Journeys Afoot in North America
Part II, Pure Walks
A January storm came to Astoria to gladden those with a roof above. The abstract raincoats contained warm breathers who welcomed me to church and café. I attended a film society showing and spoke to a hiking club. My son visited, and a mountaineer-physician prepared me an emergency medical kit for China. There was joy in my room papered with roses. It's a fine sentence that has such a period.
In order not to decide about China while euphoric in Astoria I planned a desert trip. Once I had given up crossing Death Valley in the heat. Now I meant to walk its length, about 140 miles, in early spring.
After a leisurely visit to Seattle, I went by bus to China Lake in California. It is near Death Valley and friends could help me with their car to bury water in gallon plastic jugs along the route. But as we hurried I unknowingly took some bad water from the red fountain at Stove Pipe Wells, a mistake which was to cost me. After registering with park rangers, I was dropped off at the north park boundary one early March day in 1975.
After a while on dirt road, a prominent dry wash gave a well-defined route south. Flowing water compacts sand into a smooth surface pleasant to walk on. When night falls it is bed unless a storm threatens, scaring the camper onto higher rougher ground. Pack leaned to the bank, tarp rigged against dew, I watched the pot bubble and stars tumble out of night. Feet sound, still drinking sweet water, I surveyed the desert and my wild bed with satisfaction.
Next day I easily reached a campground, more good water, and a sleep under gently swaying tamarisks.
Now I roadwalked not to miss the first water cache, after reaching the road by a ridge of pebbles curiously polished, as if varnished by desert wind. My mind must have photographed the location, for I went right to it. Lugging the two gallons heavily back into the desert, I made camp some distance off the road. Grateful for its wetness I paid no attention to the water's slight bitterness. But in the night I was a little sick.
The next morning began a day or two of cross-country to Stove Pipe Wells. From a car on the road it all looks flat, but in real life there are swells enough in the sand to easily hide a featherless biped. However, I refrained from getting lost and arrived only about a day late.
Hurrying to report to rangers I was chagrined that they hadn't noticed, despite the detailed itinerary required of hikers. Warned now not to take water from the red tap, I reflected on the virtues of a cast-iron stomach acquired by having many times to drink from a ditch or the proverbial muddy hoofprint. Thanks to it, I had been indisposed but not incapacitated. Some of the cached water ahead would also be bad, but nothing could be done about it without a vehicle. I rested a night at Stove Pipe, enjoying sweet water and hearing park rangers lecture tourists on the quaint desert.
From near there a dirt track slanted toward the main south road, leading through an old ranch site with spring. Lonely and wild, it was my best desert camp. I saw no evidence of the severe overgrazing that park officials blamed on wild burros. Nor did I sight any burros on the desert floor, although we had seen them on the crags as my friends drove me down into the valley. They seemed to fit; I hoped a way could be found for them to coexist with the desert bighorn.
By the road where water was cached I met campers who gave water, so I hadn't this time to worry about how much of mine was bad. Wildlife was scarce; I saw a crow, a rabbit, and one dawn a pale scorpion-supposedly the dangerous kind. I nudged him with my staff, he viciously stung it: teach me to disturb a blond assassin.
The days ticked by, the sun alive but not yet insistent. In another world the cars sped. If their pilots had waved I might have seen six fingers. But maybe it's the strider who has six fingers. Don't look, if you're the Martian among these earthlings it's too late to know. Didn't you dream as a child of having been switched in the hospital, that your father was your father but your mother was mistaken?
What hospital? Tenant farmers run in their overalls for a doctor to come to the house quick! "Your longlegged Uncle Bob went with me to keep the dogs off. They dedicated the bridge over the Coosa the year you were born. That July was the hottest on record." In the Cremation Of, Sam Magee from Tennessee was, was warm at last.
I am not alone forever; one night-camp before Furnace Creek, rattling paper woke me. A kit fox worried the sack covering my breakfast mulligan (half of supper saved). Dainty as a tiger prince, intent as a careful arrow he hardly noticed my intervention. So I threw harder, and he believed and left. With the pot close by I slept again.
Then a whisper of sand or faint shadow woke me; the clever thief was quietly pulling pot by handle in jaw out of earshot to have his meal in peace. My admiration did not extend to going hungry. I threw again and he vanished for good, leaving me not very triumphant. Share your breakfast or eat lonely, might run the Armenian proverb.
In the morning there was mist. Still troubled by stomach upsets, I was glad by evening to rent a cabin at Furnace Creek while the rarity occurred, rain in Death Valley. The oasis has a bountiful spring which supports a village, ranger station, and large grove of date palms. I became addicted to naturally dried, unhydrated dates, although at first they felt like a dusty peach pit in the mouth. Very cheap, a sack of them nestled in my pack as I walked on.
After passing up interesting side canyons, too tired to explore (proving that afoot doesn't necessarily see more than awheel), I reached a major junction where the pavement turns east and a dirt road continues south to Saratoga Springs. Since the road had seemed too rough for my friends' car, all four gallons of water were cached here with none farther on.
Since rangers claimed Saratoga Springs to be unusable, I had to carry all that water, thirty-two pounds. Knowing that some of it was bad made a bitter burden, but better than dying of thirst on the way. And every step and every drink made the world lighter.
Ease the pack off, Saratoga at last, second camp from the junction. But no shade; my merciful trees are gone, banished the alien tamarisk by Park Service axes. If deep springs and brilliant blue pup-fish were really endangered, then I suppose the thirsty trees had to go. But I confess to the unreasoning prejudice that all woodmen are guilty until proven innocent.
The needles hadn't been carted away; I made a soft bed among the stumps. And the spring water tasted better than some I had carried. Replace then the gallon and half left for tonight and tomorrow. At this last camp inside the park I reflected that there was plenty still to be learned about travel in the beautiful but harsh desert.
Next evening beyond the boundary there was a littered camp (at least in the park one was spared that); the morning after, I reached pavement and walked an hour or two until someone offered a lift to Baker. From Baker a bus could be taken to shorten the distance my friends would come to fetch me. The driver said, "All you hippies are alike, carry a big stick and take the bus." I didn't debate him.