Hello my esteemed pals! In the time since my last post we hiked over the highest point on the PCT (Forester Pass at 13,200 ft), officially finished The Sierra, got back on at Walker Pass in the high desert, hiked 86 miles in 5 days, and had many occasions to feel that we were live-action-role-playing in 1990’s Tremors, albeit with fewer Reba McEntires and Kevin Bacons.

Finishing The Sierra has been, for me, truly bittersweet. It was some of the most breathtaking wilderness I’ve ever had the privilege to hike through, and getting over Forester was a monumental accomplishment. However, truth be told, I’ve been suffering constant mild altitude sickness for weeks. One would think it would have improved over time, but with the daily 2,000ft+ ascents and 2,000ft+ descents, all above 10,000ft, every single moment of every single day I was so nauseated as to be on the verge of ralphing spectacularly all over the aforementioned beautiful scenery. When people say to go outdoors and paint nature, I don’t think that’s what they mean.

Toasty was able to join me and Dumptruck for the last few days of The Sierra, including Forester. About 1,000ft from the top, he stopped and leaned over, holding back his own retching. He wheezed and looked up and said “Do you feel this sick all the time?”

I nodded, handing him a ginger chew, and popping one in my own mouth for good measure. We both stood there (along with an unaffected Dumptruck, He of The Iron Stomach), gazing out at the glorious mountain range stretching out around us, feeling immense gratitude for the privilege of being there, and immense desire to be closer to sea level as soon as humanly possible. And so we hiked on, and up, and up and up, until we could see the tiny sign for the pass looming above us. And then the trail disappeared.

If you’ll remember from my last entry, there had been a heck of a snowstorm in the mountains. Though much of it had opportunity to melt before we got to our last peak, the top 300ft or so of Forester was blanketed in a thick coat of fresh, powdery snow. The 3 of us stood there, staring upward to the pass, so close, and now so perilous. The new snow was not strong enough to hold our weight, meaning even with spikes on, each step would have been post-holing to our knees or deeper, not knowing what dangers the hidden jumbled landscape of rocks beneath may hold.

I quickly scanned for other hikers’ footprints but saw very few. Then it clicked: they’d approached it like rock-hopping a river crossing. There were enough large boulders poking up above the snow to make a path, like playing The Floor is Lava, except the floor is at a 20 degree incline and the lava is snow so dazzingly bright in the sun as to cause little black spots to pop up in your vision.

“Maybe we should turn around?” Dumptruck asked. Toasty let out an alarming belch, and said “I want to keep going, but I can’t see the way.”

“Wait, listen, y’all of course can turn around if that’s what feels safest to you. But clearly other hikers got over this, and I don’t see footprints. They took the rocks, see the path?” I pointed out the constellation of large stones that led up to the pass. “I’m going to the top of this mountain. I don’t think it’s actually unsafe, it just seems like it is. It’s a trick.” I collapsed my hiking poles to free my hands and began rock scrambling. Once I was in motion, it was truly very simple. “See?” I hollered back to them, “It’s a game!”

Less than 10 minutes later I stepped back onto the re-emerged trail and rose to my full height, my hands resting atop the small metal Forester Pass sign welcoming me to the Sequoia National Forest. I turned around to see Dumptruck and Toasty a dozen feet below, industriously making their way up.

“You’re so close,” I called to them, surprising myself by hearing my voice catch in my throat. I hadn’t realized how desperately happy I was, happy to have reached the highest point I’d ever climbed in my life, and happy to be free of the enchanting mountains that had been making me so sick for so long. I let myself cry in earnest, and when Dumptruck and Toasty arrived all the top, our cheers echoed down the mountain.

For a variety of not interesting reasons that I won’t elaborate because of the terrific boredom it would inflict upon you, we actually turned around to exit the side trail at Kearsarge Pass. All I have to say about Kearsarge is that it was extremely hard, and the most gorgeous stretch of hiking I’ve ever done. If you’re ever in central California and want to do a day hike (there’s also a loop trail around lakes if you want to do a few days or a week) then Kearsarge is the one you should do. Also we met some really rad folks on top of it.

After a quick side trip to Lone Pine (where many classic Westerns were filmed, and also Tremors, naturally), Alabama Hills (a dense rock grove where the stones look like giant melty blobs of clay plopped down onto the landscape from the heavens) and the Mobius Arch, we made our way back to the desert, where Dumptruck and I resumed our hike South from Walker Pass.

The second day out in the desert was windy. Now listen, I don’t want you to think windy like “golly, this wind may make a flag flap about” or “gosh, this wind may take my hat off.” I want you to think windy like Dorothy is about to go sailing past you in her house, screaming at the top of her lungs, with the Wicked Witch’s sister pelting by shortly thereafter, spinning wildly out of control on her broom but having the wherewithall to flip you the bird and scream “GET A JOB!!” at you before she splats decisively into the side Dorothy’s house. That kind of windy.

Given the unsurprising lack of tall plants in the desert, there’s nothing to cut the wind, which means the 19 miles we hiked that day involved a lot of almost falling over. As evening approached, Dumptruck and I began scanning the landscape for a flat spot with any sheltering plants whatsoever. We found a grove of Joshua Trees that provided some wind cover for a small tent site, but it seemed iffy. Dumptruck identified a cluster of boulders a bit farther off trail, and we headed over to investigate. The boulders were on a bluff, but there was one tentsite, and with the direction the wind was coming, the largest boulder blocked at least 80% of the force. Perfect. We set up our tent in the protected spot, curled up in our sleeping bags against the chill in the air and fell asleep.

At 12:50am I sat bolt upright, yanking my earplugs out of my ears, grabbing my headlamp and looking frantically over at Dumptruck, who had also shot awake. The wind had changed direction, and we were now in the direct, unprotected path of gale force winds gusting over 60mph. I switched on my headlamp and my jaw dropped. The rainfly had ripped off the tent in 2/3 places and was snapping wildly around, making it look like someone with an ill-fitting toupee getting blasted point-blank in the face with a leaf blower on full power. The frame of the tent was bending at dangerous angles, and all of the contents of the tent not held down by our bodies were bouncing and flying about with the exuberance of a dozen kids at a birthday party in a bouncy house who’d just mainlined enough cake and ice cream to kill Wilford Brimley. (There are videos below)

Dumptruck jumped out of the tent, took down the rainfly, and then got back in, breathing heavily.

“Maybe it’ll be okay now,” I yelled at the top of my lungs over the roaring gale, “like opening the windows in your house during a torna-”

Before I could finish, there was an alarming ripping sound behind me, and the guy line connecting corner of the tent at my back to the stake shredded off, causing the entire corner of the tent to lift up and whack repeatedly against my back with enthusiastic freedlm.

“Nevermind,” I hollered, “Time to go!”

We packed up our backpacks as efficiently as possible, and then I sat inside the tent to hold it down as Dumptruck scampered around, pulling up the stakes. We briefly considered cowboy camping (sleeping directly on the ground with no tent) in our spot, but all of the tiny pebbles on the bluff were rocketing around like BBs, pelting into our bodies, faces and eyes. So it was, my retainer in my mouth and my sleeping long johns on my legs, that we hiked out into the pitch black desert night at 1:30 in the morning.

As we staggered our way back to the trail, we passed by the grove of Joshua Trees we’d considered earlier in the evening. Two of the trees had been violently uprooted by the wind and were now laying dispiritedly across each other, their spiny leaves whipping around. Dumptruck and I stared at the very hardy plants that had been defeated by the wind, utterly horrified. We shouted to each other that we couldn’t use Joshua Trees as shelter in this much wind, and we’d have to hike until we could find something else. Once we were back on trail, we bobbled our way South, the moon not yet above the horizon, a sky of ink coating us in total darkness, our wobbling headlamps the only source of light.

The trail we encountered was a continual, deep wash-out crevice (likely from Hurricane Hilary) about 18 inches deep in places, meaning we were having to hop back and forth with our feet at steep angles, American Ninja Warrior-ing our way into the night. I had to plant my hiking poles with the same level of force needed when crossing a powerful river, and even still, I was often stumbling sideways with the force of the wind, getting quite literally blown off my feet. There were no more large rocks, no big shrubs, nothing but the occasional lone Joshua Tree. There was nowhere to go but onward.

After about a mile, Dumptruck noticed a thick, low, scraggly California Juniper about 100 ft off trail. We made our way over to it, and though the wind was still immensely powerful, the bush provided a modicum of protection. Without even needing to verbally acknowledge our agreement, we yoinked out the footprint of the tent, threw our sleeping bags down on it, balanced our backpacks up at our head as a windbreak, and, at 2:30am, went rebelliously to sleep.

At 6:30am my eyes, encrusted with dust and sand, slowly opened a crack to let in the first rays of sunlight. I blinked and rubbed away the grit, gazing out past the foot of my sleeping quilt into the enormous pink desert sky. I looked up at the branches of Juniper above me, its innumerable delicate green fingers rustling in the wind, and whispered a quiet thanks to it, for keeping us safe and letting us sleep. I rolled over, snuggling against the gently snoring lump of sleeping bag that was Dumptruck, and fell back into a light doze until 8am.

When we hiked out we were a bit loopy, and our memories from the previous night felt like one of those dreams you have when you’re in that liminal space just before waking. We hadn’t fully understood the level of protection that the Juniper had given us until, after packing up and stepping out from behind it, we were immediately blasted with cannons of wind again. Throughout the rest of the day the gusts began to subside, and then dissipated completely as we hiked into a totally unexpected coniferous forest.

Entering the forest felt like walking through a portal into a Massachusetts Halloween. Brown pine needles crunched underfoot and a low, thin layer of mist clung to the base of the tall sentinels of trees. I have been genuinely loving hiking in the desert, but the small window into my understanding of autumn felt like a gift. A small remembrance of being home. Also, delightfully, thrillingly spooky. That night as we set up in a creepily abandoned campsite, we did our best with tent surgery to fix all of the rips and tears. We did moderately well, although one of the zippers is impossibly broken, and the door on Dumptruck’s side now flops drunkenly inward.

As the night fell into a chilliness far below freezing, we were sung to sleep by a chorus of owls. Sometime later a pack of very talkative coyotes got within 200 ft of our tent, yapping and yowling to each other in the full darkness of a sky blotted out by thick pine needles far above.

The rest of this section returned to regular desert hiking, and we have had to do big water carries (each of us carrying 4-5 liters at a time) as water sources are getting far less frequent. We’ve seen tiny baby bearded dragons, several more glossy snakes (no rattlesnakes yet!), and got to hear crickets and crows go totally bonkers at 9:20am because of a near-total eclipse. We’ve had the pleasure of spending time with some truly wonderful other hikers (hello to Sunset, Bucket, Fish, Fella, Scooter, Wolverine, Spreadsheet/Queen Bee and their five awesome kids!!).

There have also been an insurmountable number of little biting gnats that love to dive-bomb our faces screaming “witness meeeeeee!” in tiny voices as they die heroically in our eyeballs and we scream and have to pour water across our faces to blink them out. But now I get to sport a very fashionable head net, so there’s an upside to everything. Also, in my totally nonconsensual tour of the Schmidt Pain Scale for Biting Insects, I got bit by a red harvester ant. The pain did not dissapate for 8 hours, and felt like there was a hand with long fingernails literally inside of my calf, digging into the muscle with the strength of a mom with her claws on the last jansport available at the back to school sale.

Last but not least, some news: today Dumptruck has to fly home for some time for a work obligation. So, I will be officially hiking alone for the next 3 weeks. I’ve never backpacked alone in my entire life. I’ll sincerely miss Dumptruck, but I’m excited to do something I’ve never done (and I also have to recognize immense privilege of Toasty meeting me at road crossings when I want/need to take a zero). The only thing I’m genuinely nervous about is the inevitability of waking up at 3am needing to pee. Alone. In the desert. Where there are mountain lions and sleeping snakes. It’ll be fine. Who needs to pee anyway?

Love,

Thresher