[pct-l] A day on the trail...

[jjolson@xxxxxxxx (Jeffrey J. Olson)]

I woke up, curled in my sleeping bag, to the sound of a hiker walking by me
as I lay in the Muir Hut on top of Muir Pass.  I'd spent the previous day
hiking up from the bridge over the San Joaquin River through the Evolution
Valley and then Evolution Basin, around the corner up to Muir Hut.  It was
14 miles and 4000 vertical feet, and completely and utterly enthralling.  I
remember hiking up the 400' wall out of Evolution Basin high as a kite at
being in the midst of pure granitic beauty.

I met a fellow who said he'd just smoked some weed at the top of the wall.
He had a hard time putting words together into intelligible sentences.  He
kept gesturing at the rock walls surrounding us and laughing with the kind
of abandon rarely heard - almost maniacal.  I was out of breath for the
couple minutes I spent with him, so I didn't do much but laugh, gesticulate
and offer a few, "God, it's beautifuls."

I got to the hut and the two photos I have of the completely orange sky at
sunset are beyond words.  The hut was cold inside, bone cold.  The sign says
you're not supposed to sleep in it except in an emergency, but I didn't
care.  I was tired, and wanted to spend the night on top of a pass.  I was
both elated and hurtin.  I was hiking alone as part of a final separation
from my fiance of two years.  My heart was heavy and I was grieving.  But I
was grieving in the midst of incredible beauty.  It was poignant, in the
strongest sense of the word.

The hiker woke me up and I had that flash of feeling vulnerable, that he
would come in and catch me in my bag, abed while he had been up for hours,
hiking up from one of the lakes on the south side of the pass.  There is a
small window in the door of the hut (if memory is correct) and I think he
looked in at me, but continued down toward Evolution Basin without
interrupting me.

I got up and made oatmeal outside, making sure that I didn't leave any food
in the hut.  There was this pesky squirrel or chipmunk that had no fear that
made its presence known all night.  The sun was up and while not warm, at
least promised another warm day.

This was my next to last day before resupplying at Parcher's camp over
Bishop Pass.  I'd driven to the restaurant before starting to hike from
Red's Meadow and found a summer employee who volunteered to hold my box for
me.  He slept in a bunk house with the other summer help.  It didn't seem
like a bad gig for college students.

I finished breakfast and headed down the trail, realizing that I had to
watch my feet, not the view that unfolded with every step.  The trail was
rotten - not as bad as a steep, talus slope - but rocky and wet and
treacherous nonetheless.  Sometimes the trail was a creek, and other times
it was just a bunch of three inch rocks, what the ranger down at the Bishop
Pass/JMT junction called "Inca trails."

The California Conservation Corp moves old trail from valley bottoms up onto
slopes and the trail of choice are two feet wide with little stones three
inches in diameter.  Each stone was a potential ankle twister.  I had to
stop to really look at the views, but that was ok.  I was in no hurry, still
being relatively out of shape.

Later in the trip, hiking up the last 1000' or so to Forester Pass, I saw a
family of four, husband and wife in their 30s, kids in their mid-teens, hike
50' and stop.  They'd rest for a couple minutes and hike another 50'.  I was
in good enough shape by then that I just trucked up the switchbacks, a
steady two miles an hour or so, deep breathing working, my oxygen levels
pushing me into the natural high realms.

When I finally got to them, they all stared at me in amazement.  The dad, a
"guy's guy" looked a little sheepish as his wife asked how I could just walk
like that without stopping.  I said I'd been on the trail for X number of
days and I was used to the altitude.

The teenagers were absolutely disgusted with their dad.  This was their
first backpacking trip, which had been sold to them as a fishing trip.
They'd come in from Onion Valley and were going to get to Hitchcock Lakes,
fish for a day, and then turn around and head back.  Their voices dripped
recrimination and vitriol in one sentence, and in the next dropped off in
despair as they looked up at the seemingly endless switchbacks.  I said that
by the time they turned around their packs would be lighter and they'd be
used to the altitude.  They looked very sceptical.

But I wasn't in shape yet, and spent lots of time paying attention to how I
walked, gingerly walking over snow banks, or around them.  I'd stop and
marvel at the Black Giant, at the granite faces, at the valley curling to
the right below me.  I don't remember much about that drop.  I think I was
paying too much attention to walking.  I do remember taking a break at the
head of Little Pete (or was it Big Pete) meadow and being amazed all over
again.

I met the ranger from the Le Conte Canyon station and we talked for an hour.
He'd been coming back every summer for 15 or so years.  If I remember
correctly, he was a high school teacher and was married.  A nice guy who
never asked me for my permit!

The head of Le Conte Canyon is all ripped up from avalanches and has a
really wild splendor that was unusual.  The trail dropped down into the
forest and I turned left to head up the canyon wall to Dusy Basin and then
Bishop Pass.

Every hike up one of the ten passes on this section of the PCT is
spectacular, but this sidetrip, up the wall of Le Conte Canyon, is one
exponent more spectacular.  It starts in the forest, moves to willows and
forest and back again.  There are open spots that with each 100' gain in
elevation reveals the 5000' wall across from me in a different light, from a
different perspective.  There is a dome across the canyon that towered,
lorded its massive presence over me as I switchbacked up the canyon wall.
The higher I got, the smaller it became.  I had run out of film, but coming
back from the resupply I had film and took a number of shots that focused on
it as I dropped down.  With each shot the dome gets bigger and more
dominant.  For me the three slides in the slideshow that show how this dome
changes are the peak of the show.

I was tired and was going to stop early that day.  About 800' up from the
trail junction the trail crossed an open area with an obviously much used
campsite.  There was a small creek about 50' from the campsite.  I decided
that this was going to be my home for the evening.  I laid out my poncho and
rolled out the sleeping bag and lay down to simply watch the panorama across
from me change with the shifting, late afternoon light.  I was reading
Tolstoy's War and Peace on this trip, and would look up from it and take in
the gift of an unsullied, unspoiled view par excellence.

I made up my gruel; 5 oz of rice, 3 oz of dehydrated curried lentils, 1 oz
of soy bacobits, and 3 oz of Kraft parmesian, which lasts for years.  As the
sun went down I lay in my bag, feeling the gentle flow of the air as it
moved down the canyon wall.  It wasn't katabatic air, but it was cool
nonetheless.  I lay there watching the shades of gray turn into dark shapes
against the western, backlighting sky.

I felt a sense of balance and peace that everything was just as it was
supposed to be.  For the moment at least, the pain of losing my life's love
was diffused into the landscape and there was no difference between pain and
joy.  I faded off into deep, warm sleep.

Jeff Olson
Laramie Wyoming...