Day 63: Mile 750.8 - 760.5
Another short day but there are reasons!
So last night I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed my butt was cold. And that was because it was touching the ground. But there's a sleeping pad between you and the ground you say. Yes, but it had deflated. Hmm, had it had sprung a leak? Well, I tried listening around the pad for a hiss but heard nothing, and I was tired, so I blew it back up and went back to sleep. And I would wake a second time, this time with my hip on the ground (I was side-sleeping), rinse wash repeat, but when morning came, I was pretty sure my sleeping pad had a hole in it. Well, nuts. I could fix it--I had a patch kit--but I knew I couldn't find the leak visually (I tried) or audibly (I tried). But luckily, I was camped next to a lake! So when the sun came up and things got warm, I took my sleeping pad and dunked it in the lake, looking for the stream of bubbles. And after some finagling (dunking a sleeping pad in any body of water, let alone while crouched on a rock on the shore of a lake, is harder than you think) I did manage to find a hole. I took the pad back, laid it out on a large flat-topped boulder, dried it out, then applied the patch kit. Then blew it up, put my gear on it, and waited. It seemed to hold up, so I'm hoping there was only a single hole and I caught it. But the real test will be tonight!
But the sleeping pad repair did mean that I was late getting on trail. Originally, I had hoped to get to the Crabtree Meadows Ranger Station today, then try to summit Whitney tomorrow. But the late start precluded that: I slower here at elevation--especially on climbs, even mild ones--and didn't make it to Crabtree Meadows. But that's ok: it'll be an easy hike (< 10 miles) to Crabtree Meadows tomorrow, I'll try to get in earlier, rest up, and maybe even consider heading up around midnight to see the sunrise from the top of Whitney.
Ah, best laid plans...
To continue the litany of not-so-goods: yesterday I had heard rumbling overhead and thought it might be planes and jets flying over. Well, today in the afternoon, there was rumbling again and it was clearly thunderstorms. For much of the day they were at least over there, the next range over, but after I made camp, they moseyed to where I was and I got rained on. Not a soaking rain, but a passing rain--albeit with full lightning and at least one concussive peal of thunder!--which I spent standing under a tree. But it was a big shift: from a morning when I was overheating in my tent as I applied the sleeping pad repair, to a late afternoon sheltering from a passing thunderstorm--I guess I've seen the scenery change rather dramatically over the course of a day, should I be surprised if the weather does too?
So that's, what, three strikes? That's an out, right?
But check this.
Today I met Tim and Emily, a father-daughter duo hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT). They're doing it south-to-north (i.e., against the traditional grain), and they came up early (the JMT starts at Whitney, which is still north of here) to acclimate and to get some trail legs in. I saw them at the turnoff to the Rock Creek Ranger Station, asked if they'd seen Cookie (who I'd had lunch with, but we'd separated after that) (which is perfectly normal out here: PCT hikers will often separate while hiking then reconvene at meal spots and camp spots)--they hadn't--then got to talking with them. We ended up camping in the same place, or rather they camped here and then I elected to join them (after asking permission, of course), and we talked through the rain, and then over dinner, and then some more after that.
Background: Tim's a physician (although he took a very non-traditional route to get there, worked other jobs before, went to med school late), Emily has a variety of jobs revolving around teaching dance and arranging choreography (mostly for musicals and theater). Tim's been hiking in the Sierras for, gosh, 50 years now, and clearly knows these mountains. For example, when it started raining, I promptly set up my tent. They didn't: they promptly started making dinner. When I asked, Tim said, well, this is a storm, not a front, so it's going to pass over soon. And it did: it lasted maybe an hour or so and then, under dry skies, they set up their tent. See?: knowledge! But he did find the storm strange. Afternoons storms are common, he said, but in August, not in June. In June there should be snow on the ground, daytime temps should be in the 50-60s, and nighttime temps should in the 20-30s: I should be seeing my breath in the morning and pulling on all my layers, he said. But there isn't any snow, and temps are closer to 70-80 in the daytime, and 50 at night. *This* weather, *this* is more like August, he said, with the higher temps and especially the afternoon storms. All he could surmise was that it must be so hot--probably in the 80s--down in the desert tonight, in order to churn up a storm like this. I know, Emily pitched in, and added how, on their way in, it had been unsettling to see the headwaters of so many streams dry; in fact, they had been been worried about there being no water down here at Rock Creek. And the meadows!, Emily said, the meadows are all supposed to be green, with wildflowers in full bloom. But the meadows now are patchwork, scantly flowered, and dry, just dry.
We would talk about a lot of stuff, lots of hiking stuff, gear and philosophy (the classic robust vs ultralight debate, for example), but at one point we got to talking about the PCT and how its style differs from what they're doing. So Tim and Emily are hiking the JMT, sure, but they're taking their time, allowing themselves to wander off wherever they please, go at whatever pace they desire. Their only set date is July 14, where they have a date (i.e., a permit) with the cables on Half Dome, but other than that, they're free to go as they please. And I also thought of Steve back at Kennedy Meadows, who was basically taking a week, maybe a week and a half, and exploring the region around there, driving out to trailheads, going on day hikes, maybe a 2-3 camping trip for farther spots. Contrast that to the PCT, where I'm tromping along a set route, barely aware of what peaks and valleys I'm passing, just aware of that 3-foot wide trail and maybe 10-feet to either side. And where I'm ot free to do as I please, but fighting hard for miles, and always unimpressed--if not nervous--when the day's final numbers come in. Both of their approaches are more exploratory, and both of their approaches actually lead to knowledge of the land. And, as I think about, both of their approaches are what I really want to do. The PCT is the grand tour, as I explained to Tim, you go through and see all these things, but it's like you're doing so out the window of a bus (albeit one you're driving yourself because the bus *is* you) (and at this point the analogy is falling apart). And you see the highlights, and you remember them, but you can't really string them together into a land per se. But what I really want is to know the *land*. What I really want is not the grand tour, but just to spend a week or two at the local place, nondescript, just living and doing the normal things. And slowly coming to know. As as Tim pointed out, that's the problem with linear goals like the PCT: they don't allow for that sort of slow, almost subconscious, learning. Instead they're all about driving to an objective, and maximizing progress, and putting on blinders to anything that distracts from that goal. And, honestly, that's not what I want--I want the time to explore, the time to wander, the time to be ordinary and in the breath of a place, the time to be taken by some mad impulse and indulge and find the unknown details of a place. I want the chance to come to know a place by the slow way: by being in that place, at its pace, by its ways. But the PCT isn't the place for such things--such ephemera don't push you towards Canada, don't drive to the goal posts, and if they do happen it's more by unintentional accident or in intentional defiance, rather than by the natural and fitting way of things. They're anciliary benefits, rather than the main benefit, and as good as they might be, always leave you wondering if maybe you'd have been better served sticking to the main benefit.
So as Tim said, the PCT is a linear goal, with all the caveats and problems that come with such things. And as I'm realizing, what I want isn't a linear goal, what I wanted was a nonlinear wandering with time to stop and think. And this trail, as vaunted and seemingly long as it might be, as much as you might think it will give time to wonder and think, in the end, might be more akin to the rat-race I left, than the reflective solitude I sought, after all.
-- Chicken Spring Lake > Siberian Pass Junction > Rock Creek Ranger Station > Rock Creek Camp
-- Emily has as brother who designs games, but is completely uninterested in the outdoors. (Luckily for Tim, Emily was.) He's nice enough to come up to Kearsarge to help them resupply in a bit, though. Oh, and there's a mom, but while she agrees with Tim philosophically, and feels it's good for him to get out here, she can't join in physically unfortunately.
-- Tim did say that it's good to be out here and to be reminded that the world is bigger than the one we construct in our everyday lives. And to be subject to rules we can't argue with. The wilderness doesn't care at all who you are, it just does things its way, and you're stuck with it whether you like it or not. I did add my two cents, which is that after you realize that, you also realize that the world of our everyday lives, that world is *still* subject to the rules of the wilderness, of nature, even though it may think itself above that. In the end, we're all in this bigger world, and we're all subject to its rules, and though we may build civilization and society and structure to distract us from that fact, it's all just burying our heads in the sand. In the end, you're subject to the world whether you like it--or know it--or acknowledge it--or believe it--or not.
-- Another topic I discussed with Tim was the hierarchy of hikers, how thru-hikers are considered above section-hikers are considered above day-hikers. Which is fine: hierarchy seems to arises naturally in human socieities: every society seems to have it. But where it becomes troublesome, I said, is when elitism kicks in, and that hierarchy becomes the basis for an us-vs-them mentality. And it's not even that "us" is superior and "them" is inferior, it's more that "us" is in and included, and "them" is out and excluded and, honestly, not even thought about. Because this latter mentality goes against what I think is one of the major teachings of FBCP under John Jay's tenure, which is this: the tent is bigger than you think. More people are "in" than you think, and more people *should* be "in" than you think. This topic had come up indirectly in my discussions with Mark as we descended from North Fork to Acton KOA, but here it came up directly. And Tim agreed: the hierarchy is natural, nothing to be done about that, but the elitism, that should be resisted.
-- Oh, and Tim did give recommendations about things to see in the Sierras, things he likes. I do have them written down, but I won't write them here. He's very jealous about these places, likes them and wants to preserve them--Tim also feels that dichotomy of wanting to show people things, but then fearing that places are so readily ruined by people, especially when there's a lot of them--so I'll keep them in my personal notes, but not on this public blog.
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