Part II
Pure Walks

Chapter 13. Pacific Crest Trail (California)

In April of '71, having learned no sedentary virtues from an urban winter, I left Denver to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail, a mountain footpath from Mexico to Canada. Little was then widely known of the trail, and much of that false. For instance, I read that because of inclusion in the National Scenic Trails Act it was complete (it still isn't), and that wells had been dug at fifteen-mile intervals. There are no wells; meager water in some places and exuberant snow in others are major trail concerns. But the footway was done in Washington and Oregon (since the thirties), only half rumor in California, and I was eager.

In San Diego, my ex-wife met the bus; she and my son generously helped obtain maps and scout the route before driving me fifty miles east to a starting point near the border patrol station of Campo. An old shack and barbed wire, no sign, began the three-flag, two and a half thousand mile hike.

The border patrolmen said one couldn't get lost, just follow the sardine cans and wine bottles of Mexican emigrants to Los Angeles. But it wasn't so; I was glad to be carrying plenty of water for scouting about when a wrong draw had been chosen. Along Kitchen Creek there was some trail and a campground. On burned off forest before the Laguna Mountains I found miner's lettuce, delicious. It's easy to identify since few plants have a central stem piercing the round leaf like a violated quarter.

The Lagunas were cool, with supplies at a campground store. The gradual descent was hot, along an escarpment that gave far views of the immense Anza-Borrego desert. After Cuyamaca Lake the route abruptly drops off through Banner Canyon with its precious springs onto the desert floor, which is followed to the resort of Warner Springs. There I enjoyed a camp-in, with bath and grand restaurant meal.

More hot walking through San Felipe Valley and Terwilliger, but once came a surprise on leaving the sagebrush valley to seek water in a deep ravine. Below was a tiny stream, song of birds, and the fragrant wild rose.

In Anza the State Forest Service offered a bunk; then my ex-wife and son came to help scout a route onto Thomas Mountain. Often the old California Riding and Hiking Trail could be followed, but it had given out before Anza. When a way was found I built rock cairns to mark it to the mountain where there's a trail. After Toolbox Spring I met the man who called himself Crazy Phil.

Off Thomas Mountain I feasted on watercress, then followed Hurley Creek up into the San Jacinto high country. A long ridge led to Tahquitz Peak Lookout, where the wise ranger spoke of mountain weather's variability. On huge San Jacinto itself a snowstorm kept me cowering under my poncho-tarp (rigged against a fallen tree and chinked at the two ends with brush and snow) for a day and half.

When the snow stopped I put out the fire and left Skunk Cabbage Meadow for the top, with its splendid view that Muir called "the sublimest spectacle on the face of the earth." Around the summit shelter were many Memorial Day hikers, and sightseers from the Palm Springs tram. From them I learned of the recent National Geographic article on the Pacific Crest Trail, and Eric Ryback's four-month hike of it. Then I'll be second and see more.

Off San Jacinto I first missed the Fuller Ridge trail, stumbling instead into Deer Spring Campground where a girl was crying. We talked awhile, of light packs and moleskin helping sore feet and morning's inevitable freshness, before I climbed back up to my trail. The route was good at first, then I began to lose it in long patches of crusted snow that sometimes held my weight; late in moonlight I finally camped on a dry spot by a ravine.

Next morning I found the road to Black Mountain Camp where two horsemen, also attempting the trail, were camped. They'd left the Mexican border not long after me, but had had to go differently because of locked gates. Their families followed in trailers as a support party; they invited me to rest with them before descending again. They gave a little notebook, insisting that I keep a faithful journal of the trip. I did too, for about a week. I have a cranial archive, and console myself that what is forgotten wasn't memorable.

Next day the horsemen and I started down together but soon lost the trail in a rough canyon. Thinking there had to be a way through I left to scout, asking them to wait. It was passable with a fair trail beyond, but when I returned for the horsemen they had gone. Fearing they were lost, I yelled and searched a while in vain.

Dejected, I went on to a pass where the choice was: a short way down a draw, or a long winding road around to Cabezon. I took short which led to desert cliffs hard to skirt for thick brush. Six thirsty hours later in torn clothes and damaged moccasin-boots, I knocked at a door in the valley. They stared at my red face and ran for water. This compassionate family was my refuge until replacement boots (old ones from mountaineering days) were brought from San Diego.

In the heavier boots I walked up Whitewater Canyon into the San Gorgonio country. One camp was under an oak owned by owls, who complained for hours. Around Big Bear Lake the inns were full; I bought a bar of soap to wash clothes and me in the next creek. But I dried too long in the sun, burning my back. It hurt, especially where pack straps rubbed, for several days.

At Acton I enjoyed a reunion with the horsemen and their families; they'd broken some of their gear, hence couldn't have proceeded then even after I found a way. In country so rough it was good they got out without a broken leg.

Going on, I found the top of Mount Baden-Powell covered with ladybugs. A man resting there swore they sometimes bite. I've heard too that humble–bees will sting, but wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either event.

In a Wrightwood thrift shop I cast off warm wools in favor of a soft checked shirt and broken-in blue jeans which I don't usually wear because they're clammy when wet. At Lake Hughes the route leaves mountains to strike off across the Mojave desert. About three days gets one over. It was windy and dusty, but not as bad as feared. There were alfalfa fields with irrigation water, and a junkyard in the middle whose proprietor presented me with a glass of ice water.

As I climbed off the desert floor on a resurfaced road the fresh tar stuck to my boots, making them rub inside like new; in a few miles tar-baby had handsome blisters. I had to rest. Luckily a Quail Valley man let me bunk at his ranch a few days.

They were a rodeo family; she rode and he bulldogged steers. I went with him once. He threw his bull, a little fellow, but the chute handler failed to let the bull out. With no escape, that little fellow turned and trampled my host, breaking his collar bone. Driving him to the hospital, I reflected that blisters weren't so bad.

When they healed I walked on, through a jumble of dirt roads and private pastures in the foothills between Tehachapi and the tiny community of Weldon. There I was met by friends from China Lake who took me home to rest, shave off a beard, and plan how my son could join me on the trail. Because of rattlesnakes it seemed best for him to wait until I got higher into the Sierras proper. I'd only seen two rattlers, one nearly stepped on while I was singing down a sandy road, the other buzzing over me on a bank, but stories of their abundance scared me.

Back at Weldon a long, hot climb of a sheepherders' grade led into the Sierra Nevada. No snakes, but at Kennedy Meadows the ranger station displayed skins of big ones killed years before. (Perhaps these facts are related.)

From Kennedy Meadows I went out again to China Lake where my son waited. We borrowed maps and bought supplies for the John Muir Trail, longest roadless stretch in the contiguous U.S. It is also the best marked and best maintained part of the Pacific Crest Trail in California, but we got lost once getting to it from Kennedy Meadows. Along Golden Trout Creek, where we—guess what—caught no fish, the route led to Crabtree Meadows where the Muir Trail is joined.

Among many high passes Forrester, with its spectacular carved-in-a-cliff trail, is the highest, and at 13,200 feet it is the highest point on the entire Pacific Crest Trail. It was work, but easy since in early July the ice was almost all gone. Through Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks, and Muir Wilderness the trail winds along the backbone of John Muir's playground, the Range of Light, mighty Sierra Nevada.

This sky-touching trail named for Muir is popular but not crowded, except to those who prefer to see no other hiker all day. There were patient burro trains, and many an odd hat (the walker is a bird whose male and female are equally ornamental), and even a jogger whose friends were embarrassed for him, but I witnessed not the proverbial businessman in coat and tie, striding along with suitcase.

We had practical cause to be glad of company; they became vendors. Our generous ten-day supply of food stretched easily to two weeks, but it was three weeks, for us, to the next supply. As we tightened our belts and hungrily eyed the rock distance to fat marmots it turned out that many hikers had more supplies than they wanted. We bought some and were given some; oatmeal especially was a drag (I normally agree with the majority); a man sick on chili gave the rest of it, and someone leaving the trail with ripped boots just about emptied his food sacks for us.

The trail could be followed by a blind fool but I wandered off it once down a spur toward Florence Lake thinking, I suppose, of foamy milkshakes at the store. It took two or three hours to catch up again with my son, who wasn't very happy himself. He had trusted his waterproof pack in a shower; the seams betrayed him. My theorem is: in a coated stuff-sack inside a coated pack under a waterproof poncho, the sleeping bag will only get damp.

I celebrated a forty-first birthday on the trail: warm bath in a black-rock pool the night before, and fish fry of trout caught at dawn at last by my son and another lad.

I met a whole botany class from Antioch College, field-tripping the high country. They taught me western pennyroyal, bistort, and Brodeia. When I caught up this time, it was remarked that we'd make better time on a lonelier trail. But another day he claimed six miles a day pleasanter than sixteen, undaunted by the hobgoblin of consistency. My son was good company and a scholar of topographic maps, but it is an exaggeration that I needed him to not get lost as claimed by his mother when she sent him.

Red's Meadow was a treat: tent-house with bath, dinner, and fresh baked bread. At Mammoth we went out to get treatment for my ear, that had become infected. In town I also sent for the repaired moccasins, since my mountaineering boots were threatening to come apart. Then we walked on to Tuolumne Meadows, where Yosemite cops directed traffic and bears. We thought it too hectic a goodbye to the beautiful John Muir Trail.

On the Tahoe-Yosemite Trail, also well marked and maintained, we regularly tied our food up in trees against bears, and had no trouble from them. This country seemed even wilder than the Muir Trail; it was certainly lonelier. At Echo Lake we resupplied and had the fun of a boat ride before setting off through Desolation Wilderness, which had many hikers. This was the last well-marked route in California.

Just after Desolation, we met a trail crew putting up Pacific Crest Trail markers who heartened us by claiming that there'd be temporary signs now all the way to Oregon. Pleasant dream! They gave out in ten miles at the edge of Tahoe National Forest. The markers were beautiful, blue and green and snow-white, which made them collector's items, so they were collected. Many stretches apparently hadn't been marked at all. There were a few rusty old California Riding and Hiking Trail signs (a horseman waving cheerily to plodding infantry), but we were often half lost, despite my son's skill at map reading.

One of the most awesome sights of the whole trail was the deep gorge of Middle Feather River, seen from the south. We wound steeply down to cross at the Hartman Bar footbridge, climbing up the other side to an abandoned farm rich in ripe fruit, sweetpeas gone wild, and fresh bear sign. At Belden the innkeeper fondly remembered Eric Ryback from his hike the year before, and I sadly put my Eric on a bus to return to school. He had walked the length of the Sierra Nevada with me; volcanic Lassen, coming next, is really part of the Cascade Range.

After Lassen the country is much dryer. In Thousand Lakes Wilderness I walked past midnight, changing flashlight batteries by a little fire, before finding a pond to camp by. At Burney I resupplied, wondering how to get around Mount Shasta. Forest Service rangers told me that Marble Wilderness to the west had trails, but that big tracts of country leading to it were so overgrown even their fire crews could lose the way getting in. I decided to walk, by way of McCloud Reservoir, directly toward Copco Lake, where the Oregon part of the Pacific Crest Trail then began. This meant traversing Shasta's east flank on an old military dirt-road (whereby troops were once sent from Astoria into California.)

For dependable water I walked roads to the community of Big Bend on Pit River, where a power company maintenance man offered hospitality and a chance to hear church singing on Sunday with his family. From there it was paved logging roads toward McCloud Reservoir. Rain began; one night's camp was under a bridge where both dry sleeping spot and wood could be found.

In this wild country on an early morning there was a frenzied squeal as I approached a bend in the road. In the bend I saw a great tawny beast with the rabbit he'd just killed dangling from his jaws. The mountain lion soon vanished in the brush; I stood bemused with wonder and awe.

In the town of McCloud, dominated by a white immensity that was Shasta, I supplied for an up-rib, down-rib hike along the mountain's east side. It went well, snow on the ground only once (I stayed in an old tool-shed then), and more groceries could be bought on the other side at Deer Mountain Lodge.

At Copco Lake I briefly congratulated myself for walking through California before plunging into an obscure start of the Oregon Skyline Trail. Most of this trail is quite good, but it used to be thought of as really beginning at Lake of the Woods, with neglect characterizing the route south of there. I muddled through.

When I'd gotten past Lake of the Woods onto good trail in the high country by Mount McLaughlin, autumn began to manifest itself. The third snow, and a slip on the icy trail convinced me I was done for the year. I warily followed big bear tracks out, both of us gorging on clumps of ripe blueberries made sharply delicious by new fallen snow.

On roads I walked to Crater Lake where it would be easier to rejoin the trail next spring. Before Crater Lake there was a camp so high above Annie Creek that I had to melt snow for water. In mid-October from park headquarters, which could be reached by bus when the walk resumed, I accepted rides to Madras wherefrom Christians took me on to Portland for an all-night prayer meeting of their Maranatha Church.

They couldn't save my soul, but I found grace harvesting the appointed black walnuts of a magnificent tree by Lincoln High School. (A spry old lady helping me claimed the hulls could be used to brown my temples, but I haven't availed myself of that fountain of youth.) After a profound rest in a clean skid-row hotel run by Japanese, I left for Denver to winter.

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