[pct-l] News from the Trail: Goforth

["Karen Elder" <wild_mind@earthlink.net>]

May 17, 1999
Monday -- pasadena

Dear Friends,
        May 14th + I am back on the trail at Jawbone Rd, S. of Walker Pas.
All the hectic detail of 25 resupply boxes, the rush to the airport, to Los
Angeles, to Mojave, to the "trailhead". The car drives off + then SILENCE.
The contrast is stunning. I am alone. why are there no people here in this
wonderful place, this peace? I reshuffle my pack, find my hat, restring my
tumpline + then I am off.
        I go slowly to savor these precious moments. It is not long before I
realize there is something, something different about this start. is it only
the sunshine where the snow and cold had been? No, the hurriedness is gone,
and all the questions that seemed to follow me out of Campo are gone too.
This journey is no longer about getting to Canada. The months and terrain
spread before me like a feast on a table. And I only have to walk, sleep,
eat, + drink -- everything else is cream. The map does not come out --
nothing between me and the land -- no questions, no maps, just wonder.
        Everything seems more intense -- there is so much to see, hear,
smell, and feel, but there is no rush + a wonderful sense of fullness and
relaxation. And I know this is a special day in my life, one that did not
happen in Campo, and here it is now, unexpected. All the moments over the
past 6 months have conspired to make these moments, + I know that what
follows will be different, but right now I have an overwhelming feeling that
I have "done it just right", and everything is PERFECT.
        I march up and down ridges, + then the windmills march up and down
ridgelines. Birds of Prey -- their screaming blades in the early morning
light make quiet gliding shadows that run down the forested ridges and into
the valleys. The birds do not sing here.
        Black bear prints bigger than any I have seen before are frozen in
the hardened mud of the trail -- a fossil moment.
        A calf with its cow moom, whose "wild eye" gives immediate meaning
to the phrase + a large bull, 10 feet from the trail, heaves himself to
standing and stomps his feet -- facing me and publishes his position. Oh,
oh! I back quite a ways down the trail to the nearest tree and start banging
my trekking poles on a log; hoping the strangeness will give the bull some
pause. Eventually, he snorts and collects the cow + calf + they ease off.
        I brew some coffee for lunch at Golden Oak Springs (first time), and
Gary Brumbaugh arrives -- my first thruhiker on the trail. For 2 1/2 hours
we talk about everything -- strange and refreshing to have such a long and
animated conversation with someone you've never met before. I have a
momentary glimpse that I am one of the gang in John Steinbeck's _Cannery
Row_ -- one of a collection of quirky and eccentric individuals comprising a
storyline that has not quite arrived yet.
        My friend Carlton early to the trailhead to collect me, collects
Will Stenzel instead + shepherds him to Mojave. We go to Tehachapi for lunch
+ I slackpack over the top to Oak Creek. When Carlton meets me up near the
windmill top, I backtrack to show him the "big rattlesnake track" and then
see the rattlesnake instead -- coiled in the trailside grass, a foot from
where I stood to peer at the track. Coiled, he is the size of a dinner plate
+ somewhat greenish (Mojave green?) -- motionless + waiting for dinner to
come down the trail.
        Off to Anza tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Goforth


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