Blistered Kind Of Love (24 page)

“Rum and Coke—just can't beat it, man. Most buzz for the money. Beer can't compete, fizzy water with no kick.”

Normally I would have jumped to the defense of barley and hops, but right then I was preoccupied with the whereabouts of Wounded Knee Walker. About fifteen minutes later, as I began to re-pack my gear, she appeared, still grimacing and with a slow and deliberate limp. I was ecstatic to see her and very proud. She'd handled this better than I would have, I was sure of that. At the same time, I was afraid that this might be it; our trip could be over. Done, kaput, finito, stick a fork in us. I knew that by this stage in a thru-hiking endeavor, chronic-use injuries more than anything else forced hikers off the trail. And Angela, possibly initiated by her fall at Mono Creek, appeared to have developed a painful chronic-use injury.

Remarkably, she was in a good mood as we set up our tent in the Tuolumne Meadows Campground. Perhaps it was because she finally had an ailment that commanded my full sympathetic attention. While she rested, iced, and elevated her knee, I toured the campground looking for firewood, without much success. Instead, I discovered a fascinating fireside lecture by a park ranger on the deadly mountain carnivore, the
ochleratatus tahoensis
mosquito. I only planned on staying for a minute but was sucked in. I returned to the tent with a barrage of mosquito facts.

“Hey, Chiggy, did you know that it is only the female mosquito that bites humans?”

“Yeah, that's because we girls are dangerous,” she said, baring her choppers.

“Okay, but did you know that their saliva has both a painkiller and a blood thinner? That's why you don't always feel the bite, and that's why they can suck up a bunch of blood without it clotting. It's also why you get a bump . . . the anticoagulant proteins trigger an immune response.”

“Ohh.” She pretended to be impressed.

“And,” I said with a flourish, “the female can only lay eggs after sucking blood, and the more the better, so that's why those blood-sucking bitches will sit there with their proboscis imbedded in ya until completely full . . . if you let them, that is.”

“Gross! To think that I had all of those probe-thingees in me when we crossed Evolution Creek.”

“You think that's gross, they once did a study in the Alaskan tundra where they videotaped a man standing outside for a full minute, completely nude. They watched the tape and counted the bites. Over one million!”

“Can we talk about something else? Like you finding me some more ice for my knee?”

Later that night we were awakened by a horrible ruckus. Air-horns, shouts, a bottle rocket, and then more shouts. A cruisin' bruin! Yosemite bears are notorious campground scavengers, habituated from years and years and millions and millions of careless tourists. Nowadays, some are so bold that they will run up and grab a PB&J sandwich out of your hand in broad daylight. Wisely, we'd stored all of our food and gear in the sturdy bear lockers of Tuolumne Meadows Campground, and without food, humans are of little interest to most bears. Besides, the events of the previous summer suggested that in Yosemite, one is at greater risk from fellow humans than hungry bears.

During the summer of 1999, the brutal slayings of three Yosemite tourists and a naturalist by handyman Carl Stayner had terrified visitors to national parks throughout the country. They had terrified me as well. Bears were in many ways predictable and avoidable; wackos with internal voices urging them to kill were not.

Having made it through the night unscathed by man or beast, we greeted July Fourth without much excitement. Back home, friends were preparing for
beer-b-cues and fireworks. At Tuolumne Meadows, all we were preparing for was potential disappointment. Angela's knee felt somewhat better, and equipped with a new elastic knee brace she was able to move around. Still, a return to the trail anytime in the near future seemed unlikely. I was reminded of that ominous PCT fact—even in the best of years, only one out of four thru-hikers would make it from border to border. Were we soon to be added to the growing list of thru-hiking casualties?

Bald Eagle and Nokona, AT veterans we first met in Agua Dulce, had driven through Tuolumne the day before in a blue rental car to pick up their re-supply box. They were heading home and trying to scavenge a few important items from boxes up and down the California PCT. After being plagued by deep blisters, body-covering poison oak, toothaches, and shin splints, they'd finally thrown in the towel at Independence after Nokona developed severe altitude sickness. They both looked dejected. Nokona, wearing dark sunglasses, stood silently at a distance. Bald Eagle vowed they'd be back another year, but I wasn't convinced.

Aussie Crawl had become another victim of
The
Mountains: He was airlifted out of an area called Death Canyon with severe vertigo. Word was that he was also on his way home. There'd been no sign of Ricky Rose (although this bothered no one), and Zach hadn't been spotted since Lone Pine. Casey and Toby were still on the trail; their frequent and amusing notes in the trail registers were proof of that. In fact, we'd only missed them at Tuolumne by a few hours. But it didn't appear that we'd be catching them anytime soon.

From Tuolumne Meadows, the PCT reclaims its independence from the John Muir Trail. While the JMT continues west for twenty-seven miles to Yosemite Valley, the PCT enters a difficult but spectacular section of glacier-carved wilderness. Chris and Stacey had decided to follow the JMT to Yosemite Valley, where a ranger friend offered them an empty house and fully stocked fridge for the weekend. I'd never seen them so excited. We were excited in our own
right, but cautious. Angela's knee was feeling much better, but while I wondered whether this was because it was completely numb from forty-eight hours of icing, she was anxious to test it on the trail. This was risky. We didn't have another re-supply scheduled until Echo Lake, 150 miles and at least six days away. We struggled with the decision, recognizing the risk, but one does not finish the PCT by being risk-averse. So we decided to set off again toward Canada, knowing that at any moment we might be forced to turn back.

Our first stop was at Soda Springs, where carbonated spring water actually bubbles from the ground. Mixed with Tang, this minor miracle of nature made for a delicious trail soda. Our first six miles out of Tuolumne were easy walking. The only disadvantage of the gentle grade was that it allowed for a large collection of sun-hat and white tenny-clad tourists. After months of solitude on the trail, their presence made me feel like I was in a shopping mall rather than protected wilderness. And given our hulking packs and trekking poles, I wasn't so sure that we ourselves weren't part of the attraction. Catch-23 wrote about this phenomenon in his trail memoir:

“All day we got inquisitive looks from Japanese tourists and old people in motor homes; it was pretty funny, being a tourist attraction and all. We joked about tour bus narrators giving a speech over the intercom: ‘Ok folks, if you be real quiet we might just catch a glimpse of The Western Long Distance Hiker, they're known to frequent these parts. Let's try their mating call,
Buffet! Buffet! All you can eat!
Look folks! There's one now on the left side of the coach. Excuse me, sir, in the back, please do not feed the distance hiker.' ”

After passing Glen Aulin, the trail reverted to its familiar roller coaster pattern and the tourists were suddenly, magically, gone. Even though we'd started well after ten in the morning, we covered nearly twenty miles that day with nary a whimper from the Wounded Knee Walker. Miraculously, over the next several days, Angela's knee remained relatively pain free, and we made good progress toward Sonora Pass. On July 7 we crossed a steel bridge over the West Walker River and continued several miles to Kennedy Canyon. This was just another small stretch in a thirteen-hour hiking day, but it contained an important landmark: one thousand trail miles, Campo to
Kennedy Canyon. I recalled the words of Fish at Mono Creek, “Once you've made it a thousand miles, that's it, you're done. You've made it. Nothing will stop you.” I didn't feel that we had quite “made it,” but the sense of accomplishment was palpable. Somewhere out there Meadow Ed was scratching his bald head; he'd lost his bet on us weeks ago.

The next morning I was up before seven, creating a photo op by drawing a large 1-0-0-0 in the dirt in front of our tent. I was about to snap the shot when the Moaks, Fallingwater and Drip, came charging by, waving cheerfully. This had become a morning ritual ever since we'd left Tuolumne. Fallingwater (city name Ron) and Drip (city name Brandon) were a father and son duo that we'd met at Kennedy Meadows. Fallingwater, a distant veteran of the AT, was, after a prolonged battle with cancer (somewhere in his back) and years of desk-side atrophy, engaging in a Bill Bryson-esque attempt at youthful revival. Drip, sixteen, was joining his dad for part of the trail while on summer vacation.

Fallingwater had a rough time in Southern California—he struggled with excess waistline and painful blisters—but by the time Drip joined him, he'd shed some weight and rediscovered his long-lost trail legs. Now, this father and son team was flying. For the past few days we'd been playing leapfrog with the Moaks. They would whiz by us at an ungodly hour of the morning while I was still wrapped in a cocoon of all available clothing. Later in the day, though, we would inevitably find them resting up against some rocks, cooking or lounging with their diaries. On we would plow, hiking until near darkness, leaving ourselves just enough time to set up camp before the night sky became complete.

From Kennedy Canyon we climbed up over exposed slopes toward the crest above Sonora Pass, passing into and out of the Emigrant Wilderness. The change in mountain landscape was striking: We were now on the volcanic slopes of the Northern Sierra. Glacier-carved, glowing-white granite walls were replaced by gentler but more barren brownish-black slopes. Winds blasted
us from the west as we walked the panoramic crest alongside Leavitt Peak. We could see the Moaks several hundred yards ahead of us, also buffeted by wind.

The 1,200-foot vertical descent to Sonora Pass and Highway 108 was initially steep and snowbound. Deep steps were already in place, but it was slow going. Soon, the trail became a meandering series of switchbacks through groves of lodgepole pine—twisted and turned like tree Gumbys. From above I could see the Moaks taking the turn of a long switchback. Directly ahead of me was a split in the trail with a less-established tread heading due north. It looked, smelled, and tasted like a perfect shortcut. I have to admit it; I'd grown to relish shortcuts, especially if they involved cutting switchbacks. Cutting a switchback could be pretty exhilarating sometimes.

I know what you're thinking—that this is a violation of trail ethics—and you're right. But on some occasions, I just couldn't understand the utility of the switchbacks we encountered. Recently, the trail had led us on numerous switchbacks across pure granite slabs—the only trail markings being stones placed in curves across the rock. I'd often cut across these curves, figuring that my steps posed no real threat of erosion. I suppose that over millions of years we hikers could wear down those granite slabs, but by then a big old McDonalds will be sitting there anyway.

There was certainly no threat of erosion at this junction; ahead lay a direct and defined alternative trail. “Ahh,” I thought, “we'll beat those Moaks to Sonora Pass.” So down the path I went, and Angela, not really paying attention, followed along. Soon our “shortcut” steepened, and we were standing on top of a precipitous 100-foot glacierlike snowfield. Straight ahead the snow pack leveled where it met a flat volcanic ridge, but to the left it continued down a steep canyon. It looked like we'd have to glissade down.

Well, Angela didn't like this suggestion, not one bit; her nose wrinkled and her eyes tightened as they often did whenever we discussed an alternative route. Ever since we'd taken that misdirected and adventurous path from the Kern River to the Olancha Pass Trail, she'd suffered from a severe allergy to my creative shortcuts. But I was not to be denied and slid rapidly down the snowfield. It was quick and fun, like a cheap amusement-park ride, and I hit
the lip straight on, gliding to a stop well before a collection of rocks. It seemed easy enough, so I gave Angela the “okay” sign and shouted lots of encouragement. It occurred to me that an ice axe would be a useful adjunct to this slide, but since we'd just sent them home from Tuolumne Meadows, that wasn't an option.