacking. It was a place I'd read about that was relatively seldom-visited, and it had been calling me since. I hiked along the river, who flowed gently. The hills were pecked with adorable pinyon and mountain juniper and light green chaparral. They rolled and folded to a convergent canyon mouth, and then the land opened to the beautiful basin of my dreams.
On my way, I stopped to say hi to an older hiker going north. “Where you coming from?” I asked. “The border,” he said. I was very impressed — that's more than I would ever hike. “Wow,” I said, “I don't think I could ever hike that far. That's amazing.” “It's bullshit,” he said. “I don't know why I've done this to myself. I'm just looking forward to a beer at the general store.” For two weeks or more he'd been walking with plantar fasciitis. “It feels like someone beat my feet with a sledgehammer every morning,” he said. I was even more impressed. He was 63 and had hiked about 700 miles at that point, and to hike hundreds on injured feet? He'll be someone I remember when I feel weary on a hike.
A lean young man with red hair and aerodynamic sunglasses came up quick behind him. “Scuse me,” he said briskly, and zipped ahead, on a race of his own. “I don't understand guys like that,” the long hiker said. He opened up his arms and gestured to the vastness around us. “Look where we are. Many of these hikers don't see any of this. The geology around here, it's amazing. I found an old mine shaft earlier, and I found a peak that was all obsidian. I'd read the natives would make arrowheads out of the obsidian here. Me, I don't care about miles. I'm here to enjoy it.” “You're my kind of hiker,” I said. “You're awesome. You're almost there. Keep going.” We wished each other well, and went on our ways.
Maybe twenty minutes later, near a divergent path, another man came through, maybe around my age. “Hey man, have you seen my buddy, Tuzy?” he asked. “I didn’t get any names, but I did see a guy — what did he look like?” I asked. “Red hair?” “Oh yeah, blazing by? I did see him. He went that way.” “How long ago?” “Twenty minutes?” “Thanks man,” he said, and went on his way. The path forked, and I headed west.
As I descended into the basin, I was reminded of the words from park ranger Shelton Johnson, who said of Yosemite: “It's a gathering place of water, all the waters of the sky flowing into that one spot, which makes it a gathering of life and a gathering of spirit as well... What better place is there that has such a confluence of so many things flowing together, and the result is music?”
This basin, too, was a gathering place. Here, several streams threaded through fire-thinned meadows to join the greater river. The river dwindled down through massive rock gates, carrying with it sediments and sands from higher meadows north in the Sierra. It is a place where the desert meets the mountains. But this place, like many, also cradled the spirit of those who came before; though empty, it felt lived-in and loved. The trail into its center was also an old jeep road, and there were many signs of cattle. And closer to the river, I came across old grinding bowls, perhaps from the Tubatulabal people who have lived here for a great many years. They are the first and longest occupants of this land. This would have been an ideal place for those making food with the grinding bowls, I imagine, here by the assembly of waters, abundant animals afoot.
The basin is a place of endings, of scorched trees and lost societies. There were continuities, too. In this moment, I was the only soul for miles. I found myself a drifting lone spirit joining a long line of spirits visiting this land and the gravitational pull of its beauty, where rocks and rivers met. And in the procession of history and time, I did not feel alone at all.
Artistry of Shadows and Starlights
But I was very much alone, and happily so. I was at least five miles from anyone else. As musics go, this biome was, in that moment, quite quiet. Beavers chirped over the hushed rush of river song. Yet this land was largely still and silent. As the sun dipped, the shadows seemed to mute the meadows. In the speechless wilderness I could hear the tones of miracles and mysteries, inexpressible to other ears. For they were mine to hear alone, and will linger on like treasures, the sounds I soaked in.
I strolled along the creek for the final daylight hours. I came to a rocky prominence and saw ever-rolling hills, and creeks tumbling down from peaks. Large fires had torn through this landscape years ago, denuding it of some tall trees, stamping it with time. It was beautiful and open, and plenty of regrowth. Fewer people are drawn to places of vanishings: easier on the soul are evergreen forests. But we are too briefly on this Earth to witness the aftermath of the aftermath, and the land will outlast after all of us are gone.
In this gathering place, I passed sandy washes with all kinds of footprints: bear, deer, cow, maybe a fox? Maybe a Bigfoot? More animal prints than human prints. Despite and also because of the fires, this place continues to be a resource center for all manner of species. But if it belonged to anyone, it belonged to beavers. They had dammed up many portions of the creeks and river. Their huts were around every bend. They built labyrinths through the reeds. I was amazed at how they had sculpted the whole environment to suit their lifestyle. In my head, I called my sandy beachside camp spot Beaver Beach.
Beavers are not just architects, they're artists. Their dammed-up areas seemed to me reflecting pools designed to further aestheticize the landscape. They are creators in the creation. I walked to the creekside to catch a glimpse of beaver, and saw two swimming in the pond. They saw me, slapped the water in defense, and darted under. I was an intruder in their realm, not a welcome sight. I also remembered beavers have killed people before, so I watched them a few moments longer, and left.
I returned to camp and felt a rare contentedness. The moon lit the land, no clouds this time; all was awash in soft light. I built myself a fire. I felt good about myself. It's funny and sad how much of my life I live in defense of, and in the chase for, others' reactions, when so often I'm best off in solitude. Or at least, out here, I can float away from my usual sense of self, and find refreshment in forgetting. But here I also thought that in aloneness, I was carried by the work of others: the ones who made my shoes and tent, the ones who cut the trails, the ones who made this basin a home long ago; and how we are all carried on through acts of people we’ll never meet.
I set aside water in a cooking pot to douse out the fire, and saw the gibbous moon rippling in the circular pot. I felt a weird sense of awe and power, that like the beaver I had captured the light of the world in a small pond of my making. And that the light of the moon met the light of my fire. Once out, I crawled into my tent, and admired the world from in there. I felt almost greedy taking in so much beauty for one day as I looked out the tent window at the moonlit beach, the sparse trees, the sparse stars. A storm was set to come tomorrow but for now all was clear and calm. I could celebrate my life as a part of the process of the universe, in between the gyres of stars and swirling waters, a witness to the world I call home.
