The cranks turn, over and over, and my mind wanders as I pick a line through ruts and rocks and drifts.
Picking a line.
Perhaps this is the crux of the issue, of why I am never quite certain that cycling or bikepacking is as therapeutic as walking. The background energy needed to operate a machine at speed seems to dictate a different sort of thought, a different mental pace.
Not better, not worse. Different.
On the climbs I am certainly drawn into a smaller sphere; attention is required to watch the line, getting lost in breath, watching sweat drip on the top tube. But it doesn’t seem to allow for watching the birds or scanning a treeline or wondering about cloud formations. Walking is slow enough that attention to foot placement requires less conscious attention. Walking thoughts are expansive, with space for the external world should you allow it to enter. The bike tends to draw me into an inward space, an experiential sphere existing in a small radius extending from my front wheel, all else a relative blur.
And then there is the descent, often with little time for thought at all; maintaining the line reigns supreme. To think is to hesitate, to hesitate is to find oneself laid out in the rocks. A flow takes hold, very akin to the experience of surfing a wave, an everflowing present uncoiling beneath the wheels. While there is something to be said for 8 miles of downhill and being home for coffee by 9AM, a side of me always feels that the speed has robbed me of playing witness to the gray fox hidden in the chaparral or the tanager perched in the crook of an oak’s arm.
That we evolved on foot no doubt plays a role in the syncing of pace and thought, the bike a technological and comparatively obnoxious intrusion.
This weekend I’ll be walking overnight. But don’t get me wrong; there is something to be said, time and time again, for being home for coffee beside my wife by 9AM. Sometimes we simply have to cheat to fit it all in.
I lay there floating on my back, arms and legs outstretched, watching a half moon and Orion’s stars roll with the swell from behind the waterspotted lenses of my diving mask. Like a passenger looking out of the windows of my own eyes.
Darkness above, darkness below.
The growing seasickness spreading through my gut and limbs stunted any interest in chasing lobster. A cold sweat was seeping beneath the seals of my wetsuit hood, snorkel feeling tight and restrictive on my breathing.
I could hear the waves breaking rhythmically in the rocks, sound echoing off the cliffs. Getting back in sounded ominous, especially as I was certain I’d be fighting vomit and convulsions by then.
Rolling back over and spitting the snorkel, picking out Rigel and Sirius from my bed of kelp.
Bed of kelp.
I understand now.
Resting in a thick mat of it, its air bladders buoying my arms and legs. Like a bed of slowly writhing leaves and tentacles, if one could somehow be at peace with that.
I turned my light off and I was home, unconcerned with my two partners, bobbing quietly and alone in a blackened sea.
Thirty minutes later I would crawl out on my own, leaving them to continue the hunt. Slithering and dragging onto shore, strands of kelp and eel grass clinging to mask and snorkel and shoulders, hands shaking. The sight of a strange and wounded beast.
Splayed out in the rocks on my back, moonlight reflecting their wet surfaces in a silver, ice-like sheen, I let the tide lap at my fins. Burping and dry-heaving slowly subsiding, relaxing into breath.
If God wills it. My father-in-law used to say this with a shrug and a gesture of his hands, palms to the sky. He’d say this about the most difficult things while we chatted about life over a cup of Turkish coffee.
I can understand the anger. At the core, a lot of people are confused and afraid. Some lash out, some put on the armor of denial. Some sooth themselves by seeking fault in others. Some build a wall of stoicism and logic.
Whatever.
Do what you have to do.
“Inshallah.”
People are terrified of losing control, whether it’s a virus or fear of someone taking their rights away. But maybe we never had it in the first place? Maybe living with 300,000,000 other people requires the humility of surrendering the illusion of that control? Dwelling on this might help with the fear and anger and bravado directed towards others, perhaps giving way to something healthier like forgiveness. Relentlessly seeking who’s to blame is likely a missed opportunity to live your life.
Welcome to being in something together, for better or worse. I know it’s disorienting for those just realizing it. I know we like to think we are in control.
“Inshallah” as my father-in-law would say, squinting into the sun while sitting on the porch. You don’t have to be a believer to understand that beyond your personal actions, what’s going to happen is going to happen.
Grab a drink and gather ’round folks, I’ve got a tale to tell.
There were four of us, out for a late afternoon mid-week dive. Conditions and visibility were good, though there was a little swell in the water to keep us bouncing, and lights were carried in the event of a late exit. Hunting on this day was about a quarter mile offshore (generally marked by the red arrow), exploring some kelp beds and rock structure in ~35 foot deep water. Rumor had it there were some good nests of sheephead in this area and I was intent on shooting a big goat. Everything was going well…
As (too) often happens, we all strayed a bit from one another, hunting in pairs but loosely doing our own thing between check-ins. My partner was about 15 yards from me, taking mid-depth perch on a polespear. I was hugging the bottom, looking for sheephead. Plenty of small females were lurking, but their king proved elusive. The sun was dipping low so I lowered my standards to match, knowing we’d be getting out soon, willing to shoot anything that would make some tacos.
I was exploring a kelp thicket and *!POP!* shot an opaleye near the end of my breath. Rather than going to retrieve the spear and fish, I made for the surface and would bring it up from there.
Except when I turned and pointed for the sky, something was holding me down…
Kicking hard, I couldn’t budge. I jerked my gun, assuming the spearshaft was stuck in the rocks, but no, my gun was free. ~25 feet deep, I was tangled in something and running out of air.
Instinct told me to kick again, kick harder, when I looked down and realized a thick mat of kelp had wrapped itself behind the knife’s sheath on my belt. I went for the knife to either free it or cut out, but the kelp was too thick. I couldn’t get my hand through it to find the knife…And this suddenly became one of those moments where time warps, a tinge of panic about the reality sets in, and things feel like they are taking forever…
I kicked again, even harder this time, and was worried by the strain I felt back; I was seriously stuck, no movement. Time passed while I fought…and then something gave with a snap. Relieved, I felt the thrust of my fins- and soon buoyancy- lifting me to the light above.
Shaking it off, I caught my breath and went to work dealing with my fish; I still had my gun in hand and a fish on the spear. When I went for my knife to kill it and get it on the stringer, I found it was gone. I snapped it off my weight belt, sheath and everything. A thick scrap of broken plastic was left attached where it sheared off.
I called a friend over, borrowed a knife, strung the fish, and got my bearings back. I was still slightly rattled, but kept diving, not really trying to shoot anything, just letting my nerves straighten back out. I have found it’s important to keep going in these moments rather than succumb to the instinct to bail. Leaving the scene with a bad feeling sill lingering tends to allow fear to fester, as opposed to reassuring oneself that everything is still OK, regaining control of mind and breath despite a scare.
Post-dive analysis, a couple things obviously went wrong, but I will admit I’m bothered primarily by my lack of one particular reaction. Initial instincts went in this order: 1. struggle to break free (Bad!: wasting air), 2. calm down and try and cut free (Good!), and 3. back to struggling to break free (More bad!: wasting even more air) when I discovered I couldn’t cut out. I am a little disturbed that the instinct to drop my weight belt entirely didn’t enter the equation faster. Not that it wouldn’t have- I would like to think that if I didn’t break free the second time I would’ve gone to drop my belt, but regardless, the instinct never came because I ended up breaking free. I feel like it should’ve been there sooner.
I’ve been replaying the scenario in my mind, visualizing and rehearsing releasing my belt over and over and over, trying to ingrain the action somewhere in my consciousness. When I relayed this story to my partners at the surface, it was also a stark reminder to all of us to stay a little closer, be more watchful of each other.
While some may be reading this thinking us fools, an honest evaluation says that these situations are going to happen in some form, that we are accepting these risks the moment we get in the water, and we have to remain diligent and honest with ourselves about our abilities, actions, and future considerations. This is how we learn. Yes, this is also how people get killed, but any outdoor adventurer knows that learning experiences and disaster are often dual faces of the same coin.
Shall we talk about alienation? Or the romantic naivety of professing love for a place while understanding little of its workings? Love is love, no doubt, but perhaps this is an immature love that takes the complexity of its object for granted.
Trees.
Plants.
Birds.
No, this will not do. To learn the names of your hosts and neighbors is a matter of respect, the first step.
There is something disorienting about an “outdoorsperson” being able to cite more outdoor gear manufacturers than birds, in knowing the local drive-thru’s menu better than one’s local edible plants. What does it mean to recognize the fleeting silhouette of a Toyota Forerunner but remain unable to name of the stalks of yellow flowers whose fragrance reminds you of that day you walked that coast with someone you love? To understand the evolution of bicycle braking systems or professional sports rosters better than one knows the history of the western gray squirrel who happens to be yelling at you from a branch?
We seem to love ourselves and our creations above all. Look at the world unfolding, this much is clear.
And we forget what we’ve forgotten. Amnesia. One generation having lost a sense of what has been added to or missing from the landscape stretched before it; something has changed, but it’s blurry around the edges. Is not knowing the names a symptom, manifest in unconscious unawareness, oblivious to one’s obliviousness of the natural world? All the while perfectly in-sync and at home in a manufactured world. Chasing Pokemon in a computer simulation in a dream.
Thoroughly domestic.
Sunburned, mildly dehydrated, and scratched upon return, my head is swimming with “new” plants and birds and watersheds. I sat still in the dirt of the chaparral at noon and was rewarded with the conference of two spotted towhees, one perched on a burnt-out manzanita close enough to reveal his blazing red eyes. My own eyes burning, I gorged on tart blackberries beside a small creek for lunch. There was purple, berry-laden coyote scat beside me. Not so different.
I’m beginning to understand what I missed for all those years in my pursuit of mileage, but I suppose this is the way: Sketching the large lines, filling in the big gaps, slowly refining, shrinking the scale, adding layer upon layer of detail. I think of a good friend who’s been slowly tracing the Upper Kern for decades, alone, mapping small bends and folds, until arriving at the headwaters and turning back. And doing it all again, discovering what he missed, reassessing what he found.
We sit in the shade of a sycamore and I can see it in your eyes. Words are coming out of my mouth but you resent them. A father’s stumbling concern becomes an affront to individuality, to autonomous thought. The words are suddenly painful, unsolicited and sticking like barbs, and rejection is the shield behind which an adult ego grows. Even agreement is fraught with concern, micro-delineations of positions and caveats must be probed. Your head burning with ideas from university, books and voices, heroes, making my ideas seem small. I have exposed myself, the anatomy of a mere human being revealed, banal viscera, the mythical stripped away.
I look at your arrogance and I almost forget my own.
How many did I tear down and cannibalize in the construction of this self?
(Visions of empty robber trenches in ancient archaeological sites. One burgeoning civilization hacking away at the foundations of the monuments that precede it, hauling off someone else’s quarried stone to build anew, a dusty pit where a temple once stood.)
Hammer at the foundations, tear down your father.
I understand.
I just ask that you be gentle, if and when you can. There may come a day when you are hurt and exhausted and you catch a sideways glimpse of my eyes peering back from your reflection. Looking down you realize that your thick legs resemble mine and that you no longer have to carry it all alone.
As wildflowers and sunshine give way to choked and cluttered canyons, I’m struck by the unique character of this mountain range, how the features almost force a certain mode of thought. Slopes too steep and thick with brush, much of this landscape is not made for seeking vistas and sunsets, instead funneling the wanderer into overgrown, tree-lined waterways.
I imagine this terrain would be claustrophobic for many, too closed-in, teeming and busy, the overlapping texture of plant and rock reaching in from all directions. At times it feels jungle-like. To the uninitiated, possibly messy and oppressive.
Growing up here, the character of these canyons has likely played a part in teaching me to appreciate the tiny gift, to be content in examining the details hidden in small spaces. What lies around the bend is very often no different from where one stands, unless a mindset is cultivated to approach the experience like one approaches a bonsai collection, looking for micro-environments and quietly hidden paradises. Roaring waterfalls are seldom found. Instead I find myself drawing in my knees and sitting close, watching a small stream flow over a rounded boulder into a sandy-bottomed pool.
Observing water striders dancing for position at the edge of an eddy replaces the trout-gazing of High Sierra alpine lakes. Stone-colored toads swim the breaststroke through slow moving pools no deeper than a shin. Wrens and dippers hunting insects flip in and out of undercut banks and rocks, disappearing into dark hollows. The stones here do not scream for attention, they do not tower and inspire awe through scale. It is a land of small, subtle happenings that require attention to understand, full of small creatures living small lives.
Hammock camp. I’m convincing myself it might be the perfect shelter for this area. Materials for a lighter version are on the way…
Fortunately this seems to have a way of thinning the crowds, warding off those seeking the spectacular. They congregate at the range’s peaks and waterfalls, leaving those of us happy to look for more humble treasures to do so in peace. I’m reminded of a whisper from Cold Mountain: If someone would poke out the eyes of the hawks, us sparrows could dance where we please…
In my teenage years I trained a pair of scrub jays to eat from my hand and eventually perch on a shoulder to gingerly pluck breadcrumbs from my lips. While an “animal trick” that won praise and laughter from family and friends, conjuring images of some backyard teenage St. Francis of Assisi (my mother always said this), the whole act was partially a product of the emotional lows that left me sitting alone under the trees in the corner of our yard for who knows how many days throughout the years. The befriending of the birds took far more time, silence, and stillness than anyone was aware.
I strongly suspect that some form of depression is at the core of more animal whisperers and stream watchers than we can account for.
I’ve always liked being quiet, being left alone. That people elevate the “silent retreat” to something spiritual is quite obvious, yet it has simultaneously never made much sense to me, perhaps because it has come so easy and so often that it does not feel like it takes any particular discipline. When practice ceases to be practice and simply becomes life.
I eventually graduated from hiding in the trees in my backyard to driving and sitting alone in bigger spaces. The nights were particularly long and black then, sleep was always tortured with the sounds of the forest. I was still learning how to be in the woods, how to relax. My wife, who was not yet my wife, would sometimes walk to my camp to surprise me with breakfast in the morning. Those days were magic, intense in a reckless sort of way that comes only with youth, yet our bond survived.
I was diagnosed with a mood disorder at the age of 26, given a prescription and instructions to return every week for therapy. I never had the prescription filled and after my second therapy session, I never went back. To this day I’ve struggled with the accuracy of that diagnosis, and with the entire process of evaluating mental health, but that is not to say I haven’t struggled.
Despite the fact they’ve never gone away, something even then hinted at the idea that the highs and lows were a part of me that I had to learn to live with, perhaps even embrace, not squash with medication or overcomplicate with a stranger’s disinterested musings (that was my impression of therapy, anyway). I’ve largely learned to stop fighting with ideas about what behavior is “appropriate” in relation to “norms” and instead try to welcome the whole of my being. The thought of change is often more frightening than the thought of enduring the pain of swinging between the peaks and valleys. To change is to try and imagine who you would be without being who you are. Perhaps for some of us, life is the slow process of learning to live with ourselves.
Accepting your burden might just conserve energy that will be needed to carry it.
I am very fortunate to have found someone that understands me. When I throw a sleeping bag and some food in pack and head out the door, my wife has the trust to know that the escape is not about us or the life we’ve created together, but about allowing me to be the person that still needs to go sit with the birds.
So I go where the dark-eyed junco dwells. I walk until my feet hurt and I find a suitable patch of earth for my sleeping bag. If there is a good view, a trickle of water somewhere, the sound of the wind leaning into pine, sagebrush, or manzanita…even better.
But there are always birds.
I get lost in their calls, in trying to pick apart the trees to find them and figure out who is saying what to whom. Or there is simply drifting off into a hazy present underscored by the urgency of their conversations at dusk.
Triiit!! Triiit!! Teet-teet-teet-teet! Triiit!!
Tep! Tep! Tep! Twoooo-eee!!!
(I am working on achieving mastery in transcribing birdsong to English.)
Seeing and hearing birds consumed with the immediacy of their own lives helps bring me back, the feeling of not belonging in this time and place replaced by the warmth of understanding that this is the only time and place. A reminder to carry the presence of the birds.
It’s hard to understand why that would be appealing right now, given the pervasive low-grade anxiety that seems to lurk beneath everything in these strange times. My feelings seem to oscillate by the day; on Friday this trip wasn’t going to happen. On Saturday morning I packed my bag and left. To seek out the wild and lonely felt wrong at first, but the moment I locked the car, swung a leg over my bike, and tasted some wind, it made sense. Some things don’t change. Perhaps we need those things more than ever right now.
I am so pleased with the bike as a tool, this bike in particular, but remain generally convinced a solid MTB should be an indispensable part any adventurer’s quiver. If not for mountain biking, which I have waning interest in as a discipline unto itself, for linking loops, shuttling to vehicles, and making other adventures happen. The bike made the 6 mile connection between the entry and exit points of my hiking loop, remaining hidden and locked to a tree until I returned. Its usefulness is a reminder to keep my cycling fitness up, even if only for trips like this.
The idea was a peak-bagging fest, exploring some ridge systems I already know more thoroughly. Winston Peak (above) and Winston Ridge (across the canyon), went down quickly and predictably as many a sunrise has been spent hunting them.
Down into the canyons, somewhere off of Little Rock Creek I became sidetracked, roughly eight miles and many thousands of feet into the hike, lost in thought and wandering onto the wrong trail. The detour was worth it for the discovery of the above spring, which will be quite useful come hunting season.
Camp on Burkhart Saddle felt particularly lonely, nothing but a windswept bare spot on a ridge at 7000′. The lights of the desert cities could barely be seen in the distance to the north, bringing with them visions of families in quarantine and a general reminder of the heaviness that was waiting down below. The winds were whipping, trees moaning, temperatures dropping quickly. After ramen followed by half a pot of instant potatoes, I retreated to the back of the tarp and got in my bag, only 8PM, fully knowing I was in for a long night but unwilling to sit outside in the wind. The Seek Outside DST saw it’s inaugural night; spacious, versatile, the diamond fly pitch was excellent with the downward ridge pointed into the wind.
I boiled the coffee at 3:30AM, long awake but it was as long as I could wait, now biding my time so I wouldn’t burn out my headlamp navigating while hiking too early. The country on Pleasant View Ridge is steep enough that a headlamp hike could easily become a fiasco. I was trying to time it so I’d do the rather straightforward climb and arrive on Pallet Mountain at sunrise, facing the harder country and route finding on the other side with the aid of the sun. Timing was perfect; I topped out as magma flowed from an eastern sky, shedding jackets and hats and gloves as the light grew brighter.
Looking back on Pallet Mountain, first light barely touching it. I’m wise I camped in the saddle and resisted the strong urge to hike through the night. It would’ve been a steep route finding disaster in the dark. Winston Peak top left, where I started.
About 18 miles into the loop, I was very concerned I’d be stopped by snow and the lack of traction gear and an axe. More confirmation hiking at night would’ve been bad. It registered as much steeper than it appears here when I saw it in person, snow hard and crusted, and it looked like it only got worse. Without crampons the snow sections were too dangerous, the risk of a slide in many places too great. Skirting the edge of the snowline on the ridge proved safer, though it cliffed out in a few spots, forcing me back to kicking steps on snow.
Slow down. Calm down. One foot in front of the other. Check your footing, plant your poles. Don’t end up alone and broken in the bottom of a ravine.
The ridge soon gave way to Mount Williamson, fortunately more snow-free as the southern slopes became more gentle. Ultimately the ridge gave way to the descent back to the highway on part of the PCT I climbed 4 of the 7 peaks I was initially interested in, scrapping three simply becasue what I saw on the topo did not translate to the physicality of what I saw in person…Steep Country. A good reason to return.
By the numbers: 22 miles, +8000′. Home by 10:30AM, just in time for Second Breakfast and Coffee (a trick I learned from Hobbits).
Down into the canyons, somewhere off of Little Rock Creek I became sidetracked, roughly eight miles and many thousands of feet into the hike, lost in thought and wandering onto the wrong trail. The detour was worth it for the discovery of the above spring, which will be quite useful come hunting season.
Sweeping the Garden 