Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (17 page)

“Hey, what about here,” I said pointing to an open spot just off the trail.

“Do you think this is far enough?’ Carlos said.

“Yes,” I answered. “That was a neighborhood bear. He hangs out in that swampy area.”

“I’m cowboy camping,” he immediately announced. “I want to be able to hear him if he shows up again.”

Those who say you can fall in love at first sight are right, after all. I can tell you the minute I fell in love on the PCT.

It was the morning after the chilling bear encounter; Carlos and Gabe had hardly slept a wink.

“I’m not spending another night out here without my bear canister,” Carlos had announced. The two of them blasted off to hike the remaining forty miles to Kennedy Meadows, where our bear canisters were waiting.

I was hiking alone and in a fragile frame of mind, myself. Obviously, I hadn’t gotten the water I had hoped for last night at Joshua Tree Spring. Then, this morning I had passed the first branch of Spanish Needle Creek which was soggy, but not running. I wasn’t desperately low on water, but I was worried. It was now the middle of June and boiling hot.

One of the things I found most eerie about the whole desert experience was that there were virtually no section hikers. The only people out here were PCT thru-hikers. It was almost like the only reason a person would be walking through here is because he or she had to be; anybody else would have to be crazy. However, I began to hear the murmur of human voices. It was a group of six very senior citizens heading southbound.

After swapping salutations, I quickly popped the question. “Is there any water up ahead?”

“Yes,” answered a tall, thin male who appeared to be well into his seventies. “just before the left turn in about a half-mile, you will see a steady trickle up to your right. Get all you need there because there isn’t any more for about twenty miles.”

“Just what I needed to know,” I said. “By the way, are you planning to get water at Joshua Tree Spring?”

“Yes, we’re gonna’ camp there tonight,” he said.

“Well,” I hesitated. “You might want to reconsider. A bear ran me and two other guys out of there last night at dark.”

“Last night?” a minute-sized, elderly lady confirmed. “At Joshua Tree Spring.”

“Yeah, my guidebook actually said the bear lived there, so if you camp there he’s bound to turn up again.” They looked around at each other with an odd sigh, here or there.

“Well, we’ll figure out somewhere else to camp,” the tall guy said stoically.

With that they all trudged wearily on.

The reason I immediately felt myself shot through with Cupid’s arrow probably had to do with having lived in Florida the previous two years and, before that, working in a retirement home in Columbus, Georgia. From what I had seen, the primary trend for retirees is towards passivity and hostility to the unfamiliar. It’s just human nature. This group could have been down in Florida or Arizona clipping coupons and complaining about the stock market. Instead, they had carved out a trail section that was plenty ambitious for them, and were going about it with their own brand of flair. Section hikers often get over-shadowed by flashier, more egocentric thru-hikers. But the more of them I see, the more impressed I’ve become of the equally worthy nature of their challenges.

Excitement was pulsing through the trail as we neared the critical mile 703 point. There, of course, the landscape would dramatically change. All kinds of rumors were flying around about the critical variant—the snowpack levels in the High Sierra. But then I ran into Chopper and Savior.

“We’re out of food,” Chopper said.
Out of food. We’re still thirty miles from Kennedy Meadows. There is nothing between here and there.
What more, he said it in a conversational manner.

Chopper and Savior were, of course, the two brothers who had run out of water the first day on the trail, at which point Chopper had been helicoptered out after hitting his SPOT button.
Murphy’s Law
seemed to literally stalk them. All along the way I had been hearing about their mishaps and exploits. Now I had come upon them lying off to the side of the trail and spontaneously decided to take my lunch break right there. Bad decision.

I’m embarrassed to say I hesitated before deciding what to do. Of course, there is no real decision here. Besides, I was planning to make it to Kennedy Meadows in about 28 hours, and estimated I had two days worth of food. So I judiciously ladled out a few food items to each one. The way they said thanks reminded me of a politician seeking votes. They were good at this.

We all ate some lunch, and began hiking along together. They were really quite colorful, and seemingly very knowledgeable on all manner of outdoor topics. I walked along listening respectfully.

Then we came upon one of the most popular people on the trail,
Attila.
He was a scrawny little fellow with a dark-black ayatollah beard, and a lightning quick hiker. Attila had just completed his doctorate in hydrology. I loved listening to him converse on a variety of water issues. What made him especially popular though, was the large bong packed away in his backpack. It was named after Attila the Hun, because of all the punishment it meted out.

Attila had been loading up his bong when Chopper, Savior, and I approached.

“Skywalker,” Attila offered in a good-natured manner.

“Thank you,” I laughed. “But hiking is difficult enough as it is.”

Chopper and Savior weren’t daunted one bit, however. Ten minutes later they lay with their heads on their backpacks, and minds back in the Stone Age. Next came a ravenous case of the munchies, as Chopper and Savior tore through every morsel of food I had just given them a couple hours ago. Reluctantly, I parceled out a few more spare items to them. Then, I quickly headed off alone, to protect my remaining food!

I was thinking about camping at Fox Mill Spring, tonight. However, the closer and closer we were getting to the mountains, the more moist areas were appearing. The swampy spring area here reminded me almost exactly of Joshua Tree Spring last night. Worried that I might again have the same hungry company as the previous evening if I camped here, I continued on.

Soon I was back in a more desert-looking area. At dark, I found a place to pitch my tent between some chapparal bushes for my last night in the desert. It was a typical spartan desert setting. However, in the middle of the night I heard a loud, spine-tingling screech, perhaps a hundred yards away. Then another shriek.
Cougar.

I wasn’t about to stick my head out of my tent. Instead, I lay inside paying rapt attention. However, I did hear footsteps of something running down the hill; in fact, it was running much faster than anything I’d ever heard. Blood-curdling screeches continued all the way down into the valley. Assuming it was a cougar, its screeches might have been to terrify the competition and establish territory. Or perhaps it was just thirsty and running down the hill for a midnight drink of water.

Like most hikers, I had both loved and hated the desert passionately. One thing was for sure, though. I was never going to forget it.

Chapter 18

Going Up

“G
ood gosh,” I said frustrated, “what good does this thing do if it protects your food from a bear, but I can’t get in the damn thing myself.”

“You can usually open it this way,” Snake Charmer patiently said. He took out a knife and pressed down on the tab. Slowly, he unscrewed the top of my bear canister. Now I had to figure out just how much food I could stuff in there. Then came the worst part—jamming the awful thing in my backpack.

“Skywalker,” Ingrid said. “Try some of these German chocolates.”

“Thanks.”

“Here Skywalker,” Laura rushed over to say. “Take these Lara bars. They cost too much to throw them away.”

“Well, if I’ve got room.”

Kennedy Meadows is a small, lonely redoubt at the foot of
the High Sierras.
Like everybody else, I had sent a food drop here because of the lack of available supplies. But if I had to do it over again, I don’t think I would send anything. Hikers had wildly over-shipped food here. People I had never seen before were trying to hand off dehydrated meals. The sad thing is that several days from now in the most remote mountainous areas, when everybody was running low on food, they would have paid a pretty penny to get this food back. But here at Kennedy Meadows they couldn’t fit it all into their bear canisters.

“Bears are a bigger part of hiking in the West than the East,” everybody kept saying. “They’re smarter and more aggressive.” Hiking trails are full of
bear experts.
From what I’d seen, though, you simply couldn’t make sweeping projections about bears. Most of them seemed to have quite different temperaments and personalities. The one three nights ago had surprised us twice; first, with its boldness, and then its inexplicable flight in fear.

These self-anointed bear experts did have one undeniably valid point, though. Because of the extreme aridity in the West, vegetation is not as dense. Since bears are 80% vegetarian, they have much less to eat. They make up for it by becoming more aggressive in trying to steal hiker food. It’s not irrational. All the plants and logs and berries bears gnaw on all day have low-calories densities. But, if they can get their paws on a hiker food bag, they can score 15,000 or 20,000 calories in a jiffy. So stealing hiker food is only rational. But given that you were often days away from an emergency bailout, it was a disquieting prospect.

Nevada
is a spanish word meaning snowy. By that translation, the state of Nevada’s name is an abomination. It is the second driest state in the United States (only Arizona is drier). On the other hand, the early Spanish explorers named this mountain range ahead, The Sierra Nevada. It means “snowy mountain range.” They got that dead right.

The annual snowfall in the Sierras is several times that of the Rockies. Some of it—a lot of it actually—never even melts. Other parts don’t melt until late July or August. This can be problematic to the point of dangerous for PCT hikers.

A couple weeks earlier, while it was raining on us in the Mojave Desert, a heavy snowstorm had hit the Sierras. The early pack of hikers into the Sierras had been forced to retrace their steps back to the safe haven of the Kennedy Meadows Campground. A lower-thanaverage snow year had now turned into an average snow year. Fair enough. When in the Sierras, hike in the snow.

The landscape immediately changed. In place of scraggly desert bushes covering a relentlessly brown and stucco landscape, we were now engulfed by lush green meadows and bursting flowers. It was a welcome change. My mood was an excitement, filled with trepidation. In fact, this day—entering the High Sierra—was a day I had been anticipating for years.