Seventh Circle

We wend through the mountains, skirting ponderosa pines and lichen-covered, hollowed-bowl-weathered boulders. We inhale deeply of the vanilla forest and try to imagine the conditions that brought us all- animate or not- here. Cataclysmic explosions and glacial grindings. Deafening sounds, to be sure, preceded this humming silence. Pine cones inserted by prior walkers peek out of rock face basins, framed artifacts of a tree’s attempt at reproduction reminding us of our squirrel nature.

 

We are supplied by about 1.5 liters of water between the two of us, but we are not far from a seasonal spring that, according to internet water reports, was flowing “well” two weeks ago. It is at this spring that we plan to each load up with several liters more of water to make today’s 20-mile trek of about 7,000 feet of elevation drop as we circumnavigate Mount San Jacinto and descend into the San Gorgonio pass, leaving the pine forest and ending in a kind of post-biomic, pre-apocalyptic über-desert through which flows much wind, no water, and the 10 freeway.

 

We pass over a few narrow, verdant bends in the trail that must accommodate snowmelt in the late winter and early spring, or, during years more moist than this record-breaking dry year, might even flow with water into the summer months. Today, they are shady, dry, yet grinning with green. The air during the few moments of stepping over these places brings a comforting wash over my face and up my nostrils that transports me to the small valleys that serve as cold air sinks on my favorite Griffith park hikes when I am heading out after sunset, a view of the city grid and all the little veins of white and red lights, humans trapped in metal boxes trying to become free. It is at these moments that I am grateful to be in the hills and not in a cage somewhere. This air transports me to evening springtime runs in my suburban childhood neighborhood, passing that sunken bend on the main road where some teenager a half-decade or so prior had killed himself while driving drunk and where there was still a potted plant leaning against the implicated telephone pole, which his mother still maintained. I often ran there- grateful then in that thick, cool air- to be uncaged. This air also transports me to my own bathroom, wet laundry hanging from the shower rod and the half-light of the day outside making its way down the airshaft and into the white and green tiled coolness, a retreat within a retreat. As the evaporated water lingers in the perpetual twilight, I am reminded that we are always caged.

 

At one such lovely spot on the trail, M.B. stops, checks his map, and declares this dry and unproviding- if climatically comforting- stream bed to be the stream that flowed two weeks ago. Without seeming too concerned, he proposes heading back the ten miles that we have already covered yesterday evening and so far this morning to get water from the nearest reliable source. In a quick moment my brain situates me somewhere in the mountains, dry granite beneath my feet and increasingly sunny, blue skies above my head, surrounded on all sides by forest and no water. Caged by my reliance on water. I’m already thirsty. Glancing at the ¼ liter of water through the blue plastic of my bottle, and in spite of my thirst, the idea of retreating is rather disagreeable to me. Regret for not having filled my water containers to capacity earlier mixes with an intense desire to transcend any seeping panic. I reject panic and remind myself that I am a runner who has spent much time losing water through perspiration, while engaging in physically strenuous activities. I only ever need water at the end of those activities. This is no different.

 

I look at M. and say, “I think we should go on. People can survive for up to three days without water. We’re doing a descent, which is easier than it could be. I think we can nurse the water that we have right now. I know I can nurse the water in this bottle for a long time. The human body is capable of amazing things.” This last fact a direct quote, only days old, from D.S., though the context’s dramatic difference served to give me a doubly-wry internal chuckle. Such preservation of perverse humor is necessary in difficult times, even if the humor is lost on our comrades. M. responds with a skeptical glance and agrees to at least continue to see if we might not have reached the right stream bed yet. We turn to continue on, having not cleaned ourselves as we had hoped nor eaten breakfast as we had planned nor obtained the life-giving water we had needed. Solemn, but not defeated, we walk forward, entering a dry 20 miles of mountain trail and aware that it will not be an easy 20 miles, if we ever had that expectation.

 

I wonder aloud if my disinterest in turning back is a masculine trait that I might be better served to leave at home and a discussion of traveling behavior and masculinity wades along with us as we ascend and descend small hills and wind through the shaded west-facing slope whose contours we are roughly following. I note to myself that we are lucky to be shaded at this time, helping us to preserve water, and a moment later I note that I seem to be breathing rather fast for this mild incline we are climbing- perhaps my body is panicking in spite of my efforts at positive reminders and optimistic expectations? Perhaps I will dehydrate into a state of delirium because I am exhaling all of this water by hyperventilation? I wonder if I have entered a state from which I can’t rescue myself- perhaps the mental panic is the easy part to prevent, but the physical panic is what kills people? Perhaps this was the unfortunate end of C., my once-housemate who perished five years ago due to hypothermia on a hiking trip? What an unfortunate time and place to be exploring survival.

 

We restate some affirmatives as we walk: it is a descent. It is the north face of the wilderness that we will descend, which is typically the shadier side in this hemisphere. The conditions couldn’t be better for 20 dry miles. If we become desperate, we simply jettison our packs and go and get our water and then return for the packs, well-hydrated. My mind continues to explore levels of desperation, ending in the stories you hear in the news about narrow escapes in the wild or in the rubble after an earthquake where the survivors have been reduced to drinking their own urine to survive and I wonder exactly how we would do that, if we had to. Do we drink our own? Each other’s? This could be a unique introduction to water sports, worthy of causing a keenly precise fetish . . . or vomiting.

 

We have only traveled about a mile, maybe two, from the dry stream and I am in the forward position as we turn a bend onto one of the most narrow switchbacks we will encounter. At that bend, I catch glimpse of a grouping of red-handled tools- picks, axes, plant-clippers and such. Like Dorothy on her way to Oz, I stop and motion to my friend in surprise. In unison, we continue to walk as our gaze follows the trail down and we both catch site of a grouping of humans now, a few switchbacks down, wearing orange hardhats. Synchronously, our gaze continues on and we both see the grouping of one gallon water jugs on a rock not far from the trail workers. Relief descends upon us as we verbally acknowledge our opportunity to ask for a bit to help us on our way. The goddess Anahita has responded, naturally. We walk towards them, unaware of just how lucky we are.

 

We talk to the men, “Trail Gorillas” with the Pacific Crest Trail Association, volunteer workers maintaining the trail. They invite us to their water, or, even better, to the water and food and other beverages at their pack-animal supplied spike camp only a mile away AND to all of those things at their motorized-vehicle supplied base camp four miles away. As we haven’t had breakfast yet, we opt for a long stop at the spike camp and eat breakfast with Carol, gladly drinking her orange juice and both of us gratefully taking about three liters of water. We still have at least 18 miles to go, but it is still shaded and cool in the forest and 3 liters is more than none.

 

Three miles later, we meet up with Hattie and Al at the base camp and the friendly older couple quickly make us sandwiches filled with veggies and no meat (kids, these days!) and offer us melon and cookies and soda. We snack and hear more about becoming PCTA volunteers and then head out. Not even a half-mile away, we are clearly entering the descent as the terrain begins to change into dry grasses and sparse foliage. The sun is intense as a glimmering Caprisun appears on the trail. M. picks it up and sticks it in his pack. I already only have 2 liters of water left, but, again, 2 is more than none.

 

We see numerous brown-grass and rock bluffs filling our field of view as we gaze down and see, very far below us, the valley floor leading straight north from Mount San Jacinto, towards the 10 freeway, which we cannot see yet because of the bluffs. It is a path along that valley floor that we will eventually follow out of this wilderness in order to enter the San Gorgonio wilderness. Between us and the floor, we realize, are many miles of trail. What we don’t realize is how circuitous those miles of trail will be. Feeling slightly dehydrated already, I am already convinced that things may have gotten very bad had we not found those PCTA volunteers.

 

A few hours later, we seem to be no closer to the valley floor. We have walked a number of miles in unrelenting sunshine and heat- the only shade to be had is by sidling up to a large, heat-emitting boulder, if it is casting a shadow near the trail. My water is already running low and yet I feel like we’ve walked 20 miles since the dry stream. The valley floor almost seems further than when we first saw it. We are on the contour of a new bluff, but we seem to be hiking along at one elevation, skirting these minor peaks, even sometimes increasing our elevation. Both of my feet and both shoulders are aching, and every parched lip-lick seems followed, on cue, by a swing UPhill. Like the pack animals we saw at the spike camp, I’m beginning to feel broken. I am the trail’s bitch. I’m lucky to be alive, as what is now severe discomfort due to lack of water would have been dangerous and utterly debilitating delirium. In my current state, I am at least present enough to realize the need to continue, regardless of how slowly or painfully. There is a spigot of water, our source list tells us, in that never-nearing valley.

 

At one point, I see a bright blue insect, either a dragonfly or a damselfly, flying across the trail. Surely it is well out of range of the still water in which it was spawned- or else it was a hallucination. It disappears behind some boulders. Not much later, M. and I both see a blue mylar star of David balloon enter our view from the far left, bouncing and floating up the valley, heading straight for the trail in front of us. We joke about catching it and tying it to our packs to get some helium-assist with the pack weight when, shockingly, it gets stuck on the trail. The wind knocks it around as we continue walking until it finally continues on its path, when we are not even fifty meters away from where it had been. It heads up the valley, towards the hills that spat us onto our current coordinates. As there is little chance of anyone being in the valley below, the origin of this balloon is impossible to guess.

 

I don’t know how many hours after meeting with the base camp we finally reach the valley floor, but we arrive at sunset. Perhaps it was 7 hours, in total, of descent. We quickly set to filtering, drinking, bathing, and eating. We share the Caprisun. Having avoided sharing with M. my many broken thoughts from the last few hours, I now share two of them with him: First, this trail must be named the Seventh Circle of Hell. I should join the PCTA and donate money for the appropriate signage OR creating a better route. He agrees that is was the most brutal section so far. I hope it will be the most brutal he encounters, because it is hard to imagine worse. Second, I can’t continue. Another day of such hot and dry conditions sounds like a sure recipe for collapse. I don’t want to slow him down, so I should bail now, when the bailing is easy. We are only five miles or so from the 10 freeway and my phone is in my pack. A dry, still and hot night, punctuated by blazing meteorites, ensues.

 

We wake at first light, pack up and begin the trudge through the loose sand desert at sunrise. We are soon hearing, along with seeing, the 10 freeway. Next come freeway debris like an old television set and then, under the train and freeway bridges, a make-shift living room, complete with two couches and various household items laying around. We continue to walk, then stop and have breakfast in the non-shade of the tallest bush we can see, after which we part ways. M.’s colorful prayer flags on his pack bob up into sight now and then as he walks off into the barren landscape, heading for the sloping hills leading to the mountains that are home to the tallest peak in southern California. I continue on the road in the forsaken town off of the freeway, called West Palm Springs Village. On a broken asphalt road I head towards an intersection through which a car passes every few minutes. What is here is a mystery to me, but I find one answer at some sort of automotive shop where I sit on my pack in the box of shade defined on the sand by the complex’s cinderblock and wrought-iron fence. It is there that I wait for my good friend W. and fend off offers of water or soft drinks or snacks or rides. If the trail was a taste of hell, the generosity of the people turns out to be anything but. May we all show such kindness and receive such when we are in need.

 

Many well-wishes to my friend M. on his journey! To Canada!