1992 (1) – Learning to Love

As a young man, I had conquered the Bear Lake trail and surrounding terrain several times, but without a lasting relationship with any of my companions.  The once-raging fires of youth and vigor ultimately left blackened scars of dismal loneliness.  Despite the great love I felt inside me, I’d never really had a girlfriend, or anyone with whom to share the deepest glories of the Three Bear Lakes.  By the time that I was 21, I could see that the College of Marin would offer no more fruitful hunting ground.  So I moved to Bolinas, partook of legendary parties and refreshments to dull the pain, put together a ragtag softball team, won the West Marin Championship, mangled my left knee, wrote to pen pals to ease the drudgery of rehab, and wound up getting married halfway around the world before I was 23.  But that’s a story for another book… or a dozen.

The financial and emotional demands of a committed relationship took a lot more planning than a backpacking trip.  The monthly cycle of work, cohabitation, and paying the bills turned into years, and two children were born.  With intentional devotion, the desolate, charred landscape of my solitude had blossomed into a garden of love!  I was engrossed in the intricacies of the soaring emotional life I had always dreamed of, but somehow it was much, much harder when your feet have to touch the ground, and you don’t wake up.  The dream just goes on and on, and requires lots of maintenance, which is anathema to fantasy.  The years away from the Trinity Alps accumulated like driftwood, and got tangled in the emotional undertow of my mind.  Before I knew it, an entire decade had nearly passed without visiting the lakes – almost a third of my life!

My enthusiasm for rekindling the flame of adventure was dubiously tolerated by Monica, my devoted and supportive wife.  Her nickname, “Joy,” did not exactly describe her feelings about trying her first backpacking trip, but she was willing to trust my assurances that it was safe and fun.  In her country, the Philippines, people who go hiking for extended periods in remote areas sometimes don’t return.  I promised her that in America, people not only went on lengthy hikes through grand and amazing landscapes, but they carried everything they needed like happy pack mules, and almost always returned better off than before they left.  This did little to assuage her caution, or lack of eagerness for leaving a comfortable home to grub around in the dirt like wild animals… and without a proper bathroom, too!  Nonetheless, my gorgeous photographs and fantastic yarns convinced her to go, and I gleefully began making the lists and plans that would help coordinate the many contributing factors.  Her mom would watch Logan, who was nearly two.  Fiona was between 2nd and 3rd grade, and was both eager and old enough to come with us.  My son, Logan, was too young to go, but would enjoy some quality time with his grandmother.  It was much harder to arrange for time away from the pet store where I was the manager, but it had to happen… and so it did.  By the time Joy’s vacation time was approved by her company, the dates were set.

The accompaniment of a woman and child – approximately two thirds of the love of my life – presented a very different sort of excursion for which to prepare.  Pampering was a mandatory part of the agenda, because both my companions were Leos.  So, how does the man of the family pamper and spoil on a rugged backpacking trip in the mountains?  He must provide all the comforts of home, and of course carry it, too!  My pack was well over 60 pounds, and about as ungainly as an unconscious octopus.  I carried everything except Joy’s personal stuff.  She prepared a neat and trim ladies backpack, filled with 50% air, 25% fluffily folded clothes, and 25% assorted female paraphernalia in pastel containers.  Fiona filled a diminutive school knapsack with a few stuffed animals, pens and paper, and her own sleeping bag, which she bravely insisted on carrying… for about 200 yards.

Even after her 7th birthday, our delicate girl-fairy Fiona barely weighed 40 lbs. soaking wet, and was not to be relied upon for carrying anything but the clothes on her back.  I was just hoping she made it up to the lake.  My desire to revisit The Bear Lakes was so compelling that I didn’t really think of the consequences if either of them quit on the trail.  I was oblivious to the similarities between my mom and Debbie quitting so many years ago, and the comparable ages and physiques of Joy and Fiona at that time.  Fiona was very active and willful for a small sprite, and I thought she could make it.  We went on several long hikes around Marin to prepare that summer, and to provide a chance to gauge her ability.  Let’s face it – if she couldn’t have made it I probably would have carried her!  (I gladly settled for carrying the sleeping bag.)

Our daughter was artistic to an astonishing degree, even at a young age, and appreciated beauty and affection in the precocious manner of a child.  I wanted her to experience the majesty of immersion in the all-embracing love of the wilderness, even if it would take years to truly appreciate it.  For Joy, I wanted her to see firsthand the wonders of my personal paradise, and by their charms begin to savor the healing balm of the backwoods.  I was willing to do almost anything to get them up that trail – even if it meant stopping at the outlet malls next to Highway 5, making a two-day drive up, and staying in a hotel overnight for no reason at all.  We did “rough it” in an actual tent before taking on the trail, but “it” was in the most developed campground close by at Eagle Creek.  The female faction of our expedition was definitely not impressed by the pit toilets!  I wound up digging an elaborate latrine across the road in a remote spot away from the river, and the stinking pits, balancing the need for responsible ecology with the necessity of properly pampering the Leos.  We hadn’t even started yet, and already I was exhausted from trying to anticipate every need and make the hardships tolerable.

With insincere fanfare, I folded up our comparatively luxurious camp in the morning, stowed the gear in the car, and invited my loved ones forward on the trail, as if we were entering the mall instead of beginning the most difficult thing they had ever done in their lives.  I fretted often about their comfort.  “Are you ok?”  “Does that strap hurt?”  “Here, let me fix that for you!”  They plodded on like troupers for a few minutes, then started looking for an escalator.

My domesticated obsessions must have been amusing to the mountain gods, because they quickly conspired to sabotage my plans with the worst possible deterrent: snakes.  Oodles and oodles of snakes.  In all my trips to the Bear Lakes in other years, I’ve seen only one other snake, and it was a thin, harmless garter snake hunting baby tadpoles.  We must have seen over 50 snakes on this particular trip (and I’m not exaggerating).  Most of them came later, but the first one was a brash and dangerous young rattlesnake, coiled fiercely in the center of the trail less than a quarter mile from the car!  I was leading of course, and heard it buzzing before I saw it – then jousted it well off into the bushes with my long walking stick.  The rubber ball at the end was moist with venom from where the little whipper-snapper struck repeatedly to register its annoyance.  Young rattlers are by far the most hazardous because they don’t regulate their use of venom like wiser, older snakes that know the worth of conservation.  The young ones gush at every strike like a fire hose.  For the benefit of the females I laughed it off, but it was an ominous portent that something so small and hard to see could not just ruin our pleasure packing, but could actually kill someone I loved!

With Fiona’s sleeping bag now added to my pack, I looked like a one-man Bedouin caravan balanced strangely on a pair of skinny white legs that were already caked brown with dust.  I was in the best shape of my life, but also the lightest I had been since middle school, owing to the frequent bicycle rides I made from home to work to compensate for having an unreliable car.  The ponderous pile of household conveniences lashed to my diminutive hips and shoulders weighed almost half as much as I did. We stopped for frequent rests, so Joy could learn that adjusting her backpack straps did nothing to lessen the weight of her load, however slight.  Fiona traipsed along at a disinterested pace, picking the few faded flowers that remained, inspecting dusty rocks, and humming a dreary tune from a cartoon show.  I took a huffing, full pack-off rest at the bridge, and rallied the troops for the mental and physical challenge of the dusty switchbacks just ahead: the hottest, grimiest, and most discouraging part of the entire trail.  Already I was sensing dissention in the ranks, and without a great show of bravado I was afraid I’d soon be camping on the carpet of a Motel 6.

Nothing I said could dispel the disappointment of leaving the pretty tumbling pools of cool Bear Creek, and resuming our upward trek.  We climbed dispiritedly back and forth, up the desolate switchbacks that knifed through scrawny, heat prostrated black oaks.  I heard muttered curses behind me, as we wove amongst wiry clawing manzanita bushes, and dodged boulders strewn at inopportune intervals.  I ultimately expended a great deal of energy just leveraging our nomadic belongings yard by excruciating yard, with my knees and the nylon straps competing to see which could creak the loudest.  Not only that, but I had to turn around often to rally the troops, who were mired in dust and their sullen, mutinous thoughts behind me.  We rested on hot boulders shaggy with dry moss in the meager shade, and swatted at the dive-bombing horseflies that were attracted to our struggle.

“How much longer?”  It started.  At his point in the trail, it was impossible to justify the pain with any promises of future pleasure.

“I’m sorry you guys,” I implored sincerely, “All I can tell you is: it’s worth it!”

I don’t know why Joy and Fiona hung in there, but I was glad they decided to press on – and I hope they were, too.  It wasn’t anything close to fun at that point.  In that part of in the trail, I could say all the encouraging words I wanted, and paint grand pictures in the mind of towering spires that caressed an ethereal azure ceiling of celestial delights, with no sign of acknowledgement but a baleful glare under a sweaty brow, or an extended dusty pout.  In a figurative sense, I could have spent all my time plucking the imaginary daggers from the back of my pack.  I am so thankful that they put up with my outlandish dreams: my two little Panchos following warily and faithfully as Don Quixote tilted his bamboo staff to the windmills of the mountains.  I was very much looking forward to enjoying the lakes with (most of) my family to provide the missing piece in the grand jigsaw puzzle of unconditional love I had been trying to put together for so many years.