As I take this last rest day of my journey, I thought I should return to some of the open problems I’ve brought up at various points in the story so far. In case you’ve been biting you nails (don’t! Bad habit!), here is a little bit of sweet resolution.
1. Sleep: vastly improved over that strange restless stretch the third week out. However, I never was able to fix my ground pad leak. The hole is too small to find, even after submerging the pad in a tub of water last week in Lone Pine. So I reinflate it every night, but it’s become routine enough that I barely wake up to do so.
2. MP3 player: I turned it on the day after I accidentally submerged it while washing washing lake goo off my pants. It turned on and has had no problems. As I said, I don’t use it often, but when I do I’ve been listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcasts and they are amazing. I can’t help but feel that in the forward-leaning, fast-moving, deeply-confusing, saddening, and maddening times we live in, history is more important than ever.
3. Animals: not exactly a cliff hanger, but I get asked this a lot. It turns out that many animals, like people, prefer lower elevations and gentler terrain than many of the places I’ve been. I have seen no bears at all on this trip, who I think prefer to hang out with the backpackers in the well-used JMT campsites. I have seen many deer. No Bighorn Sheep despite traveling through quite a lot of their protected habitat. I saw a bobcat. Birds and fish. A flash of something that looked like a weasel with a stubby, black-tipped tail. Either a very large fox or a golden coyote. And many rock-loving rodents. The marmots in particular have become dear to me over the last month. They remind me of my goat Myshkin, I think because they are very fat and he is very fat too. Something in the way they waddle-run is tender and honest.
Myshkin, kin to fat animals everywhere.
4. People: the animal I’ve seen most of. I was asked before starting this hike if I would see other people very often. I wasn’t sure, but thought that when I was off trail I wouldn’t much. It turns out that only one day on the last thirty have I encountered no other people, and that was on Day 6 or so when I crossed Glacier Pass on the shoulder of Mt Banner. Even that day, I did see a party of climbers far far below me, little specks on the landscape. Otherwise, I have crossed paths with and I think exchanged words with at least one person every day on this trip so far.
5. Solitude: even with all those people, I have felt an abundance of isolation. Doing a hike like this solo is, to my mind, almost incomparably different than doing it with another person. Companionship changes everything, from decision making to feelings of safety. I find having a partner tends the mute the waves of emotional variation which can be somewhat savaging and heart-opening when traveling solo. But therein lie the riches: plumbing those depths of isolation draws me into these trips to begin with.
6. Fear: I’m also asked about this a lot. You’re doing this by yourself? people ask incredulously. But aren’t you afraid? All The Time, I answer. All The Time. Coexisting with fear is part of the research. Some days it consumes me, swallows me whole like Jonah and the Whale, and some days it and I walk along together amiably and I think of its voice as one of a friend for whom I feel love but differentiation.
I had a simple day today Around 7 I hitched 15 miles south to Lone Pine so I could get breakfast, and stayed there until after lunch. I lingered in the park and watched the steady stream of vehicles pulling trailers piled with fantastical objects, all of it covered in playa dust, of Burning Man attendees heading home. I was struck by the reminder that there are many journeys people take to enrich their lives. Riches are to be found anywhere one might choose to look.
After lunch and picking up some groceries and a sandwich to go, I hitched back up to Independence. Tomorrow I’ll head out early and begin this last stretch of my trip. I’m excited, and also lightly vigilant about some crossings, both of mountains and of rivers, that I think might be challenging. In any case, you can expect to hear from me on September 16 or September 17.
Self Portrait #4: my shadow across the four USGS quads I used in the last section, just before mailing them home.
Lounging in the park in Lone Pine.
Lying down and watching tv. As I said, there are riches to be found everywhere.
Leave a Reply