Leg 4: Lessons from the Journey - I am horse

The Final Chapter

Everything has a Place

I skipped down to Brockaway where Diane had left three gallons of water. There had been Facebook reports of someone taking water left for hikers, but mine was there with my name on the gallons, and I filled up what I could. But there was no way I was taking anything close to 6 liters and I had some left over.

My fellow campers were there, having overtraken me when I stopped at a rock overlooking the lake. The woman in short curls with the same shirt as me stopped and sat, before realizing she needed to go. The rest of the group were waiting for her, and she shot off down the hill. I laid back on my pace, glad I had no one to hotfoot it for, wanting to stay in my soft world of trail, and body and mind, one I had come to relish - no small talk, no sense that I needed to hurry up or slow down.

And there they were at the end of the five-mile trek back down to the Brockaway trialhead and the two women - lady in orange, and the short haired women, wanted a picture with me, saying I was part of their journey now. Not FS. We had developed a mutual non acknowledgement stand off. And maybe now that I didn’t have 6 liters, I might be able to hike faster, and disabuse her of the idea that I didn’t know what I was doing. Not that I cared. I just thought she should know.

I decided to let them go ahead, hanging back while they crossed the road and began the long journey up that the day held, a journey I had undertaken with Diane already. A young man with a massive pack was hitting the trail now, attempting to put it in and struggling.

‘Do you need some water,” I asked him?

“No thanks,” he said, heaving his pack on. I watched him strain, feeling bad for him, glad again that Diane had given me the pat down, reminding me that every ounce counts. It was that logic that was keeping me going.

“Ok, maybe,” he said, changing his mind, putting the pack down. I felt bad now, unscrewing the water cap and pouring it in to the bladder.

I let him go ahead too, then readied myself, throwing on the pack and reached for my sunglasses. They weren’t there. I felt my hat, the back of my neck. They weren’t anywhere. My mind immediately went to Diane. “My dad always said, 360 degrees before you leave anywhere,” she had said before I left.

Now I was trying to think where I might have done that. Maybe it was when I pulled my phone out to check for service before getting to Brockaway. I put my pack down and walked a hundred feet back the way I had come.

Damn it. Just go, I thought, returning, grabbing my pack, and crossing the street, walking farther away from the glasses, whereever they were. Leaving the shade, the full force of the sun hit me, burning my eyes. Maybe I should go back and look again. Just keep going, I thought, you can’t waste anymore time. You have 11 more miles to go. It’s almost 11. I was torn. I headed up into the hills with a sinking heart. The next day would be hiking over 10,000 feet to Relay peak. Should I go with out my glasses? Just go…

I kept hiking with a sort of bereft feeling. It must have been further back that I had taken the phone out of my pack. I walked futher up the hill, further from the possibility of finding my sunglasses. I saw a sign inidcating I had gone a mile. You have to go back. It will only get farther.

I set my backpack down behind a tree and ran back down the hill.

“Did you happen to see some sunglasses on the trail?” I asked a man and a young girl.

"No..well, actually, there were a pair of black sunglasses at the trail head.”

My eyes lit up with hope, and I picked up my pace down the mountain, running the mile back to the trailhead. There were sunglasses in a small cubbyhole, but they weren’t mine. And when I put them on, they were perspcription.

Demoralized, I crossed the street, deciding to go back further from before the water pick up, a half mile or more. Nothing.

I had to stop. It was time to give up. Should I even do this without sunglasses? I just added three miles to my 16 mile day. Should I go back into town? Buy glasses? I didn’t want to ruin my deteriorating vision. I now needed glasses to read. Should I skip relay peak?

I decided to call Dave who might have a good answer. He didn’t pick up. I called Diane, though I was loathe to tell her after I had lost a spoon on our last journey.

“I lost my sunglasses. And I just added three miles to my day. I am at broakaway. I am supposed to go over relay peak. Should I do it? Will it hurt my eyes? Should I go back into town?”

I remembered our journey two years ago. We had just loaded with water. Her pack was so heavy that she began to question her wisdom of hiking this trail in the first place.

“Push on,” she said. “And remember….. 360.”

I hiked the mile back up to my pack, glad for someone to tell me what to do. I put the pack back on, dealing with the mental setback of having added to my time, and reconciling my naked-eyed ascent up the trail. When the trail flattened out, I picked up the pace, and noticed the man with the white shirt and a heavy pack. He had taken the pack off, and was resting. Jeez, I’d done an extra two plus miles, and had still caught up to him. He had stopped for lunch, he said.

“I hope you magically find your glasses!” he said.

I kept going, feeling slightly better, climbing to a view of the lake where we had camped on the last trip. I stopped, and rolled tuna and hummous in a tortilla for the second day in a row, and felt the protein lift me, the tortilla and hummous rounding it out to perfection. Where had food tasted so good, but in this spot overlooking this deepest of lakes, nesteled in this age old mountains. And at least I hadn’t slowed anyone else down, though I would hate to not show up and have my hopscotchers question where I was. Do you think she quit? Blisters too much? Too lonley? It might have been this thought, more than Diane telling me to push on, which kept me going that day, continuing up, and up, and up the road, then the peaks, then the California line into Nevada, and onto a ridge of moutnain lily that overlooked the northern border of the lake below.

I pushed, feeling strong, looking now at the long distance I had traveled in the five days I had been on trail, the hills and mountains of Dicks Peack visible. Wow, I thought, reveling in this beauty, despite the pounding of my feet. I did that.

I finally came to the turn off to Gray Lake, a mile long descent to a mountain spring, my feet in rebllion as I came into the camp. I took a spot close to the outlet of the reedy lake, which cascaded down the mountain, fed by the spring on the other side.

I propped my backpack next to a tree and opened it. My glasses sat on top of my pack. My joy at finding my glasses was even greater than my joy of having arrived, my aching feet pouding with gratitude, but nothing like the lift I felt that my sunglasses were there. That I hadn’t lost them. Such was the double whammy of good fortune, that I grabbed my filter bag, and sure enough found my hopscotch crew.

“You made it!” said the lady in orange.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” I told the group of four. “I thought I lost my glasses, but they were in my pack!” I realized this wasn’t upping me in the, I know what I am doing category, but my joy was too great to keep it to myself. FS didn’t look at me, just nodded into the food she had already made, a kind of half chuckle of recognition - but still refusing to look my way. Yellow man was also non plussed, but the other two women seemed happy for me, if slightly reserved. I got my water, and returend to setting up camp.

The lady in orange happened by a few minutes lake on an evening walk by the lake.

“I am so happy you kept hiking,” she said to me, stopping where I was setting up. “I am sorry your friend didn’t come, and you had to do this alone.”

“Oh no, I’ve really enjoyed it,” I said to her. “I like just going my own pace, and not having anyone to worry about. It’s just me. But you guys seem like a great team.”

“Well,” she said, “it’s been ok.”

I wondered if she was referring to FS and Y, but she didn’t elaborate. And it didn’t matter. I was just glad that I didn’t have to deal with FS and Y.

“Well, thank you for being my trail angel,” I told her again. We said goodbye, even though we had said goodbye about five times already.

“How about see you next time,” I said with a smile.

Through Darkness Comes Light

But there was no next time. Not for the women, at least. I got up as early as I could and left, heading up out of the lake, and back to the ridge, following the trail until it split. I started on the upper level of the path, but my Far Out app looked like I was on the wrong trail, so I took the prong which headed down, then walked with a soaring heart over a bluff that overlooked the Sierra’s to the West.

I saw the man in white with the heavy pack.

“Hey, you made it!” I said, waving. “By the way, I found my glasses!” He looked at me, before heading down on the trail. I went down a little over a half of mile before checking the app again. I was off the trail. Damn it!

I turned back around, just as the man in white was packing up. It wasn’t the same guy after all. That guy must have turned around, or camped lower than he had hoped. This man seemeed to know what he was talking about, and led me to the fork, where I continued on my rise. At least the detour wasn’t as bad as the day before. Only a mile.

I was heading to Relay peak. 10,000 feet. At least I had my glasses, I thought, luxurating in the dark cover they provided in the exposed day, a perfect sun, not too hot. As I pushed up the hill, Y came up behind me.

We chatted for a bit. He was nicer on his own, but still, meant businesses. They were going for a short day, camping at Mt. Rose campground. I was supposed to go ten miles further, making it a 20 mile day.

I told him to go ahead so he could speed his pace, but as we rose up the trail, I found that our paces were relatively even, and when we reached the top of relay peak, he was still there.

“Do you want your picture taken?” I asked him when I arrived. He seemed disconcerted that he hadn’t lost me yet.

He said sure, and I snapped his sinewy body wrapped in yellow shirt and black shorts, before he dissapeared down the trail taking another route. I took the path down the mountain and it was the last I saw of them.

I thought they might come down where I had chosen to wash my clothes at Galena falls, finding a spot at its base where the the steep mountain flattened out and meandered through a valley.

I hung them to dry in preparation for the final three nights of camping then ate my tortilla wrap, gathering all my things, and heading down the three miles down the trail, passing lots of day hikers. I crossed the busy road to the Mt. Rose campground, bounding acorss when there was a break in the traffic. The concrete made my feet feel like lead. I couldn’t do ten more miles with my feet beginning their afternoon throb. I worried about where I would camp. I didn’t want to see the crew again. I wanted it to be my trail now. Maybe I should camp at Mount Rose.

I walked on the concrete road to the campground. A sign read the camp ground was full. I called out at the hosts spot with a fully equpped RV for the attendant, I wasn’t dissapointed when no one answered.

I turned around and found the trail, sensing a feeling of home when I stepped back on the dirt, my pack on my back, heading out on my own this time. Even though I didn’t know where I would sleep, I had faith I would find somehwere and walked into the late afternoon light, vowing to push as far as I could. I was fully independent now, and felt with each painful step, a kind of freedom.

I stopped at a stream and filtered water, heading to the Far Out App, finding a “view of the lake” in another mile, which said there was camping. Perfect! I thought, lifting my pack on to my back, just as a man with a backpack came through the meadows. We fell into conversation.

“God, that Relay Peak was rough,” he said. His pack seemed heavy. “Why did they have to make the trail go over that peak. You couldn’t even see the lake.” He had camped just after relay peak, the one I had crossed that morning.

He seemed kind of negative.

“Are you retired?” I asked him, making conversation as we hiked.

“Well, ya,” he snorted, “But not by choice.”

A corporation had bought out the company he worked for, and had let him go. Some hedge fund. They tried to get him to sign a document so he woudn’t sue for ageism, but he read the fine print and wasn’t about to sign anything. He talked about this, still visibly angry. I was at once disgusted by the corporate system that sees lives as expendable, and plotting how I might beg out of the convesation. He had already said he was going to go several more miles to another stream.

He shared another story about corporate builders, building in the historic district where he lived. He had brought them to court, and the courts found for him, but the city and the builders ignored him and built anyway. God. What kind of society was this. It made me angry, but I realized in the conversation, that I missed my silence. The converation was taking energy, and having come from 10,000, I had little to spare.

I begged out at my 1-mile marker, backing up the hill to give a hint, then finally cutting him off in the end game of his story about all the paper work he had amassed.

“They didn’t know who they were dealing with,” I said impressed, takikng a few steps more up the steep hill, balancing my aching feet. “Well, nice to meet you, I am sure I will see you again.”

He set off, reluctantly, maybe regretting that he had found a fellow hiker and a sympathetic ear.

It would be my first free night of camping, since meeting up with the group of four. I had moved ahead now, relishing in the thought that they were three miles back. I climbed up a bank to a flat spot with large boulders through which you could see the lake, and the towering relay peak where I had come from that morning and I looked at the releif of my days journey while eating my fettacini. I was doing this. I would go twenty miles the next day to North Canyon Campground then assess. And if I wanted to stop, I could. I hadn’t been able to see the next steps, and now, in a beautiful spot, the darkness of the unknown had become a soft light, overlooking the lake with the sounds of birds chirping in the evening outside my tent.

Think about your Trail Name

I woke up early -3 AM early - vowing to start hiking at the first light. But I fell asleep, dreaming I had been in a hold up, esaping by slipping out of my jacket with my phone in it. I was on a search for my phone when I woke up, and like a bat out of hell, with the light streaming into the tent, packed up and left without drinking coffee.

I filtered water at the stream, and pushed ahead, not wanting the crew to catch me. I felt a speed with a lighter pack, my food diminished, my water, enough to get me to Marlette campground where there was a pump.

I had doubted that I could maintain the miles, that I could push through the pain. And yes, I could now feel hot spots on my heels, and wished I had checked my feet before leaving. It would have to wait till tunnel creek, where I would change out of my long johns and take off my puffy.

It was at Tunnel Creek, shoes off, covereing my growing blisters with bandaids and tape and mole skin that some mountain bikers happened upon me. They were the first people who seemed impressed with what I had done.

“Wow, 7 days, that’s a long time! Get it,” said the woman.

A man mentioned he had seen some backpackers before me on the trail.

“How much farther,” I asked, my pulse quickening with the thought of my nemisis and trail angel. “A ways back,” he said.

I finished bandaging up my feet, and started walking. I was a horse, I thought, thinking of those horses with the white tape, back on the trail, clop clop as trail rose, up and up until the upper mountains opened. Soon I could see a diminishing Lake Marlette.

I had seen a woman on a horse two days before. The horse was skiddish. “Scared of the backpacks.”

“Hey, I’m just like you,” I had said to the passing animal, stepping off to the side so it could pass.

I had thought about a trail name occasionally, just for fun. What would my name be. Diane had wanted it to be spoon, for the spoon I had lost on our trip. But I didn’t want to be known for what I had lost. I might as well just be named loser. No, that wouldn’t work. At one point it came to me. Banana. Like my mother had called me. Anna Banana. That that was an origin name. I would be banana.

Then, I had thought at the falls, washing my clothes, bathing in the hidden reeds, that I could be Ganga. My friend Edele had always told me that was my spirit, as I had come alive in the Congo dance when Ganga was sung to. And Ganga was a water spirit. And as much as I loved that name, I figured that would be appropriation. Would it? I thought I would ask her when I returned.

But now, with my bandaged feet, and the clop clop of my rise, I decdided. I am horse. And how perfect was horse, because it was the spirit who came to ride the horse when you danced in ceremony, and I could feel now, a kind of spirit walking inside me, moving my limbs.

Marlette campground was coming up as the forest opened and I neared an opening at 8550 hundered feet. It was a little after noon. I assumed this was where the crew would stay that night, and that this would represent the final possibilty of them catching up to me. They were finishing at Spooner, ten miles from here. My hope was to camp just before Spooner, though I had no idea where. The not knowing was bringing me down a bit, and I worried I was heading again into the darkness. And while my push was in part fueled my not being caught, I also realized, that without my hopscotch crew, I was completely alone, without the tension of being in relation to them. That they had gotten me through in a powerful way.

I came into the campground, and sought out one of the picnic tables. Maybe I should just be done, I thought, throwing my pack down. I could just go to Spooner, find a ride into Lake Tahoe. And what, pay for two nights of a hotel? I couldn’t do that. I had to camp, but where? There were no obvious off trail sites. There was one campsite, 1.2 miles off trail. and I wasn’t about to add that to the 20 mile day the following day.

I ate my last tortilla and Tuna and hummous, and almost walked away without filling my water, too confused about the layout of my remaining two nights. But if I didn’t fill with water, I wouldn’t have enough if I camped tonight. It would be like quitting right then. I went back and found the pump down a small trail, a green monument to progress, and filled my water bladder with three liters at the pump, descending from the camp gain, and the possibility that they would catch up to me. I ahd gone about a half mile when I came across a throughhiker going the other direction.

“Can I ask you, is there campsite between here and Spooner?”

There is only one spot, he told me. Three miles from the summit. He described it as best he could.

“Man, I feel sorry for you,” he said, referencing the hill I was about to climb.

Buoyed by the idea that there was a campsite, and now prepared by his remark for a long climb, I began to walk again. And soon after, sure enough, the trail rose. But I thich Nat Han’d it, not fighting, allowing each step up the mountain as an arrival, rising on the path, breathing in each step, feeling the lungs in my breath and in this way, as the trail rose, and again, opened up at almost 9000 feet to long stretches of flowers that looked like lavender, overwhelming me with the smell and the pure beauty, I drank in every scent, every bloom, every gorgeous step on this ridge over looking the lake, world wide open, and felt such joy in having pushed through that moment with a clear arrival in my mind. He felt sorry for me!? He might of said, I envy you for the beauty you are about to encounter, horse. Clip clop along. Keep going, have faith. It will be better. You will find beauty along your path. Never give up, you are strong, you can do this.