The rock beneath my fingers is smooth to the touch, worn away in places by myriad feet and hands as they have climbed their way to the top of Conical Hill. To say I can feel the rock would be like saying you can watch a sunset, true enough, though anyone who has done either knows there’s more to it. Up here, on the rock, in the mud, in the air I can feel the rock as I can breathe. Capturing something external and making it part of myself, holding it within my chest before pushing it away and on to the next thing. The next foothold. The next gritty patch of earth to which I can cling and by extension move myself closer to the same summit so many feet have stood upon before me. Not that it makes it any less personal, the ground down presence of others. Right now this is my bit of rock, my balancing ledge. These are my tussocks swaying intoxicatingly in the wind, their jutting grasses dyed golden by the summer; this is my conical hill, not just the Conical Hill.
Below my feet the earth pitches away down to an alpine lake, deep and cold and mysterious. Around the bend and the trail seems to bound off a cliff to the valley floor some thousand feet below us. But looking down is far from the best part of going up and soon, in the way that time contracts when one is consumed by their actions, I reach the top of this, my conical hill and around me an eon of mountains erupt into being from outside my narrowed view. Quickly my brain attempts to categorize and classify, to fit what I am seeing into what I have seen before. That range looks like the Sierras, but with shoulders like the Rockies. Over there, the Alps or maybe the Pyrenees. But of course, as anyone who has looked at a mountain can tell you, there’s more to it than that. The view stirs memories of vistas seen before and yet is unlike anything else at all. Far away and yet holding me in their presence a giddiness subsumes me. Under the cheerful blue sky I stare across the horizon, out to the very ocean itself and across the face of every mountain I hope I will see again. I look out in the same way we love, cherishing yet knowing there could never be enough time stood right there.
A gravelly shore against a dark forest. In the distance a small boat carrying a collection of early-morning hikers grumbles its way across a massive, still lake. As the boat bumps its nose onto the shore a variety of hikers disassemble, me at the front. Then, one after another, packs are hoisted, straps tightened and folks begin wandering up the trail, me at the back. Slipping noiselessly into the beech forest it is cool, quiet and damp. Trees drooping under hanging clumps of Spanish moss like wispy strands of an old man’s hair. Leaden skies threaten but never quite deliver on the promised rain.
Today is our first day on the Kepler Track, a four-day trek and one of New Zealand’s famed Great Walks. The Kepler promises an epic ridge traverse, camping on the shores of an enormous glacially-carved lake, and the chance to swim in crystal clear mountain rivers. But, first we have to get there. So we climb, all we will do today is climb along a manicured trail of undulating switchbacks. Immediately my legs begin to protest. Tired with achilles tendons like straining piano wires, like any moment they might snap and rupture through the skin of my lower leg. Equally fragile is my ego. Hence, the back of the pack start. As my fellow hikers steadily pull away ahead of me I stop frequently to stretch, or even just to pause and let the strain in my legs ease the smallest amount. But soon, too soon to feel good about it another wave of hikers pass me, the bird chatter and silence cut by the sounds of hard breathing and trekking poles against stone. It seems like everybody and their mom passes me on this ascent. As I step to the side of the trail for the hundredth time I try and rather fail to not let this discourage me. “This is just going to be hard until it’s not,” I tell myself like I have so often on this trip. And then I just keep walking, because what else is there to do?
Suddenly, the beech trees give up their dominance over the mountain and we are popped out above tree line into a snow globe of dense cloud and golden grass. And at the edge of this snow globe I see the most beautiful thing I have seen all day: it’s a sign. Not a metaphorical or spiritual sign but literal sign in the cheery yellow and green of the Department of Conservation. It reads: 45 mins. to Luxmore Hut. I could weep with joy, I almost do. But it is very difficult to hike uphill when you are crying so I restrain myself to bodily hugging said sign and walking on into the clouds.
Luxmore hut reveals itself around a bend in a shallow bowl. Though well designed and utilitarian in aesthetic the hut still manages to blend into the hillside and I realize upon our arrival that I have made it here within the time estimate that the DOC gives for all hikes. So then, perhaps I am getting faster, even if it’s only just a little.
Day 2
Keith and I are only 50 meters above the hut when the first helicopter thump-thump-thumps its way into view. With clearly practiced precision it touches down on the pad, disgorges its few passengers and plummets down off the ridge before another helicopter rumbles its way over the ridge. We watch as the same routine repeats itself again and again until all the day hiker tourists are huddled on the porch of the hut, rotor was whipping their hair. Then, as soon as it all started the hills fall silent to the sound of the fierce mental birds and Keith and I are left to begin our first climb of the day.
The climbing is hard today, of course it is. But the route is exceptional, the views even more so, and that makes the whole thing easier. From any given high point one can see the trail snaking into the distance along ridge top and through scooping bowl. A little slice of brown dirt dancing across the sky. The scene is almost too grand to comprehend the scale of what we are seeing. That is, until a little human backpacker on the ridge brings bearing on perspective and we realize how far there still is to go. So go we must. And in the later half of the day I actually manage to pass someone! It’s such a minor and ultimately meaningless accomplishment but I am more than happy to revel in those moments like the finisher of some epic race.
And then it’s all down hill. Literally. Keith and I pass a couple more people before the descent begins and then we are racing down the switchbacks as fast as we can if for no other reason than to feel our bodies work without the required dependency on our lungs. The beech trees return, treeline dropping like a final curtain call beneath which we’ll spend the rest of the day and the rest of the trek.
Day 3
Keith and I are wading through hip deep water in one of our classic shortcuts that will invariably take much longer than if we had just stayed on the trail. Still, after hours spent walking the rolling hills and deep forests of the Kepler Track the flat sands of Shallow Cove were too enticing to ignore. From the short beach we can see our third and final hut, Moturau. It looks so close, we’ll just follow the beach along. Well, that is until we find a massive fallen tree blocking our path and a forest too deep and dense to cut through. So it’s into the mercifully warm waters of lake Manapouri as we cut around the large tree. I can hear Keith behind me laughing as I half-sing my anxieties about the deepening water and mushy lake bottom. And once we’re around the tree we keep walking through the water because why not. Sometimes hiking is boring and sometimes it’s full of strange moments and laughing at nothing much at all.
The first thing I want to do when we arrive at the hut is get back in the water. It’s a rare thing to find a mountain lake that’s actually warm enough to enjoy swimming in. And, as an alternative to sitting on the humid shore with the biting sandflies, there’s really no contest. We stow our bags and strip down to our boxers, leaving damp shorts and sun shirts to dry. Then it’s in to the water where I stand for a long, long time. Letting the sun nuzzle against the bare skin of my chest while inside I do backflips of joy around the simple fact that I will never have to wear a damp bra ever again, never ever ever again. I keep my back to the shore because I don’t want to think about the people standing there and what they are or aren’t thinking about me. I just want to stay in this one for a while longer, until I can feel my skin start to redden and I am forced to once again don clothes and return to the land and the realm of my fellow hikers.
Day 4
I wake in the middle of the night and reflexively slap my foot against the bite of a sandfly. Or, at least I think it’s a sandfly, hard to tell in the dark, maybe it’s just one of my existing bites itching me. Everything is itching me so I do what I can, pull my tights on and my sleeping bag around me and fall back into a fitful sleep.
When I awake again it’s morning and half the bunks around us have already cleared out. Today is the last day on the Kepler Track for most of us and it would seem that folks are ready to be up and done. I can hardly blame them. Four days of hiking and three nights sleeping in communal bunk rooms will have most hikers ready for a town day. Keith and I forgo breakfast, holding on to our hunger for a few more hours and a proper meal in town. Today we only have a handful of miles to the bridge at Rainbow Reach and our waiting car. The track is mostly flat except when it climbs in and out of river drainages—which are more frequent than my tired legs would prefer. But when I stop the biting sandflies find me and so I push on and on. Keith drops back to read a sign with Simon and a pointless flare of competitiveness strikes up inside me; I want to be the first one back to the parking lot. Or, said another way, I’m bored of hiking through the trees and I want the reward of real food. So I press on and my knees protest. Every small climb becomes an obstacle, every steep downhill a mincing dance on sore knees. I’m checking my maps almost as often as I check over my shoulder for Keith. At last, finally at last I see the Rainbow Reach bridge over the Waiau River and the parking lot beyond, just as I’m sure I hear Keith’s voice behind me on the trail. I hit the bridge at a pace that would make an Olympic speed walker proud and quickly discover that the bridge feels far sketchier under foot than I would really prefer. But at this point it’s irrelevant, the car is on the far side of this bridge and soon so am I. I fling my bag onto the ground and strike a relaxed pose on a bench just as Keith hits the far side of the bridge. My feigned nonchalance is betrayed by my racing heart but in this moment it doesn’t matter at all. Because I, dear reader, I am the fucking winner of a race against no one.
At last, finally at last I see the Rainbow Reach bridge over the Waiau River and the parking lot beyond, just as I’m sure I hear Keith’s voice behind me on the trail. I hit the bridge at a pace that would make an Olympic speed walker proud and quickly discover that the bridge feels far sketchier under foot than I would really prefer. But at this point it’s irrelevant, the car is on the far side of this bridge and soon so am I. I fling my bag onto the ground and strike a relaxed pose on a bench just as Keith hits the far side of the bridge. My feigned nonchalance is betrayed by my racing heart but in this moment it doesn’t matter at all. Because I, dear reader, I am the fucking winner of a race against no one.
“This is going to be hard until it’s not” I remind myself as I plod up the steep hill leading us out of town and towards the trailhead. “What you are doing right now,” I remind myself, “is what is going to make this better.” But my legs, being that they are legs, cannot hear me and so they rudely continue to protest, aching with a soreness earned almost a week ago on the climb to Muller hut.
Today is a recovery hike, allegedly. Seven miles and 800 feet of gain into the North Arm hut, a large shed of a building sitting along an inland bay on the Rakiura Track on Stewart Island. “This should be easier than it is” I think to myself, “I should be in better shape than I am,” I think to myself as I reminisce about last summer, about the PCT four summers ago when this distance and gain would have been the work of a couple of hours, not half a day. Or more.
I feel sad and lonely in this body of mine which has lost so much of the fitness it once had. I want to chide myself for not trying harder, for not training more in the weeks and months before we left for New Zealand. But could I have done more? Or did I do exactly what I was capable of in the moments I had to do it? I suppose neither matter much now and thoughts like these make it no easier to walk uphill under the weight of a heavy pack. And besides, I am not alone, Keith is here with me, up ahead just a little. Walking stoically under his own pack and waiting for me when I stop.
The paved road becomes a dirt road becomes a wide gentle path leading through the rainforested trees. Above and around us chime a cacauphony of the most rediculous bird calls I have ever heard: some like squealing dog toys, others whistling near-human, while others still sound like they are programming the deck of the USS Enterprise in an early episode of Star Trek. All around us is a wall of verdant green, limbs positively dripping under the weight of their summer foliage. The ground below a speckled garden with ferns exploding upwards like a thousand thousand fountains of green. It’s magical here, in its own way, far from the stark high alpine which I am usually drawn to. Down here there are no sweeping vistas, no miles-long panorama. But instead, the beauty of the small things bursting into life, a curl of a new fern or the brightest green of moss upon a tree. My lungs feel brighter and more full just for being here.
Eventually it begins to rain, because rainforest. Then it stops, because summer. And finally the hike culminates in a series of what Appalachian Trail hikers call PUDs (pointless up and downs) before at last the hut is revealed, a green window shining and reflecting between the ferns. As I strip away my rain-sodden clothes and exchange them for the dry ones in my bag I resist the urge to calculate miles and times and distances. After all, the numbers won’t help and this is just going to be hard until it isn’t.
Day 2 –
The debate with myself lasts a solid 20 minutes as I watch the gentle lap of the water push the tide in and my fellow hikers come and go along the beach. Finally, after so long, finally I pull my shirt over my head and lay back along the rocks. The mid-day sun, cooled by the ocean breeze rests its warm head against the skin of my chest and I feel at home and alive and exposed all at once—I could almost cry at the sheer volume of emotions cascading through me. In my ears Spotify’s Transcend playlist brings the music of my community close and I feel held by their songs, by the rocks against my own body.
Amid the glare of the southern sun I have been wanting, no aching to strip away my shirt like all the other boys and bare my chest to the sky. To let the sun bake down upon my scars and bronze my pallid chest. My new chest, as I have been thinking of it for more than a year. A chest free of the binds of my sex, free of the constraints of a gender that never felt truly like my own. And in this moment I feel a kind of wholeness I have never known. Not freedom, per say, for in the back of my mind I am still keeping track of everyone on this little spit of land: the old Aussies bobbing in the water, the woman with her book in the shade of the trees. Do they notice me, can they see my scars, are they thinking of me in any way at all? Because when you are trans, safety can never be assumed, and when you are like me, trans without an easily pegged gender, you are always a threat and therefore threatened by the fragile egos of the cisgender. But right now the caress of the sky upon my body, the music of my people in my ears, I let my guard down just a little and let myself be held in this one, perfect moment.
Day 3 –
“It looks like that rain is going to blow in within the next hour,” I say, before realizing that I actually have no idea what I’m talking about, never having been to Stewart Island before much less New Zealand as a whole. My knowledge of mountainous weather patterns is based exclusively in the northern hemisphere and within that an even smaller collection of mountain ranges and ecosystems. Even the simple fact that the sun arcs through the northern sky instead of the southern is throwing me so far off that I often don’t know which direction I’m facing. I donate a moment of mental energy to marvel at my limitations and smallness atop this great blue rock before pointing my muddy shoes down the trail and beginning to walk.
Today the forest feels different. Somehow more open under the gentle light of an overcast sky. More full of bark and branches than the riotous green that comes with bright sun. My hamstrings and calves still burn on the uphills, still demand that I stop and stretch more often than my ego would like. But the PUDs feel more mellow going this way, shallower climbs with short, steep descents and much of the morning is spent leapfrogging other hikers who spent the night with us at North Arm hut. Pleasantries; greetings; encouragement; round and round we go until Keith and I find ourselves alone in a long stretch between hikers. The threat of rain looms as we inch towards town. I fantasize about the small warm room that Keith and I have reserved at the hostel there. The trail pitches down and I push my legs to churn faster, to ride them forward like I used to but can no longer do. In a turn of almost but not quite perfect timing the sky opens as we hit the outskirts of town and Keith and I rush forward into the arms of a simple hostel lobby, then into our small warm room where I no longer need to push my body forward. Tomorrow is a rest day, a driving day, heading north once again and into the mountains. It would seem, that’s the only thing I know how to do.
A crack splits the air and everybody’s head turns, eyes scouring the face of stone and ice looming high across the valley. But there is nothing to be seen. A false stillness beneath gliding clouds. Finally and only by training my eyes on the cliffs do I see an avalanche let loose, sending a shower of car-sized ice hunks and cascading loose snow free from the glacier. By the time the sound reaches the ears of the hikers milling around the Mueller hut and heads once again turn to face the noise the sudden, violent burst of icy activity has subsided. For now.
The Mueller hut is a basic backcountry cabin offering bunk beds, a cooking space, and water that you need to boil or filter before you can drink. This cabin’s claim to fame is the view it offers of Aoraki/Mt Cook and the fact that it was founded by Sir Edmund Hilary – climbing partner of Tenzing Norgay and co-first-summiter of Chomolungma/Mount Everest. The spartan interior is all but irrelevant because what lays outside, what all of us are here for, is the chance to see Aoraki. And in this, we are extremely lucky.
In this part of New Zealand rain, clouds, and general mountain-obscuring weather is the rule, not the exception to it. Sitting at 12,218ft (3,724 meters) the peak plummets dramatically 10,000ft straight down to the valley floor. Its shoulders a parade of razor-sharp ridges bedecked in flowing glaciers which transform in detail and color as the sun and clouds play across the sky. Closer to the hut sits Maukatua/Mount Sefton, and it is this peak which continues to roll great plumes of snow off its shoulders, like thunder boiling up from the rock itself.
As the sun arcs towards the horizon and begins to tuck itself neatly behind Maukatua’s jagged ridges the day hikers filter away from the cabin until there are only 20 or so of us overnighters left. The view towards Aoraki lays obscured by clouds so I turn my full attention to the ever-cascading face of Maukatua as it rumbles its way into darkness. Stillness. Then a cascade. Stillness. Then a cascade. Finally, the cold chases me inside while my little mammalian heart beats in time with a world so much larger than myself. And Maukutua rumbles and roars alone in the darkness, a restless giant, a fracturing cacophony of one.
I turn my face to the sun and wait for the chatter of the walk signal to usher me on. “My god,” I think “it’s perpetually fucking beautiful here.” Four days of travel just to get to the country followed by two days of walking through the endearing city of Christchurch have left my body aching and fatigued, yet my mind yearns to see and feel as much of the city as I can. The light turns, the crosswalk chatters and as I open my eyes to my surroundings an older person on a bicycle comes sliding past, singing cheerfully as they go, a musical of one.
Christchurch is proving to be an easily loveable city. Golden rolling hills extend to the south while the ocean to the east provides a cooling onshore breeze. New construction abounds as does street art and a seemingly endless supply of small coffee shops. I am both compelled on and struggling under drooping eyelids. And it is this drooping fatigue that I eventually pay heed to as I turn my feet back towards our hostel.
Our trip to New Zealand and Australia is ultimately unlike any other travel Keith and I have done. Previously, when traveling to another country our tactic has been to cram in as many things as humanly possible, relying on the return to home and employment to provide the rest forgone on the trip. A trajectory well suited to a trip on the span of days to a couple of weeks. Conversely, when we thru hiked the Pacific Crest Trail the whole endeavor was undertaken with a goal in mind: Canada, the finish line, the accomplishment of a completed hike. But neither of those ideologies seem to fit the ethos of the three and a half months that lay out before me. For on this trip, the end will be less of an accomplishment than a termination; while cramming each day to the fullest will almost certainly bring on burnout far ahead of our return flights. And in that burnout lays another danger, in the form of my tumultuous struggle with mental illness: a formidable danger both literally and metaphorically resting at the back of my mind.
So what then? Can a goal be as simple as living? To live through each day as both the point and the accomplishment of the trip? Can I push myself to adventure and see while simultaneously letting go of the frustration that will inevitably come when I cannot do everything I think I must? I suppose it’s far too early to tell and in the sunshine of this day I don’t feel the need to tackle such conundrums to their terminus. So I return to our small hostel room with my tired feet and mild sunburn, with the plan to begin this quest of living anew tomorrow, and, I figure, for every day after.
The heat and humidity wrap around my Seattle-chilled bones, welcoming to Nadi, Fiji like a heavy blanket of possibility. Choruses of “Bula!” from the staff greet us as we meander through customs while in my head my emotions back-flip over themselves; elated to be somewhere new, somewhere besides the bone-aching winter chill and permeating dark of Seattle. It’s like I’ve escaped, it’s like I’ve been set free. I’ve come across the world, across the dateline, down to the southern hemisphere and into the start of three and a half months spent in New Zealand and Australia. Only now, only upon setting my feet down on foreign soil does this trip feel real. Even during the months of planning and research this trip has felt like a mirage on the horizon. Visible, yet I dare not believe it real. The last years have taught me the debilitating disappointment of hope that fails to materialize and I’ve built walls around myself to keep that potential disappointment at bay.
Through flights booked, hotels reserved, and a plucky little rental car scheduled I fueled this dream through practicality instead of anticipation. But then things started to shift as trip-specific purchases accumulated, jobs were quit, and bags packed. Each one planting seeds in my pessimistic brain: “this is real, this is real, this is happening and this is real.” And now here we are in Fiji and the gravity of what Keith and I are doing is finally hitting home.
For the next three months we will live and travel across New Zealand. Starting on the southern island and working our way north through the northern island, through the end of the southern hemisphere’s summer before spending a whirlwind two weeks road tripping up the eastern coast of Australia. But today we will spend 24 hours on the island of Fiji. Baking our pale bodies under the tropic sun and eating whatever local food we can find. Tomorrow it’s on to Christchurch New Zealand and then, well then dear reader the adventure begins. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
By the time the others start stirring I have already spent an hour watching the sky lighten through the window of Sasha’s parents house. At this point in the trip it’s not even remarkable that I’m barely sleeping, it has become the norm. As I start to pack away my things I take solace in knowing that today is the last day of the hike. Tomorrow I will be home and I will sit in the stillness and quiet of my own company, allowing the tension and exhaustion and pressure to slide from my shoulders. It doesn’t have to be fun, I remind myself. You can still do hard things, I remind myself. Only another 13.7 miles to the ocean. 13.7 miles and I will be free.
Since we are staying at Sasha’s parents house tonight we will slack pack the last section of the SDTCT, leaving the majority of our gear behind and only carrying what is needed. Despite this, the packing process drags on as people debate what to bring and what to leave and Sasha wrangles day packs for people to use. Finally at 8am we take the urban equivalent of a hitch, hopping into two Lyfts which take us back to where we left off last night.
Arriving at the trail freshly laundered and showered feels incongruous with my aching body. But then again, thru hiking is a deeply absurd endeavor so why should this trail feel any different. We set off down a gently winding path that runs alongside a small creek. Almost immediately some folks announce their boredom, put in their headphones and hammer off down the trail. But this morning I don’t want to be alone, I feel no need to push my body through these last few miles. The remaining miles to the beach will take us about five hours and for the first time on this hike I am content to let them slowly melt away.
I walk off and on with Liza, Pilar, Kelly, and Riley. We tell stories of childhood and awkward first dates. We decide that Riley is indeed the coolest of all of us and that Liza is the official cult leader of our hiking group. Everything is uproariously funny, drenched in the glow of the last day of a hike. The trail continues to wind through a shallow canyon past parks and below housing complexes, beside industrial areas and below bridges roaring with morning commuter traffic. But almost always on dirt, a fact for which my throbbing feet are grateful. Mile after mile slips away unnoticed and I am content to let them go. Unlike other hikes where I have used the last day for reflection, today I keep myself occupied with conversation. I have neither want nor need to spend another day ricocheting around the walls of my own skull. I want to be here, in this moment, and then I want to be done.
The trail dumps us out at the side of a busy road as though we are too-tan aliens deposited from another planet. This new world we have found ourselves on is inhabited only by rumbling glinting speeding beasts who wish us nothing but harm. Amid the noise and bustle we make our way to the taqueria directly on track at mile 150 where we eat thoroughly average Mexican food.
And then, as though by magic and kindness and luck and wonder I am hiking through a muddy wetland just a mile from the beach. The sky has grown grey, the air damp from ocean spray.
And then I am there.
The scene is not a jubilant sun-soaked dash to the finish but instead something more subdued and powerful in it’s finality. One last sprint across a busy road. A short flight of stairs. I am standing on a shallow beach which gives way to startling blue water that fades into fog like the end of the world. I am standing on the finish line. For all the tourists and hiking partners on the beach I might as well be alone. I made it. It didn’t break me. But something inside me has shattered. I spent eight days hiking and laughing with these people while crying hidden away in private moments. I saw the best of the hiking community while being reminded yet again that thru hikers are not kind to weakness and uncertainly. There is no fault or blame, only a wild, undulating ride through heat and brush and strife. I made it. I can do hard things. I am free.
Later, after we have snapped photos and played in the icy waters of the pacific, I am laying in a tattoo parlor. A tattoo of a jack rabbit jumping over a barrel cactus is being inked onto my skin. The needle piercing flesh reminds me of the pain from the innumerable scratches covering my legs. Only less. The heat from my rising skin reminds me of the brutal sun at the Salton Sea. Only less. I nearly doze off while the artist works, as though I have grown so accustomed to discomfort that this tattoo cannot phase me. I have forced myself to walk through pain and tears, through the loneliness of an endlessly screaming brain and now I will brand that experience into my very skin. I will carry this with me forever, pierced into my body, into my very core. Proof that amid more than a year of raging metal illness I still had the resilience to do something hard. I am trapped and I am free. Tomorrow I go home.
** Thank you for reading this far, you’re my special favorite. Wild Country is going back to it’s regular schedule of posting every other Friday; watch this space for a new post in two weeks. **
Tomorrow will be the last installment of the SDTCT blog. As always, I would love if you consider donating to the Border Angels fundraiser.
For three hours I am deeply, perfectly asleep. When the others start to make moves at 5:30am I am rudely dropped from a floating cloud back into my body with it’s scratched legs and aching feet. As with each previous day I feel older and more tried upon waking. But today is the penultimate day of our hike, today we reach San Diego, today I remind myself , that this hike is not about having fun. So I get up.
We leave the campground in a dense fog and wind our way through deconstructed suburbs, turning this way and that until we are unceremoniously dumped on the side of a busy road. I need time in the morning to warm up and Riley is kind enough to walk with me at the back of the pack. Within a couple of miles my legs are churning and we work our way up through the pack and out into the lead. The track takes us around a gravel pit, across a highway and up a hillside via a steep bushwhack that has my scratched legs screaming. From the top of the climb we hike on jeep roads and fire breaks over rolling dusty-green hills. The group expands and contracts like a many-legged inch worm searching for shade.
After so many years in southern California I find this sort of hiking to be easy if not unremarkable. I let my mind wander, past my throbbing feet, past the sweat running down my face and back, past the field trip of people behind and in front of me. I think about why I hike long distances. For the beauty and exercise, yes. But more so for the erasure that comes from grinding down my body so deeply into the earth that I am set free from a body and brain that increasingly feel like a ride on which I am trapped. It pains me to think that even out here I can no longer escape myself, my mental illness and my transness. I don’t know what to do about that. The problem feels bigger than I can handle and so I shuffle it away for future examination.
I am lost in thought when I come upon Riley and Kelly sitting in a patch of shade. They tell me that there is an alternate we can take that would get us off this dull ridge walking and would put us within a half mile of an In-N-Out Burger. The downside, they confess, is that the alternate might force us to walk along a very busy road, possibly a highway, kinda hard to tell from the maps. Fine. Fine, I say. Being this close to the end of the trail has me in both a better mood and ready to give zero fucks about anything. But sure, something other than miles of hard-packed dirt and grey-green bushes that culminates in burgers? I’m down.
We follow our original track until it hits the road and where we discover it’s a capital B Big Road. It’s a highway. Cars are moving fast, blowing by in big gusts, their speed and size feel scary and I wonder if this is a bad idea. Riley and I are again out in front of the pack and they think it’s a go so I do too. I wonder if anyone from the group will follow us, but then I realize I don’t really care. They’re all functional adults and group think has mostly gotten us lost on this hike, so I set off after Riley. Time to learn to fly baby birds.
At first there is a narrow single track trail that contours across the hills in parallel with the highway and we optimistically think we’re all set. Then we walk along the shoulder on the far side of the guard rail which gives us a little extra safety. But then, then comes a blind curve with a narrow shoulder and a big, steep hill overhead. Neither up nor through look like good options. This is what they call the lesser of two evils. Time to bushwhack. Riley and I push our way into the shrubs and my scratched legs scream in protest. My brain knows that being up on the hill is the safe thing to do but I am forced to fight my body’s natural urge to avoid pain. We pick our way up to the top of the hill while my brain sends messages of searing pain so intense that they warp back into some kind of sick pleasure. From the top of our scramble I watch the group below us hike down the shoulder, not on the safe side of the guard rail, three abreast without a care in the world. They don’t even blink when they come to the blind curve. I watch them make the same stupid, unsafe choices again and again as if they exist beyond consequences. As if this route were the PCT or AT where trail angels hold your hand and the trail is nicely marked and easy to follow. As Riley and I make our way back to the road I wonder at what it must be like to live in a world in which you think you are immune to harm simply because you are a hiker.
Still, lucky as we are to be hiking into a city, the shoulder gives way to a sidewalk and In-N-Out appears. We scurry inside, garnering looks from fellow patrons, one of whom I overhear talking about the book or movie Wild. They must think we are PCT hikers. Or, more likely, Wild is the only context this person has for understanding people like us. After all, they’re not that far off.
While we must look out of place to the other diners, to me In-N-Out feels like stepping into a spaceship. Everything is too bright and too close. The tiny bubble of cleanliness is too loud, like all the voices and dings and soda machine gurgles are pressing into me, demanding my attention. I want to stay and eat. I want to linger in this clean, air-conditioned space. I want to clap my hands over my ears and run screaming into the parking lot. But the desire for food wins out and shortly after we are done eating we leave. Following our ever-winding track which leads us down a busy road to a suburban neighborhood to a cut through a questionably public open space, then a park, then finally a winding pathway along a small, algae-choked creek. We follow this path until it hits a road and someone pulls out their phone and calls a Lyft. We are thoroughly in San Diego now and there will be no camping. Tonight we are heading back to where it all started, sleeping on the floor of Sasha’s parents house.
Hi, me again. Can we talk about the fundraiser? You know the deal by now, human rights disaster at the US-Mexico border, Border Angels uses the money you give them to help people from dying in the desert and educates folks about immigration and employee rights. That they’re helping people on both sides of the border. I know that not everybody has the means, that’s okay, care for yourself first, but if you can afford to give, I’d really encourage you too. I threw into the fundraiser myself because I really believe this is an organization that deserves our help.
The infamous bushwhack starts at mile 109. One and a half miles and 1,500 feet of gain to the summit of El Cajon Mountain, through chest high Manzanita and chamise bush. I moved slowly this morning and by the time I reach the base of the climb I can’t see anyone from the group, only their voices above me indicate where they are. I rush to stow everything on the inside of my pack and start climbing. I feel a little left behind, and then a little stupid for feeling that. Since all my efforts were towards self preservation I’ve set myself on the outside of the group. I’d been so focused on trying to stay in a place where I didn’t feel like I was going to crawl out of my skin, that I didn’t notice I’d been drifting away. Now I felt like a little life raft tied to the back of the party yacht.
At first the climb is simple enough. I can follow gaps in the brush, making my way diagonally up the mountain bit by bit. Half way up and I’m starting to wonder what the hype is all about. Sure I’m getting scratched but it’s nothing to write home about.
Except, I soon learn, I’m not half way up. I’m not even a third of the way up but rather half way up one of the three false summits. Fantastic. Really great. Once I gain the saddle I can see the rolling ridge extending away from me. Our group of 12, which feels so large when we are all collected, is scattered across the sweep of terrain and I can finally see how very far behind I am.
The peak rises in three hulking mounds below a round summit. Only large granite boulders break the sea of dense, haphazard green brush, like a giant, warty Chia Pet. It will be my special pleasure to work my way through 1.5 miles of it. As I climb higher the easements in the brush fade away until there is nothing but persistence and heaving lunges to move forward. The Manzanita has smooth bark and hard, unforgiving branches covered in small leaves. They whip my legs and leave them stinging. No matter how I try and navigate through the brush I end up scratched. My only reprieve is when I can clamber up on a boulder and attempt to get a better sense of a path. But there is no path there is only brush. Above me I can hear the others, see them standing on the summit a rise above me. I start pushing myself faster and faster, becoming careless and all the more scratched because of it. But I don’t want to be left alone, not up here, not adrift in a sea of green leaves and dark red bark.
I nearly break down in tears I am so frustrated. But this hike isn’t about having fun, it’s not about doing something easy. And somehow this knowledge calms me and allows me to keep moving as uncomfortable as I am. Eventually the skin on my legs becomes a singular, burning sting. The pain is both part of me and beyond me, allowing me passage through the dense vegetation with a supreme lack of concern for any further pain. It can’t hurt any more and so I stop fighting it, I stop fighting anything and simply make my way to the top of the mountain where I find Audrey, Beau, Hadley, Ashley our adopted daughter, Muffy, Liza, and Pilar.
The infamous bushwhack is over and with it the only summit on the entire SDTCT. From the top we can see ridges marching away to the east, each one unique and yet similar in their building blocks: dense brush and round barrel rocks. To the west a thick haze blankets San Diego and it’s surrounding neighborhoods, blocking them from view. We’re pushing up against the edge of civilization and walking our way out of the desert.
The descent is knee-jarring in its steepness but provides one excellent diversion. Less than a mile from the summit rests an old rusted-out jeep from the days when our trail was a road and well dressed city folk came this way in their fancy automobiles for a bit of adventure. We however, put the car to a different use. Beau suggests a thru hiker themed Truck Sluts photo shoot and soon people are stripping off their clothes and climbing onto the truck. As the person with the camera I am both photographer and art director, posing, arranging, and encouraging this collection of half-dressed hiking companions. It is truly amazing how doing difficult things in the outdoors can bond people.
Dressed and back on trail the sun grows long as the miles slip slowly by. The sounds of the racing highway herald our arrival at the bottom. It is here where we see Pea with trail magic. And this truly is remarkable. There is no such thing as trail magic on a route so obscure as the SDTCT. But Pea loves this route and loves supporting the hikers on it. The group sits on a grassy berm and eats Taco Bell bean and cheese burritos in the fading sunlight as cars wiz by below us. Incredible, I think, that people would go so far out of their way just to help those of us who like to hike long ways and sleep in the dirt. I try and tuck this wonderment away in my head for future use when things grow dark and the world feels a hostile place.
Look, by this point you know that I am raising money for Border Angels through this blog. We’re in the second half of the trip now and so is our fundraiser, I believe in the readership and community that has developed at Wild Country and I know you can help us reach our goal. Border angels is really on the front lines of the humanitarian crisis that is the US-Mexico border. They are saving people’s lives. And that is important to remember, you may have different political views than myself, but these immigrants are people and they deserve to not die walking across the desert just a few days away from a massive American city. If you’ve got a few bucks, it all counts.
A fitful night of half-sleep finally gives way as the first dusting of light spreads across the ceiling of our hotel room in Julian. Town sleep in a room with five other hikers never promises to be good and last night was worse than I anticipated. Ah well. What can you do. We’ll be back on trail tonight and I can hopefully get some sleep then.
To make it to the ocean before Audrey, Beau, Riley and I need to catch our flight, we are hiking out this afternoon. In my lackadaisical planning for this trip I had miscounted our days as eight hiking with a zero in Julian and last night received the rather rude awakening that this is not the case. We actually have eight days of hiking with no zeros. Well, I think, I am already dragging, what’s one day. This morning is a rush of chores and I am a rock amid the chaotic tide that is the rest of the group. I sit on the porch and call my mom as the tide goes out to coffee and breakfast. I know myself well enough to know that I cannot be civil amid company this morning, so I stay planted. Banking on our sheer numbers to conceal my absence. While the others are at breakfast I cry on the phone to my mom. About the difficulty of thru hiking while depressed. About the bone-deep exhaustion that has followed me for months. About my conflicting desire to both quit and to prove to myself that I am stronger than this hike, than my mental illness. Sitting curled on the floor of the hotel room I sob as quietly as I can until I can get myself under control, until I can hang up and not leave my mother too worried.
I resolve to take advantage of the empty room and grab a shower where I won’t have to rush so anther dirty hiker can take my place. But then Starman calls and the presence of his kind voice sends me spiraling again. Except this time I’m crying on the bathroom floor. Starman offers to help me find a way back to Seattle and through some combination of hubris and hopelessness I decline. I shower. I put on a happy face and just in time. The tide is rolling back in with the boxes full of hiker food that we sent to Julian. I tear into mine, packing things away as quickly as I can before I bolt for the door at a pace that won’t strike the others as bolting. It’s not their fault. It’s nobody’s fault. But my skin is set to crawling at the presence of so many people. Their wants, their needs, their voices burrow into my skull where they mix with the existing chaos of my chemical-imbalanced brain.
While on the phone with good, kind, logistics-oriented Starman we devised a plan to help me make it through the rest of the hike with as much of my mental health in tact as possible. I will rise before the others, hike alone when I need to, rest with the others when I can, and remember that there are only a few days left in this hike. Sometimes distraction is the solution. I will abandon the pointless endeavor to avoid media and stay alone with my thoughts. Then. armed with a plan and a dozen hours of newly-downloaded podcasts I make my way to the Julian Cafe for a breakfast date with myself and the plan to drink as much diner coffee as I can.
After breakfast I take myself back to the hotel to find the others poking at their phones and waiting out the heat of the day. At 2pm Audrey, Beau, Riley, Sasha, Pilar, Ashley our adopted daughter, and myself climb into Carrot Quinn’s van and head back to the trail. Our half day in Julian means we’re going to need to skip 10 miles of exposed road walk in order to keep on schedule. Nobody is terribly upset about that.
A brief ride down some unremarkable dirt roads dumps us at a bend in the road and we start walking. Immediately Riley pulls away and I find myself in the empty middle of the group. Perfect. The hiking is along yet another dirt road this time under the merciful shade of live oaks. But on this turn of the merry go round when my brain starts it’s jet engine whine of panic I don’t try and play the hero and just put some music on. Whether I am manic, depressed, or mixed music has the same effect; to suppose a different set of emotions on top of my own. Like spackling over a wall, the cracks may still be there but at least I can’t see them. And in this way I pass what might be the most pleasant miles of the trip. As the sun inches its way towards the western horizon I decided that this hike is no longer about having fun. Lots of hikes are fun but that doesn’t mean they all have to be. No, I decide, this hike will be about proving to myself that I can still do hard things. After a year of feeling weak and out of control, like a passenger on the runway ride that is my brain, I need to show myself that I am still capable. And if it hurts like hell in the process, then so be it.
