At the hostel. Time to go explore DC.
Hosteling
Union Station
Almost to DC
I'm almost to DC, but out of cell range, so I may be there by the time you see this. The view from my window has been great. I've been staring at Pennsylvania's forests and rivers all morning. I can't help but think about how the next time I enter this state, a couple months from now, I will be on foot.
On the Train
The train sounds like an old squeaky washing machine with an unbalanced load, but it's relaxing.
The moon is full. It is traveling alongside us as though tethered from a balloon string. A dark silhouette of trees, rooftops, and telephone lines glide by in between. We just passed a large junkyard. The moonlight reflects off the sea of car hoods in a way that makes them no longer junk.
Trains are a great way to travel if you have the time. Luckily thats one thing I do have.
A woman named Sheila sat next to me. She said she was tired, but wouldn't be able to fall asleep until she was home in her own bed with her husband. Although, it wasn't long before she and everyone else was passed out.
"Is that the wheels?" Sheila mumbled with her eyes shut. "Just get me home Charlie Brown." I think she's talking in her sleep.
I think I'll join them. Goodnight everyone. I'll update soon.
The Before Picture
About 200 lbs., optimistic, and completely sane. Now we wait to see if any of that changes after a couple thousand miles on the Appalachian Trail.
My Key Ring
I'm officially homeless.
Yosemite, Part Ten - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 10
The bus zoomed out of Yosemite Valley on curvy narrow roads. I was in the back with my head against the window. Boulders and cliff walls zipped by, sometimes only a few feet from my face. Tree branches growing over the road whacked at my eyes behind the thin pane of glass. I sat unflinching, thinking about the months that would follow. My next excursion was a long gray winter away and I was consumed by wanderlust.
Returning home from my last few trips have been met with prolonged feelings of anxiety. Feelings that stem from knowing there was something I needed to do, but I was not doing it. I knew I needed to leave Indiana, at least for a while. Well, not just Indiana, everything. It’s not the first time I felt this way, but I have always managed to convince myself to take the easier path instead, to always side with the comfortable and the familiar. But no matter how good that can be, it is no substitute for adventure and the thrill of the unknown.
Outside the window, the granite terrain of the Yosemite Valley merged into less dramatic rolling hills, the color of California sun-bleached hair.
Since the time my grandpa told me about a lawyer who quit his job to hike the Appalachian Trail, I dreamed of living my own simple nomadic life. All morning, I thought of the two hikers I met yesterday on their trip of a lifetime. They were doing it, and they seemed okay. Why did I always squelch these desires? They too were consumed by wanderlust, but they didn’t struggle with it. They ran with it.
I now feel that I was simply struggling to not be dragged back home. I was grasping at anything, or anyone, to keep me there. The poor unsuspecting girl, you really had to feel sorry for her.
Another unrecoverable half hour went by. The conductor made another pass, pulling my blue tag, then the next, and the next. I watched him walk by her seat, but he passed without grabbing hers. So, she wasn’t getting off at my stop. My window of time was closing.
When I was sitting on North Dome a few nights ago, having one of the best nights of my life, I made a wish on a shooting star. I wished that the way I felt at that moment never had to change and that I could always feel that joyful and free. Life is constantly offering us moments like those, but I have to face the fact that there is no destiny. There is no fate. Wishes only come true if you make them come true.
- - -
Outside the window, the granite terrain of the Yosemite Valley merged into less dramatic rolling hills, the color of California sun-bleached hair. Since the time my grandpa told me about a lawyer who quit his job to hike the Appalachian Trail, I dreamed of living my own simple nomadic life. All morning, I thought of the two hikers I met yesterday on their trip of a lifetime. They were doing it, and they seemed okay. Why did I always squelch these desires? They too were consumed by wanderlust, but they didn’t struggle with it. They ran with it.
I have tried to satisfy this feeling with weeklong journeys into the woods, but rather than quench these feelings, they have only served to embolden them.
The two hikers, or at least the version of them I built up in my head, weren’t waiting for some external thing to happen to set them in motion. Nor were they waiting for someone else to lead them.
- - -
We approached a bus stop where a girl was sitting on the ground, next to a backpack that seemed to weigh more than she did. She jumped up and hoisted it on her back as the bus came to a stop. Her long dark hair was tossed and twisted like it only does when you’ve been living on a trail for a while.
On that final morning before heading into the valley, I convinced myself that the next chapter of my life had started now. That somehow I would forever think of Yosemite as where it started. But when I turned down the invitation to hike the John Muir Trail so quickly, I wondered if anything really changed at all.
For a time, however, that regret took a back seat when she got on the bus. I knew she would sit somewhere near me. I knew I would drum up the courage to start up a conversation. And I knew that I would no longer be disappointed that I was leaving today, because I wouldn’t have met this person if I wasn’t.
I now feel that I was simply struggling to not be dragged back home. I was grasping at anything, or anyone, to keep me there. The poor unsuspecting girl, you really had to feel sorry for her.
I think the reason the idea of destiny or fate is so appealing to us is because we don’t want to make big decisions. It is much easier to say, “If it was meant to happen, it will happen.” It allows us to push the blame onto something outside ourselves when we fail to step outside our comfort zone and take control over our own lives.
She climbed aboard and walked down the aisle, scanning for a friendly face to sit next to. She sat in the crowded front half of the bus. Okay, so maybe I was wrong. And I couldn’t just walk up to someone on a bus and start talking. What would I even say?
Meanwhile, in the back of the bus with many empty seats around me, two teenage girls jabbered about their pregnancies and the baby names they were considering. They gossiped about how so-and-so in their high school was pregnant too, and how like, so crazy it is, all these babies. "I know, riiiiiight?” one said with a high-pitched kryptonite voice.
There are moments like these when I wish I could just turn off my hearing. That moment of silence would have been so soothing, like when you finally turn off a loud radio that has been struggling to find a static-free station.
I did the next best thing, though. I took a nap. The kind of nap that feels like it lasts for hours, but mere minutes pass by. The highest ranking nap there is.
When I woke, I could see that the backpacking girl was reading a magazine. The article's headline in large bold print proclaimed that $75,000 was the cost of happiness. As though what you had to do to obtain that salary didn’t factor in at all. The very idea made me kind of angry, because it brought into question everything I confirmed on this trip about living a simple minimalist existence.
Money and possessions have never been motivating goals in my life. I always felt that the true measure of success was in experiences, even though I don’t feel I’ve lived like I believe that. I want to wake up in the morning not knowing what the day will bring. I want each day to feel like collecting a new precious gem, that is beautiful and rare, instead of endlessly polishing the same one in a vain attempt to make it into something prettier or new.
For some reason, I wondered what she thought about it.
We arrived at the train station. I went inside and sat on a chair with my backpack on the floor between my legs. I rearranged gear to get it ready for two more airplane rides. The backpacking girl sat a few seats away, within talking distance.
The course of many lives have been changed by the simplest of words: hi.
But I couldn’t get it out. When the train arrived in front of the station, a part of me was relieved. Sorry, can’t talk now; I have a train to catch.
I loaded my backpack on the train’s luggage rack and took a seat on the upper deck. Over a few rows of seats, I saw that tossed and twisted dark hair. Oh good, I would get another chance. Dammit.
A man with a conductor hat, name tag, and walkie-talkie strolled down the aisle checking our tickets. He attached little blue tags, which displayed our arrival location above our seats. As we approached the next stop, the conductor walked by to remove the tags of those that would be getting off. I looked up from my book, that I was really only pretending to read, and saw the top of her head again, leaning over her cell phone.
Another unrecoverable half hour went by. The conductor made another pass, pulling my blue tag, then the next, and the next. I watched him walk by her seat, but he passed without grabbing hers. So, she wasn’t getting off at my stop. My window of time was closing.
I’m not even sure why I cared. But not unlike the offer to hike the John Muir Trail, she made me see that there was an endless number of forks in the road. Brand new paths not rutted by routine. I didn’t have to be this person spending fifty weeks out of the year simply deepening the rut. It made me realize that next year could be completely unknown, and that thought was powerfully thrilling.
I sat and stared at that lingering blue tag, but I did nothing. If this was fiction, I would have written the ending in a lovelier way, but it is not. It’s my life, and the dismal and often perplexing way I live it.
“But, what about bears?” several said before this trip. I mocked their irrational fears, but I’m no better. My fears are no more logical than theirs. Most of us have something keeping us from another, possibly more rewarding, life. If it’s not bears, or a fear of quitting an unfulfilling job, or a particularly intense shyness, it’s something.
- - -
On my last flight, I sat next to a stout ginger man wearing camouflage. When the seatbelt sign went off he stood to grab a camo backpack out of the overhead and pulled out a portable DVD player.
I turned to rest my head on the window and stared dumbly at the flashing lights on the wing, blurred by clouds. For a moment, the sky cleared and I could see the lights from an unknown city in Middle America. Thick storm clouds, orange with the glow of city lights, hung over it like smoke-gray anvils. At every moment, lightning streaked through the clouds. It reminded me of a computer animation of firing neurons in an active human brain. Even though the city’s inhabitants haven’t seen the Milky Way from inside city limits in decades, above the storm clouds the sky was clear, and magnificently starry.
The plane disappeared back into storm clouds. The view from my window was now the reflection of my scruffy week-in-the-woods face. I shut the shade.
I looked at the portable DVD player sitting on the man’s camouflaged lap. He was watching “Over the Top”, the greatest arm wrestling/child custody movie ever created. Well, top three anyway.
Eventually I started a conversation with him. We talked about the trips we just experienced. My whole life I’ve been presented with different paths to take. In nearly every instance, I’ve taken the safer route. For example, when given two opportunities to talk to a traveling stranger, I chose a guy in camo that owns “Over the Top” on DVD instead of an attractive backpacking girl.
Suddenly, strong turbulence jarred the plane, stronger than I’ve ever felt before. The first thing that went through my brain was how tragic it would be if the plane went down when I could have been hiking the John Muir Trail. Everyone would be screaming for their lives and I would be berating myself for thinking this was the safe option. Life is unpredictable. There are so many unknowns. You think you’re playing it safe and suddenly, your airplanes wings fall off.
I looked at the flight attendants face. It was calm, and therefore, so was I. Although, thinking I’m safe is really a falsehood. I need that fear for motivation. Nobody lives forever and the fact remains that death doesn’t wait for us to have lived our lives to the fullest.
- - -
When I got home, I was so tired I crashed into my bed without changing or unpacking. When I woke up, I immediately turned on the shower. I peeled off my socks and flicked them right side out. An endless cloud of dusty soil flew from them with every flick, like beating a rug on a clothesline. The smell of soil transported me back to the pine forest on Yosemite’s north rim.
I turned on the space heater to warm the bathroom. I thought about how I warmed myself by lying on a sun-drenched slab of bedrock just two mornings before. It seemed like ages ago. For a while, everything went back to normal. The next morning my alarm blared at 6:30 AM: work, stress, Indiana, boredom. The rut.
My dreams of finally starting the next chapter of my life were stifled by the realization that change was hard work. I started to question again why I would even want to change things. My life is not bad; honestly it’s better than it has ever been. But if my life list has taught me anything, it’s that there is so much to experience and so little time to experience it. A safe and comfortable life is fine if that’s what suits you, but I’m not satisfied with a “safe and comfortable” life anymore. At least not right now. I think for now, I’d like to take a shot at having an “amazing” one.
I have been thinking about the billions of years that passed before I was born, and the billions that will pass after I’m gone. I get this tiny sliver of time in between to be conscious. To experience everything that I can. It is such an incredible gift, such an astonishingly rare gift. Playing it safe is no way to spend it, because in the grand scheme of things, whether it lasts for thirty years or ninety is insignificant. What matters is that I recognize it for what it is. One chance to take advantage of it while it lasts. One chance to live an amazing life.
 |
| Clicking send on my Letter of Resignation |
By the time you read my next post, I will be jobless, homeless, and heading to Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail. I’m not exactly sure what stories I will have to tell over the next few months, but then again, that’s exactly why I’m doing this. Yes, I’m finally doing this. Right now it still feels like a dream that I will soon wake up from.
Please stay tuned.
- - -
The blog will be updated as frequently as possible from the trail. Through both good times and bad. Please come back and see how things are going. Whether I remain positive and blissful for the five-month journey, or the trail manages to drive me insane, I can assure you it will at least be entertaining for you.
As always, thanks for reading -RG
As always, thanks for reading -RG
Yosemite, Part Nine - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 9
Back to the Valley
“When you’re alone in nature, a second week is really important. Right before the second week, that’s when you start to feel that bliss, you know what I mean? When you feel connected to everything,” a co-worker said the day before I left for Yosemite. “You really need two weeks.”
I’ve had many fleeting mentors in my life. Some I’ve never even met in person. Some I only talked to in passing or while helping them with a computer. Sometimes we live thousands of miles apart but meet briefly while hiking on the same trail. They go about their lives not realizing they carry words like chunks of flint. One day they rattle off just the right sentence, at just the right time, and a spark ignites something in me.
“If only I was your age again,” he said.
“If you were, if you don't mind me asking, what would you do differently?” I asked because I saw a lot of me in him. In a way I felt like I had an opportunity to ask my sixty-year-old self for direction. If I continued to work here for another thirty years, even though my passions were elsewhere, what would I want to tell my younger self?
"I would go live in the mountains,” he said.
- - -
I emerged from my tent. The forest was chilly in the shadows. Through the trees, I saw rays of sunlight warming bedrock by the cascades of Snow Creek. I grabbed breakfast and a water bottle then went to lay on the rock to absorb the heat.
After a backpacking trip, there is often a part of me that is happy to be heading home; happy to find the absolute nearest greasy diner or to feel the heat of a much needed shower. Sometimes I daydream about falling onto my bed and sinking into that marshmallow-soft pillow. But not this time. Not even a little bit. I needed that second week. I came to the woods to cure monotony. Stopping the treatment after only a week was too early.
Two nights ago, on North Dome, I looked into the valley and fantasized about eating pizza and drinking a bottle of cold beer. I didn’t even want that anymore. I wanted to drink from the stream. I wanted cold trail foods like pop tarts, trail mix, or foil packages of tuna salad and Spam. I wanted to sleep on the ground even though I’d be woken frequently from back pain. I actually wanted the burden of pack weight on my tired shoulders. I wanted to warm myself on solar-heated bedrock on a chilly morning, even though my home could be warmed with a slight turn of a thermostat dial.
The sound of the gurgling stream made me crave a drink. I didn’t mess around with purifying it. I crawled to the rivulet, plunged my face in the water, and sucked it down. It was ice cold, flavorless, perfect. No aftertaste of chemicals or rubber filter hoses. I came up for a breath then went in for one more drink. I pulled back with cold water dripping down my face. I didn’t bother to dry off. I laid back on the warm bedrock and let the wind and sun do that.
As I lay there, that feeling of bliss washed over me again. That co-worker would know what I’m talking about. With it came a fervent resolve to start a new chapter of my life. Not because life was bad, but because life is good. And unfortunately, it is also short. There isn’t enough time to do the same things again and again. I wanted a life built on a wealth of experiences, not possessions. I wanted a tensionless job over money. And contrary to the norm, I actually wanted uncertainty over security. I wanted to see if I could cherish simplicity and embrace the unknown, rather than cling to things that make my life safe and comfortable, but dull.
I wondered if I would be able to maintain this sentiment when I got back home. Would the trees go back to being just trees? A safe and comfortable life has a way of convincing you that you shouldn’t change. And what did change even mean? Would I leave Indiana? Would I go back to school and start a career that would allow me to spend more time outdoors? Did I need a career? Would I use the next few months to have one life-changing adventure? I had no idea. All I could really say for sure was that I’d take down my camp for the last time on Yosemite’s North Rim. I would head down the mountain. Beyond that, who knew? And not knowing was exactly how I wanted it to be. The rut has to die, preferably before I do.
- - -
The first couple of trail miles were undemanding. I stared down at my shadow deep in thought. This would be the last day, for a while, when the length of my shadow told me all I needed to know about time. Tomorrow I would be back to schedules, deadlines, and alarm clocks.
The trail turned into a three-thousand-foot descent into the valley with over two miles of switchbacks. Back and forth I hiked the narrow twisting trail. Each time I looked at the valley, I was closer to that blanket of pines I watched over all week.
I caught up to a young couple also finishing their trip. We reached the valley and got to know each other while strolling down a mile of flat wooded trail. The man was a doctor who used his career as an opportunity to work all over the world, rather than to acquire the highest salary. More inspiring words like flint. I had become increasingly fascinated to learn how others managed to lead interesting and unconventional lives. I enjoyed talking to them, but my voice was raspy, like I had been screaming at a Paul Anka concert all night. (Yes, that's right, Paul Anka.)
“Wow, my voice sounds terrible,” I said. “It’s hoarse from not talking much all week.”
“Oh, it’s not normally like that?” The girl asked, and then we all laughed at me.
The road parted, and so did we. At the backpacker camp, I set my gear on a picnic table and sat down to rest. At the adjacent site, two guys were sitting on the top of a picnic table with their feet on the bench. They wore cotton t-shirts, flannel, and jeans, so I didn’t think they were backpackers, but just taking a break from walking around the valley. When one of the guys headed toward the restrooms, the other walked over to me.
“Where you headed?” he asked and ran his fingers though his shaggy mop of curled dark hair.
“Well tomorrow, back to Indiana. I just finished my hike.”
“We’re getting ready to hike the John Muir Trail.”
The John Muir Trail is arguably the best trail, with the most spectacular mountain scenery on planet Earth. They will hike over two hundred miles through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, and some of the most breathtaking wilderness areas in the country. They will gaze at numerous scenes made famous by the photographer Ansel Adams and will end their journey on the summit of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States.
“That’ll be amazing,” I said. “It’s on my list. I plan to come back to do it someday.”
“You by yourself?” he asked and I answered. “That’s cool. So, you’re from Indiana, huh? Do you take a lot of trips like this?”
I told him about a few of the places I’ve hiked. When I mentioned Shenandoah, he told me about his thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, as Shenandoah makes up 105 miles of the nearly 2,200-mile trail.
“You should add the Wonderland Trail to your list,” he said. The 93-mile trail circles the base of Mount Rainier and is considered, by many, one of the best trails in the country.
“It already is,” I said, knowing that only getting one week of vacation at a time limits my opportunities to complete these longer trails.
“We hiked all but twenty-three miles of it,” he said. “Then the weather got too dangerous and we had to get off the trail.”
“Hey, hold this.” His friend came back and handed him a metal mug. He had thick dark hair and a thick matching beard.
“What for?” he replied.
“I need to go lay down on top of that big rock over there.” He pointed at a large round boulder ten or fifteen feet high, and ran off.
“So, you’ve been living on a trail quite a bit then.” I said.
“Yeah. Everyone says I should have gone to college, but this is what I want to do for now. I just asked myself, do I want to live the life I want, or the one I’m supposed to live.” This sentence has been smoldering in my brain ever since. It was like my own subconscious talking to me, the angel on one shoulder arguing with the devil on the other.
They seemed like drifters, wanderers with no particular place they would call home. The kind of guys that would get a job only long enough to fund the next big trip, without worrying about savings accounts, 401ks, or promotions. But could anyone look them in the eyes and say they are wasting their youth? Actually, I can imagine many people saying to them, “You’re doing it wrong. You should be getting your degree. Don’t you know you need a career? You need to make money, so when you’re old and retired, you’ll have the time and freedom to travel.” I can imagine many people saying that, but never noticing the irony.
“So, how many days are you taking to hike the John Muir?” I asked him.
“Well, he’s made a work commitment,” he took a sip from his friend’s mug. “So, we only have thirteen days.”
“Wow, so that’s what—” I tried to do the math quickly in my head, “—seventeen miles a day?”
“Eighteen,” he said. His friend jogged back with dirt and leaves stuck to his hair and clothes.
“Jesus, what’s all over you?” he asked. “What happened over there?”
“What? I was laying down on a rock. What do you expect?” He brushed the debris from his hair and shirt. “So, did you tell him about our 2010 Summer Expedition Madness?”
“Yes he did. But, I didn’t know it had a title,” I said. “I’m jealous. It doesn’t get much better than The John Muir Trail.”
“Why don’t you come with us,” he said without considering his friends thoughts on the matter.
“No, I can’t. I’d have to quit my job to do that.”
“So, quit your job,” he said it as though it shouldn't even require any consideration.
It’s funny how things happen sometimes. You decide you need to explore new opportunities and one falls in your lap almost immediately. There’s nothing magical going on. There are opportunities everywhere, I just don't notice if they aren't part of my usual routine. Just like how when I'm driving home, I don't really think about all the roads that don’t lead to my house. That is until a day comes when I don’t feel like going home. Sometimes I turn down a road I've never been on just to see where it leads.
It’s funny how things happen sometimes. You decide you need to explore new opportunities and one falls in your lap almost immediately. There’s nothing magical going on. There are opportunities everywhere, I just don't notice if they aren't part of my usual routine. Just like how when I'm driving home, I don't really think about all the roads that don’t lead to my house. That is until a day comes when I don’t feel like going home. Sometimes I turn down a road I've never been on just to see where it leads.
Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those moments. The offer didn't even seem like a possibility at first. I had responsibilities. I had people depending on me. These kinds of things required planning, right? I wasn’t even back home and my determination to dramatically shuffle up my routine was slipping.
“No, I can’t,” I said.
“Are you sure?” said the guy with the mop of curly hair. “We lost the third member of our crew. His partner,” he nudged toward his bearded friend.
“Yeah, that was too bad. I miss her,” he said. “She had really nice eyes.” He stared down for a couple of silent seconds. “We need to go get our gear. You camping here tonight?” he asked.
“Well, I’m going to head into the village and find a shower and do laundry,” I said. “Mostly for the poor bastard that has to sit next to me on the plane tomorrow, but yeah, I’ll be here.”
“Cool, we’ll see you later then." And they headed off to their car.
After setting up my camp, I walked toward the village. I passed them at their parking spot, pulling out gear that was scattered in the back seat of a car with New York plates. I realized I never asked them where they were from. I’m not surprised that they drove three-thousand miles to get here, but this made me want to learn more about this, “2010 Summer Expedition Madness”.
“See you later,” I said as I passed.
- - -
I walked by a parking lot in the heart of Yosemite Village. A coyote sauntered across the road then stopped in front of me. He looked around, appearing groggy and out of place, like he had just woken up in an episode of the Twilight Zone and found himself in a mysterious futuristic version of his familiar world. It was curious why he looked out of place and not the parking lot, the hundreds of cars, the crowds of tourists. Not the stores, restaurants, canvas tent cabins, or Yosemite shuttles. The coyote seemed out of place in his own territory. After a week on the trail, I kind of felt the same way. He walked between parked cars and out of sight. A few tourists closed in on him, camera phones in hand.
The laundry room hummed with the sound of washers and dryers. Clothes thumped and clanked in tumblers. The air was moist and smelled like dryer sheets. I threw my clothes into a washer then went to the showers next door.
The small room had individual curtained-off stalls lined up on both sides with a narrow aisle between. A man with a white crew cut stepped out of one of the stalls and walked down the aisle toward me. When he saw me, his face seemed to light up in a friendly way.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hello,” I replied, but barely looked at him. I quickly retreated into a stall, so he could fit down the aisle. I kicked off my shoes then realized the man was the tax attorney from Ohio. I blew him off again! I felt terrible. I rushed outside with bare feet, but couldn’t find him and went back to the stall.
The shower was old and worn, but clean. I stood on a grated floor whose main purpose seemed to be to irritate your feet, so you’d be less inclined to take long showers. I pressed the button that delivered less than a minute of pressurized hot water blasting against my grimy skin.
“God. Damn. That’s amazing.” It was one of the best showers I've ever felt. I pressed the button at least thirty times.
After my clothes dried, I went to Curry Village for that pizza and large soda with free refills. I planned on getting that cold beer, but I was so thirsty that the alcohol in the quantity of liquid I wanted to drink would have made even David Hasselhoff's liver cower.
After eating, I began to walk toward camp. It started to get dark so I hopped on a shuttle.
“The next stop is the Village Store,” the driver said. “The only store still open until tomorrow morning, folks.”
I got off to pick up a couple things to eat for breakfast. I passed a cooler and went back to grab three tall cans of Guinness. This would be my pretext to have another conversation with the John Muir Trail backpackers from New York. I wanted to hear more about their trip. Maybe have their particular approach to life rub off on me. Actually, I think I wanted to be convinced to go.
When I got back, the campground was full of backpackers. It was too dark to see much of anything other than the light around all the campfires. At the John Muir Trail hiker's campsite, food covered their picnic table where they sat immersed in conversation and laughing. There was a girl with them now. “He must have talked the girl ‘with nice eyes’ into going after all,” I thought. I didn’t want to bother them. I decided to have a snack and read, and then maybe head over after their meal.
Later, I looked up from my book and saw one of the guys and the girl walking down the trail following circles of headlamp light on the ground. When they passed I said hello then noticed it wasn’t even them at all. Someone else must have taken their site or they decided to setup somewhere else.
There was no chance of finding them in the dark. I was a little disappointed. I hadn’t convinced myself that my decision to say no to their invitation was the right one. Had I gone with them, my history would be unwritten. At home, I more or less knew the life waiting for me, and it wouldn’t be anywhere near as memorable. I climbed on top of the picnic table with my feet on the bench. Feeling down about the missed opportunity, I knocked back two cans of Guinness.
Yosemite, Part Eight - Number 26 on my life list.
It’s hard to get out of bed before sunrise, even when you know you have to. But what about when you don't have to? The forest was still blue and shadowless. I could have stayed asleep. My body definitely lobbied for more sleep, but I got up anyway. When this is the first decision you make in the morning, you know the day isn't ordinary.
When I was seven, all it took to get me out of bed was the promise of Saturday morning cartoons and a bowl of Mr. T Cereal. Today it was my addiction to moments like last night. It lured me back over the spine of North Dome to wait for the sunrise, even though the wind blew cold streaks of yawning tears across my cheeks. 
At the top, I sat on a large flat rock. My back straight, my feet pulled up in front of me. My silhouette was halfway between the statue of the young meditative Buddha, and sadly, the version with the big proud belly. I soothed my tired eyes by clenching them shut and rolling them against my eyelids. And sometimes keeping them closed, while breathing in deep.
There was no sound, like being underwater. At home silence makes me anxious. I turn on the TV, as though silence is something to be eradicated. At work, the monotonous hum of the factory floor outside my office goes silent when the shift ends, and I turn on music. I don’t know why it’s different now, but it is. The silence here doesn't make me feel like something is missing, rather something significant has been added to the scene. Turning on that noise now would seem like graffiti on the side of Half Dome.
Back at my camp, I slipped inside my sleeping bag to get warm. I oscillated between sleep and wakefulness. The tent slowly turned into a solar oven in the late morning sun. I unzipped the door to let a cool breeze in.
Ants crawled along the huge log just outside my tent. I was back in the micro-world of the trees again. Each with its own ridges, peaks, and valleys. Every trunk a world inhabited by monsters. Ant armies gather to battle winged beasts ten times their size. Eight-legged captors in fields of sticky webs sit motionless, biding their time. The ants disappear under shingles of bark and into wooden tunnels perhaps tending to food stores or fertilized eggs. I wonder what kinds of cities they have built around here. There was evidence that bear claws had shredded part of the log in a search for grubs. How does it look, from the ant’s point of view, when an entire neighborhood is destroyed by one swipe of that hulking leviathan?
Ants crawled along the huge log just outside my tent. I was back in the micro-world of the trees again. Each with its own ridges, peaks, and valleys. Every trunk a world inhabited by monsters. Ant armies gather to battle winged beasts ten times their size. Eight-legged captors in fields of sticky webs sit motionless, biding their time. The ants disappear under shingles of bark and into wooden tunnels perhaps tending to food stores or fertilized eggs. I wonder what kinds of cities they have built around here. There was evidence that bear claws had shredded part of the log in a search for grubs. How does it look, from the ant’s point of view, when an entire neighborhood is destroyed by one swipe of that hulking leviathan?
While floating in prosaic routine back home, it’s so easy for me to get bored. How is that possible? I want to tell that version of me to quit being so pathetic, to get up and just look around. There is always something amazing happening.
I romanticize nature. There is no denying it. And if you are reading this, I suspect you already know that. I often wonder, though, how I would do on a long hike. A really long hike. When I was a young boy, my grandpa told me of a lawyer who quit his job to hike the Appalachian Trail. He told me that he walked so long and so far that he had to keep buying new shoes in order to finish. I remember thinking, "Wow, imagine going on a walk for so long that you had to stop off for more shoes!" My boyhood imagination pictured a pyramid of worn out shoes piled up on a floor somewhere. Would I still romanticize nature after something like that?
My grandpa’s story had certainly planted a seed. I thought about that lawyer a lot over the years. I’ve had many moments where I wanted to head out my front door and just walk until I couldn’t walk anymore. How far could I get? What story would I have to tell by the end of it?
Every nature-loving backpacker has their own romanticized stories. But it's a lie if any of them say they have no stories of frustration or discomfort. On a walk so long that I wear out my shoes, would the forest become another banal routine that I would get bored with? Could I actually get tired of watching the sun rise over a valley? Would I spend more time romanticizing the lives of ants, or cursing the lives of ticks and mosquitoes?
Still I wonder, if a week alone in Yosemite could alter my outlook so much, what would several months do?
Every nature-loving backpacker has their own romanticized stories. But it's a lie if any of them say they have no stories of frustration or discomfort. On a walk so long that I wear out my shoes, would the forest become another banal routine that I would get bored with? Could I actually get tired of watching the sun rise over a valley? Would I spend more time romanticizing the lives of ants, or cursing the lives of ticks and mosquitoes?
Still I wonder, if a week alone in Yosemite could alter my outlook so much, what would several months do?
At the spur trail to Indian Rock, I nearly decided to skip it to shorten my time in the sun. The rock is a granite arch, commonly seen in sandstone, but rare for granite. I’m glad I didn’t let my discomfort get the better of me. When you have a chance to see something rare and beautiful, its a good general rule to always take it.
As I walked, I stared at the trail passing under me. Images of condensation dripping from a glass of ice water flashed in my brain. Airplane noise polluted the silent forest, as it had for most of the day. I didn’t realize just how thunderous it was until the moment it stopped. I stopped too. I shut my eyes and just listened. The reversed image of the passing trail had burned into my retinas. On the back of my eyelids, it looked like trillions of stars were being sucked into a black hole. Snow Creek hissed on my left, but out of sight. A soft wind glided across my ears. I binaurally listened to the faint songs of birds. A resonance so beautiful it almost seems impossible that they were emanating from delicate beings that could sit in the palm of my hand.
The airplane noise came back. The peaceful moment ceased for now.
Maybe I could finish a really long, multiple-pairs-of-shoes, hike. There are discomforts of course, but they are always temporary. And it takes so little from nature to turn my mood around. Such as lying on a flat stone with the trees towering overhead, reading a good book in their shade, and sipping on all the cold water I could drink.
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Yosemite, Part Seven - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 7
It was another lazy morning with no reason to rush. My next campsite on North Dome was only six miles away. It was quiet, with the exception of a numerous variety of bird calls. In the valley below, I watched two birds chase each other. Seeing their backs from above gave scale to the deep valley.
“Let’s have cereal for breakfast,” I said.
“Let’s have cereal for breakfast,” I said.
“Mmm, that sounds good, but maybe put pants on first?” I replied.
Yes, that conversation actually happened. No reason to pretend we don't all talk to ourselves on occasion. It happens considerably more often when I've been alone in the woods. And the amazing thing is, these short conversations with myself are generally friendly chatter and not just the usual berating.
I put on pants, ate cereal, and said farewell to another great campsite.
I made my way toward Yosemite Point, but my first stop today was to stare at a tree. It wasn’t exactly part of the itinerary, but the size of the tree made me stop. The micro-world taking place on its surface compelled me to get out my camera. When closely examined, it was easy to see it as a world as wonderful as Yosemite itself. Every lofty pine is a planet covered in lime green moss meadows, timberland ravines and cliffs. There are grooves in the bark like tiny dry riverbeds and deep gullies. Spider webs stretch over them like tightropes and zip lines.
I made my way toward Yosemite Point, but my first stop today was to stare at a tree. It wasn’t exactly part of the itinerary, but the size of the tree made me stop. The micro-world taking place on its surface compelled me to get out my camera. When closely examined, it was easy to see it as a world as wonderful as Yosemite itself. Every lofty pine is a planet covered in lime green moss meadows, timberland ravines and cliffs. There are grooves in the bark like tiny dry riverbeds and deep gullies. Spider webs stretch over them like tightropes and zip lines.
Anyone that happened to walk by would have seen a man with his hands against a huge pine tree, leaning into it, his eyes inches from the bark, panning its surface slowly. I was engrossed in a world that I have often looked at, but never saw.
I didn't actually see anyone until I got to Upper Yosemite falls. The creek was too low for the falls to draw the crowd it usually does, but I passed two couples coming up from the valley.
“Did you just come down the mountain?” one of the men asked. “Is it hard to hike up?”
I have found that the level of difficulty is so subjective, that I didn’t know how to answer him. After a short pause I just said, “Not hard enough to not give it a try.”
They didn’t give it a try.
I crossed a wooden bridge over the creek then began my climb to Yosemite Point. Enduring the heat with rare moments of shade was well worth the reward that awaited me. The sky was bright blue and nearly cloudless. The sharp peaks of the battleship gray mountains rose high in the distance like big top circus tents. I crept right up to the edge and saw the whole of Yosemite Valley laid out before me: the village, the serpentine highway, and cars that raced along like toy Hot Wheels. The opposite effect of that micro-world on the tree. My familiar macro-world was now in miniature.
When nearing North Dome four miles later, I stopped at a summit thinking I had arrived. The view offered a new angle I hadn’t seen before, and was every bit as impressive as the one at Yosemite Point. It planted a wide grin on my face. It was the kind of elation that pours over you making the hair on your neck rise and your skin shiver.
I was ready to put down my pack, set up camp, and stare at the view for the next few hours, but after reviewing my map I realized I hadn’t yet made it to my destination. North Dome was actually the smooth rounded peak two thousand feet away and two hundred feet below. From this height, it looked like a great white whale. Not a real one, but the version in cartoons with the disproportionately large head that slopes down to an undersized tail.
I dropped my gear off on the tail and hiked along the spine to the top of the big round head. When I returned, I decided to setup camp where I left my pack. I unrolled my tent on a rectangle patch of land that had been flattened by previous tents. On the other side of the log there was a fire ring and an unobstructed view of the large flat face of Half Dome. What started as a tiny point in the distance, that I was hiking toward all week, was now up close and massive. I sat on the ground against the log and enjoyed another tuna salad pita while considering my good fortune to be alive and sitting at another amazing campsite.
Drivers heading down the serpentine highway began to turn on headlights. From up here, all that bustling activity was completely silent. I couldn’t even hear a single cricket’s chirp. It was so quiet, that occasionally I heard faint voices coming from backpackers on the other side of the valley.
“There is pizza and cold beer down there,” I said to myself, all alone on the granite dome. I began to see the appeal of a restaurant or two.
I found a boulder with a perfect dimple worn into it forming a comfortable seat. With the sunlight gone, and the pink faded from the sky, a few campfires on the other side of the valley popped into view. Not even a wisp of cloud shrouded the brilliance of the starlight.
“Eee, eeee, eeeee.” The sudden presence of a bat fluttering above my head startled me.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Bat. I thought I was alone.”
Maybe an hour later (but who really knows) I was beginning to get cold and sore from sitting on granite, but leaving wasn’t easy. This night has made the short list of the most amazing nights of my life. And in that ephemeral moment I wanted to memorize every mountain slope lit by the half moon, every tree forming the saw-toothed edge of the horizon, and the position of every star that hung so radiant above a view that stretched for miles.
I started to head back to camp in the darkness, thinking of a warm crackling campfire, but turned for another look. Half Dome looked so beautiful under the azure glow of the half moon.
I’ll just stay a bit longer, I thought. I laid on my back and stared up at the stars.
I’ll just stay a bit longer, I thought. I laid on my back and stared up at the stars.
The temperature continued to drop, but I needed to feel that moment of closure when I felt like I could call it a night without having wasted any of it. In my life, most of my anxiety comes not from the bad things that could happen, but all the good things that could happen, but through some fault of my own, might not. This night was too great and too rare to allow it to end too quickly. Consequently, that “bit longer” turned into an hour.
In the deep silence under the stars, my eyes kept closing slowly, but I wouldn’t allow myself to fall asleep. Just then a bright meteor shot across the sky exactly where my eyes were focused. The fiery tail lasted for a few seconds then faded away. I grinned. There was my moment, I had my closure.
In the deep silence under the stars, my eyes kept closing slowly, but I wouldn’t allow myself to fall asleep. Just then a bright meteor shot across the sky exactly where my eyes were focused. The fiery tail lasted for a few seconds then faded away. I grinned. There was my moment, I had my closure.
I wished on that shooting star that nothing had to change. Not that I didn’t want to eventually leave and experience other things, but that the way I felt never had to change. I want to feel like that always. And why not? Life is constantly offering opportunities like these if only we choose to make them happen. I know that I can’t do this all of the time, but is it more crazy to measure a successful life in moments like these, than in dollars in the bank? Everything I surround myself with in pursuit of having a comfortable life cannot hold a candle to how I feel in these moments when I have the least.
I got up and stood with both hands leaning on a trekking pole. I panned around in a complete circle to see it all one last time then headed back to camp. Reflective flakes in North Dome’s granite surface sparkled. Its color in the moonlight looked like snow and even the fine gravel crunched like snow under my steps.
When I got back to camp, I struck a match and dropped it into the fire ring onto dried pine needles surrounded by finger-thick twigs that I arranged earlier. It roared to life in a few seconds. As it burned down, I placed wrist-thick branches on top. I warmed myself while watching them burn for quite some time. When I couldn’t keep myself awake any longer, I crawled into my tent.Yosemite, Part Six - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 6
Yosemite Creek
I slipped out of my tent before sunrise. I tried to be quiet. My neighbors were scattered on the ground in sleeping bags, like caterpillars that cocooned last night. My shoes gnawed noisily at the gravel, so I made a wide arch around their camp. Once out of earshot, I walked freely and alone on El Capitan.
The sun was still behind the mountains. It colored the sky above me pink, but left a layer of blue over the valley, like a sunrise in the plains turned upside down. I sat and stared at Half Dome with my camera sitting in my lap and my sleeves pulled over my cold hands, waiting.
During Yosemite’s peak season, as many as nine hundred people will hike to the top of Half Dome in a given day. I preferred to see it from across the valley where there were no crowds.
To further guarantee this solitude, I came to Yosemite after the tourist-luring waterfalls had dried up for the year. Some might say I didn’t see Yosemite at its best, but I believe being there alone in silence, with or without waterfalls, was seeing it at its best.
The sun crested the granite skyline and beamed at me like a lighthouse beacon. The point of golden light soon fanned out and illuminated the tips of distant mountain peaks. If I spent as much time watching sunrises as I do watching progress bars crawl across computer screens, could I be this happy every day?
I watched until the sun was high enough to shine onto the quiet valley below. The campgrounds were filling with light. A few bleary-eyed campers were surely up and breathing in this brisk morning air with me now. I got to my feet and went back to camp. My gangly shadow walked in front of me like a man on stilts.
I crawled back into my sleeping bag to get warm. I dozed off and woke when I heard my neighbors getting up. I took down my tent, ate breakfast, and got back on the trail.
I crawled back into my sleeping bag to get warm. I dozed off and woke when I heard my neighbors getting up. I took down my tent, ate breakfast, and got back on the trail.
Every time the trees parted this morning, Half Dome was in the distance, growing larger and more detailed with every mile.
When again surrounded by tall pine tree trunks, I saw a squirrel running toward me, leaping from branch to branch. He stopped in a tree overhead just off the trail. He stared me down and chattered angrily. I’m unable to spell the sound he was making, but I’m sure it translated to, “You shall not pass!” His body convulsed with every chirp and squeak. His tail twitched and flicked.
He tried hard to instill fear into me, seemingly unaware of our significant size differences. He only managed to put a grin on my face and for a moment the loudest sound in the forest was my laughter. It’s great to be in such a mood. I wish I could bottle it and take it home. If I was in this mood at home, however, those familiar with my normal demeanor would suspect recreational drug use. And justifiably so.
I hope my laughter didn’t make the squirrel feel inadequate, though. This was his shining moment to prove he could defend his enchanted forest. I couldn’t help it. I was in an extraordinarily good mood and his defiance was adorable.
Regardless, I eventually moved on. I guess as far as the squirrel knows, his defense worked. His home was, after all, safe from the human intruder. I liked to think that as I walked away, his squirrel friends scurried out of hiding to celebrate the successful standoff. Maybe he was approached by the attractive female squirrel that he had a crush on for years. The one who never thought he was good enough for her. Maybe with his new fame she finally noticed him. Maybe he walked right passed her and embraced another, a cute-but-nerdy female. The one he suddenly realized had always loved him, and would have loved him no matter what happened with the human. Maybe the attractive female squirrel stormed off upset, but the others didn't care because they all thought she was a bitch anyway. Or perhaps a childhood watching bad eighties movies severely limited my imagination.
I walked away smiling at the thought. I hiked into these woods to cure my boredom, and it was working. Sometimes I'm in such a good mood on the trail that I stop to write these thoughts down in my journal, believing they are actually interesting or humorous. Then I come back home wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I suppose every cure has its side effects, a general apathy towards work and responsibility of course, but in this case euphoria and an unusual cheerfulness as well.
Another frequent side effect of hiking is increased appetite. I turned on the spur trail to Eagle Peak to find an unforgettable spot to eat lunch. My shadow was now squished to the shape of a bulbous dwarf, with the sun blazing hot overhead.
I found some shaded bedrock facing the valley and Half Dome. I pulled food out of my bear canister as a man walk passed on the trail behind me.
“Quite a view isn’t it!” he said.
Over three million visitors to Yosemite each year and he was the only person I remember seeing today.
I didn’t leave immediately after eating. I wasn't hiking many miles becuase I wanted to camp near Yosemite Creek tonight, which wasn't far away. I wanted this to be a relaxing vacation. I left plenty of time to slow down and enjoy the views. I could stay up late next to a campfire, sleep in as long as I wanted, and take drawn-out lunch breaks like this one.
I took so long that I got sore from sitting. I stood at the edge and looked into the valley. I imagined leaning out, catching the wind underneath me, and gliding peacefully to the valley floor. (Go hang gliding, number 35 on my life list.)
I found an area fifty yards off the trail that had many worthy places to setup camp. It was hard to choose. Feeling light as a feather without my gear on my back, I rambled through the sparse trees over granite bedrock to locate the best spot. Not a single care, or person, in sight.
I chose the highest spot on a plateau of solid rock that had the best view of the woods around me. In the middle a fire ring circled white ash and the remains of blackened logs. Surrounding that were several crisscrossing logs to sit on.
I spent the remaining sunlight collecting firewood. The thought of sitting by a fire with my book made me happy all day. Before the sun had even set, I had the fire going. As I sat on a log to read, the sky dimmed to dark purple and the stars came out. My world a few hours ago stretched out for miles, as far as the eye could see. The night shrank that to the three-foot radius around my fire.
The flames warmed the left side of my face, but the wind kept my right side cold. I moved closer to the fire, sat Indian-style on the ground, and continued reading in the flickering light.
It took less than an hour to realize I was too old for Indian-style. I stood to get more logs for the fire and my spine, ankles, and knees popped like I was walking over dry twigs wrapped in bubble wrap. The fire showed its enthusiasm for the extra fuel. It crackled and gave excited flicks like a flag snapping in the wind. I continued to read for hours in a more age-appropriate sitting position.
Sounds emanated from the fire all night, often loudly. A log broke into two shooting fireworks of ash into the sky. On another log, the red hot bark made a tinging sound like cracking glass. Air escaped one log with a high-pitched buzzing hum that felt like something dramatic and unsafe was about to take place, but faded with an anti-climactic silence.
When the fired died down the night went perfectly silent, other than the wind calmly whooshing through the valley. My eyes got heavy, but I fought sleep as long as I could. I wouldn’t have had to if I had more days like today. The rareness of them forces me to hold onto them as long as I can. I took my book to my tent and crawled into my sleeping bag. I read until I dozed off. My book slid out of my hands and dropped to the ground, my headlamp still glowing on my forehead.
Yosemite, Part Five - Number 26 on my life list.
El Capitan
Most Monday mornings I’ll roll out of bed eighteen or twenty seven minutes after the time set on my alarm, depending on how many times I hit the snooze bar. I get ready for work then shuffle off to sit in my windowless office. I answer emails and take phone calls, all for the purpose of keeping a factory's computers running.
Rarely does one weekday feel any different from the others. Fifty weeks out of the year I'm immersed in my routine, often daydreaming about a future where rolling out of bed is met with enthusiasm. The other two weeks of the year, however, I'm on a trail. And during that time that depressing reality never enters my mind.
This Monday morning could never be confused with any other. It began with a stop at Cascade Creek, potentially my only water source until tomorrow. It looked like boulders rained down on the land eons ago, some as large as Airstream Campers.
The creek was indifferent to the piles of rock in its way. It moseyed over and around the boulders as needed. Gradually it carved the rock into granite waterslides and pools. Meanwhile, ferns and a variety of green-leafed plants filled every niche between water and stone.
Rarely does one weekday feel any different from the others. Fifty weeks out of the year I'm immersed in my routine, often daydreaming about a future where rolling out of bed is met with enthusiasm. The other two weeks of the year, however, I'm on a trail. And during that time that depressing reality never enters my mind.
This Monday morning could never be confused with any other. It began with a stop at Cascade Creek, potentially my only water source until tomorrow. It looked like boulders rained down on the land eons ago, some as large as Airstream Campers.The creek was indifferent to the piles of rock in its way. It moseyed over and around the boulders as needed. Gradually it carved the rock into granite waterslides and pools. Meanwhile, ferns and a variety of green-leafed plants filled every niche between water and stone. Before pouring over a small waterfall then escaping into the woods, the creek filled a pool with clear water. I sat next to it filtering it into my hydration pack. My freshly rinsed shirt lay drying in the sun on warm bedrock. I put it back on when it was still damp. I felt cool and refreshed; ready for the new day on the trail.
The morning stroll started out easy, but became more demanding as I ascended to the top of El Capitan. The path was dusted in a fine soil, like powdered cocoa. It meandered through a forest of giant pine trees, with thick trunks covered in bright lime green moss, and cones the size of thermoses.
The air smelled like a mixture of Christmas trees, cedar sawdust, and the aroma moments before a thunderstorm. My nose was pleased. It was the kind of scent that gets implanted into your memory forever. The whiff of a similar fragrance, even years from now, will indeed transport me back onto Yosemite’s North Rim. I saw another hiker a hundred yards ahead, the first I have seen since entering the trailhead. Slowly our distance dwindled, as he frequently stopped to rest. When I finally passed him, I saw he had a white beard and a green bandana covering a white crew cut. He wore cargo shorts, boots, and thick wool socks pulled around his calves. An eight-inch sheathed hunting knife hung from his belt. If passing him in the city, I may have given him a wide berth, but out here we were kin.
About halfway to El Cap, the dusty trail turned to grayish-white rock, porous gravel, and coarse sand that crunched under my steps. It radiated the heat and light of the sun. The trail became less discernible now that it was made of rock. I momentarily went a few yards in the wrong direction, and paused to look for a cairn to show the way. The white-haired hiker caught back up with me.
“Actually I was following you,” he said.
“Well, clearly that was a mistake,” I said with a smile, but he seemed to take my joke as an obvious statement and remained straight faced. We soon found cairns to lead the way and I put some distance between us again.
Finger-sized lizards and the occasional slender snake scurried along the ground in front of me. Grasshoppers frequently jumped wildly to get out of my way, their short flight accompanied by rapid clicking. So much activity on the ground, but at eye level everything was serene. The number of trees thinned out and opened the view for miles. The mountains seemed to go on forever, each distant ridge a fainter shade of blue as it faded into the horizon.
Under the shade of a tree sat a boulder, curved on top forming a perfect place to laze. I laid on top. The bend in the rock and the cool surface felt wonderful on my spine. I closed my eyes and listened to the breeze jostle the leaves.
“Looks like a good spot for lunch,” said the white-haired hiker catching up with me again. “Sounds good to me,” I said. He sat on another boulder a few feet away that lay beside two short trees. He pulled out a camp stove and set water to boil.
He lost the name, “white-haired hiker”. Through conversation I began to know him as, “the tax attorney from Ohio”. At least my job didn't sound as mind-numbing as that, I thought.
"I backpack five weeks out of the year," he said. "I get ten weeks of vacation, but spend the other five weeks with my wife." Alright, so, he wins.
We discovered that we had planned the exact same route. I worried I would lose my precious solitude. He pulled a hammock from his pack and walked over to the two nearby trees.
"So, how'd you do coming up that scree slope at the end of the rockslides?" I asked.
“I started late yesterday," he said while tying the hammock to the trees. "I didn't find a way up before it got dark, so I just slept at the bottom of the hill then figured out a way up this morning.”
I was selfishly pleased that he had as much trouble on the scree slope as I did. I did not like how my difficulty shone a light on my relative inexperience, but if he had trouble…
"I backpack five weeks out of the year," he said. "I get ten weeks of vacation, but spend the other five weeks with my wife." Alright, so, he wins.
We discovered that we had planned the exact same route. I worried I would lose my precious solitude. He pulled a hammock from his pack and walked over to the two nearby trees.
"So, how'd you do coming up that scree slope at the end of the rockslides?" I asked.
“I started late yesterday," he said while tying the hammock to the trees. "I didn't find a way up before it got dark, so I just slept at the bottom of the hill then figured out a way up this morning.”
I was selfishly pleased that he had as much trouble on the scree slope as I did. I did not like how my difficulty shone a light on my relative inexperience, but if he had trouble…
He told me the story of when he ran out of water in Death Valley. As a person that loves to talk and write about backpacking trips, it’s a little disturbing to know that the best stories I'll have will be from when my life was in danger. His trouble in the hottest desert in the United States trivialized any issue I’ve ever had, so far, on the trail. Stress on the trail is different than stress at work. I feel like I’m gaining useful experiences and learning important things about myself. I feel proud of myself once I’ve gotten through it unscathed. At work my job is usually repetitive, so the stress is just stress.
His food finished cooking, so I pulled out a foil pack of tuna salad, a half piece of pita bread, and a mixture of nuts and dried fruit. He ate then nap as promised. I got a head start on the trail, but when there were no bends or hills, I could see him behind me.
He caught up again when something caught my eye and I had to stop for photos. I didn’t notice at first because the word “Snakes!” was written in the gravel ahead of me, along with an arrow pointing to flat rocks just off the trail. I curved around to avoid the area while scanning the ground for movement. When I looked back up, the volume of bright green moss growing on the pines was too brilliant to ignore.
I struggled to get a picture that would do it justice, but I couldn’t do it. I heard the crunching footsteps of the tax attorney from Ohio behind me. He walked toward me while staring at the warning on the ground and looking out for snakes.
“Hi,” I said. “Just had to stop for another photo,” “Of what?”
Granted, in a land of a million photo opportunities, most people wouldn’t consider this one of them.
“All the green,” I said.
Granted, in a land of a million photo opportunities, most people wouldn’t consider this one of them.
“All the green,” I said.
“Hmm? Oh yeah, look at all that.” He pulled his camera from a hip pocket, snapped a photo, then continued up the trail.
We leap-frogged each other this way all afternoon. I’d pass him when he stopped for a break. He’d pass me when I stopped to take photos. At one such passing, he mentioned that he was low on water, so I helped keep an eye out. I knew he wouldn’t get to a source of water the ranger guaranteed until the following morning. There were stagnant puddles here and there, but nothing safe. I passed him again at Rainbow Creek.
“Bone dry,” he said. “I saw it on the map, thought this is where I’d finally find water.”
"We might find some puddles in the creek bed," I said. "You can use my filter if you want."
We hiked down the empty creek until we found something. There was a meager source of trickling water, that looked clean. He filled his bottles, and then we got back on the trail and put some distance between us again.
"We might find some puddles in the creek bed," I said. "You can use my filter if you want."
We hiked down the empty creek until we found something. There was a meager source of trickling water, that looked clean. He filled his bottles, and then we got back on the trail and put some distance between us again.
When I neared the El Capitan summit, the view stopped me in my tracks. My mouth hung open like a cargo bay door. So far as I experienced it, Yosemite never looked more beautiful. The granite rock I traversed all day dropped three-thousand feet to the pine carpeted valley floor. Beyond the valley the layers of blue mountains were back, fading into the horizon. The tax attorney passed me again as I took photos. He stopped to do the same.
“Why do I live in Indiana?” I asked. He didn’t have an answer either.
“My name’s Rick, by the way, I don’t think we ever formally introduced each other.”
“I’m Ryan,” We shook hands.
“I think so. I passed an established camp site on the way out here that looked pretty good.” I worried we would end up hiking together all week. I actually enjoyed talking to him and I know I could have learned a lot from his experience, but I get so few weeks like this. I really wanted to spend the time alone.
The site I referred to was perfect. It had a stone fire ring, spectacular view to watch the sunset, and only one nearby tree. I noted that specifically because I knew he slept in a hammock. I felt bad, but what could I do? I mean, of course, besides just being honest.
When we left the summit, I stopped at the campsite. He continued toward the tree line. I stood for a while looking at the valley. The family of three plopped their gear on the ground fifteen yards from me, making it clear they were staying there for the night.
“Do you mind if I setup camp right over there?” I asked the family of backpackers. I didn’t expect them to care, but asking made me feel better about it.
“Oh of course not, go ahead,” the father said in an accent I couldn’t place, but I assumed they were from a Scandinavian country. Throughout the night I could hear their chatter, but I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I loved hearing the accent in their words and laughter, even though I didn’t understand any of it. They could have been laughing and talking about how they planned to murder me, and I would have been grinning dumbly at the wonderful sound of their voices.
At nightfall, I gathered wood and got a fire going. It was another brilliant starry night. City lights from miles away popped into view. Their light mirrored the starlight like they were not cities at all, but majestic lakes.
Backpacking has a way of simplifying the pursuit of happiness. Place yourself all alone on a beautiful trail. Put one foot in front of the other, repeat. All too often my default mood is one of cynicism or boredom, but with enough time given to hiking, giddiness becomes my default. That transition began to solidify tonight while I looked at the amber sky and listened to the crackling fire. And would continue to do so exponentially every day this week.
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Yosemite, Part Four - Number 26 on my life list.
For three miles, I climbed over the boulders and fallen trees that covered the old vanishing road. I moved like a chameleon crawling along branches, each careful step verified before going forward. A fall here could have made the rest of my trip quite difficult. I suppose a fall here could have made staying alive quite difficult.
After stepping from one boulder to another, my camera was unleashed from the cord holding it against my pack’s shoulder strap. It swung from the strap around my neck and banged into my arm. I watched my lens cap pop off and fall between a pile of large stones and out of sight. For a moment, the gentle breeze was accompanied by hushed expletives.
I had no intentions of leaving the only lens I brought unprotected. I laid face down over one of the boulders, so I could reach for the lens cap. “No snakes, no snakes, no snakes,” I willed as I blindly stretched my arm in. When it comes to things I want to avoid on a solo backpacking trip, not taking photos rates only slightly worse than a venomous snake bite. Luckily, I felt the cap instantly and retrieved it. I blew off the dirt, secured it to my camera, and devised a way to make sure that would not happen again.
After traversing the final rockslide, the trail dead-ended into a thicket of trees, shrubs, and thorned bushes. I looked up a scree slope to my right. A scree slope is an accumulation of broken rock fragments sometimes found at the base of mountains and cliffs. The pieces ranged in size from coarse sand to pea gravel, mixed with larger jagged rocks.
“It’s not that bad, only about sixty feet,” the ranger said this morning regarding how far I'd need to climb to reconnect with the trail. He didn’t say it was a scree slope, but this had to be it. I put my camera in my pack. I didn’t get photos of this area, but I would need to bushwhack and use all fours to make it up.
With every two or three feet I went up, I slid down one, like climbing a mound of gravel at a quarry. About a quarter of the way up, it got much steeper. Disturbing images of falling down the hill and rolling over jagged shards of granite, entered my mind, followed by the desperate descent back to civilization that would follow. I stopped to look for cairns, flat stacked rocks that mark a trail. The ranger said I would see some. I saw nothing; no trail, no road, no cairns. I eased back to the bottom, mostly by sliding on my butt.
I paced back and forth along the trail looking for a safer way up. At the dead-end's side of the scree slop there was foliage growing through the gravel. I worked my way up grabbing shrubs and thorn bushes for support. I got further than before, but got stopped at another obstacle that seemed too risky, considering the ranger’s insistence that it wouldn't be that difficult. I was getting frustrated. I went back down for one last futile attempt to find cairns, but gave up and went back the way I just came.
Every move was cautiously considered. I grabbed rock ledges with nervous, sweaty hands. My knuckles turned white when gripping plant stems and tree branches. Trekking poles were nearly useless in the gravel, but worked well when holding them horizontally behind a pair of tree trunks and grasping them like ladder rungs. At this point, it was more dangerous to turn back than it was to go forward, so I pressed on.
I chose my route based on the next thing I could grab. This inadvertently led me to an area on the hill that, if I were to fall and slide to the bottom, would give me a few hundred foot free fall to look forward to. My rising blood pressure swelled the ugly veins on my forehead. Each footstep sent pebbles rolling down the hill. I heard them falling over the edge. Then falling. Then falling. A rather disturbing sound.
I spotted Manzanita shrubs up ahead. I sold Manzanita branches in my pet store for parrot perches and recognized their smooth twisting trunks and branches instantly. The wood is too hard for large parrots to easily destroy with their powerful beaks. I never thought that information would come in handy again, especially for this reason.
I crawled on hands and knees while grasping them for support. They were indeed strong enough. Their contorted branches scratched red lines into my face and arms, but I didn’t care dammit, I was getting up this hill!
The lower branches pushed at my forty pound humpback and forced me to lay flat to finish my climb. I felt like I was in boot camp crawling under barbed wire, only I was on a gravely hill that ended with a deadly drop.
I want to believe that in a parallel universe, there is a Ryan that didn’t open a pet store, a smarter Ryan perhaps, but nonetheless a Ryan with no knowledge of the tensile strength of the Manzanita branches. Maybe this other Ryan would have chosen a different path up this hill and fell to his death. I want to believe that because it would validate my decision to waste my early to mid-twenties running a pet store.
Wishful thinking maybe, but after spending four years cleaning animal shit every day, who wouldn’t want to believe that it would one day save their life in Yosemite National Park?
While still crawling on the ground, grasping at the branches, I looked up and saw a rock wall that had once supported a side of the old road. I was able to get to my feet, over the wall, and back on track. It was easily the most nerve-racking moment I’ve ever had on a hike, but I made it. I wanted to get on hands and knees to kiss the trail, French kiss it even. I was that happy. But instead, I took off my pack and had lunch.
The road was more intact up here. A long section curved into a tunnel of trees, without a single rockslide blocking my path. The traffic has been gone for decades, but I imagined the road in its glory days. Open carriages and Model Ts coming around the bend, passengers leaning out to point at the view. For some reason, I could only imagine this in black-and-white, running at the wrong speed, and accompanied by honky-tonk piano music.
Fade to today and it’s a dilapidated overgrown stretch of road, no longer on maps. A man is sitting alone in the middle of it, crunching on crackers and turkey pepperoni, minding his own business.
Somewhere in the trees, a branch cracked. I turned to see what it was. The leaves rustled. The heavy footsteps of a large animal fled into the woods, fracturing more sticks as it ran. I didn’t see anything, but I thought it sounded more like a bear than a deer.
“Rainy days and Monday’s allll-ways get me-eee dowwwwn!” Probably too late for that, but I sang the chorus anyway, and made myself laugh out loud.
It wasn’t until I stopped for water that I realized there wasn’t much daylight left. I searched for a good place to setup camp while I hiked up another mile. The trail curled around a hill that I suspected would have a good place to setup camp on top. I wore myself out rushing uphill to secure my place to sleep before nightfall.
The top was a rocky plateau with few trees, perfect for viewing the stars. A scorched ring of stones lay in the middle for a fire. I slid out of my backpack and stretched my shoulders. After removing that burdensome weight, the feeling in my legs gives me a sense that I could jump on top of buildings. I leaped into the air, probably twelve inches off the ground, but for a brief moment felt like Superman.
I surveyed the area and chose a place to pitch my tent. I moved a few sticks, logs, and dry pine needles next to the fire ring to use later. Within a few minutes I had fire crackling and ate a small meal. The sun, that I thought would be gone before I setup camp, seemed to wait until I was finished before heading in for the night. The Milky Way splashed a celestial river across the dark sky.
The sky at Yosemite isn’t the darkest I’ve seen (that award still goes to Isle Royale), but sixty percent of Americans can’t even see the Milky Way due to light pollution. I gazed at the sky and wondered why we bother to light up the night. Especially in small towns, like back home, that more or less close by 6 PM. The night lights have not been shown to reduce crime, nor have they been as effective at reducing car accidents as reflective lane markers. My assumption for why we do this reminded me of something I mentioned before.
“But, what about bears?” Maybe it’s just another irrational fear. Nyctophobia, fear of the dark. I'm certainly not without my own fears, but I’m convinced that an important first step to living an interesting life is learning to accurately assess risk. If nothing else, maybe doing so will convince us to bring back one of the most beautiful things any of us will ever see: a truly dark sky.
I grabbed my book, kicked off my shoes and socks, then sat by the fire. I leaned my back against a log. I warmed my feet by resting them upon a stone of the fire ring. The light from the fire shrunk my pupils, dimming much of the starlight, but the crescent moon still beamed brilliant. Moments like these make all the effort worthwhile.
I let the fire burn down to reduce the light, so I could see more of the stars. I lay on my back with interlaced fingers behind my head. I reveled in that feeling of getting dirty, but not caring. A log popped, sending ember and ash fireworks into the sky to join the starlight for a brief moment before winking out.
As my pupils dilated, the Milky Way came back into view. When is the last time you went somewhere you could see it shining so brightly? I took three planes, two buses, and a train, climbed over miles of rockslides and traversed a dangerously unstable scree slope.
And it was absolutely worth it.
Part 5 >
After stepping from one boulder to another, my camera was unleashed from the cord holding it against my pack’s shoulder strap. It swung from the strap around my neck and banged into my arm. I watched my lens cap pop off and fall between a pile of large stones and out of sight. For a moment, the gentle breeze was accompanied by hushed expletives.
I had no intentions of leaving the only lens I brought unprotected. I laid face down over one of the boulders, so I could reach for the lens cap. “No snakes, no snakes, no snakes,” I willed as I blindly stretched my arm in. When it comes to things I want to avoid on a solo backpacking trip, not taking photos rates only slightly worse than a venomous snake bite. Luckily, I felt the cap instantly and retrieved it. I blew off the dirt, secured it to my camera, and devised a way to make sure that would not happen again.
“It’s not that bad, only about sixty feet,” the ranger said this morning regarding how far I'd need to climb to reconnect with the trail. He didn’t say it was a scree slope, but this had to be it. I put my camera in my pack. I didn’t get photos of this area, but I would need to bushwhack and use all fours to make it up.
With every two or three feet I went up, I slid down one, like climbing a mound of gravel at a quarry. About a quarter of the way up, it got much steeper. Disturbing images of falling down the hill and rolling over jagged shards of granite, entered my mind, followed by the desperate descent back to civilization that would follow. I stopped to look for cairns, flat stacked rocks that mark a trail. The ranger said I would see some. I saw nothing; no trail, no road, no cairns. I eased back to the bottom, mostly by sliding on my butt.
I paced back and forth along the trail looking for a safer way up. At the dead-end's side of the scree slop there was foliage growing through the gravel. I worked my way up grabbing shrubs and thorn bushes for support. I got further than before, but got stopped at another obstacle that seemed too risky, considering the ranger’s insistence that it wouldn't be that difficult. I was getting frustrated. I went back down for one last futile attempt to find cairns, but gave up and went back the way I just came.
I chose my route based on the next thing I could grab. This inadvertently led me to an area on the hill that, if I were to fall and slide to the bottom, would give me a few hundred foot free fall to look forward to. My rising blood pressure swelled the ugly veins on my forehead. Each footstep sent pebbles rolling down the hill. I heard them falling over the edge. Then falling. Then falling. A rather disturbing sound.
I spotted Manzanita shrubs up ahead. I sold Manzanita branches in my pet store for parrot perches and recognized their smooth twisting trunks and branches instantly. The wood is too hard for large parrots to easily destroy with their powerful beaks. I never thought that information would come in handy again, especially for this reason.
I crawled on hands and knees while grasping them for support. They were indeed strong enough. Their contorted branches scratched red lines into my face and arms, but I didn’t care dammit, I was getting up this hill!The lower branches pushed at my forty pound humpback and forced me to lay flat to finish my climb. I felt like I was in boot camp crawling under barbed wire, only I was on a gravely hill that ended with a deadly drop.
I want to believe that in a parallel universe, there is a Ryan that didn’t open a pet store, a smarter Ryan perhaps, but nonetheless a Ryan with no knowledge of the tensile strength of the Manzanita branches. Maybe this other Ryan would have chosen a different path up this hill and fell to his death. I want to believe that because it would validate my decision to waste my early to mid-twenties running a pet store.
Wishful thinking maybe, but after spending four years cleaning animal shit every day, who wouldn’t want to believe that it would one day save their life in Yosemite National Park?
The road was more intact up here. A long section curved into a tunnel of trees, without a single rockslide blocking my path. The traffic has been gone for decades, but I imagined the road in its glory days. Open carriages and Model Ts coming around the bend, passengers leaning out to point at the view. For some reason, I could only imagine this in black-and-white, running at the wrong speed, and accompanied by honky-tonk piano music.
Fade to today and it’s a dilapidated overgrown stretch of road, no longer on maps. A man is sitting alone in the middle of it, crunching on crackers and turkey pepperoni, minding his own business.
Somewhere in the trees, a branch cracked. I turned to see what it was. The leaves rustled. The heavy footsteps of a large animal fled into the woods, fracturing more sticks as it ran. I didn’t see anything, but I thought it sounded more like a bear than a deer.
“Rainy days and Monday’s allll-ways get me-eee dowwwwn!” Probably too late for that, but I sang the chorus anyway, and made myself laugh out loud. It wasn’t until I stopped for water that I realized there wasn’t much daylight left. I searched for a good place to setup camp while I hiked up another mile. The trail curled around a hill that I suspected would have a good place to setup camp on top. I wore myself out rushing uphill to secure my place to sleep before nightfall.
The top was a rocky plateau with few trees, perfect for viewing the stars. A scorched ring of stones lay in the middle for a fire. I slid out of my backpack and stretched my shoulders. After removing that burdensome weight, the feeling in my legs gives me a sense that I could jump on top of buildings. I leaped into the air, probably twelve inches off the ground, but for a brief moment felt like Superman.
I surveyed the area and chose a place to pitch my tent. I moved a few sticks, logs, and dry pine needles next to the fire ring to use later. Within a few minutes I had fire crackling and ate a small meal. The sun, that I thought would be gone before I setup camp, seemed to wait until I was finished before heading in for the night. The Milky Way splashed a celestial river across the dark sky.
“But, what about bears?” Maybe it’s just another irrational fear. Nyctophobia, fear of the dark. I'm certainly not without my own fears, but I’m convinced that an important first step to living an interesting life is learning to accurately assess risk. If nothing else, maybe doing so will convince us to bring back one of the most beautiful things any of us will ever see: a truly dark sky.
I grabbed my book, kicked off my shoes and socks, then sat by the fire. I leaned my back against a log. I warmed my feet by resting them upon a stone of the fire ring. The light from the fire shrunk my pupils, dimming much of the starlight, but the crescent moon still beamed brilliant. Moments like these make all the effort worthwhile. I let the fire burn down to reduce the light, so I could see more of the stars. I lay on my back with interlaced fingers behind my head. I reveled in that feeling of getting dirty, but not caring. A log popped, sending ember and ash fireworks into the sky to join the starlight for a brief moment before winking out.
As my pupils dilated, the Milky Way came back into view. When is the last time you went somewhere you could see it shining so brightly? I took three planes, two buses, and a train, climbed over miles of rockslides and traversed a dangerously unstable scree slope.
And it was absolutely worth it.
Part 5 >
Yosemite, Part Three - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 3
I woke to the sounds of rustling nylon and plastic bags, the clanking of cook stoves and mess kits. Backpackers quietly took down their camps while talking in low polite voices. The cool air smelled of dirt and cedar wood chips. I crawled out of my tent and onto my feet, and then stretched my stiff spine.
The night's veil lifted while I had slept. Granite cliffs and colossal pine trees surrounded me on all sides. There was no doubt, I was in Yosemite.
The sun was still below the rim of the valley, but soon it blazed a bright cap on top of Glacier Point. The light gradually melted down its sides while I took down my tent. A backpacker at a neighboring site, and the source of much of the rousing morning sounds, saw I was awake and walked over.
"You starting your trip or finishing it?” He was a skinny man with long thin hair. A two-week beard insulated half his face. He could have played the hippie guidance counselor in any high school sitcom.
“I’m starting. Heading up as soon as I pack.”
“We just got back last night from two weeks up there. Man, it’s beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful. I already want to go back,” he said in reverent tones. “I’m not ready to leave.”
“I bet. I already wish I had more than a week,” I said. “How cold did it get?”
“Oh man, it was perfect. Upper forties, fifties,” he said. That was nice to hear, although I was prepared either way. I’ve learned from past mistakes.
We talked a bit more, then he went back to help his wife take down their camp. When I got everything packed and hoisted onto my shoulders, I walked over to say goodbye.
“You heading out?” he asked as I approached.
“Yeah he came in with us after dark last night; he’s probably a little disoriented,” she said, but her eyes were saying, "Oh my, you’re already lost and going up there alone. He’s going to die for sure. That’s too bad, he seems nice."
They both simply told me how to get to the nearest shuttle, but I wanted to walk and see the valley. I took their directions to get out of the campground, but veered off and went my own way. I wondered if she would be checking the newspapers for missing hiker reports.
Next to the backpacker camp was the North Pines Campground. I passed RVs with satellite dishes, cluttered picnic tables with condiments from last night’s feasts. There were tents the size of small cabins, containing cots with thick mattresses. It reminded me of car camping before I went on my first backpacking trip. I enjoyed those trips too, but nowadays, if I can’t carry it on my back I'm better off without it.
I wandered through the park and gawked at the two to three thousand foot peaks edging the valley floor, like a New York City tourist staring up at skyscrapers. I stopped on a bridge over Merced River and leaned over the railing. When your only goal for the day is to hike up five miles and setup a campsite, there is no rushing required.
Before long I was jogging to board a parked shuttle that was loading passengers, my pack bouncing on my back like a tiny bull rider. I was in a maze of canvas cabins, shops, and parking lots and couldn’t find where I needed to go. I decided to just let a shuttle take me. Okay, so maybe the worried eyes on the woman back at camp were a little justified.
“To the rockslides trailhead,” I said, and showed him my reservation and itinerary. “I heard the trail can be hard to find from that trailhead, so I thought I’d see if I could change my reservation to the Big Oak Flat Trailhead instead,” I said.
“You could. So you going to hitch down there then?” he said.
“Oh so, the shuttles—”
“No, our shuttles don’t go that far, but it’s not too bad from rockslides. I’ve taken groups up that way a dozen times. There’s only one difficult spot.”
The first leg of my journey was no longer on any published maps, but I chose it for the chance of solitude; a rare commodity in Yosemite. He went to the back for a larger, more detailed map, and then unrolled it like blueprints on a table.
“The rockslides trailhead will take you onto an old carriage road,” he said while pointing at it on the map. “It’s really wide, you can’t miss it. You'll spend a lot of time climbing over rockslides, though. Eventually you’ll get over one rockslide and won’t be able to see where the trail picks back up again.” He points to a break in the trail. “You’ll have to climb uphill here to reconnect.”“How far up is that?” I asked.
“Ah, maybe sixty feet,”
“Oh is that it? I’m sure I can handle that, no problem,” I said, but would prove myself wrong. “Can you show me any guaranteed water sources?”
He pointed to three on the map, recommending I carry a gallon to get me through the longest dry stretch. He went to the back to finish up the paperwork.
“Sorry it took so long, the printers were down," he said, handing me my permit. "Do you have any other questions?” My instinct was to ask if I could take a look at his printer, but I fought the impulse. Years of IT work has made it a reflex. A sad, sad reflex.
“Do you recommend a place to get breakfast?” I asked him instead.
“Yeah, go over to Degnan's Deli. A lot of the young kids that work here go there in the morning for muffin sandwiches. They’re good, I’ve had ‘em. And they’re cheap.”People often say things like “and they’re cheap” to me when making suggestions on something I might buy. This is probably normal for everyone, but sometimes I wonder if I give off a strong destitution vibe. I choose to believe he just thought I looked like a young penniless college student.
I ordered two muffins; thick with meat, egg, and cheese. Knowing that I’ll burn far more calories than I’ll eat this week means I can eat whatever I want, in whatever quantities I want. And knowing that is a wonderful thing, maybe the best of things. It’s a kind of guiltless freedom that you only get a few times a year: Thanksgiving lunch, Christmas dinner, and the breakfast before hitting the trail.
After eating, I went to the El Capitan shuttle stop to wait for my ride to the trailhead.
“Where you headed?” said a woman with short blonde hair sitting on one of two benches. She seemed like the adventurous type.
“First, to a trailhead near El Capitan, then to hike along the north rim.” I stood with my backpack on the other bench, riffling through it, reorganizing a few things.
“We’re going to El Cap too. But just for the day, for a picnic,” she said while looking at a man joining us. His slacked face lacked the jovial spirit of the woman’s. He sat on the other side of my bench, sandwiching me between them. “You going alone?” she asked. “Is that normal for you?”
She asked numerous questions. After each, she had the next ready, loaded in the chamber. “Do you backpack a lot?”
“Sort of, in the last few years anyway,” I went over the list of places I’ve been in the last four years: Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Isle Royale, Olympic, Shenandoah, Rocky Mountain National Park, and North Manitou Island.
“Plus a few trails near where I live,” I said. “And now Yosemite.”
“Where’s that? Where you live?” she asked. With my gear put away, I cinched up the straps and answered her.
“Indiana?” she said. “So, this is a pretty big change. Indiana is flat right?”
“Yeah, not really known for backpacking,” I said. “I’ve hiked all the trails around there, so now I have to venture further out.”
“That’s cool, so do you like, have a job?” she asked. The man she was with laughed at her question.
“Yes,” I said. “I do get vacation time.” Again, penniless college student, destitute, or both?
Just as I got everything secured, a shuttle came towards us. A sign in the front window said “El Cap”.
“That’s us,” I said.
Its brakes whistled and hissed to a stop and the doors folded open. We climbed aboard the empty shuttle and took our seats.
“So, your first time in Yosemite, huh? I come here about every year with my girlfriends. This is his first time too,” she said. “So, if you love backpacking so much, why do you live in Indiana?”“Good question,” I said. “I wonder that sometimes myself. I shouldn't say that, I'm sure Indiana is fine. I've just never tried living anywhere else."
“You see any bears yet?” The man asked.
“No, not yet. Not here anyway,” I said.
“She saw a mountain lion out here once.”
“I’ve seen two out here actually,” she said.
“Usually you find them where deer graze,” he said. “They’ll perch up on a boulder, wait for one to come close by, and then pounce.” He imitated a pouncing motion with his hands. “And then they sink their teeth into the deer’s neck.”
“Once we saw a big black bear walking through our campground,” she added. “Everybody gathered around to watch it. Then it walked up to this guy that was sleeping outside his tent on a cot. It just sniffed his face then walked away. The guy never knew what happened.”
I told them about my Eskimo kiss with a wild animal last night. “It seemed like a raccoon, maybe.”
“Oh, where did you stay last night?” she asked with enthusiasm. “At the backpacker camp?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re staying in North Pines. We saw a yearling bear cub go in there last night. I wonder if that was it!?” she said.
“Wow, that would be interesting. I’ll just say it was either way. I mean, how many people can say they rubbed noses with a wild bear?”
“Well, now we know two,” she said.
The shuttle stopped and opened its doors. We gathered our things and said goodbye. They went toward the picnic area and I walked down the street looking for my trailhead. Parked cars crowded the roadside. People were staring through binoculars and pointing at a broad-faced vertical rock formation called El Capitan.
“There’s one,” a woman said while pointing. I followed her finger to a speck clinging to the side of the granite monolith hundreds of feet above the ground. It was a rock climber. I looked a couple thousand feet to its peak and thought, I’ll be sleeping up there tomorrow night.After some searching, I was relatively sure I found my trailhead. I confirmed it when pieces of paved road appeared through the dusty forest soil. It was the Old Big Oak Flat Road.
In 1868, local businessmen created the Chinese Camp and Yo Semite Turnpike Company to build a toll road from the Chinese Camp mining settlement to Yosemite Valley. Early travelers labored down the narrow road over inches of granite dust, around sharp curving switchbacks, and along dizzying cliff edges.
The road was so treacherous that not only were early travelers encouraged to bring extra parts for their vehicles (drive shafts, springs, wheels, etc.), but several died on their trip into the valley. As it turns out, I’m not the only one that believes the scenery here is worth a slight risk. Besides, I managed to survive half of the most dangerous part of the trip: the planes, trains, and automobiles.
Over time, the road had been rerouted, updated, and maintained as a one-way scenic drive until a large rockslide took out the switchbacks in 1945, officially closing it forever. Since then nature has slowly reclaimed its land. Additional rockslides have continued to block more and more sections. Soil is scattered over the pavement. Trees and other plants have invaded it from the sides, slowly erasing the fact that it ever existed.
For those that seek solitude, the road that no longer appears on maps, is a welcomed companion. As I hiked alone up the 1,800 foot ascent to the rim, I imagined the ghosts of stagecoaches, bumping and rattling their way down the historic road, being pulled by clip-clopping horse hooves. I thought of women in feathered hats, of men in fedoras and thick wool suits; images of Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir.So then, why couldn’t I get "Rainy days and Mondays" out of my head? It’s a good idea to make noise while you hike, so you don’t startle a black bear, increasing the chance that it gets defensive and aggressive. So, to make my presence known, this became the tune I would instinctually whistle, hum, or sing when I came to a bend in the trail, or heard footsteps in the woods. Yes, I’m a true mountain man.
After emerging from the cover of trees, I turned to look at my first unobstructed view of Yosemite Valley. Across from El Capitan was Bridalveil Falls, an unexpected sight this late in the season. The wind wafted it into a mist before it could join the Merced River, two thousand feet below. Travelers entering the valley on the old road called the lookout, Rainbow View. When the conditions are just right, a rainbow forms in the mists.
“So this is Yosemite Valley.” My eyes watered. Yep, true mountain man.
Part 4 >
Gear Review: Zelph's SS Starlyte Alcohol Stove
I didn't take a cook stove on my last few trips, mostly to cut weight, but also because I've never been a big fan of cooking and cleaning without a modern kitchen. I want to give it another try, however, because sometimes after hiking all day, you just want a hot cooked meal. And I miss that hot cup of tea on a chilly night.
Boil time:
The starting temperature of the water was 60 degrees F. The air temperature outside was 55 degrees F, with a slight breeze. My altitude was about 700 feet above sea level.
It took about 7 minutes and 15 seconds to bring 2 cups water, to a boiling temperature of 212 degrees F.
Fuel Use:
I used .75 ounces (22 mL) of denatured alcohol, which burned for a total of 11 minutes. I will probably pack .75 ounces of fuel per day, so for my weight estimates below, about .7 oz in weight (20g) per day. I may adjust this as I test the stove on windier/colder days and will update this post if that changes.
In the Box
· Stove with integrated wire pot stand
· Wind Screen with paper clip fastener
· Aluminum Tray (circa 1986 Burger King style ashtray)
· Fuel Measuring Cup
I initially planned on making my own alcohol stove, but when looking for design ideas, I saw Zelph's SS Starlyte Alcohol Stove ($17-$20), and decided that what I would create wouldn't be as good. That and, anyone who knows me would promptly agree, I really shouldn’t be making anything that involves combining alcohol and fire.
This is not exactly a scientific test, but I tested it twice to get a more accurate average. Here’s what I’ve found so far.
This is not exactly a scientific test, but I tested it twice to get a more accurate average. Here’s what I’ve found so far.
Boil time: The starting temperature of the water was 60 degrees F. The air temperature outside was 55 degrees F, with a slight breeze. My altitude was about 700 feet above sea level.
It took about 7 minutes and 15 seconds to bring 2 cups water, to a boiling temperature of 212 degrees F.
Fuel Use:
I used .75 ounces (22 mL) of denatured alcohol, which burned for a total of 11 minutes. I will probably pack .75 ounces of fuel per day, so for my weight estimates below, about .7 oz in weight (20g) per day. I may adjust this as I test the stove on windier/colder days and will update this post if that changes.
In the Box · Stove with integrated wire pot stand
· Wind Screen with paper clip fastener
· Aluminum Tray (circa 1986 Burger King style ashtray)
· Fuel Measuring Cup
Weight:
· Stove - .53 oz. (15g)
· Stove with tray - .635 oz. (18g)
· Windscreen w/ paperclip - .741 oz. (21g)
· Windscreen w/ paperclip - .741 oz. (21g)
· Total with stove, tray, and windscreen - 1.377 oz. (39g)
· About 7 days of fuel in a small plastic bottle – 5.507 ounces (156g)
· Total with 7 days of fuel – 6.884 ounces (195g)
· Total with 7 days of fuel – 6.884 ounces (195g)
Pros
· Spill-proof design (due to the mesh top and fiberglass insulation core)
· Relatively fast boil time
· Ease of use. Just pour up to 1 oz. of denatured alcohol in, and touch it with a flame.
I have also used Heet (only use the yellow bottle!), which worked just fine and is
easier to get if resupplying in a small town. I used denatured alcohol for this test,
however. I have heard that Heet doesn't burn as hot, so cook times may vary.
I have also used Heet (only use the yellow bottle!), which worked just fine and is
easier to get if resupplying in a small town. I used denatured alcohol for this test,
however. I have heard that Heet doesn't burn as hot, so cook times may vary.
· Very lightweight. No reason I can't still have my hot tea under the stars.
· Quality construction and durability considering the lightweight materials.
· Very small and easy to pack and setup, partially due to the integrated pot stand.
· Very small and easy to pack and setup, partially due to the integrated pot stand.
Cons
· Small pot stand diameter a bit unstable with my MSR Soloist pot, but manageable.
To remedy this, I use a large tomato juice can that I cut to about 2" high and cut
holes into for air to get in. I set the stove in the can, then set my pot on the top of
the can. Works perfect.
· As with most alcohol stoves, you can't adjust the heat. Although, I only boil water,
so not a problem for me.
To remedy this, I use a large tomato juice can that I cut to about 2" high and cut
holes into for air to get in. I set the stove in the can, then set my pot on the top of
the can. Works perfect.
· As with most alcohol stoves, you can't adjust the heat. Although, I only boil water,
so not a problem for me.
Where can I buy the Starlyte Alcohol Stove?
You can buy the Starlyte Alcohol Stove on Amazon. Click here to view the stove on Amazon.
UPDATE: I have recently thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail with this stove, and it worked flawlessly time and time again. I'm still very happy with it.
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Yosemite, Part Two - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 2The taxi came to a stop outside the station, just as a departing train began to trudge forward. Palm trees circled the building with a cloudless blue sky over its Spanish tile roof. I could tell I wasn't in Indiana anymore. I grabbed my pack, paid the driver, and walked inside.
“I can help you right here,” said the guy behind the counter.
I slid my ticket confirmation under the divider. “Hi, I got here quicker than I thought, is there an earlier train to Merced?”
“Sorry man, that’s the earlier train right there.” Through the window, he pointed at the caboose end of the train I saw when I arrived. He checked me in and slid a ticket back. I had three hours to kill.
“Are there any good restaurants near here?” I asked. One of the joys of traveling is finding that great hole-in-the-wall restaurant the locals recommend.
And so there I was, walking down the streets of an exciting unfamiliar Golden State city, toward an IHOP. The franchises will gradually turn our cities into clones, but I didn't care, I love having a huge breakfast before a hike. A big meal here meant two fewer meals to pack, and one less pound to carry. I tossed my gear in a booth and sat on the opposite side.
"What can I get for ya?" the waitress asked. She didn't seem to think it was strange that I had the backpack, and never asked where I was headed. I felt at home in a place where backpackers are normal.
The frantic morning finally calmed down. I took my time eating the cinnamon and apple pancakes, hash browns, eggs over-easy, and crispy strips of bacon. I didn't need to hurry back to the station, so I read my book and nursed a glass of orange juice.
The train station was empty when I got back, but slowly filled with people as the time on my ticket neared. I started to pace. The quickness of the morning travel made me anxious, now it was the idleness of standing still making me anxious. I knew once I got on the trail that would go away.
It's like when I go kayaking. There is all the effort to make the plans, check the weather, get dressed, get packed, load the kayak on my car, and often a long drive to the river or lake. Then I unload everything, carry it to the water’s edge, pack my gear into the hull, and then ease into the wobbly kayak. The morning can be stressful, but then you push off into the water. The kayak slides across the sandy shore, sssssssshhh. And then, silence.
I take a deep breath and pause to enjoy those tranquil seconds before paddling away. It's as though the hectic morning never existed.
Hiking is a lot like that. There can be a lot of stress while planning and getting there, but once you disappear into that green tunnel of trees at the trailhead, everything becomes simple and quiet. You can’t help but leave the stress or anxiety behind you.
When the doors closed and the train eased into motion, I stopped worrying about my gear. We accelerated to full speed toward Merced, horn blaring. Graffitied walls and grain elevators whipped by out the window. I felt a renewed enthusiasm to fulfill number 25 on my life list, "Travel cross-country, any country, on a train".
Tracks and stations aren't generally the most awe-inspiring parts of a city, but once leaving the urban area, that changed. Soon the train rambled through orchards ready for harvest, the green parallel lines of vineyards, and acres of golden fields. A mountain range materialized behind the thick hazy sky.
At the station in Merced, I had another hour to wait for a bus to take me into Yosemite. I sat on the ground outside facing the tracks, with my back against the station’s brick wall. Spanish music blared from a dilapidated pale blue motel turned apartment building, a hundred yards away. Voices en Español vociferated from its open windows and doors. From somewhere far away, live Spanish music was being amplified throughout the city. When the bus arrived, I bought my ticket and loaded my pack in the luggage compartment. For two and a half hours, we meandered along the curvy roads entering the valley, picking up a few more passengers along the way. As the sun set, the view of golden fields merged with sharp granite cliffs and pine tree forests.
By the time we got into the valley, it was too dark to see anything, except the infamous Merced River, which flowed parallel to the road. I watched it speed by with my head against the window.
Hello, Merced River. I've heard so much about you. Nice to finally meet.
By the time we got into the valley, it was too dark to see anything, except the infamous Merced River, which flowed parallel to the road. I watched it speed by with my head against the window.
Hello, Merced River. I've heard so much about you. Nice to finally meet.
The bus came to its final stop in Yosemite’s Curry Village. I got out and looked around, unsure of how to get to the backpacker camp. I decided to look for food first.
There was a crowd of people gathered around the only restaurant still open, a pizza stand and a bar. I took my place in line, surrounded by twenty to fifty year old eternal frat boys. They talked in that loud inebriated voice, like a person talking while wearing headphones, not realizing how loud they are.
While the line slowly crept forward, I thought of John Muir. He was a naturalist whose poetic writing and activism helped inspire Americans to preserve our most beautiful places, before it was too late. When he learned of plans to make the nearby Hetch Hetchy Valley into a reservoir, he fought against it vehemently until his death in 1914. He called it the second Yosemite Valley.
Of those pushing for a Hetch Hetchy reservoir, John Muir wrote: "These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man."
Sadly, years of pleading were not enough to sway nearsighted politicians. Hetch Hetchy is now three hundred feet underwater.
The defeat crushed him. Afterwards he wrote in a letter to his daughter, “I wonder if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling.” That quote always breaks my heart.
There was a crowd of people gathered around the only restaurant still open, a pizza stand and a bar. I took my place in line, surrounded by twenty to fifty year old eternal frat boys. They talked in that loud inebriated voice, like a person talking while wearing headphones, not realizing how loud they are.
While the line slowly crept forward, I thought of John Muir. He was a naturalist whose poetic writing and activism helped inspire Americans to preserve our most beautiful places, before it was too late. When he learned of plans to make the nearby Hetch Hetchy Valley into a reservoir, he fought against it vehemently until his death in 1914. He called it the second Yosemite Valley. Of those pushing for a Hetch Hetchy reservoir, John Muir wrote: "These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man."
Sadly, years of pleading were not enough to sway nearsighted politicians. Hetch Hetchy is now three hundred feet underwater.
The defeat crushed him. Afterwards he wrote in a letter to his daughter, “I wonder if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling.” That quote always breaks my heart.
I thought of John Muir, and I write about it now, because I was curious what he would think of Yosemite today: the crowds, traffic, shops, restaurants, hotels, bars. There have been some amazing improvements over the last few decades, and obviously filling the valley with cars, stores, and this drunken nightlife is nothing like filling it with water, but at the time, I felt a bit of an aversion to it. At a different time, in a different mood, that may change. A big reason I felt this way was because what makes Yosemite so grand, was still veiled in the darkness.
When I reached the front of the line, I learned that there was an hour wait for a personal-sized pizza. Hot dogs rotated on a gas-station style cooker, however, ready to eat.
“Okay, just give me two hot dogs and a large drink,” I said. They were stale and tasteless, but filled me up. They would have been perfect, though, if used for crossing number 55 from my life list, "Start a Food Fight".
I was ready to get away from the crowd and found a shuttle to take me to the backpacker campground. Interior lights lit up the shuttle like a huge fish tank on wheels. In the front, a few seats were lined up on each side facing each other.
“Where you headed?” a woman of about forty, sitting across the aisle, asked. Due to her and her friend’s attire, I could tell they were fellow backpackers.
“Right now the backpacker camp,” I said. “But tomorrow to the north rim, starting at the Rockslides trailhead,”
“I haven't heard of that one,"
“Oh, it’s not on any published maps anymore,”
"You going up there alone?” she said. “You’re brave. I don’t think I would ever do that.”
“No, not brave. Naive, maybe. It’s just not the same if I'm with someone. The first time I went alone I thought it would be a little frightening, but it wasn't. You get used to it.”
We talked the remainder of the ride about trips and gear, things backpackers never get tired of talking about. The shuttle screeched to a stop, its air brakes exhaled, and the doors folded open. The last of several modes of transportation, other than my walk to the backpacker camp on foot, finally came to an end.
My new shuttle friends led me to the camp, which would have been difficult in the darkness on my own. We followed our three circles of headlamp light as they panned the ground in front of us.
“I haven't heard of that one,"
“Oh, it’s not on any published maps anymore,”
"You going up there alone?” she said. “You’re brave. I don’t think I would ever do that.”
“No, not brave. Naive, maybe. It’s just not the same if I'm with someone. The first time I went alone I thought it would be a little frightening, but it wasn't. You get used to it.”
We talked the remainder of the ride about trips and gear, things backpackers never get tired of talking about. The shuttle screeched to a stop, its air brakes exhaled, and the doors folded open. The last of several modes of transportation, other than my walk to the backpacker camp on foot, finally came to an end.
My new shuttle friends led me to the camp, which would have been difficult in the darkness on my own. We followed our three circles of headlamp light as they panned the ground in front of us.
The night didn't last long after that. Once I set up my tent and crawled inside, I was out almost as fast as my headlamp. In my final conscious moments I stared through the tent mesh up eighty-foot towering pine trees stretching toward a starry sky.
I woke a few times as the temperature dropped. One time to get in my sleeping bag, another to zip it up, and a third time to sink into it and pull it over my head. I must have rolled off my sleeping pad at some point, as my nose was against the side of my tent when I woke a fourth time.
I heard rapid sniffing and quiet footsteps walking along the side of my tent, then it stopped at my face. It pushed its nose to mine with only a thin layer of polyester taffeta between us. Sniff, sniff, sniff. My head jerked back instinctively and, whatever it was, scurried away.
I poked my head outside and looked in every direction. I would have been excited to see just about anything, except maybe a crawling human. How creepy would that be? I expected to see the back of a fat raccoon, but saw nothing. I went back to bed figuring it was nothing of much interest. Unless the people I would meet tomorrow were correct.
I woke a few times as the temperature dropped. One time to get in my sleeping bag, another to zip it up, and a third time to sink into it and pull it over my head. I must have rolled off my sleeping pad at some point, as my nose was against the side of my tent when I woke a fourth time.
I heard rapid sniffing and quiet footsteps walking along the side of my tent, then it stopped at my face. It pushed its nose to mine with only a thin layer of polyester taffeta between us. Sniff, sniff, sniff. My head jerked back instinctively and, whatever it was, scurried away.
I poked my head outside and looked in every direction. I would have been excited to see just about anything, except maybe a crawling human. How creepy would that be? I expected to see the back of a fat raccoon, but saw nothing. I went back to bed figuring it was nothing of much interest. Unless the people I would meet tomorrow were correct.
Yosemite, Part One - Number 26 on my life list.
Part 1
The room was still dark, but my alarm insisted I wake up. I slowly surfaced from the depths of sleep and rolled out of bed. Hitting the snooze bar would be pointless. I knew for the nine extra minutes I’d only stare at the ceiling anyway.
A backpack sat on my floor, waiting. I triple-checked it last night to make sure I had everything. If it’s not in the pack, I’ll be stuck in the woods without it for a week.
- - -
“So, you sleep outside in the woods at night. And you’re going alone? Man, you’d never catch me doing that,” said a maintenance man working in my office last week. “But, what about bears?”
“That’s the first thing everyone asks me, but if you keep your food protected there really is nothing to worry about,” I said. “Besides, there has never been a fatal bear attack in Yosemite.”
“Heh, well there could always be a first,” he said.When you’ve been in Indiana your whole life, your experience with bears mostly comes from watching television shows with titles beginning with, “The World’s Deadliest…”
The truth is, the typical encounter is not unlike the typical encounter with a raccoon. If they see you, they flee. Or look at you, sniff the air, then carry on with whatever they were doing before you barged into their woods, singing “Rainy Days and Mondays”.
It’s not even all that common to see a bear on a hike. It’s probably no more common than walking around Hollywood and spotting a celebrity. Just like with a bear, you point, you take photos. You never EVER try to feed them. And while it’s true that in the past celebrities have murdered, few people will scatter in terror when they see one, questioning whether or not they’re supposed to run, climb a tree, or play dead.
As with most things, the more you learn and experience something, the less irrational fear you have of it.- - -
Now, I’m in the back of a small 37-seat airplane sitting on the tarmac, waiting for my first flight to depart. On most Saturday mornings, I’d still be in my dark bedroom snug and warm, wrapped in a comforter with my head sunken into a pillow.
“Good morning folks. This is your captain speaking,” his gruff morning voice spoken too close to the microphone. “We’ll be departing in a few minutes, but I wanted to remind you that today is the ninth anniversary of September 11th. Please consider getting to know the person sitting next to you, for security of course, but also just for the joy of getting to know one another.”
Telling people what day I was flying out frequently conjured up another irrational fear.
I looked at the person next to me, an Asian girl with a black hoodie cinched over dyed red hair. She slumped in her chair the moment she got situated; chin to her chest, arms crossed. Lisa Loeb glasses framed her closed eyes. The only thing, other than the personal wall she had built around herself, that would make me not talk to her is, she’s kind of cute. And I have self-diagnosed clinical shyness. Well, that and a decent possibility she doesn’t speak English.
On the other side of the aisle sat a rather fidgety African-American man in his twenties. His legs bounced nervously. His eyes also closed, his arms on the armrests. His head was nodding rhythmically, to music I assumed, but then I noticed he wasn’t wearing headphones. Either he’s an extremely anxious flier, or he can hear music I can’t.
The flight attendant walked towards us down the narrow aisle. She noticed him while closing an overhead compartment, her lips in a thin tight grin. “How are you doing, sir?”
“I’m doing okay,” he said, with a failed air of confidence.“Aw, you’ll be fine, and your son will appreciate that you went through all this to go see him in California,” she said. It’s always good to see someone not letting their irrational fear keep them from the important things.
That was the extent of me getting to know the people next to me. I don’t really mind, but truthfully the last few months of my life have been, to say the least, unfulfilling. I’m ready for a change and I know getting over my shyness would be a great way to start.
The course of many lives have been changed by the simplest of words: hi.
I sat quietly, writing in my journal, and said nothing. I mean, not everyone wants to talk to a total stranger anyway, right? And I’m not lying when I say that, for the most part, I like to keep to myself. It is a major reason I’m heading into Sierra Nevada wilderness. To be alone. It’s the only way I know how to simplify life, relax and be myself, and calm this restlessness I’ve felt after another year going through the same motions; traversing the same rut.
And when I’m hiking, I never feel like I’m wasting my life.
The plane glided between two layers of clouds that stretch on like white linens. The red morning sunrise poked through the occasional opening in the bottom layer.
- - -
“Do they have poisonous snakes out there? What if you fall and break your leg, or hit your head? What if you get lost and can’t find water?” the maintenance man asked. “I got an email one time with photos of a guy that got attacked by a polar bear, have you seen that?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that one, it was pretty gross,” I said. We were interrupted by another co-worker who, once seeing the maintenance man, started talking to him about motorcycles.
“Oh yeah, there’s nothing like it,” he replied.
"If I went on the Internet right now and found some photos of a guy that got into a motorcycle accident, would you sell yours and give up riding?”
“Alright, point taken,” he said. “I still wouldn’t do it, though.”
- - -
At a time I would normally be sleeping in on a Saturday, I landed in Milwaukee. I rushed to the opposite end of the airport to be corralled through another TSA line. I was as fidgety as the man on the plane, worried I would miss my next connecting flight.
And when I would ordinarily be eating breakfast cereal, blissfully indifferent to my bedhead cowlick, I was speed-walking to my third plane in Phoenix.
I hoped I’d have enough time for a quick restroom visit before the final boarding call. I did, but in my haste I splashed water when washing my hands. Of course it landed in just the right place to make me the perfect poster child for urinary incontinence. And where else would it go? Don’t you remember Newton’s forth law: All moving liquids must remain in a uniform flow unless near my crotch, in which case said liquid must follow the path of least resistance to aforementioned crotch.
When I left the restroom they were boarding the underprivileged requiring wheelchairs, and the over-privileged with first-class tickets. I felt like all eyes were on me and my wet pants. It’s okay people, I didn’t piss myself. It’s just water, nothing to see here.I know nobody cares, or probably even noticed, but this is how my brain instinctually works. It knows that at least one pair of eyes is always on me, and always for negative reasons.
When I’d normally be having another predictable lunch and feeling guilty for having no weekend plans, the treadmill on the Fresno Airport baggage carousel started whirring. I had finally arrived, but the traveling didn’t end there. I stared eagerly at the rubber flap doorway, wondering if my crucial gear made all the same connections and security screenings. It was the first bag to come out. I could breathe easy.
When I walked out of the airport through tall automatic sliding glass doors, it dawned on me that I was over two thousand miles from home with nothing but the forty pounds of gear and food in my pack. No vehicle, only a train ticket and bus schedule in my pocket. No roof over my head, only a permit to live in the woods for a week. Wonderfully contrary to that mind-numbing rut I just freed myself from.
A man standing next to a car, with the words “Airport Taxi” on the side, seemed to be waiting for me. Or at least his eyes seemed to follow me even though he was always pointed straight ahead.
“I need to go to the Amtrak Station?” My statement morphed into a question, like I realized telling him wasn’t polite and I needed to actually ask. Or maybe I thought he might say, “You’re doing this all wrong, you freakin’ hayseed!”
I’m not an experienced traveler yet.Without saying a word, he put on sunglasses and opened the trunk of the car. I put my gear in, then hopped in the backseat.
- - -
“But, what about bears? Are you taking a gun?” asked a worried co-worker a few days ago.
Sometimes in my head I work on replies to this persistent concern. Such as, did you know that 2,800 Americans die from choking, every year? And, I live alone. I’m flattered that so many are concerned about my well being, but if you really want to worry about something, worry about the left over pizza in my fridge.
“But, what about apples? Surely you’d never eat an apple by yourself? Oh my dear heavens. You should never eat fruit alone!”
I don’t want to suggest that there aren’t dangers when backpacking alone: dehydration, getting lost, falling, hypothermia, sudden illness, contaminated water, an approaching melody of dueling banjos in the distance. But when you’re prepared and careful, the risk is low, and absolutely worth the potential for reward.
Without trying too hard, I could come up with several reasons to never leave the safety of my home, but how enjoyable would that life be?
Part 2 >
Go to Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Amazon Kindle Review, For Backpackers
Below, you’ll find my review of the Kindle as it pertains to backpacking.
1 – It shaves ounces from my pack
I can carry hundreds of books and it will never weigh more than 8.5 ounces (9.5 oz. with my homemade protective sleeve, see below). Before the kindle I normally packed two books for a one-week trip, which weighed about 12-13 oz. Also, I will often pick up a new paperback before heading out, and just not get into it, so it just becomes dead weight. With an ebook reader, I can take anything I think I may want to read, and purchase new books along the way, without considering the weight.
Not only do I carry dozens of books, but also hiking-related reference books and documents I created myself, that I would never carry with me because of the weight, including:
- Wilderness survival books and quick reference guides
- Other reference ideas, instructions for tying useful knots, wildlife and plant field guides, tips for predicting weather, or information on what plants or berries can be safely eaten.
- First aid guides and emergency phone numbers
- I have created PDFs for quick information using sites like, http://www.backpacker.com/november-09-the-ultimate-first-aid-manual/skills/13607. There are a lot of free first aid books online in PDF format as well, such as, http://www.firstaidtopics.com/downloads/First-Aid-and-CPR-Manual.pdf or http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/fm4_25x11.pdf
- List of phone numbers for hospitals, rangers stations, police stations, etc.
- Town and Backup Trail Maps and Guide Books
- An ebook reader doesn’t replace the need of a good paper map, of course, but can be used for a backup trail map. These maps can also cover areas you doubt you will need, such as towns and side trails that could be needed in emergencies or resupply. Saving screenshots of Google Maps as PDFs (see below) and syncing them to the Kindle can be very useful.
- On the Appalachian Trail, I purchased Awol’s loose-leaf AT Guide and scanned it into a PDF file for the Kindle. I kept the pages I would need for a section of trail in my pocket, and put the ones I didn't need in a bounce box that I sent to the post office in my next resupply town. On several occasions it came in handy to have the entire book on the Kindle.
- Documents with information on airports, taxi and shuttle services, and Bus and Train stations. Such as phone numbers, addresses, and schedules.
To easily create PDFs, you can download the free PDF creator, Cute PDF. After installing, simply print the document and select the CutePDF Printer to save the file as a PDF.
2 - Battery Life
One reason I’m not a fan of gadgets on the trail is batteries. The kindle will last up to three or four weeks on a single charge, if wi-fi is turned off. Two weeks is a good estimate if you are a heavy reader and use the kindle for note taking or playing games.
The e-ink display on the kindle, will only use the battery when you turn a page, or when the screen refreshes while typing or using an app. This means, when I fall asleep in the middle of reading, it won’t drain the battery. Also, when I wake back up it will be on the same page I was reading.
If longer battery life is needed, I also carried a USB charger (.883 ounces, and cost about $3) with two lithium AA batteries (1.06 ounces) that I used for an emergency backup for my cell phone, or if I needed it, to get another couple weeks of power for my kindle.
The e-ink display on the kindle, will only use the battery when you turn a page, or when the screen refreshes while typing or using an app. This means, when I fall asleep in the middle of reading, it won’t drain the battery. Also, when I wake back up it will be on the same page I was reading.
If longer battery life is needed, I also carried a USB charger (.883 ounces, and cost about $3) with two lithium AA batteries (1.06 ounces) that I used for an emergency backup for my cell phone, or if I needed it, to get another couple weeks of power for my kindle.
3 – FREE Internet Access
Free, as in Amazon does not charge you to connect to their 3G network (note: All Kindle's allow you to connect to wi-fi, but to use Amazon's free 3G service, a 3G capable Kindle must be purchased.) You can't watch videos or visit flash web sites, and the browser on the kindle is a pain to use, but, that is a good thing, in my opinion. I don’t want to be tempted to browse the internet on the trail, or have access to a million apps. It does come in handy, however, if you are able to get a cell signal and want to update a blog, check the weather, trail conditions, or read trail journals of other people on the trail. It's also handy if you’re nearing a town and want to know what stores, restaurants, or hotels are available, or make reservations. I can also email friends and family. If nothing else, it’s nice to know you have a way to search for phone numbers of business, taxis, or emergency services.
If the kindle ever becomes a better internet browsing tool, I may have to stop carrying it. I don't want the distraction. As it is now, its perfect. Annoying enough to use, so that I only use it when I have a good reason.
4 - The Kindle Store
When in cell phone range, you can access more books, or books about a specific topic you may only have thought about while on the trail. For example, when hiking in Yosemite, I was inspired to read the writings of John Muir. Or, I could have gotten a book about the park in general. It was also nice to be able to download something new to read while sitting in a shelter on the Appalachian Trail, without having to wait for the next resupply town.
5 - Cost
The cheapest Kindle is currently only $79 with wi-fi only. I prefer the $139 3G model with a keyboard (for note taking). The extra $60 is worth it to me to have the unlimited free 3G service, since wi-fi is useless on the trail.
The only real downside to the Kindle or any other ebook reader is that they requires special care that books don’t. I found an inexpensive way to protect my Kindle, though. It has survived 2,400 miles of hiking and cramming it in and out of a backpack a couple hundred times. I cut a blue foam sleeping mat to torso length and used the excess to make a cheap case. I put my Kindle in a zip-top bag to waterproof it, and slip it into the foam case. I've dropped it a few times without problems. In the zip-top bag, I've dripped water on it and handled it with greasy fingers while I'm eating and it still looks brand new.
I could say much more, but this was intended as a Kindle review for backpackers. For more specs, and demonstrations of how it works, please visit the Kindle page on Amazon.com.
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Two Lakes Loop Trail - The Hoosier National Forest
My backpacking trips aren't always filled with beautiful alpine views, babbling brooks, and relaxing waterfalls. At times, they can be hot, sticky, itchy, and completely unforgiving.
From my hiking journal,
the night of July 3rd, 2010
I can hear fireworks, but only see the flash of fireflies. Bangs and pops, but no whistles or screeches. High-pitched sounds don’t travel as far. And with the banning of fireworks within the boundaries of the Hoosier National Forest, the night is mostly silent.
It’s July 3rd. I’m hiking alone overnight on the sixteen-mile Two Lakes Loop Trail. As usual for this time of year, when the sun finally sets, the pyromaniacs can’t wait any longer to light their fuses and blow shit up to show their love for America.
The temperature is finally starting to drop from low-90s to tolerable. Both sweat and humidity test the old adage that teamwork divides the work while multiplying the success, by effortlessly sticking a nylon sleeping bag to my skin.
I put my book down and climb out of my hammock tent to brush my teeth before I fall asleep. My headlamp reveals a blue-tinted forest around me and illuminates the toothbrush and toothpaste in my backpack. Moths fly dumbly toward the light on my forehead. Dozens of them stick to my sweaty face and neck, beating their delicate wings in a confused frenzy. I swat at them pointlessly, like a much less scary parody of Hitchcock’s, "The Birds".
I turn off my light, so I can brush in peace. I stand barefoot and add the acoustics of teeth brushing to the nocturnal sounds of the forest. The moonlit surface of Indian Lake shimmers between the silhouettes of trees.
Bang, bang, pop. More fireworks.
Somewhere on the lake, a fisherman is floating in a boat. He occasionally scans the lake with his spotlight between short nicotine and tar coughing fits. I briefly wonder what he would think if he saw me in the woods. I could stand by the shore with an emotionless blank stare. His own monochromatic blue light would illuminate me for a moment as it passes by, then I'd quickly duck into the shadows. He’d look back, certain he saw someone standing there, but now wonders. I could give him a story to tell. In my opinion, that is the best gift of all.
Instead I retreat to my hammock. I really have no desire to stay outside its protective mesh and get even more blood mugged by mosquitoes. Right before nightfall I started a fire that is now ash and embers, to help keep them at bay, but near the lake I’m sure they are in swarms. A couple hundred are already flying around the forest, bellies engorged with my blood; my DNA buzzing above me like Mike Teavee in Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
With the mosquitoes, cicadas are also out, repeating the same harmonious mantra over and over like druids. It's relaxing, but ugh, what I would give for a cool breeze. The only breeze I’ve had tonight was from the flutter of moth wings in my face.
Fireflies are landing on the tent mesh giving me an opportunity to really study them up close from underneath. Even with a bit of knowledge on bioluminescence, their random flashing still seems like magic. At least I think it’s random. Maybe they are trying to communicate with me. A message of great importance repeated again and again, every summer. “Ryan, you are the chosen one, you must stop the reactor. You're the planet’s only hope.” The distressing part is, I'll probably never know for sure.
The trail is only sixteen miles long, but I am intrigued by the intersecting American Discovery Trail, the coast-to-coast pathway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I thought if I wanted to extend my trip, I would detour onto it for a while, just to say I—
Ok wait, that was a flash, pause, flash, flash, flash, pause, flash, flash. If there is a firefly Morse code, I’ll figure it out.
Anyway, I might take a detour on the ADT. It seems fitting for Independence Day to be on a trail that spans the whole country. One of these days I’m going to get on it and not stop until I leap into the Pacific.
Two flashes, pause, then five.
I should note that I’m roughing it with Pinot Noir in a flask, probably why I’m writing all this. See, I’m not insane, as you may be thinking, but nor am I drunk. Just a little… wine happy.
Ooh seven consecutive flashes. Wait, 1, 3, 2, 2, 5, and 7? Those are all prime numbers. Interesting. Can’t be a coincidence.
Yep. All alone in a hammock, in the woods. Sipping Pinot Noir from a metal flask with sophistication and class. It would be impossible to sip it any other way.
Hmm, maybe the fireflies are trying to give me GPS coordinates. I should keep writing the numbers down and see where they lead me. It’s a good a reason to travel somewhere as any, right? It would be spontaneous. An adventure. Maybe I’ll find that reactor, or something.
There is a ridiculous number of bug bites polka-dotting my arms and legs. Maybe anemia is the root of my peculiar thoughts tonight. They haven’t started itching yet, but histamines are on their way to set off an inflammatory immune reaction that will irritate nerve endings all over my body causing me to itch uncontrollably. I can’t wait.
Regardless of the bugs, bites, and humidity, somehow the trip has still been worth it. My time spent in the hammock listening to cicadas has actually been nice.
My backpacking trips aren't always filled with beautiful alpine views, babbling brooks, and relaxing waterfalls. At times, they can be hot, sticky, itchy, and completely unforgiving… but I absolutely love it. No matter where or when I walk into the woods, I find a silence, solitude, and contentment that nothing else provides.
(By the way, I put my recordings of the firefly flashes into Google Earth as GPS coordinates. They took me to an isolated dirt road near Turrah, Sudan. Screw that! Sorry Fireflies, you chose the wrong messiah.)
I turn off my light, so I can brush in peace. I stand barefoot and add the acoustics of teeth brushing to the nocturnal sounds of the forest. The moonlit surface of Indian Lake shimmers between the silhouettes of trees.Bang, bang, pop. More fireworks.
Somewhere on the lake, a fisherman is floating in a boat. He occasionally scans the lake with his spotlight between short nicotine and tar coughing fits. I briefly wonder what he would think if he saw me in the woods. I could stand by the shore with an emotionless blank stare. His own monochromatic blue light would illuminate me for a moment as it passes by, then I'd quickly duck into the shadows. He’d look back, certain he saw someone standing there, but now wonders. I could give him a story to tell. In my opinion, that is the best gift of all.
Instead I retreat to my hammock. I really have no desire to stay outside its protective mesh and get even more blood mugged by mosquitoes. Right before nightfall I started a fire that is now ash and embers, to help keep them at bay, but near the lake I’m sure they are in swarms. A couple hundred are already flying around the forest, bellies engorged with my blood; my DNA buzzing above me like Mike Teavee in Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.With the mosquitoes, cicadas are also out, repeating the same harmonious mantra over and over like druids. It's relaxing, but ugh, what I would give for a cool breeze. The only breeze I’ve had tonight was from the flutter of moth wings in my face.
Fireflies are landing on the tent mesh giving me an opportunity to really study them up close from underneath. Even with a bit of knowledge on bioluminescence, their random flashing still seems like magic. At least I think it’s random. Maybe they are trying to communicate with me. A message of great importance repeated again and again, every summer. “Ryan, you are the chosen one, you must stop the reactor. You're the planet’s only hope.” The distressing part is, I'll probably never know for sure.The trail is only sixteen miles long, but I am intrigued by the intersecting American Discovery Trail, the coast-to-coast pathway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I thought if I wanted to extend my trip, I would detour onto it for a while, just to say I—Ok wait, that was a flash, pause, flash, flash, flash, pause, flash, flash. If there is a firefly Morse code, I’ll figure it out.
Anyway, I might take a detour on the ADT. It seems fitting for Independence Day to be on a trail that spans the whole country. One of these days I’m going to get on it and not stop until I leap into the Pacific.
Two flashes, pause, then five.I should note that I’m roughing it with Pinot Noir in a flask, probably why I’m writing all this. See, I’m not insane, as you may be thinking, but nor am I drunk. Just a little… wine happy.
Ooh seven consecutive flashes. Wait, 1, 3, 2, 2, 5, and 7? Those are all prime numbers. Interesting. Can’t be a coincidence.
Yep. All alone in a hammock, in the woods. Sipping Pinot Noir from a metal flask with sophistication and class. It would be impossible to sip it any other way.
Hmm, maybe the fireflies are trying to give me GPS coordinates. I should keep writing the numbers down and see where they lead me. It’s a good a reason to travel somewhere as any, right? It would be spontaneous. An adventure. Maybe I’ll find that reactor, or something.
There is a ridiculous number of bug bites polka-dotting my arms and legs. Maybe anemia is the root of my peculiar thoughts tonight. They haven’t started itching yet, but histamines are on their way to set off an inflammatory immune reaction that will irritate nerve endings all over my body causing me to itch uncontrollably. I can’t wait.Regardless of the bugs, bites, and humidity, somehow the trip has still been worth it. My time spent in the hammock listening to cicadas has actually been nice.
My backpacking trips aren't always filled with beautiful alpine views, babbling brooks, and relaxing waterfalls. At times, they can be hot, sticky, itchy, and completely unforgiving… but I absolutely love it. No matter where or when I walk into the woods, I find a silence, solitude, and contentment that nothing else provides.(By the way, I put my recordings of the firefly flashes into Google Earth as GPS coordinates. They took me to an isolated dirt road near Turrah, Sudan. Screw that! Sorry Fireflies, you chose the wrong messiah.)
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The Shenandoah Valley, Part Seven - Numbers 13 and 96 on my life list.
Part 7: Friday’s Journey HomeGo to Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
I didn’t sleep well. I partially blame setting up camp after dark. My sight was limited to what was revealed in the beam of a miniature headlamp. The wind flapped the rain tarp all night, like someone trying to get sand off a beach towel. Eventually, I gathered enough motivation to slip out of my hammock and the warmth of that artificial down and nylon womb, also known as a sleeping bag. I crunched the cold and dry autumn earth, with my bare feet, and tried tightening the guy lines in the faint cerulean moonlight.
After falling back asleep the flapping began again. My groggy attempt to fix the situation with cold fingers and low light failed, but a combination of warmth and tiredness kept me from trying again. I slept as deep and undisturbed as a morning repeatedly hitting the snooze bar instead of turning off the alarm clock. Yeah, I don’t know why either. Sometimes I’m surprised at how unwavering my desire to stay in bed can be.
Many of the same elements that caused the frustrations the first night were back: the issues securing my bear bag, setting up camp in cold darkness, and the sporadic intervals of sleep. Only now, frustration and worry wasn’t getting any traction in my mind. This wasn’t a conscious effort, but the result of a reclusive week on a trail where your only task is to walk, where the noisy neighbors are the multitudes of singing birds, the traffic is an occasional white-tail deer or black bear, and your important meetings are with infinitely patient waterfalls.
When there was enough light to pack, I finally got up. For a short time I sat sideways in my hammock with my feet dangling a few inches above the ground. The rising sun turned the clouds to bright coral and revealed the surroundings to me for the first time. The dominant presence was that of a large tree with thick low branches stretching out perpendicular to an old wide trunk. It stood alone in a treeless circle on the forest floor, like a statue of Saint Francis in a courtyard holding out his arms to provide a place for birds to perch. I slipped on my shoes. The tree needed to be climbed.I felt like the seven-year-old Ryan running around the neighborhood where I grew up. I climbed to the first branch and stood on its coarse bark in untied shoes. I began to find my way to the next height, at least until my brain rationalized what would happen if I fell. This isolated spot, at least a hundred yards from the trail, may not see another visitor for days or, this time of year, weeks, maybe not until spring. Rationalizing-adult Ryan sat on the branch and swung his feet back and forth above the ground, at a height that wouldn’t kill him. Rationalizing-adult Ryan is no fun.
A blanket of low gray clouds began to slip under the cheery coral ones, essentially ending any chance that the sun’s rays would chase away the chill; it was sure to be a wonderfully lonely and silent day on the trail. Before ever really settling in, I left another temporary home behind and headed to Hawksbill Summit, the highest mountain in the park.The more I ascended to the top, the more the local fauna changed from tall trees and soft fluttering leaves to short ridged species with stern roots and needle-covered stems. Dead leaves that were probably still clinging to shrubs just a few days ago, sat at the base of bundled bare stems.
At the summit, the growing fog reduced visibility, but I could still see to the valley below. The treetops draped the rolling hills in specks of green, orange, gold, and brown, like bed pillows lumped together under the afghan your grandma knitted in 1963.
The receding mountain soil revealed a brown stone scalp with gray splotches of lichen and an assemblage of protruding jagged edges. I wandered around looking for a place to sit. I discovered a concaved portion in the rock where a puddle formed. There hasn’t been a convenient water source for a while and my supply was bone dry. The water looked clear, but on top floated a few insect cadavers (i.e. protein water). I filled up a plastic bottle just in case I got desperate. Having been dehydrated on the trail before, I learned to always have at least one bottle at hand, no matter how confident you are about future water sources.
I sat my camera on one of the boulders and set the timer to take my picture at roughly the highest point in Shenandoah National Park. I hiked back down to the Appalachian Trail and continued north.Every time the trail descended, my hiking poles double as orthopedic canes to take weight off my right knee. The pain began to worry me. Not because I wouldn’t get to my car, it wasn’t that debilitating, but because I hope to have at least another 35 years of backpacking in me. I can’t have my body failing already. I would skip the remaining side trails and summits to keep my mileage at a minimum. Getting to my car today, and thus having an extra day to recover at home, was beginning to look like the smart choice.
Shortly after giving in and drinking sterilized “protein water”, I heard the unmistakable gurgling sound of a flowing stream. I didn’t see anything at first, but as I approached the source and kicked aside some dried leaves, I found clean water flowing from an opening in the side of the hill. At two feet from the trail, only a standing drinking fountain would have been more convenient. The only downside to this discovery was that now the bug in my teeth was completely unnecessary.The fog continued to thicken and had soon condensed the views to mostly foreground. When one side of the trail would open to a sharply descending view into the valley, I saw nothing but white. I turned to look directly into it and it nearly filled my full view. Knowing that mountains and a valley floor was somewhere hundreds of yards beyond it made the white fog imposing, like swimming in a murky lake that you know is deep, but you can’t see to the bottom.
Somewhere in the fog, I heard voices, faint and muffled. For a time they seemed to hover around in the white void. As I closed in behind them, they eventually became louder and intelligible. A three-generation Italian family came into view, hiking single file down the narrow trail in front of me. I joined them at the back of the line.
The middle generation son and father, who incidentally looked like a good person to have standing behind you if you ever needed to look intimidating, told the others to let me pass. While doing so, his questions trapped me in the middle of their convoy. He was in that category of people who are surprised to learn that anyone would solo backpack for a whole week. Regardless of the man’s presence, he was kind, jovial, and “would never hike alone out here”.
I asked them if they heard any weather reports recently. “Ninety percent chance of rain tonight and supposed to be colder”. They offered to feed me when returning to the picnic area, and under different circumstances I would love to have let them. I mean, unless the Olive Garden commercials have lied to me, Italians have a hell of a lot of fun at the dinner table. I thanked them but declined. I decided I needed to finish my journey today.
With the chimney shielding me from the wind, I set my pack on the table and pulled out my food. My knee ached and popped like some geriatric as I sat down.
A couple of cars drove through the picnic area, taking in the limited view from heated vehicles, but nobody ever got out. I felt like I had the entire park to myself. If the cost of this luxury was having my teeth chatter anytime I stopped focusing on preventing them, it was worth it.
Not long after leaving the shelter, I passed a couple doing just that. I knew it before talking to them; the youthful twenty-something face peeking through a long gnarly beard gave it away. “How long have you been on the trail?” I asked.
“Three months,” the beard said.
“Ah, I thought you might be thru-hikers.”
They began their journey at Mount Katahdin in Maine and would put one foot in front of the other until they reached Springer Mountain in Georgia. It was easy to see he didn’t want to stop long to chat. It had been several days since they have seen a camp store and seemed frustrated because of that. Stopping them to ask questions didn't help. I assured them they would get to one tomorrow.
The girl gave me their blog address so I could follow their progress. He glared at her with eyes that seemed to say, “Are you crazy? We don’t know this potentially murderous jackass.” So, I wished them luck and went on my way. I envied their journey like most people envy the rich. If a week in the woods can transform me as it has, what would 25 weeks do?
They reached the summit of Springer Mountain two months later and 2,178 miles from where they began.
Going from trail, to car, to road, and thus officially ending my trip, happened too quickly. I had been thrust back into my normal life in an instant. There wasn’t a sense of finality, no feeling that I had finished my task, and yet, here I was heading home. It was still nice to be off my knee and warm, but much of that gladness faded when passing the park sign thanking me for my visit.
Pulling out on the highway made me feel like the man being air rescued, in every book or movie about a solitary person getting stranded on a deserted island. He thought it would be great to head back to the comfort and safety of civilization, but realizes he’s grown attached to the wilderness and part of him misses it already.
Just then an enormous black bear barreled out of the woods a safe distance in front of my car. I had never seen one moving at full speed like that. Here was confirmation that there would be no outrunning one if I ever tried, no photo finish, not even close. In a few seconds, it galloped across four lanes of highway, then disappeared into the woods on the other side.
Clearly that wild world I was leaving would carry on just fine without me, but I didn’t want it to have to. Not only was I not ready to leave the gratifying and uncomplicated life on the trail, I mostly wasn’t ready to stop being the person I became while out there. I wasn’t only leaving the wilderness behind, but the version of myself that I like the most. The version of me that is imperviously happy and contented to simply wander and wonder. It is increasingly difficult after every trip, to return to the routine and maintain any resemblance to that backpacking frame of mind.
A few days later, I walked out of the factory where I work. When I pushed the door open I felt cold crisp air and began to breathe it in like so many mornings in Shenandoah, but soon noticed it blend with the smell of heat, burning resin, and wire that wafted out of ventilation ducts. It wasn’t the satisfying deep breath I, for some reason, was expecting.
I walked down the long straight parking lot edged with cars. On my right, a large flock of birds were gathered in the grass. They scattered when I got near them. Dozens of black birds soared through the air like they shared one mind. I felt an instant desire to join them. My heart rate increased. I was ready to be wild like them once again. To take off my uncomfortable shoes and run into the nearest woods, and, as Thoreau said, “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." The feeling pushed at my chest.
I need to be in the wilderness, I thought, away from the murmur and clang of an active factory floor and the monotony of my everyday life.
Soon, and as it always does, the strength of that feeling started to drift away like dandelion spores. I fully returned to my old self. At some point I decided my life is going pretty good, and it truly is, as good as it has ever been actually. Good enough to not risk it with a major change? As I write this I’m still uncertain of the answer to that question, but I continue to have this longing that a couple of weeks on the trail per year can’t pacify. Will I ever gain the courage to embark on my own 2,178 mile adventure?I watch as my time on earth slowly collects like gathering droplets of water. The seconds accumulate like insignificant raindrops on leaves, which pour into puddles of minutes, and flood into hour-filled lakes. The years flow downstream like rivers carving the landscape. Some rivers simply erode. Some flow underground forever unseen. But some create grand canyons that endure for ages and inspire long after they’re gone. Is my time better spent in contentment and safety or with the risk of adventure? How do I want my river to flow before it quietly drifts into that eternally endless ocean?
There are many questions I wish I knew how to answer, but as I reflect on that autumn week in Shenandoah and those daily escalations of joy, introspection, and wonder, there is one revelation that I have had. John Muir was right: a week in the woods is not enough.Go to Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
-RG
See all my posted photos from this trip
A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.