Over the past week, while hiking solo, I have been in close proximity to a veritable cornucopia of wild animals. As I am hiking alone, I create significantly less noise than when hiking with Toasty, Dumptruck or Argonaut. Other hikers have told us they can hear our cackling laughter from half a mile away. Though I do occasionally crack myself up when alone, it is usually only when I bean my head on low-hanging branches. This happens more often than it should (considering I’ve been hiking for 4 months one would imagine I’d be more observant of my immediate environment), but not often enough to consistently scare creatures away. Thus, I have had several thrillingly close encounters.

Below are the creatures, with accompanying experience ratings, interaction stories, and videos (if I was able to get a video).

Skunk

• Fear Rating: 3/10
• Cuteness Rating: 10/10
• Annoyance Rating: 0/10
• Distance to Creature at time of encounter: 30 feet

At around 3:30 in the afternoon, I found myself hiking alongside the first true creek I’d seen since The Sierra. Most of the water sources in the desert section have been tiny mountain springs, nearly run dry. The downside of this is, of course, the threat of potentially running out of water. The upside is that my shoes haven’t gotten wet from attempting (and failing) to rock or log hop in a looong time.

Thus understandably, when I came upon the creek, I took a moment to gape at the huge, thriving trees that lined the water, breathe in the cooled air, and listen to the gentle riparian burbling.

The trail was set to run parallel to this creek for about a mile before I’d have to cross it downstream, so I turned my feet to continue, and saw just ahead of me the unmistakable black floof of a skunk. My brain immediately shrieked “RUN AWAY! YOU’LL NEVER GET THE SMELL OUT OF YOUR BACKPAAAAACK!!”

If you’ve never been up-close to a skunking, let me tell you: it’s like being sucker-punched in the mouth by a sludge monster made of burning chili oil. You can hardly breathe, the noxious fumes sending spikes of hot stank into your lungs, your skin, your very bones. The one time I was in direct proximity of a moments-previous dog-skunking, I had to literally throw away the shoes I’d been wearing because the smell never came out.

However, in a perfect example of my perhaps too-minimal sense of self-preservation, the initial knee-jerk panic was immediately replaced by a thought of “Ohmygosh he’s so flippin’ CUTE.” His drag-queen-level flamboyantly fluffy tail was bouncing saucily back and forth with every step of his tiny, dainty paws. I was also definitely far enough away that I was not in spraying distance. Lastly, keeping an eye on him seemed safer than letting him get out of sight, as there was no knowing if he might stop on the trail to snuffle something, leading to me getting too close to him and actually being in the Butt Stank Danger Zone.

So, I followed him for about a mile as he trotted merrily down the trail, keeping a good distance between us. I had to walk much slower than usual, and a couple of times he stopped to look back at me. I would just go motionless in place, like I was determined to win a game of freeze-dance, until he determined me to not be a threat and carried on. I felt enormous validation in regard to my own trouble with uphills, as every time he encountered an incline his speed would drop by at least half, his itty bitty paws digging into the sand to trundle his round furry body up the hill. I felt like I was being led to some kind of woodland garden party, where frogs and rabbits were set to share tea over a toadstool.

Eventually he turned off the trail and went down to the water. As soon as I could see that he was far enough off-trail, I scampered as silently as possible past him. No spraying occured. Which, to be honest, as adorable as he was, being skunked could have been a hike-ending disaster. Here he is in all his sweetness, accompanied by the song I made up for him:

Rattlesnake

• Fear Rating: 10/10 initially, then 2/10 once a safe distance away
• Beauty Rating: 10/10
• Annoyance Rating: 0/10
• Distance to Creature at time of encounter: 6 inches

When I was in 2nd grade, all I wanted in the whole world was a snake. My dad and I did a bunch of research. There was a beautiful adolescent Rosy Boa at a local reptile shop that I visited multiple times, pressing my little nose up against the glass of her tank, gazing into her gorgeous eyes and imagining our life together. I got to hold her several times, and she would wind herself lazily between my fingers, nuzzling up against the warmth of my skin. I loved her with every atom of my tiny 8-year-old body. My mother, wisely, recognized that as a military family that moved constantly, a snake would have a very stressful life, having to be moved back and forth across the country. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to adopt my Rosy Boa. So, in a brilliant display of motherly instinct, my mom bribed me with a kitten. This was an effective strategy.

I share this story to really put into context that I love and respect snakes, and genuinely have no fear of them. I, of course, respect and keep my distance from wild/venenous snakes, but I am not afraid of them. I understand why people would be terrified of snakes, it’s built into our DNA to fear animals that could potentially murder us. However, in general, I find them to be marvelous, beautiful beasts. This is perhaps a fault in my biology.

In contrast to my lack of snake fear, I do have what’s called an Exaggerated Startle Response. What this means is that sudden loud noises, or unexpected movement out of the corner of my eye, will make my entire body convulse reflexively and I will scream. It’s entirely out of my control. It happens as quickly and thoughtlessly as when you pull your finger away from a burning surface. Immediately after what I lovingly refer to as my Leap-N-Yelp, my nervous system chills right out and I am totally fine. It’s usually pretty funny. The only real downside to this is that I am terrified of balloons. If hell is real, I’m going to spend eternity in a room full of overly-filled plain latex balloons, all drifting around my feet, exploding at random intervals. My heartrate is actually accelerating just writing about it. Yeesh.

The upside to the Exaggerated Startle Response is that, when I took a step next to a large thorny bush that had overgrown the trail, and the gigantic rattlesnake coiled invisibly in the shadow under the bush about 6 inches from my left foot suddenly hissed and then began rattling at me, I didn’t have to even think about what to do. My reflexes took over, I slammed my hiking pole tips into the dirt, lifted both feet way off the ground, and swung forward about 4 feet down the trail like a pole-vaulter. All of this happened in less than half a second. And I was screaming.

Once I landed, I quickly ran about another 10 feet down the trail before I stopped and turned around. I couldn’t see the rattlesnake anymore, but her rattling was deafening and ongoing. The startle reflex had passed, but I felt grateful for it, as it had (apologies for the melodrama) potentially saved my life. There is a rattlesnake here called a Mojave Green that can cause respiratory failure in a healthy adult in less than half an hour. I didn’t get a close enough look at my snake to determine her specific species, and that, my friends, is a good thing. I fought down the (very real) desire to sneak back closer to get a better look at her, and settled for just taking a video of the rattling. She was in the large green bush that is overhanging the trail on the right.

A pair of middle-aged white guys on Mountain Bikes

• Fear Rating: 0/10
• Cuteness Rating: 0/10
• Annoyance Rating: 1,000,000,000/10
• Distance to Creature at time of encounter: 0 feet

I had wanted to include these jackwagons (my sister’s favorite insult) in this list to be intentionally insulting (i.e., these jerks were animals), but now I realize it’s probably more insulting to wild animals to be put into the same category as these entitled men. Well, we’re in it now.

I was hiking along when suddenly I heard a pair of voices chatting with each other coming up very fast behind me. Assuming them to be trail runners, I politely stepped off-trail and turned around to wave as they passed. Instead, what I saw was two dudes on mountain bikes FLYING down the trail. The trail in this section is very narrow, on loose sand, and built into the side of mountains so you have an uphill cliff on your right and a downhill cliff on your left. In other words, I was only barely out of the way, my feet pointed downward at a 45 degree angle as I balanced precariously to the side.

“THIS IS THE PCT,” I bellowed in the front guy’s face as they passed mere inches from me. I was utterly enraged, using all my willpower not to stick my hiking poles in their wheels as they passed. The trail here is very twisty and often has low visibility. They could easily maim or even kill someone coming around a corner at the speed they were going. They hadn’t slowed down at all for me, I just got lucky that I’d gotten out of the way. The guy in the front said,

“Yeah, but there are easements for bikers to share the trail,” he retorted with the cheerful, flippant dismissal of a man who’s never had to admit fault in his entire life.

“NO THERE IS NOT,” I screamed after them, having passed a sign at every single road/trail crossing that said bikes were prohibited. Here’s one from about a quarter mile after they passed me:

The second dude laughed openly in my face as he passed and said “Have a nice day!” and then they disappeared down the trail.

I stomped my foot in frustration, my mind immediately filling with a million better retorts, cursing myself for having stepped aside to let them pass. I spent the next FOUR MILES following their bike tracks in the narrow trail, grumbling to myself and fantasizing about not having stepped aside. The image of me just continuing to hike along normally, forcing them to either creep very slowly behind me or give up and turn around, was utterly delicious, and utterly torturous that I hadn’t done it. I can’t blame myself; I was operating under the assumption that they were trail runners, which means my stepping aside would have been polite and appropriate. But I have learned to look behind me before I move.

Point of fact: mountain biking is rad. Dirt biking is rad. In this area there are literally hundreds of mountain biking and dirt biking trails for folks on wheeled recreational vehicles to go. All of them are clearly marked. That’s awesome. And yet, people seem to think it’s okay to ignore clearly marked signs and take a wheeled vehicle down a very narrow, very dangerous trail that is meant only for foot traffic. This is not awesome, and is a gross reminder of the entitlement of humans. Let’s be more like animals. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I took a video of them; I do use a bit of foul language in this, fair warning.

Mountain Lion

• Fear Rating: 8/10
• Beauty Rating: 10/10
• Annoyance Rating: 0/10
• Distance to Creature at time of encounter: 15 feet

As I’ve been alone, occasionally I will listen to my favorite live-play Dungeons and Dragons podcast (excuse me while I push my glasses back up my nose). I play it out of the speaker of my phone, as wearing headphones would be very unsafe (re: being unable to hear rattlesnakes’ proximity alarms). I immediately turn it off if I see any other hikers approaching, though to be honest, seeing other hikers getting even more rare. The podcast I listen to is 3 very goofy adult brothers and their Dad, which means that though I am only 1 person, from a distance I sound like 4 grown men playing pretend and fighting imaginary goblins.

I was listening to my podcast one day around mid-morning, when I turned a corner and saw a mountain lion less than 15 feet away from me, crouched on the trail, muscles taut and ready to spring. She was so close. Time felt like it slowed down, the universe scrubbing the tape of my life, all sound becoming distant Charlie Brown wub-wub-wubs. It was just me and the mountain lion, and nothing else existed in the world.

She was beautiful. And deadly. And I was at her mercy.

She turned slowly to look at me, her large amber eyes fixing upon mine, regarding me with an endless depth of ancient knowledge. The sun reflected on her tawny coat, wrapping in texture around the tensed, twitching muscles just beaneath. The moment felt as though it stretched into its own universe, the space between each of my heart beats full of the brief, infinite connection between me and the being who could end me.

I felt the bone-deep thrill of being in the flood-lights of a predator, and, detached from any cognitive awareness, something distant inside of me brought my hand slowly up to my phone, turning my podcast up to full blast, 4 separate voices suddenly shouting into the silent mountain air, giving the illusion that I was not 1 person but several. I raised my hiking poles up above my head and began waving them around, trying to look as large and tall as possible. I stayed facing her, calmly regarding her, breathing deeply to steady myself and my heart.

She flicked her tail once, breaking eye contact with me and then silently leaping perfectly up onto a boulder above the trail. I’ve watched Homeward Bound enough times on VHS to know that given the opportunity, a cougar would love to leap down onto adorable dogs from a boulder above them. But, I didn’t want to stay in place, as if she was going to stalk me, she would quickly discover that I was not a bunch of boys but just 1 person.

So, with my hiking poles above my head like a wiggly, waving wacky-armed tube man, and my podcast of 4 nerdy boys as a shield, I walked slowly but determinedly down the trail, past the boulder, and away. I cautioned a glance up at the boulder as I went, ready to stand and face her again if I needed to, but she was nowhere to be seen.

If she watched me go by I’ll never know. To be honest, I like to think that perhaps she did.

——

I am now, against all odds, waking up at 5:30am. Daylight Savings Time has meant that the sun sets at 4:50pm, and I am not a fan of night hiking. It honestly scares the pants off of me. Sunday night, the first night after the time change, I was hurriedly setting up my tent just as the last tendrils of sunlight slipped behind the bowl of mountains around me. Luckily, my lizard brain has no concept of the human trappings of clock-time, and just naturally wakes me up when the sun comes up, and puts me to sleep when the sun goes down. Though it does mean that I’m getting a preview of retirement, wherein I’m eating dinner at 4pm.

This evening, at 7pm, Dumptruck’s flight lands at LAX. Thus ends my 3 week solo hiking adventure, and the 2 of us (with Toasty around for support!) will finish the last 200 miles together, racing against a winter that is already here.

What have I learned from hiking alone? I’ve learned that I’m a badass, that I can do hard things, and that standing alone on a mountaintop, bathed in the glow of the moon, my heart can soar to into the silence of galaxies beyond my understanding.

Also, I can do my own dishes, even without any water!

Love,

Thresher