Now, back in receptionland, being gone at least a week, I feel compelled to say something, though I was enjoying simple engagement in the journey/a sort of peace, which writing may interfere with. But I am compelled.
For a while I just ate, generally too much, of the free hiker food you don't need to cook (the free food at Muir Trail Ranch was as unbelievable as before--buckets full of Pro, Cliff, & Peaceworks bars, Gu, etc), and re(a)d, mostly Pynchon. More recently I got into roaded areas, primarily because of a fire, and roads motivate me to walk more to get to roadless areas.
Most recently I've had a few days of insane bushwhacking: dropping down into the Kings River Gorge/canyon following bear trails two days ago, and yesterday and first half of today attempting to find and follow trails (on the map but may not have been maintained in decades) before giving up and taking the OHV (off highway vehicle) routes. I've found the heat and the poison oak at these lower elevations by the way.
Last night I was on a mountaintop penned in by chaparral and scrub oak--where I stopped I could not stand up--after following old foot trail to cow trail to bear "trail", getting progressively more shredded in the process. Madness. --perhaps related to my not wanting to stop various things I get started on, whether reading, computer fiddling, eating, and what else? (typing these!) or not wanting to have to turn around and go back considering how shredding and trailless the trip up had been.
Thank goodness for the greater cycles within which my foolishness and lack of will to practice self-control occur: the sun sets, the book ends, the no-cook food runs out, the batteries get low.
What has been for the worse, though: the smoke from the fires. We seem to get a valley breeze in the evenings (cold air sinking?), so mornings by around 2am for the past three mornings the air has been fairly thick with smoke (how close are the fires??). I considered the possibility of becoming charred remains up there on that hill, especially as I cooked my dinner and was reminded how the manzanita--which I had only to reach above or around me to gather--burns like a blowtorch. I did have about four liters of water with me, perhaps lessening the foolishness score. But I more or less had to crawl through poison oak (it's fall, mostly leafless and dried out, and I'd survived the previous day's encounters--but had a river to soak in), and I am wearing shorts, and I had ripped the silicone nylon enclosure I made for the top of my pack, meaning it and what it contained would get caught on more and more of the brush I crawled through, with the catching & ripping getting progressively worse (++foolishness).
I woke early--in the smell of woodsmoke in the brush-enclosed darkness, with no easy, clear path of departure--, I packed by 5am, tried to move a bit with my LED light, then sat and waited (mental stuff, rested, +read a little) for haze-dimmed daylight. Made it back to the cow trails by 0630 or 0700? Back to the marked trail by 1100. On the map this trail continues, but I found no continuation on the ground, though there were similar ancient blazes (continuation not found) on oaks near the highest reach of the cow trails! And back to the road by 1200.
Now I've gotten in trouble the other way: I asked for and accepted a ride that got me most of the way up the OHV road--avoiding much of a long, hot climb. Later without being 100% sure where I was, I accepted (though I did not have a thumb out, and I did hesitate) a short ride that put me partway along hwy 180--but I wanted to be on the forest service road to the north (I had considered it and walked by, confused by labeling saying it went to Millville, which is not on my map)--that road would be much more peaceful, there's probably a spring along it, and it gets to the east in a nice spot. Well I decided not to turn around, and eventually found an FS (forest service) road to get a bit of a ways off the hwy. But I still have maybe 6 mi of hwy walking for tomorrow am, and only a quarter of a liter of H20 left after cooking a good dinner. And I'm a bit itchy, rather dirty, and the fat ants are running over each other to be my dessert--but the swarms of eye flies went to bed with the sun, and perhaps I'm far enough south to now avoid the morning fire smog.
--
Reading Pynchon--alot could be said. About the bears and the cows and the ants and the people, how they seem to wander every where--alot could be said? About feeling alive and fully engaged following those animal trails--the mystery, amazement where they lead, down and up cliffs, to water, on belly, on crablegs, scraping, shredding through brush, feeling the scrape on skin, continuing anyway, or because?--ditto.
Well, that may be all then. I've enjoyed a few emails that made it through--one from Starhawk about the RNC, one from Jim Bell . . . and the ProEVO people apparently sent out another shipment of books ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pro-evo ?)
It would be good if I could post a proposed route before I head to possible no reception for the next two weeks. But the only solid plan is to resupply somehow (about a day's food remains), to look at big sequoias, to continue south, to not bushwhack any more--or at least no more following bear scufflings . . . no more poison oak.
Not sure whether I'll stop by Quail Springs and Los Padres NF, not sure how soon I'll be back in SD (very end of Sept? Week before end?). Seems I want to not get stuck there--it would be so easy and perhaps not unpleasant to get rutted there for a month again (and work on various things related to Mexico travel). But since I started this trip I've never spent two nights in the same spot. . . perhaps keep that up? I wish to avoid my grandma (Ann)'s fearfulness. Unlike Sherwood Anderson's characters--well, never mind attempting to express that.
No grand plans. I may now be embedded out here--reading & listening to books and wandering around really may be enough, and richer than most things I can imagine. Challenges come up--finding trails, resupplying gracefully, reading--. I avoid the ugliness of the car-city and car-presence, the rutness of house living. I could see myself hopping a freight train and riding along to somewhere.
Comfort will be an issue. Too much heat, poison oak, biting, stinging ants, flying bugs, bad air from burning forests--
The only thing I think could be good to learn from that I may not get out here is doing involved things with others--you know, the ideal of great collaborators: dance companies, artist groups, teams, business, activists, tribes, whatever. At least I'll read about collaboration, real and imaginary.
Two things I noted on my pad a while ago as contemplation possibilities: (1) life as ambiguity reduction; (2) life/PCT as novel: what will make you want to finish/keep reading/see it through?
2008-09-06-1129, Sequoia NP
Peace,
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