“There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.”

Douglas Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

My own attempt at flying occurred when I was scootin’ along at 4mph, on a steep rocky downward slope, when the trail underneath my right foot gave way to a hidden miniature sinkhole. My momentum launched me into the open air, my body taking brief glorious flight. In that moment, as time unfurled into the infinite liminal space of uncertain trajectory, I wondered if I might reach escape velocity. I imagined my ragged, filthy hiker body overcoming the inescapable embrace of gravity to soar into the atmosphere, leaving behind the constraints of a planet ruled by science and logic, the accumulated dirt of 100s of miles leaving spiraling contrails in my wake.

Alas, the laws of physics showed up just in time to yoink my ragdoll body definitively back down to Earth. In punishment for my brief fantasy of defiance, I landed upside down, my legs flinging up over my torso like Wil E. Coyote running into flat wall painted to look like an open highway. The left side of my body took the lion’s share of the impact, and I was on the ground on a 30 degree angle, my head pointed down and my feet pointed skyward. I was on my left side, my backpack pinning me to the ground in a weak but very effective grapple, like being wrestled to the ground by an overly enthusiastic Saint Bernard puppy. I attempted to unbuckle myself from my pack but as my arms were pinned underneath me, I only really succeeded in sort of ineffectually flopping my wrists around.

Argie and Dumptruck were on me in a second, unbuckling the straps and extricating me from my backpack. I stood up, suddenly woozy from the head rush of having been unexpectedly upside down at 10,000 feet. We assessed my injuries, and I had nothing serious, other than my entire left shin, left elbow, left shoulder, and left butt cheek blossoming into swift galaxies of purple bruising. I will spare you the more intimate photographs, but there’s a good one of my shin that you can feast your eyes upon when you get to the photo section. All I can say is that I feel extremely grateful that I was wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt when it happened, as I was spared being turned into mincemeat.

As is the case with adrenaline, I felt absolutely fine. We were also in the middle of a swampy area in which the mosquitos swarmed thicker and more annoying than tourists in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, so we were motivated to keep moving as quickly as possible.

About 20 minutes later my adrenaline crashed, leaving their protective posts and flinging the doors wide for my brain to comprehend just how injured I was. The pain signals that had been patiently loitering in the waiting room of my neuropathy all bum-rushed my brain and started a raging mosh pit. I took a sharp inhale of breath and announced to Argie and Dumptruck that I just needed to cry for a couple of minutes. They kindly understood and stepped off trail with me. That was the moment that Rainbow found us.

Rainbow is another Southbound hiker who we very briefly had met in Goat Rocks back in Washington. He hikes wearing a rainbow tutu, hands out rainbow stickers to all other hikers he meets, and would be best described as a joyful fairy beast. Excitable, kind thoughtfulness radiates off of him like glimmering sunbeams, and he makes you feel like you’ve been friends for ages. We’d been leap-frogging with him all day, and each time we saw him was more delightful than the last. When he saw me, tears shining on my pink cheeks in the afternoon sun, he wrapped me in a fierce, gentle hug. I told him I’d fallen down and it had just caught up with me. He nodded and said,

“If you’re gonna fall down, it’s beautiful that you have such a good, solid team here to help you back up,” gesturing to Argie and Dumptruck. He caught my eye and grinned at me, saying,

“And with that I have to leave you, because we’re all being eaten alive.”

Indeed, the mosquitos had descended upon us in a cloud. Rainbow scampered away, his colorful form cutting a path through the curtain of blood-sucking insects. As he disappeared, I delivered the bad news to Dumptruck and Argie: I had to pee. So it was that I found myself crouching in a grove of bushes off trail, my arms waving manically over my head, as Dumptruck aggressively swatted the armada of mosquitos away from me. If you’ve ever wondered what true love looks like, it looks like voluntarily whacking a swarm of biting insects away from the exposed rear end of your partner while they cry, laugh hysterically and pee at the same time. On the other side of the bushes, Argie faced away from us to give us some modicum of dignity, and put on his mosquito head net. I heard the rustling of him getting the net into place, and then he shrieked,

“Oh god! They’re in here with meeeeeee!!” and I emerged from behind the bushes just in time to see Argie with his hands jammed up under the head net, slapping himself in the face to try and murder the trespassing little gremlins. We all threw our backpacks on and hiked away as fast as we could, given that I was hobbling a bit on my left side.

We are officially in Yosemite, and I cannot begin to explain how absolutely, stunningly, surreally magnificent it is here. Even though we just hiked for 9 days in a row with no break, I feel energized and rejuvenated by waking up every day in the most staggeringly beautiful places I’ve ever been. The late snowmelt means that even though it’s autumn, the mountains are painted in summer wildflowers, their petals reaching with tiny hands to their brief window of sun.

There have been a multitude of easy river crossings, the water slow and chilly, clear as glass flowing over sandy, rounded rocks. The rivers are so gentle and knee-deep at deepest, that the easiest thing to do is just remove our shoes and cross barefoot (or, in my case, my recently acquired Crocs). However, this has not been enough of a protective factor to shield us from the inescapable hubris of man. Meaning: if there is a potential rock-hop or thin log laying over the river, it is so hard to resist trying to cross in regular shoes, thinking to save the 5 minutes it would take to just wisely change out of them.

This led to me, twice in the span of 10 minutes one day, attempting to use logs to cross these peaceful rivers, and ending up thoroughly soaking both of my feet (first my right on the first crossing, then my left on the second crossing) when I lost my balance or a log rolled. Both times, in the amount of time it took me to attempt (and subsequently utterly fail at) crossing the rivers without soaking my shoes, Argie serenely strode across both of them in bare feet, waving to me with a “oh hey there,” as I flailed around, splooshing my shoes into the water and yelping.

I’d like to say that I’ve learned my lesson, but let’s be serious, I absolutely haven’t. When presented with a low-stakes puzzle like finding a dry rock-hop, I am but a helpless victim to the sunk-cost fallacy. I have no doubt that I will have more unnecessarily wet feet in my future.

Every afternoon thunderclouds have been rolling in over the craggy, soaring ridgelines over which we are meant to hike. We’ve gotten into the habit of taking out all of our soaking wet clothing and tents to dry them on rocks at lunch, and then pack them away just in time for the rain to roll in and soak us all over again. Several nights we’ve fallen asleep in our tents with high-atmosphere lightning crackling silent, eerie fireworks across the thick darkness of the wilderness’ night sky.

One afternoon we had just successfully crossed one of those nice creeks, and I had crossed in my Crocs. As I sat down to change back into my hiking shoes, mentally congratulating myself on my genius at not getting my shoes wet, the sky ripped open and belched pouring rain and hail down upon us. The 3 of us opened our sun umbrellas and crouched under them at the base of a climb, watching the endless beads of hail pinging around. We waited for the thunder to roll by before we resumed climbing. At the top of the climb, the sun had muscled its way back into prominence, and we came across a pristine, placid lake on the top of the peak. The light sparkled invitingly on the surface, rippling in the gentle wind. Dumptruck and I looked at our watches, then immediately took off our shirts and dove into the freezing snowmelt water.

As soon as my body slid beneath the surface, zapping my system with the cold, I felt brand new down to my bones. The water closed above my head, immersing me into a clear, turquoise, alien world, and I felt a brief, shimmering bouyancy in body and mind. The silence of submersion pressed in on my ears, blocking out everything but being present with my own body. I emerged screaming in shock and delight, the water glinting off of me in the shining brilliance of the autumn afternoon. It felt perfect. I think, perhaps, because it was.

When we were 5 miles out from the road crossing where we were meant to meet Toasty, we found ourselves at the base of a thundering, cascading waterfall. We stood with our eyes closed and arms out, letting the roiling mist surround us and chill our warm, sunburned skin. As we started hiking up along the waterfall, we turned a corner and lo and behold, there was Toasty, leaning against a rock and reading Animorphs. He produced lemonade and fresh, crisp green grapes from his backpack like some kind of dang wizard. We all jubilantly exhanged stories and then hiked out the last 5 miles together.

We have taken a zero day in Mammoth Lakes, and it’s so sweet here. Dumptruck was able to get his backpack repaired (a mouse chewed through his straps!) at a wonderful gear shop, and we have really enjoyed our time wandering around this lovely mountain town. Tonight we’re headed back out onto trail, and have a 135 mile section before our next out. We’ve only been off for a day, but honestly, I can officially say that I miss the trail. We’ve camped all alone next to enormous, perfect mountain lakes. We’ve seen the claw-marks of happy bears on trees. We’ve hiked up steep slopes covered in snow. We’ve stood on the edge of the world and watched thick clouds engulf distant peaks in blankets of autumn rain, tears pouring down my face from the sheer, roaring joy. Or maybe it’s just the altitude and oxygen deprivation.

Either way works just fine for me.

Love,

Thresher