At the trail junction for Bishop Pass, Argie winced in pain as he eased himself down onto a small boulder, rubbing the back of his knee. I shuffled over and perched next to him, gently bumping his shoulder with my shoulder, and nodding toward his leg.

“How’s it feeling?” I asked quietly. For quite a while Argonaut had been noting severely bad hamstring pain that was not improving with rest, stretching or icing in town. Argie took a deep breath and just shook his head, his amber eyes downcast.

“It’s definitely getting worse,” he acknowledged, “but I am so torn. I don’t want to stop hiking, but I don’t want to be airlifted off the top of a mountain because my hamstring snapped like an overtuned guitar.”

Dumptruck pulled out the map and began assessing our options, noting that we could either get out right now on the 13 mile side trail, or hike at least 30 more miles over 2 very tall peaks to get to the next exit.

“We can’t tell you what to do,” I said to Argie, “But I can tell you we are 100% in support of whatever you decide. You have hiked hundreds of miles in some of the toughest terrain in the country, we are proud of you, and you should be so, so proud of yourself. There is epic courage both in leaving and in staying. There is no quitting, there is only moving on to the next adventure. There is wisdom and elegance in knowing when the moment is to move on.”

Argie nodded, taking his glasses off and letting himself begin to cry in earnest. I put my arm around his shoulders and he leaned into me. We sat there in gentle silence for a few minutes. The only sound was the wind rustling through the Aspen leaves, and the occasional chirrup of grasshoppers. Argie and I sat close together on the boulder, his feet firmly planted on the ground and mine dangling a few inches above.

“In 2009, Ken Griffey Jr ended the major league baseball season by getting a hit that got Ichiro into home, winning the game,” Argie began softly, looking up at the trees, his eyes following the path of a small butterfly as it flitted between the branches high above. “It didn’t matter that the Mariners were nowhere near the play-offs, it didn’t matter that the season had been rocky, all that mattered is that they ended on a high note. The team rushed the field, put Griffey on their shoulders. Everyone was cheering, crying, so happy, so at peace with what they had accomplished.”

Argie paused, took a deep breath to steady himself, then continued, “Ken Griffey Jr should have retired right then. That had been the plan. Instead, he came back for one more season. He had so many injuries, and was in so much pain, that he could hardly play up to MLB standards, let alone his own standards. He made it halfway through the 2010 season, then quit by just driving away in the middle of the night. He had been such a hero, such an incredible player, and he destroyed himself by not knowing when to quit.”

I felt the sharp sting of tears well up behind my eyes, knowing what was coming next, and knowing how fiercely proud I was of my little brother for being who he is. Argie choked back a sob and leaned his head in my chest, his teeth gritting in resolute determination.

“I think I have to get off trail. It’s time for me to go home.”

I immediately wrapped him up in a hug and we both wept, our shirts so imbued with hiking sweat that a couple gallons of tears weren’t liable to make a difference.

“That’s so awesome,” I whispered, “You are so incredible.”

Dumptruck came up to where we sat and crushed us both in his long arms, all of us smiling and weeping in turns, jokes, sentimentality, and encouragement all tumbling out of our mouths in equal measure. Argonaut had to set sail back home, and by God we were going to make sure he got to the dock safely.

The 3 of us thusly hiked (very slowly) up the remaining 3,300 feet of elevation to the 11,965 altitude of Bishop Pass. It was a brutal, arduous climb, made all the more perilous with the now very top-of-mind fact that Argie’s hamstring was threatening decidedly to meet its maker.

As we approached the peak, we saw the elevation marker looming ahead of us. I reached it first then whipped around to cheer as Argie approached.

“You did it!!” I hollered, whooping and cheering as Argonaut threw his hands into the air in triumph, all of us crying all over again as he reached the sign, doubling over in relief, pain, joy, and deep sadness. We turned back around for Argie to gaze back out over the stunning vista of The Sierra one last time.

Argonaut looked out at all of it, breathing in the mountain air, the sun beaming perfectly down onto his glorious red beard, and saying with peaceful finality,

“Well, that’s that.”

We found Toasty at the bottom, and whisked Argie away to Bishop for a day of celebration. In our motel room Argie auctioned off the contents of his backpack, Toasty, Dumptruck and I leaping across the room to claim what we wanted, and all of us taking great satisfaction in decidedly throwing away what could no longer be salvaged. Toasty and Argie got up at 2:30am the next day to get to the airport, and when I subsequently woke up several hours later, it felt very strange.

When you’ve spent 24 hours a day with someone for 3 straight months, when they are suddenly gone it can feel a bit like a limb is missing. I kept expecting Argonaut to suddenly emerge around a corner, or to announce his exit from the bathroom with an earth-shattering belch. It was especially odd once Toasty returned from the airport, the finality of Argie’s exit made very real. The 3 of us toasted to him with some Evan Williams, and made a promise to each other to carry him with us the rest of the way. And so we have.

Before officially leaving Bishop, Toasty, Dumptruck and I made a side-trek to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, where the oldest known tree in the WORLD is living. The entire Bristlecone Pine forest is 1,000s of years old, but the oldest is 4,880 years old and is aptly named Methusela. Methusela is somewhere along the 4 mile loop trail through the forest, but his exact location is kept secret by conservationists to try and keep folks from messing with him or attempting to take pieces of him. Toasty, ever the sleuth, did a ton of research and was able to determine his exact location. I will absolutely not share that info here, nor any photos of Methusela himself. There’s a photo below of us with a (likely also 1,000s of years old) Bristlecone Pine, but it’s just a random one that we took a photo with on purpose to throw off the scent. All I can say is that we did find him, he was breathtaking, and I may or may not have cried some more while standing in his shadow. There is an increscribable peace that comes from being a small, fragile mammal who only gets maybe 100 years on this planet, breathing oxygen produced by a tree that rooted around the time that humans began to develop written language. At the tip of one of the branches dangled a small, new pine cone. Even now Methusela continues on, shepherding life into a world beyond time.

As mentioned in the previous post, Dumptruck and I elected to (temporarily) skip the last part of The Sierra due to the impending snowstorm, and hop on at the start of the desert. Our decision was hugely validated by hearing that 6 (six) helicopter rescues had to be done in that section over the course of the 3 day storm. Today we heard from a fellow PCT hiker from the East Coast that he single-handedly saved the lives of 2 completely under-prepared ultralight PCT hikers who’d never dealt with active snow/blizzards before, had no extra layers, were hiking in only shorts and t-shirts, and had no idea how to build a campfire. As much as we have experience with snow, that didn’t sound like much fun.

So instead, Dumptruck, Toasty and I headed to Kennedy Meadows South. After chatting with a lovely fellow hiker named Thunderfoot in the tiny General Store, we headed into the beginning of the high desert. It was immediately obvious that the flora and fauna in this area is wildly different. There are so many extremely fast tiny lizards sunning themselves on trail that, as I hike, I feel like Moses parting the Red Sea – if the Red Sea was itty-bitty cold-blooded lizards that zip away faster than my eyes can move. We have seen one gorgeous, huge Glossy Snake, lazily slithering away from the trail, blending beautifully into the sand around it. There are infinite alien insects that I’ve never seen before, zipping about in their own private, complex neighborhoods. Also, there are of course the omnipresent yellowjackets, the most consistent presence on this entire trail, one of whom stung the crap out of my right thumb. I did have the audacity to exist near it, so I suppose I deserve it.

All of the plants are far past bloom, but to be disappointed would be an insult to the beauty that remains. There are fields of fluffy, tiny pink bushes that make me feel like I’m hiking through a field of cotton candy. Brilliant yellow stalks wave in the wind and bright sunlight, while soft bushes of mint-green poof out sunny pollen as we hike through them. Water sources are getting few and far between, but we can see them from miles away, bright green glades nestled into the crevices of mountains, oases of trees and clear, burbling springs. Walking into these glades feels like walking into an air conditioned store in the middle of brutal summer, the cool air like a portal to another dimension.

Toasty was able to hike in with us on the first day and camp, then he hiked back out the next morning. That day we ended early at a water source, sheltering under the only tree for miles to play poker for candy and watch the sun set through the thick clouds at the edge of the storm that was obliterating the southern Sierra. We got one moment of a sun shower, tiny drops of rain glittering magically in the orange evening air. The next morning we woke with ice on our tents.

During this section was Dumptruck and I’s 12th wedding anniversary! We celebrated by aiming for a car campsite just off trail. It was utterly abandoned, but the privies were unlocked and even had toilet paper and hand sanitizer! Our campsite had a picnic table! We had packed out PIE! True luxury. At some point during the evening, Dumptruck and I were chatting about memories from our wedding. During that conversation, this exchange occurred:

Me: Do you remember-

Dumptruck: Mary Tyler Moore? Oh yeah. She really did make it after all.

I was so startled that I laughed until I cried. A few moments later, once I could speak again, this exhange was next:

Me: Do you ever worry that something funny you said is the funniest thing you’ll ever say, and that it’s all just downhill from h-

Dumptruck: *lets out a thunderous fart that literally echoes through the empty campsite* No, no I don’t worry about that at all.

Happy anniversary, indeed!

After a pass we crossed an invisible line into Joshua Tree land, and there were suddenly Joshua Trees everywhere. They are so stunning, and also quite pokey. One even punctured Dumptruck’s reserve water bladder as he squeezed past it, soaking him and his backpack in a gush. We camped beneath a huge, gnarled and old one, its thick branches sheltering us beneath an enormous desert sky strewn with stars.

The section marks the end of any Northbound flippers, as all of them only had to finish The Sierra, and are finished with their hike (they all started in April/May in the desert, so they don’t need that section). The Southbound bubble is extremely spread out, and there are waaaay fewer of us. For 4 days in a row, Dumptruck and I saw no one. Not one single other hiker or person on the trail. It was very eerie, but also felt like a true immersion into the wilderness.

We are now bouncing back up to finish our missing section of The Sierra. Onward, me hearties!

Love,

Thresher