Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (25 page)

The flowering of interest in wilderness preservation was now to run into the great reality of the West—the scarcity of water. San Francisco was growing into a world-class city and needed more water. The city set its periscope on Hetch-Hetchy Valley, which lay 150 miles away
inside
Yosemite National Park. This valley, with its scenic waterfalls and surrounding mountains, also happened to be one of John Muir’s favorite places.

He was horrified when he heard what was afoot.

“These devotees of raging commercialism,” he fumed. “They’re temple destroyers.”

However, Gifford Pinchot, who was Theodore Roosevelt’s point man in these matters, proclaimed a
wise-use doctrine.
The water should be used in the way to benefit the most people. It came down to the most basic philosophy. Pinchot thought allowing San Francisco to have the water was the best possible use for the most number of people. Muir, with his absolute faith in Nature, thought keeping the valley pristine offered the most long-term benefits for the most number of people.

It is impossible to conclusively say who was conceptually right. Pinchot probably had the best argument for the next century—Muir for the millenia. Objectively, though, Muir was making his argument at the wrong time and in the wrong country. Theodore Roosevelt listened sympathetically to Muir’s pleadings to stop this abomination of nature. But ultimately Roosevelt was influenced by the fact that the United States had just passed the European powers to become the world’s largest economy. Roosevelt didn’t want anything to derail the nation’s industrial might and chose not to intervene to save the Hetch-Hetchy Valley from being dammed.

It was a bitter defeat for Muir and one he never recovered from his remaining few years.

The famous diplomat and historian, Henry Kissinger, is fond of saying, “Ultimately, a person’s place in history is determined as much by what he set in motion, as by what he actually accomplished.” His formula could well apply to John Muir.

Muir helped found the Sierra Club in 1892, which now has a membership totaling almost a million members. Most importantly, an entire culture dedicated to preserving wilderness has reached critical mass. Its best days are likely yet to come because it is so wildly popular amongst our youth.

Nobody has ever played a bigger role in that movement than the gentleman with the longish gray beard, merry blue eyes, an inimitable Scottish accent, and the pose of an Old Testament Prophet. John Muir probably rates as the greatest proponent of Nature in American history.

Chapter 26

“Worst Bug Day in PCT History”

Never kill a mosquito or blackfly. If you do, a million other ones will come to its funeral.

Verlen Kruger

I
f you had asked me in the desert what was the most important piece of equipment in my backpack, I might have said my wide-brimmed sun hat. In the High Sierra, I would have dithered before possibly answering my long-johns. But for the next 100 miles through Yosemite, there was no doubt, whatsoever, what was the most critical item. It was a piece of equipment that probably weighed about 1/100th of a pound. My
headnet.

Yogi had recommended carrying a headnet in her guidebook, but it had almost seemed gimmicky to me. Obviously, you couldn’t keep it on while eating, drinking, defecating, or hiking. So why carry one? Right? Wrong. Fortunately, Dirk had deftly negotiated one for me in the desert from a section hiker who was ending his hike.

Yosemite National Park is an unbelievable world of sheer rock cliffs and running, plunging water. The sheer beauty of it is staggering. I had toured the Yosemite Valley the previous day and been blown away by the sights I had heard about all my life, including
el Capitan
and
Half-Dome.
Waterfalls were everywhere, including Yosemite Falls, which drops off 2,425 feet, the highest waterfall in North America.

Rushing streams are one of the major reasons I love hiking. Along with everything else, their power to clear the mind better is incomparable. But they come with a price, at least at certain times of the year. This was one of those times. The next five days going north out of Tuolomne, the bugs were to be hellish. It almost felt like a hot needle was being injected, every time one of them bit me. At first, I wore the headnet only on breaks. I would lift it up to take bites of food, and then quickly lower the veil to chew the food. Soon, though, it became obvious I was going to have to wear the headnet while hiking.

Relieving myself, however, proved to be terribly complicated. Twice
my unit
got bit while urinating. In both cases, it took a couple days of triple-antibiotic treatment for the wound and pain to go away. I took to frantically fanning everywhere when taking a leak, but wasn’t confident in the technique.

“We’re lucky to not have outdoor plumbing,” one Canadian girl chortled, when other male hikers complained about having suffered the same fate.

The women didn’t have a free ride by any imagination. They had to expose their full behinds to attack several times a day. I didn’t envy them. But I sure admired the way some improvised. They learned to squat
with
their backpacks attached and get the job done quickly. I had never seen that before.

“You should put that technique on the internet,” I sincerely suggested to a couple of them. It almost matched us males in its efficiency.

The challenge was psychological as much as physical. It was impossible to relax, knowing these bloodsuckers were savoring every moment.

“You look dazed,” CanaDoug observed one day to me. “You’ve got cuts everywhere.” He was an unabashed defender of Canada’s geography, periodically mentioning this or that great mountain or water source as being equal or superior to the one in America. But he finally had to admit, “Yeah, these bugs are probably worse than anything I’ve ever seen.” Plenty of hikers’ shirts looked like they were changing to a darker color from all the dead bugs smeared on them.

The second night into Yosemite, CanaDoug, Ingrid, and I hiked until arriving on a sandy beach surrounding yet another large lake.
What in the world is a beach doing here in the middle of the mountains?
It was a total anomaly, but also gorgeous. Indeed, the Sierras doled out endless delights. But the hardships were formidable. Here on the sandy shores, the wind was overwhelming and I had to quickly take umbrage in my tent. But when it had died down the next morning, the bugs quickly smelled blood. It was unbearable and I literally had to run of there.

One rushing stream and amazing view after another presented themselves here in Nature’s Cathedral. Amazingly, the bugs got even worse. Often, I would feel an ecstatic bug
trilling
in my ears, presumably to get at the wax inside. Instead of looking forward to breaks, I was now dreading them. But you had to have them. The three of us took a break at Kerrick Canyon before a big climb that lay ahead. But I quickly jumped up.

“I can’t stand it,” I said in a state of angst, and rushed off ahead of them.
A higher elevation should bring relief.

Forget it. At the top, I came to a fork in the trail. Stopping to check my maps would have meant Chinese torture treatment from these
invisible terrorists.
So I just went straight. I headed up a mountain for two miles before the trail became ragged, and I realized I was lost. Dispirited and anxious, I hurriedly retraced my steps. Worst of all, once I found the PCT again, the trail led down to Dorothy Lake. There, all wind and all life appeared to have ceased—except for, of course, mosquitoes.

I had only a half hour of light left and hiked as fast as I possibly could, hoping to get to somewhere with at least a whiff of a humane breeze. I barely found it. After fording yet another creek, I quickly threw up my tent right in the middle of a fork in the trail, and

buried myself inside. CanaDoug and Ingrid never arrived. Doug must have been at least a little shaky, himself. He would end up taking the wrong turn at this fork the next day and hike off course for several miles. That was especially unfortunate because it was to be the very worst bug day yet.

It was a little bit weird. I had a long-standing habit of talking to almost all south-bounders. It had served me well in the past. On this mid-July day I would see them coming a couple hundred yards away, looking like widows at a Catholic funeral.

I’d ask complete strangers through my net, “Are the bugs any better up ahead?”

“No,” this one lady in her mid-thirties who appeared out of breath told me through her net. “In Grace Meadows I had to run, they were so tortuous.”

That was discouraging, but believable. Unfortunately, I was absolutely forced to stop and defecate. But in the middle of it I had to go sprinting, the sharp bites on my
non-DEET-treated rear-end
were so acute.

Grace Meadows was another gorgeous grassy meadow, the product of over a hundred inches of precipitation per year. I would have probably stopped and had a prolonged picnic right here. But a break was now completely out of the question. Instead, it turned into a forced march, and a bit eerie of one at that. The thought kept recurring that they were on a virtually equal footing with me. Finally, I got to Kennedy Canyon Creek where I called it a day.

Ingrid arrived, sans CanaDoug, just before dark.

“How was your day?” I asked.

A German’s style is bound to be different from a southerner’s style. The former are more empirical and understated. The latter are more prone to hyperbole.

“Worst bug day in PCT history,” she stated without hesitation.

This southerner couldn’t have said it any better.

Chapter 27

The ‘Root Canal’
Aspect of Hiking

People who don’t climb mountains tend to assume that the sport is a reckless, Dionysian pursuit of ever escalating thrills. But the notion that climbers are merely adrenaline junkies chasing a fix is a fallacy. It is a Calvinist undertaking.

Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air

M
ountain climbing clearly is more dangerous than long-distance hiking by an order of great magnitude. But they do have a few things in common. Both begin with an initial frisson of excitement. Then, reality intrudes, and it becomes hard work.

To be sure, hiking trails attract their share of adrenaline junkies. Both the desert and the High Sierra had offered great novelty. But now we were entering a new phase that I frequently referred to as “the root canal aspect of thru-hiking.” The ratio of pleasure to misery was bound to be unfavorable at times.

Long-distance hiking can feel like a job and not that easy of one—easily 70 hours a week and quite physically demanding. Why do it? Many chose not to. The trail would claim the forfeit of many hikers in northern California. Many of the dropouts were quite surprising. Of course, some were for reasons of legitimate injury. More often, though, the reason given was, “I’m not having fun anymore.” Needless to say, that is a perfectly suitable excuse on the face of it. But if you looked deeper you saw nuance at work.

Strange as it sounds, many would quit at the top of their game. They would hike fast and furiously (25 or 30 mile days), hurrying to a trail town. When they arrived the adrenaline would be rushing. There, great festivities would ensue. The hiker would almost always be talking along the lines of, “I’m heading back out tomorrow to go long.” But then the
tyranny of civilization
would take over. They wouldn’t want to leave town.