music: Spanish Pop Covers at the Cafe International, San Francisco
If we are lucky enough to live to age 80, we have 960 months of life to fill. Most of them are split minimum 5:2 with school or work. There’s a good run at the start where you spend a lot of time drooling and sleeping. On the whole, though, of these 960 hypothetical months that we are given to fill we rarely spend even one doing one thing, especially one thing that we want to do. I chose to spend one of my months of life walking in the mountains, and it was a solid month of walking. From July 18 until August 16 I found myself once again with a big green backpack, but this time strolling through one of the largest roadless stretches in the continental United States. By the end, I had walked an estimated 280-300 miles, had risen 36,000’ and had descended 40,000’. And now I can say that I am a thru-hiker alumnus. I’ve completed the High Sierra Trail and John Muir Trail in succession.
I’d like to say that the whole thing was pure, unadulterated glory. Certainly there were moments of transcendence and beauty such that I have not encountered in my previous 332 months of life, but there were also moments of pain and agony. It’s tough business carrying a pack through the mountains, and doing it every single day for 29 days. My pack, I estimate, weighed anywhere from 30-55 lbs. depending on how much food we had. The first couple days left me completely spent and hurting while I built up the callouses on my hips and the muscles in my shoulders and back. Ibuprofen was part of my hardly-balanced breakfast. On day 6, in a mad dash down Mt. Whitney, I tweaked my left ankle something fierce and endured shooting pains up and down my leg for the next 6 or so days. The nights were cold; it dropped below freezing frequently when we camped above 10,500’. It rained every day for the first eight days, something that any sierra hiker would swear their life against happening. The mosquitos swarmed in plagues of biblical proportions. This was an encounter with Nature in its most raw, primitive, and uncaring state. Natural paradise has no concerns about your comfort or well-being. I learned that quickly. But there were also moments of indescribable beauty, and they were plentiful.
The journey was, in very simple terms, a long walk. So while the sightseeing afforded to us by alpine lakes and mountain passes was the reason why we decided to walk where we did, the walking itself took center stage. Have I ever done anything so physical for so long and for so many days in a row? Probably not. After my body stopped rebelling and settled into the reality of 10 or so miles up and down every single day walking became less some necessary painful experience required to get to the next campsite and more something that would induce a very quiet meditative state. Meditation is often depicted as a sitting affair, but there are also forms of meditation in which the practitioner walks. And walks. And walks. And walk I did. By the second week the struggle of walking subsided. Uphills became less arduous, downhills less jarring. Speed gave way to rhythm. I had so long to walk that there was no sense in being in a rush. In some great paradox time passed more quickly because of it. I found that my thoughts slowed and for a few short moments I reached moments of what buddhists would call something like “clear mind” or taoists would call “not-thinking.” And when I came to I found myself in some of the most amazing natural scenery that I’ve had the fortune to see.
The High Sierras themselves are dynamic. The path led us through high mountain zones that looked like what I’d imagine the moon to look like, and down into small glades bursting with plants and greenery. There were waterfalls and quiet lakes, trees literally older than Jesus, and scenic vistas around almost every turn. The JMT is called the most scenic trail in the country, and that could very well be possible, considering how long it is and how it just doesn’t stop being positive (although there’s a couple shorter trails in Utah and Hawaii that could possibly give it a run for its money in terms of raw wonder). That I find myself so close to the Sierras out here is a huge plus; Yosemite has replaced Franconia Notch as my weekend warrior destination.
And Yosemite is something to behold. While Sequoia and King’s Canyon are enormous in scope with ranges of jagged spires in all directions, Yosemite is rounded and polished, mellower, but not any smaller. The trip ended with a sunrise ascent of Half Dome and a subsequent mile descent into Yosemite Valley. Then motorized travel back to civilization proper, replete with fast food burgers, beer, ice cream, and other tasty food that doesn’t have to be rehydrated. I admittedly missed some food (and after 2 weeks even my food cravings diminished), but other than that I didn’t miss much about city living. And I was out for long enough time to get it all out of my system that it now seems foreign and slightly abrasive to me as I scurry about San Francisco and Oakland trying to find a new place to live. Maybe I shouldn’t habituate to the smell of rotting garbage, car horns, mobs of people packed into buses. But maybe it’s unavoidable. I could only make this hike happen because of civilization, having done it all with my fancy camping trinkets and gadgets and plastic clothes and inflatable lightweight mattress and dehydrated meals and water treatment system. By most people’s standards, one month of life spent walking the John Muir Trail is something unfathomable. But consider John Muir himself, spending not one month but upwards of 50 years walking through the High Sierras with nothing more than a blanket, some tea, some salted pork, the clothes on his back, and the shoes on his feet. That’s a Wisconsin Boy done good out West.
After spending one glorious month of my life hiking the trail named after him, I guess it’s time to see how I do out here.
Posted by davidtaus at August 22, 2006 08:05 PM | TrackBack