Wrightwood



Happy people enjoying the morning summit of Mt. San Jacinto.

People and the Trail

You meet a lot of interesting, and sometimes odd, people on and off the trail. As mentioned in a previous post, the first three days of the hike I hiked with some really awesome, experienced hikers. One of them, Michael, had to get off of the trail for nearly a week due to a family emergency. I took a couple of days off in Warner Springs to try and resolve an IT band issue I’ve been having. This gave Michael time to catch up with me right before I left Warner Springs. It was really good to see him. Michael has a natural talent for philosophy, and he majored in religious studies, so we have a lot of interesting conversations. It’s a pleasure to talk philosophy with someone on the trail.  Not only was it awesome to see Michael on the trail, but I also had an unexpected (and unlikely) reunion with an old acquaintance from Jacksonville. About 13 years ago I was a cook at a small family owned restaurant in Jacksonville called The Mossfire Grille. At the time a high school senior named Calder worked as part time host. We used to have many conversations about life, politics, etc. We lost contact, though I did run into Calder a few times during the years leading up my move to Miami for grad school. I’m not sure I can adequately express just how slim were the chances of randomly running into Calder on the trail, but I won’t go into the details. It was nice to catch up with a former fellow Duvalian. When I left Calder stayed in Warner Springs, but I would run into him again in Idyllwild and hang out for a few days.

I hiked out of Warner Springs with Michael and Slomo (another super cool hiker Michael met after he got back on the trail). We averaged about 15-17 miles a day all the way to Idyllwild. There were lots of big climbs and descents, and it was always chilly.  During this time I thought a lot about the different personalities both on and off the trail. Consider first two of the personality traits you encounter on the trail. On the one hand, there are the lone wolf types. The lone wolf is often somewhat competitive. She is either looking at the hike as a sort of sport or perhaps as a chance for deep self-reflection. At the extreme, the lone wolf avoids attachments on the trail at all costs. On the other hand, there are the bird of a feather types. They often hike in flocks. At the extreme, they are codependent, and, while open to one another, they are reserved with hikers outside of the group. You’re likely to encounter interpersonal drama in  a group where the extreme version of this personality trait dominates. At the less extreme end of this group, you just find people that are tired of being alone and would like some company for a bit. I’m not saying that one trait is better than the other. Most people exhibit a mixture of these traits, and certainly there are more than just two traits (maybe later I can give a more fine-grained picture). Thru-hiking can provide a lot of opportunity to be alone. As you might expect, some embrace this, but everyone gets a little lonely at times and for some it can be very difficult. There can be a tendency to latch onto other hikers. In a way, this is very easy to do. There are *a lot* of really interesting people on the trail. Moreover, there is a lot of time on the trail to get to know them since nobody has to go home to let the dogs out, feed the ferret, get ready for a party, go to the club etc. If you are the slightest bit curious and open, you can easily distract yourself with other people. So naturally groups form, but then interesting dilemmas emerge. Everyone starts the hike with her own expectations, e.g. how many miles to hike every day, but then meeting and bonding with new people starts to complicate those expectations. Do we hike as a group now? Do we make mileage and campsite decisions as a group now? This can cause tensions and problems for some. For example, if you aren't careful and are not willing to say goodbye or willing to hike alone again, you might push too hard to keep up with others. I met a few people on the trail that had to get off because of injuries that they were making worse by hiking with people moving at a faster pace. But it can be so hard to say goodbye or confront being alone in the wilderness. Overall, I've been trying to be flexible. Not denying myself the chance to get to know really interesting people and share my own stories. At the same time I've been really good about knowing when to say goodbye and continue my journey alone.

You encounter a wide range of personalities off the trail as well. Very often in some of these small mountain towns I have felt like I am living in something David Lynch wrote. For example, I stayed at a truly wonderful bed and breakfast. The décor was straight out of the early 20th century. While super kind and accommodating, the concierge might have once been the neurotic high school prom queen. There was a strange European couple (non-hikers) traveling together. They were both tall blonde adult women dressed nearly the same and acted with similar reserved mannerisms. No matter how hard I tried to discern, I could not quite tell if they were siblings, mother and daughter, or lovers. The situation was so odd that it was impossible to tell without asking questions that would have been awkward no matter what was in fact the case. There was also the obsessive compulsive, complicated, but friendly widowed person who lived in a nearby town but was trying to escape an existential crisis by vacationing in the next town over. I don’t mean to sound judgmental at all—lord knows I am weird and neurotic in my own ways. But the combination of personalities and atmosphere was almost paranormal. No offense to the creative talents of David Lynch, but you cannot make this shit up. It’s out there.



Morning light around mile 140ish.

You also sometimes encounter personalities that are certainly on The Fringe. Now, as a 6’4” medium built male with a beard, I’m sure I feel physically threatened less often than many others. For example, I don’t have to worry as much about creepy people following me home and trying to assault me when I leave a bar or walking down an isolated street at night. In addition, when I encounter not-easy-to-read people on or off the trail, I’m sure that I do not always feel as anxious as others might. As we left Warner Springs and started entering the rolling foot hills right before the Idyllwild, Michael, Slomo, and I stopped at small house in the wilderness that was owned by a person that is known to give water to hikers as well as sometimes provided food or drink for a small price. The owner of the house was not there, but there was someone watching the property. This person, call him Spike, was definitely rough around the edges. Overall, I thought this person seemed to have good intentions, but it was hard to get a clear read. For example, about a very strange guest who behaved in an erratic manner, especially when drinking, Spike said, “If she becomes a problem I can just shoot her and bury in the desert. Naw, I’m just kidding", but in the very next breath said, "But seriously, I would if I had to.” What the hell are supposed to do with a comment like that? Now, despite that, I still felt relatively safe, but I did worry for some of the other hikers. I learned that my worries were not entirely unfounded, and that, while not outright assaulted, some of the other female hikers had been treated in a (much) less than respectful manner by the some of the non-hikers that had been hanging out at the house. I can only emphasize how important it is to be alert and smart out there. In general, it is probably a good idea to hike and stay in groups on some parts of the trail or when visiting so-called trail angels that have an unclear background. 

In this area you could also see a number of pot farm operations. They were easy to spot by the large air hangers in the absence of any real estate suitable for landing a plane and the sound of guard dogs yelping and wailing. If there was any doubt left in your mind, it was cleared up by the sign at a water cache that explicitly mentioned that the “farmers” were pot growers and not friendly to hikers. This was definitely a section of the trail were it was difficult to lose myself in the natural surrounding beauty.

Sun setting as we left the Warner Springs area.



More beautiful wildflowers right before the Paradise Valley Café.

You meet a lot of awesome and inspiring people off the trail as well. Michael, Slomo, and I hitched our way into Idyllwild for resupply, where we ran into fellow hikers we met in Warner Springs, including Calder! The plan was for us all to hike up Devil’s Slide trail, camp, and wake up at 3:30 AM for a sunrise summit of Mt. San Jacinto. While at a coffee shop I stuck up a conversation with a retired gentleman by the name of Rich. He offered to give Slomo and me a ride up to Devil’s Slide trail. Rich is one of the nicest people I have met on the trail. He is retired but teaches high school math, and we had great conversation about mathematical pedagogy.

The San Jacinto wilderness was beautiful. It was super cold and there were still patches of snow on the ground. I woke up at 3:30 AM, but I had underestimated the distance to the San Jacinto peak. Moreover, the trail to the peak was very rugged and not well marked. My legs were super tight, so I hiked slowly to avoid pulling something. I missed the sunrise but still managed to catch up with Michael and the rest of the group to see some beautiful early morning sights from the peak. The San Jacinto peak has a really high prominence so the views, especially to the north, were stunning (and accompanied with a little bit of vertigo). From there we made the biggest decent of the PCT from the San Jacinto peak elevation 10800 at mile 182ish and down Fuller Ridge to the trail angels Ziggy and the Bear at mile 211 at elevation around 1500. All of that in less than 30 miles in less than 30 hours. From Ziggy and the Bear’s we had to take a shuttle to Big Bear Lake missing 40 miles of the trail due to a fire closure. As unfortunate as this was, I did meet Legend, a trail angel giving people rides to the San Bernardino bus station, who made my trail name official.

Sunrise on the way to Mt. San Jacinto.



Sun setting behind Mt. Gorgonio off Fuller Ridge.



That's San Jacinto in the background.

The plan was to take a shuttle from the San Bernardino bus station to Big Bear Lake. On the way, Legend had us all say a bit about ourselves. So I gave my usual spiel about being a grad student in philosophy, etc. Being a friendly person, I’ve met and hung out with a number of people. Moreover, I have been on the trail for close to a month now, and in this time I have literally talked more philosophy with non-philosophers than I have in the entire 4 years I have lived Miami. If you can believe it or not, a lot of this has been solicited (except for the 5:45 AM unsolicited uphill discussion on gender and hiking I tried to have with Michael and Slomo). Sometimes the solicitations begin with something like, “Ted, give us a talk.” So the trail name ‘Ted Talks’ was born. Now fellow hikers Michael and Lindsey suggested this as a name, but Legend made it official. This has been a relief for me since the previous contender was ‘Old Snot Rocket (OSR)’, which explains itself.

That's Legend holding up the PCT sign.

Existential Crisis

Leaving the Big Bear area.

I have been having issues with my left IT band for three weeks now. When we left Big Bear Lake I decided to fall back and hike fewer miles per day to give it a chance to recover. So I said goodbye. Though I did hike on and off with Calder for close to a week. Calder is a super cool person. He went to graduate school in San Francisco, lives in the LA area, and has written a number of things about contemporary art. So we have had many wonderful conversations about thru-hiking as a phenomena and the significance of being in the wilderness more generally. I taught existentialism in my intro class this past spring, so a lot of the themes have come up for me in the past two weeks during which I have experienced a lot of physical pain and doubts about my decision to thru-hike.

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Albert Camus

There is only one really serious question on the trail, and is whether or not to keep hiking, i.e. whether or not to quit. That's all you are free to choose. Shit. When you are in between towns or campgrounds high up on some ridge, you might not even have a choice about hiking (though I suppose Camus's question still applies). While I’ve been walking on exposed ridges, sometimes in physical pain sometimes not, I’ve come to realize that when people talk about the freedom of the outdoors, I'm not really sure what they mean. What might be meant by freedom anyway? I imagine it must be a relatively wide range of possibilities that are genuinely open before you. The various possibilities are genuinely open to you when it is within your capabilities to instantiate, or at least reasonably try to instantiate, or to make real any of those possibilities you so choose. But where is this freedom when thru-hiking the PCT? On the PCT you are often stuck for miles going up and down on exposed ridge lines on a path that is 14-16 inches wide and which itself is often ambiguous and collapses into steep, dangerous slopes. You are at the mercy of the relentless sun slowly cooking everything. You have to carefully ration your water.  On some of the ridge lines there are very, very few places to set up your tent or to even use the bathroom. What are the possibilities in this case?

Is thru-hiking supposed to provide freedom from interpersonal or intrapersonal drama? I suppose getting away from it all might be a good reason to thru-hike, but there are less painful ways than thru-hiking to do that, e.g. flying to Paris and taking a train around Europe, a meditation/nature retreat, the beaches of Thailand, etc. It can’t be getting away from people in general since you see people on and off the trail all of the time. There are a lot of great interactions, but sometimes conflicts happen. Sometimes you are isolated and it is nice. But sometimes you are isolated and it sucks. Bad. Sometimes my only company on the trail are the footprints on the trail before me. A trail which never seems to reach the pass in the distance. At times like this, all I can think of is a selection from Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency”:

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

Then all I can think of is how close I am to LA and how easy it would be to find an Airbnb and spend a week visiting museums and gorging myself on David Hockney, whiskey and IPAs, and pretentious conversations at random coffee shops.

On a Tuesday. What better to do? Walking in the charred hills of San Bernardino National First bathed in the furious heat of an obstinate unforgiving sun.

Is it freedom from work? No fucking way. At one point on the trail I had a familiar feeling that I had not had in a very long time. When I was a young adult I had many physically demanding jobs from bending rebar, landscaping, and working in hot kitchens. That feeling I had on the trail was what a body feels after working manual labor for 12-14 hours. There is so much suffering on the trail. Everyone is sore, tired, and/or injured. But I quickly realized that it is such a privileged and potentially self-indulgent kind of suffering which makes the whole endeavor sometimes seem absurd. It is privileged suffering because the national parks and land are there, because you can afford the time and resources to attempt the hike, because you are trying to walk over 2000 miles for “fun” and not because you are trying to escape an oppressive government or extremist groups. It is potentially self-indulgent because the suffering might only be towards an end that matters only to the person thru-hiking. (I say 'might' because some people actually are hiking for a charity, which I think is super cool and wish I had done.) Thru-hiking is work, but sometimes it seems completely self-absorbed.

Is it freedom from conventional life? I don't think I understand this question or what might be meant by it. I thought I did before I left, but now I don't think that I do. I think there might be a tendency to romanticize nature as a way of living a more authentic life that is in fact perhaps disingenuous. For example, in my early 20s I hung out a few times with Rainbow People. Rainbow People are a diverse bunch from hippie exemplars to gutterpunks that travel in very large groups (over 100s at times) from national forest to national forest trying to escape “Babylon.” For many, including families, this is their life: they are nomads. Some fund their misadventures by selling drugs, selling crafts, some by pan handling, perhaps some by working day labor, or some by taking advantage of naïve trustafarians (usually deluded dreaded kids with rich families). When I was younger and had an affinity for all things punk and mind altering (but no dreads), I thought the whole thing was kind of cool. Now I just think it’s a bunch of bullshit. In short, these groups of people wreak havoc on the natural environments they idolize and behave in unethical manners such as not educating children, not giving children vaccines, theft, sexual or physical assault, and these behaviors are rarely accounted for in a morally just manner. While not likely as morally problematic, you also have extreme homesteaders, people who buy a plot of land, cultivate the land using only mechanical power, grow their own food, etc., but make it a point to limit participation with the outside world. Now, all things being equal (e.g. all things being ethical), people are free to live whatever lifestyle they want. But still I wonder if there might be something a bit narcissistic going on in many of these cases. Why? Because humanity is an amazing thing. Society is an amazing thing. Science is an amazing thing. Medicine is an amazing thing. Etc. Who the hell is anyone to seriously turn their back on thousands of years of human ingenuity and creativity? But let me not commit the same disingenuous romantic fallacy. There are a lot of terrible things committed by humans. War, manipulation, discrimination, treating people solely as a means to making exuberant profits, etc. But these problems don't go away by hiding in the woods. No matter what, we are stuck with one another. Conflicts come up no matter where you are. The world has evil no matter where you are. However, I am an optimistic. Without a doubt some of the practices and so-called conventions should change. We should challenge ways of life that are taken for granted but are unethical. But let’s not throw out the good with the bad. I want to live in a world with maximal possibilities and that’s a world with social organization and coordination, vaccines, GMOs, space exploration and colonization, etc. Now thru-hiking isn't Rainbow Culture and it isn't extreme homesteading, but sometimes it seems if the motivations—escape from so-called conventional life—of many hikers are similar and those are motivations I reject.

Such a good sight in the Deep Creek Canyon area. Very often in this section you are high on a steep ridge with the sound of water taunting you from below.



Deep Creek Canyon.

Sunset leaving the Deep Creek Canyon.

Sisyphus

I'm skeptical that thru-hiking has much to do with freedom in any obvious or direct sense. So for those of us for which this is not a sport or something to one day brag about, what exactly is the point of thru-hiking? As I spend days hiking up and down one ridge and another, as I spend hours climbing 100 feet and down 150 feet over and over again until I get to the next campsite, I think about Camus and Sisyphus. Sisyphus pissed off the wrong gods and was condemned to eternally roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down. And sometimes this is what thru-hiking feels like. If I remember correctly, Camus thought that Sisyphus gives his activity meaning by embracing its futility, its absurdity. In this way, Sisyphus continues to resist against the gods that condemned him. But, I ask myself: Who has condemned me? Who is rebelling? Is it myself? Am I playing the parts of both Sisyphus and the gods?  Maybe. But this hike cannot merely be some metaphor of the overall absurdity of my life that I need to learn to embrace because I disagree with Camus (or at least a caricature reading of Camus) on this point. Life is not inherently absurd . I don't think this hike is either. Or I hope it isn't . But then this hike must afford some opportunities or lessons that can be generalized and applied outside of this hike and outside of my narrow subjective perspective. This is why, for me, this hike cannot merely be a sport or hobby. Because if that is the case then once it is over it will merely become something I once did, a story to tell over drinks. I want this hike to be an experience that opens me up, something that extends possibilities, and more deeply connects me to life. I suppose in this way the people I meet on the trail give the hike meaning.

Leaving Cajon Pass.

Leaving Cajon Pass.

Going down to Cajon Pass.

I met a counselor in Wrightwood named Reuben.  He said about thru-hiking that if you endure and persevere you learn a lot about yourself. Maybe in a sense that's what this can be. For those of us for whom being a hiker is not a part of our identity, not a subculture in which we merely seek a reflection of our considered values, for those of us for whom this is not a competitive sport or a mere adventure, maybe this hike is simply a challenge in which we further develop our ability to be patient, to endure physical and emotional hardships, connect with people, and see beyond ourselves. And when it is all done, these areas of growth and development will be applied to other aspects of our own lives and perhaps, hopefully, the lives of others, no matter how indirectly. For me it has to be something like this, otherwise the absurdity and vanity of my decision to do this will be manifest and inescapable. Beauvoir talks about the moral character of the adventurer. According to Beauvoir, every authentic decision must have two elements. It must have a subjective nature insofar as it freely made while realizing that there is no divine or natural order dictating the course of one's life. Every authentic decision must also have content insofar as it opens up further possibilities for oneself and for others. The adventurer is okay on the first but lacking on the second. Arguably, Camus’s interpretation of Sisyphus is as an adventurer. Or think of Hans Solo who freely roams the universe but is otherwise empty until he eventually gives his adventures content and meaning by joining the Rebellion. For the adventurer, the decision to live is vain, it’s narcissistic. I realize the subjective aspect of this hike every day when I crazily decide to keep hiking. But I suppose that I've been struggling with finding the content. But I think that Reuben is on to something, and I hope he is right. Time will tell.



Angles National Forest area.



Angles National Forest area.