Pacific Crest Trail 2016: 6/7 to 6/14: Wrightwood to Casa de Luna

Sunrise from Mt. Baden-Powell

Small Improvements

I left Wrightwood feeling a bit more optimistic about the hike. My IT band felt better after a couple days of rest and I picked up some new stretches that seemed to be helping. After a grueling four mile 2700 ft. climb up a ridge of Mount Baden-Powell, I decided to set up camp just 2/10 of a mile from the spur trail to the summit. The sun was setting and there was just enough brush to cut some of the light leaving a golden orb framed by the trees. A bird joined me at camp and provided a lovely song as I prepared to rest for the evening. I woke up at 3:30 AM and headed to the summit. It was very chilly and extremely windy with gusts up to 35 mph (or so I would estimate). At first I summited a faux peak but the sunrise was stunning nonetheless. Eventually I moved to the actual peak to finish watching the sunrise. On my way down from Baden Powell my leg starting acting up again.

Sun Orb. Climbing Baden-Powell Mile 379

Venus rising with the Sun. Mt. Baden-Powell

Almost worse than the physical pain is the emotional and mental frustration that comes with an injury. Is this the end of the hike? Should I quit, am I making things worse? As my leg locked up on the descent from Baden-Powell, I felt my spirit fall. I hobbled to a nice area and spent an hour gently stretching. It turned out that the stretches I added to my repertoire were extremely effective. Unlike previous days, on this day the pain did not return full force. And on that day and in the following days, when I could feel my knee tightening up, the addition of new stretches made managing the pain much easier and kept my knee more flexible. I was no longer spending miles a day hiking up and down ridges like a peg legged pirate. It was during these days that I discovered that music also helped immensely with the physical pain as well as the mental angst that had often accompanied my days. One day I was nearly out of water and had six miles to the next water source. I wasn’t so much worried about being thirsty or becoming dehydrated, but when I realized that I *had* to walk six miles to the next source I suddenly felt extremely burned out. I was sick of walking. By that point I had only listened to music briefly at night and it was usually Romantic or Impressionist era classical music. I had hesitated listening to music while hiking for two reasons. First, I wanted to hear rattlesnakes if they were around. Second, I wanted to fully enjoy and be immersed in my surroundings. But I had only seen two rattlesnakes in the 400 miles I had hiked to that point. And as beautiful as bird songs are and as inspiring as the still quiet of the forest can be, I could only take so much before it started to become monotonous. So, I cranked up some NOFX, and started pushing forward. The difference that music made to my morale was immense. Moreover, listening to music after an audio fast greatly enhances the enjoyment of listening. For example, the deep bass sounds of electronic music don’t just sound good but feel really, really good. I didn’t listen to music all day or even every day; I still enjoyed the creaking pines, warbler songs, and white noise of the wind rushing through the brush. But a couple of hours on many days helped get me though some rough spots of physical pain and mental frustration.

Moisture colliding with the Angeles Crest approx mile 426

A bee rooting around in Poodle Dog bush. Poodle Dog bush is toxic and causes a skin reaction much worse than poison ivy. It is easy to identity by its smell: Do I smell hikers smoking weed around the corner? Nope! It's just Poodle Dog bush. It was really bad for about 40 miles requiring constant diligence and sometimes body contortions to get around.

Acton: Spiritual Confrontations

Things were improving physically and mentally and my daily mileage was increasing. I was starting to make progress. Eventually I caught up to a couple from Australia, Danielle and Steve, and we frog leaped for a few days. It was really nice to have some company at the watering holes and on breaks. Trail legend had it that rangers sometimes sold candy bars and coke at the North Fork Ranger station mile 436. Now, I think I mentioned in a previous post that I found cravings and tastes on-trail are much different that cravings and tastes off-trail. I rarely if ever drink soda and eat candy bars off-trail. But on-trail I cannot get enough of the shit. After about three weeks on the trail you develop what’s called ‘hiker hunger’, which is basically an insatiable appetite engendered by a persistent calorie deficient. So Steve, Danielle, and myself were all pretty disappointed to find that there was no soda or candy at the North Fork Ranger station on that particular day (I think it was a Sunday). It was only 1:00 PM and the Acton KOA, which was eight miles north on the trail and where we planned to camp, had a convenience store. However, we heard that the store closed at 5:00 PM, so with four hours to go, we had to move quickly. On the way to the KOA I had a very cool wildlife experience, though it was only an indirect experience. About 3-4 miles from Soledad Canyon Road, there were fresh mountain lion tracks on the trail. I mean *extremely* fresh. The mountain lion tracks were so fresh that they covered hiker footprints. Now, chances were that Danielle, Steve, and I were only ones who had been on that stretch of trail that day and that the mountain lion tracks were from the early morning or previous night. So I wasn’t too worried about it. But Steve, who was about a mile behind me, said he picked up a rock just in case. With thoughts of A&W Root beer and Milky Way chocolate bars floating in my head, I hiked very, very quickly—mountain lions be damned! Thanks to an improved IT band, I made it in under four hours! It turned out that the store actually closed after 6 PM. Steve and Danielle made it on time, and we were able to order pizza from a nearby restaurant.

On the way down to Soledad Canyon Road.

In Wrightwood, which is approx. 74 miles south of Acton, I had decided to see a doctor if my knee had not improved. Thankfully the knee was sufficiently better, so no doctor visit, but I still needed to hitch 5 miles east from the KOA into the town of Acton to pick up a prescription. Of course, as luck would have it all the locals were driving west, so the hitch was going to be tough. But eventually someone, call this person Smith, picked me up. Smith was a security guard at the KOA and had breakfast at the Acton Jack in the Box every morning. I decided to accompany Smith for breakfast. Smith was a very nice person, and explained that one of the things he really liked about us hikers was how appreciative we were for the smallest things. It’s true. Most hikers are extremely kind, patient, and super appreciative of the time and effort of anyone willing to put up with us whether it’s people giving us rides, putting us up in their homes, or even people simply doing their job at the local convenience store or Jack in the Box. Insofar as life is like a thru hike, I think that this is a good way to be in general.

Smith and I ended up talking for about two and half hours about life and how one decides on what to do with the opportunity. It turned out that Smith is Christian and a very religious person but had not always been, and he shared with me some of his religious experiences. I found it all to be very fascinating. Smith’s partner, who was a very devout member of her church, took him to a service. I’m not sure exactly what denomination of Christianity, but from what I could tell, it did not seem to be a mainstream denomination. At the very first service Smith attended, he watched a middle aged person collapse on the floor, wildly convulsing and speaking in tongues. It turned out that this person had a streak of thievery early in life. The minister explained that at that point in her life she had been possessed by a demon, which was now leaving her spirit and body. When it was over, she felt extreme joy. At this point in his life, Smith himself had not been “saved” and he continued to wrestle with his own beliefs. Right before Smith’s so called awakening, he had a dream. In this dream he could see a Christ-like figure standing before him bleeding profusely. A man standing to the side of Smith pointed to the figure laughed and mockingly asked Smith if he really believed what he was seeing. Not long after, Smith became a Christian, and after a long period of fasting, sold his business and went to seminary. I don’t think that I can adequately express Smith’s sincerity. It was easy to tell that experiences had deeply changed him and seemed so very real to him.

Then Smith turned the conversation onto me—What do I believe in? I am not a religious person. That said and with a huge qualification, I do not think that Smith’s experiences were completely out of touch with reality. Consider the “exorcism” that Smith witnessed. While he might take his explanation of the events literally, I do not, but I do think something genuine occurred. That is, I do not think that people are possessed by demons, if demons are supposed to be disembodied entities with intentions. At the same time, I do not think that these people were intentionally pretending or faking. But it seems that the event Smith witnessed can be given a sort of psychotherapeutic interpretation. Very roughly, I believe that this so-called possessed person was simply carrying around substantial feelings of guilt for most of her life. Until that point she had not been able to reconcile her past behavior with the conflicting desire to have behaved differently nor reconcile it with what was likely her general disposition to not steal, nor could she find an explanation for her behavior that would allow her to let the feelings of guilt go. (Or there might have been an even deeper issue at play. I'm just going off what Smith shared.) But given the fervor of the minister, the intensity of the crowd, and the intensity that came with being lost in such a cacophony of emotion and mysticism, she was able to discharge her feelings in a way that had eluded her in the past. Basically, the service was like a very weird and intense session of psychotherapy. While I have reservations about its overall effectiveness, I think that this is what happens in many similar scenarios where people are “saved”. Usually, in evangelical circles, such a “breakthrough” is followed by a prescription to fundamentally change the way one sees the world, adopt a new value system, and to change the one’s desires and behavior in way that is consistent with her new world view and values, e.g. be more charitable and understanding of others, believe what the Christian bible says, etc. A similar psychological interpretation might be given of Smith’s dream—the dream represented his intrapersonal emotional struggles with the iconography of the religious culture he had been exposed to by his partner and her church and likely his childhood. I think the psychological phenomena is very real, but I do not take the religious representations literally. I wish I could have explained all of this to Smith, but I didn’t. Instead I made some half assed and partly patronizing comments about being spiritual but not Christian. Maybe I was being an intellectual coward. But I don’t think that’s quite right—or at least it’s not the entire story. I was very moved by what Smith shared with me, and I think that really I just didn’t want to say anything that might have come across as diminishing the personal significance of his experiences. His experiences took him from a place of suffering to a place with less suffering. While I think that religious experiences like the ones he described are at root tracking something subjective and psychological in nature, at that moment I felt that it would have been pretty obnoxious of me to push that point.

Leaving the Angeles National Forest.

Trail Angels

On the way to Mexican food from the Saufly's, Agua Dulce. I think we got about 15 people in the van. (I'm in the upper right corner; Danielle and Steve are on the left in the back).

I would love to live in a world where the supernatural existed, where angels and demons ran amok and interfered with us mere humans. But I’m pretty sure that this world is not like that. That said, there are, in some humanistic sense, angels, and on the PCT they are referred to as ‘trail angels’. Trail angels volunteer shelter, rides, food, and more generally time and effort to assisting hikers on the PCT. There are two wonderful trail angel homes within 24 miles of one another starting in Aqua Dulce, California—Hiker Heaven, run by the Saufleys, and Casa de Luna, which is 24 miles north and run by the Andersons. The Saufleys and Andersons each have a decent sized piece of property where hikers can camp and commune. [Of course, there are up to 2500 hikers or more that pass through in a given season, and these trail angels often host up to 50 hikers a night. Their kindness and generosity can only go so far—food, water, electricity are valuable and limited resources, especially in the desert. So the good and right thing to do is to give a donation when you stay.] I spent two nights and a full day at the Saufleys. The morning I left the Saufleys’ my plan was to hike about 18 miles that first day out and then about 20 the next. I did not plan on stopping at the Andersons’ since that would have meant only hiking about 6 miles the day after I left the Sauflys’ and I was hungry for miles and ready to get to the Sierras. However, about eight miles past the Sauflys’ I ran into a hiker headed south on the trail named Matt. Matt had been staying at the Andersons’ trying to let an injury heal and was testing it out by hiking south to the Sauflys’. Matt informed me that they serve nachos at the Andersons’ every night starting at about 7:00 PM and that the nachos were extra good with Sriracha, which they has plenty of. It was about 1:00 PM and I was about 16 miles south of the Andersons’. The thought of nachos covered in sour cream and drowning in Sriracha suddenly motivated me to change my plans and make it to the Andersons by as close to 7 as I could manage. Moreover, the conditions were favorable: my IT band was doing okay, there was good cloud cover, and it was a little chilly out. Needless to say, I made it to the Andersons. More than the nachos, I greatly enjoyed sharing stories with the other hikers and getting to know Terrie and Joe, who are both fun and wonderful people.

YURMS!!

Due to a fire from a previous year, there was a detour after the Andersons. This detour involved a lot of road walking, but after 18 miles I made it to the official PCT and hiked past mile 500. My plan was to try and hike 30 the next day. I would hike about 15 miles, off the Angeles Crest, to Hikertown, which was on the Antelope Valley floor in the Mojave Desert, fill up with water, and then hike a very flat 15 miles along the LA Aqueduct. Every day I was getting closer to the Sierras and growing that much more eager to finally be immersed in some of the most beautiful surroundings on the planet.