CROSSING THE DESERT

DAY 12 - August 19, 2010: They lied

There is a poignancy in all things clear,
In the stare of the deer, in the ring of a hammer in the morning.
Seeing a bucket of perfectly lucid water
We fall to imagining prodigious honesties.
—from “Clearness” by Richard Wilbur

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, again appeared at my tent door there at Palisade Lakes, I was ready. At least I thought I was . . . those tough hiker dudes yesterday had pointed to a low ridge, that was Mather Pass, the 12,100 footer I was to cross this morning, right?

NOT! They’d lied. Or, more likely, I had not understood their lovely words. Anyhow it was a LOT higher and further off than the ridge I’d though they meant. To think they’d lied gave me a nice object for my displeasure at finding out Mather was a toughie. OK, OK,I know, it’s my fault for doing the wishful thinking.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad, just kinda long. There was just one section that was really, really steep. I took it slow, as usual, and just kept pumping, didn’t stop often. Hyperventilating helped, I discovered. My legs needed more and more oxygen, and that heavy breathing was helping get it there. I was keeping a pretty decent pace: a couple of teenagers passed me, but the dads and cousin that were with them didn’t. This party and I would be leapfrogging each other quite a bit over the next few hours. They were just on a loop of several days, not going to Whitney.

About halfway up I heard someone coming up behind me, and turned to look. It was an absolutely gorgeous young lady, her face and figure would have suited a Parisian model. I stepped aside in admiration as she zoomed by. Had a full pack, was not using hiking poles, a water bottle just hooked around and dangling from her little finger, just striding up these switchbacks as nonchalant as if she were just out for a morning stroll in Golden Gate Park.

The view of the other side was very different the other day coming down from Muir Pass into LeConte Canyon, expansive rather than narrow and cramped. We were looking down into the broad upper basin of the Kings River. It appeared to be a kind of high desert, but spotted with bright blue lakes. In the distance, high-hanging forested valleys could be seen among the peaks. (You've just gotta click on the picture, it's a startling view).


There were several groups of hikers resting at the top, including the female hiking phenom. It turned out she was actually a Kings Canyon park ranger, wearing an official Park Service shirt and patch.

This was a long hike. The Kings River Basin goes on and on, I found out, five or six never-ending miles of that high desert, sagebrush and dust before ducking down below timber line, and then it would go down fast, to 9600 feet before crossing the Kings River and going up, up again to 11,000, about eleven miles in all. Step, step, step, step, on and on. Becomes a mantra, becomes many mantras. Helps you see nothing, or helps you see and hear the Great Spirit, depending on how you look at it or what you call it. But I was never sure what I was seeing, exactly. Was this a world Where truths fell from the steeples like a jackpot of dimes ?

Sometimes felt like it. What truths? Or was it Thule of the mind’s worst vanity? All the same Wilbur poem, one of my favorites, checkitout.

See, either getting punchy or getting mystical these last days, alone. Some contact with other groups, but almost all the time it’s been just me alone with the rhythm of my walking and breathing, and my thoughts. This feels both good and bad. It’s good in the way the practice of meditation is good: the confused thoughts of the mind simplify and drift off, and creates a kind of peace. It’s also bad in the way the practice of meditation is bad: it’s painful and boring. The challenge is to get the right frame of mind, to really appreciate the moment, to not be bored, and not see the pain as bad. I’m doing this to get some kind of lesson, obviously, and this is a good one, if it takes. What the heck, I’ve never been to boot camp, or lived the monastic life, maybe this makes up a little bit for that.

And did you think the weird dreaming was over? Sorry, no. Last night at Palisade Lake my dream world took me back to Monterey Ave. in Berkeley, a neighborhood where I lived in my freshman year at Cal. Some of the real estate ladies from yesterday and I, and, oh, yes, Dianne Feinstein, were all moving into a large rental house together. I remember addressing the Senator as “Mrs. Feinstein,” or “Senator Feinstein,” and her saying, “please just call me by my first name, the way my dad used to call me, “Denti.”

Took a long break at the river crossing. In front of me stood a weirdly twisting tall stump of a long-gone tree: you could imagine it was in the form of a wiry person, leaning forward. Some joker had put a rock on what looked like the top of a left arm, so the whole apparition looked like an abstract statue of a lefty putting the shot.

Going up the climb to the Bench Lake trail junction I again had endurance problems, was very slow and took a lot of breaks. But I was realizing that style eventually gets you to the top anyway. The disadvantages were 1) loss of time and 2) bruised self-image. No matter, today I’d get further than my original goal, and be ready for Pinchot pass tomorrow, the second 12,000-foot pass in as many days. “What a concept,” thought my legs and lungs. Look at the picture, you can see how tiringly far the old body with the house on its back dragged itself today. Scary. But I’m realizing, yes, it may look far, or look high, but, by golly whillikers, it doesn’t have to be intimidating. You can actually go that far and that high. The impossibly distant is actually attainable. This is another lesson from the Great Spirit.

Pulled into Marjorie Lake, I was feelin' 'bout half-past dead, at around 4:30, not bad. Beautiful little lake, and Pinchot was only about as far ahead and up as Mather had been this morning. Hope it’s easier, but that’s probably too much to hope for.

As I was about to crash, a couple of guys pulled in and camped nearby. Talked briefly, we came the same distance today. “I’m old, so I move kinda slow,” said the one guy. “Aha, how old?” sez I. “69,” he replied. Wow, got me beat! No records to be made here, except for a personal best.

Next Entry: two in a row

TO THE DREAMY PALISADES

DAY 11 - August 18, 2010: Up the stairs

Did I dream, last night, now? Indeed. Most interesting dreams they were, too. Nothing you might expect on a long hiking trip, such as being caught on an endless treadmill, talking to coyotes, or falling off a cliff. No, these dreams took me completely out of the wilderness and into highly improbable dilemmas in at least one big city. Two connecting dreams, or one dream with tenuous connections to another, anyhow very colorful. First, I’d somehow become part of a convention of real estate developers. Most of the attendees were yuppie women, and for some reason they’d decided that I would star in the convention’s evening entertainment as an Elvis impersonator. I tried to beg off, but they were insistent. However, it never actually happened, they found someone else. This was, I believe, because I couldn’t make the rehearsal, as one of the women had asked me to pick up a fancy dress for her which was for some reason at a Greek Orthodox church. I drove to the church, and for some reason my 23-year-old son Mike was along, in a stretch Citroen deux-chevaux, vintage circa 1963, white with two red racing stripes around the body. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a stretch deux-chevaux outside of this dream, but that was what it was, stretched-out and with a hatchback trunk. Anyhow we picked up the dress from the priest, it was stylish but a conservative grey, with a big red ruby-like stone set in the belt. On the way back we were stopped, ticketed for some minor traffic violation and harassed by a portly, late middle-aged Chinese cop. Had to leave the car while he took us into the station. When we came out again, the car was missing. Everyone was Chinese, and the area looked like some neighborhood in Hong Kong. Someone directed us around the corner, and we saw the deux-chevaux in an open garage, engine running and hatchback (!?) open, with two long racks of barbecued pork fitted into it where the rear seats had been. There were Chinese caterers in white scurrying all around. The new CCC: Carjacking Chinese caterers? I got really pissed off, found their boss, and was reading him the riot act, asking where the hell they got off thinking they could just grab someone’s car and use it for their business. He was very defensive, saying that the car was just perfect for their needs . . . I was still ranting when I woke up to the pre-dawn grey of the 5AM sky.

“What is that dream doing in this blog?” you may well ask. Well, it happened outthere. Go figure. The Great Spirit playing one of his/her funny impractical jokes. And maybe my mind was looking for some entertaining relief from the daily grind. And today was a grind. As probably most people who’ve climbed the “golden staircase” will tell you, it’s one of the steepest and roughest stretches of the trail. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad, mostly because the trail itself was generally well-maintained and the really steep part wasn’t all that long, but it was a toughie. When you get close to it, though, you find yourself looking straight up at a cliff, over the right side of which tumbles a powerful waterfall. I could only think, “now how can a trail possibly get up that?” And again, after an all-downhill day, this was all uphill. About 2300 feet (750+ m) elevation gain. Again, most of it was a relatively comfortable grade. The problem for me, I am realizing, is endurance. Generally I’ve been hiking eight hours a day with a 45-pound pack. Just a couple of hours of that, especially uphill, takes a toll on this old body. I’d like to pretend the body isn’t at all old, but this experience is definitely letting me know otherwise. Hangin in there, but as me sez, after two or three hours, can feel it for sure.

But then, there’s good support from other hikers. I remember meeting a young couple going up to Silver Pass. When I mentioned my age the gal said, “That is really great. I’m 29 and this is kicking my butt!” I need to hear stuff like that. Of course, most of the time I’m by myself, or rather on subjects like these my only companion, the Great Spirit, is conspicuously silent. Today the scenery is back on the spectacular side, especially going up the staircase. The rest stops I take provide me with plenty of visual treats.

At the top, it really gets nice. Palisade Lakes are worth the visit, even if the ways in aren’t all that easy. Just as I pulled out my camera to take pictures, Mark and Julia, the St. Louis musicians, came up and passed me. Good to see familiar faces. This section, like the other more beautiful sections of the trail, attracts a lot more people than some of the other places. Most are up here just for a loop of a few days, then out again; At this point I’m only occasionally running into the JMT through-hikers.

At the same place I saw my friends were seated a bunch of young guys who’d just come down over Mather Pass. It was early enough in the day that I thought I might still go over it today. “It’s right over there,” they said. I thought they were pointing at a fairly low ridge behind the lakes. “Wow, doesn’t look that high,” I said. “Naw, not bad,” they said. “But it is another 1600 feet up.” Didn’t look that high to me. But I decided to camp at this beautiful spot and go up rested, in the morning. Wiser, no?

There was no easy way to get down to camp near the upper lake: the trail ran high above. But I found a place with a beautiful stream nearby, rushing parallel to the cliff before twisting off to cascade down below. Near the trail on the lake side, but hidden by some scrub pines, was a sweet little sandy spot just big enough to pitch the tent and have room to cook. Set up, relaxed, and enjoyed the view. Feeling pretty good, all things considered. You generally have to be pretty rich to fall asleep looking out at views like this.
















Next Entry: Mather, schmather