It is the story of my first ever backpacking experience at the age of 17 in 2004. I think it was a critically important experience and one that undoubtedly helped shape my interest in the outdoors – and possibly my entire life.
Without further adieu, I present the second chapter of my memoir in progress, “Across America by Foot, Bicycle and Canoe”. Coming most likely never to a bookstore near you.
Chapter 2: Almost on Top of the World
2004
It was never a goal of mine to traverse the United States under my own human-power so many times. The number, as of this writing, rests at five, although the definition of what a “traverse” is meant to represent varies between them. A traverse in this sense signifies a crossing of the contiguous United States from one end to the other, from border to border, or sea to sea, or in the case of the canoe trip, the source of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
I did not set out on these series of adventures to break a record or raise funds for a charity or become world famous. They happened organically as most things in life do, as a thought that turned into planning that turned into action. The pursuit of adventure is at the heart of this motivation, nothing less and nothing more, and it exists as a general curiosity I have for the world and the United States. There are plenty of things to see and experience and I was under the impression that the more I saw and the more I experienced, the better a person I could become. I can argue now whether that really happened. Fire fuels more fire, and in the case of these adventures, perhaps the only thing I learned is that there are too many things in this world to see and do. Adventure sparks curiosity which ignites more adventure. It is a loop that is difficult to escape.
These five traverses have spanned an entire distance of over 13,000 miles, encompassing three voyages by foot along the spine of the four major mountain ranges in the lower 48 (the Sierra Nevada, Cascades, Rockies and Appalachians), one traverse by bicycle across the backroads of the southern desert and wetlands, and one traverse in the seat of an old aluminum canoe down the third largest river in the world.
These long-distance adventures have brought me through most of the 8 biomes that are found in the contiguous United States, including the subtropics, desert, coniferous and deciduous forests, and high mountain terrain. As the moto for American culture is that of a melting pot, so is the variety of flora, fauna and geology of this vast geographic region. It is a special privilege to have so many unique and beautiful places within the confines of only one country. And as an American, it is all too easy to glaze over this impressive fact and take it for granted.
There are countless stories to be told of these landscapes. If rocks and trees could talk, they probably would never shut-up. Beautiful country has a way of influencing a person’s soul. When you see a picture of a mountain, or a beautiful waterfall, what sort of feelings does that provoke? When you’re standing on the shore of a beach, a vast ocean in front and no end in sight, what do you think about?
The feelings that these images summon are ones that I have tried to chase for the better part of a decade. They inspire and challenge me; motivate and scare me. In their own, convoluted way, they have enriched my life in ways I never knew were possible. Their variety, grandeur, and awe-inspiring nature puts into perspective the beauty of Mother Earth, highlighting humanity’s wisdom as well as casting light on its shortcomings.
If you’ve ever stood at the top of a 14,000-foot mountain or had the opportunity to gaze at the night sky with no light pollution, you know this feeling I am trying to describe. It’s within these moments that you feel small and begin to appreciate just how big the world is. All your individual problems and insecurities seem so insignificant in these moments. They wash away from you, replaced by a sense of wonder you probably hadn’t experienced since being a small child. They are feelings that, ultimately, make you feel like you are a part of something. They energize, make you dream, make you feel alive. And isn’t that what any of us wants?
The pages that follow tell the story of my life and of my human powered travels across the United States between the years 2011 and 2017. The primary reason for recounting my story is that I hope to inspire others to get outside and have adventures of their own. Long-distance travel under the power of one’s own body, has the influence to change our perspectives and bring back the sense of adventure and wonder we once used to have as children. It opens our minds up to endless possibilities, teaches us lessons we would have never thought we could have learned, and imprints in us a distinct humility that we can take into other parts of our lives, hopefully striving to become better partners, parents, children, friends, and participants of our world.
***
I don’t remember how I came to love natural landscapes so much. I was mostly an “inside” kid growing up and had very little interest in doing things outside. I liked to read, write, go to the cinema with my friends, and play video games in the dark, musty basement of my parent’s old colonial style home in Springfield, Massachusetts. Outside time was only appreciated during the summer months when I could go swimming in the pool and eat barbeque chicken out on the back deck under the smoky aura of citronella candles. Other than that, you may have thought I was allergic to sunlight or fresh air.
The first real experience I had with the outdoors was the summer between my Junior and Senior year of High School. My friend Zack and his Dad went on a big backpacking trip each summer, where they would fly to distant places out West and tramp through the woods for 10 days without contact with the civilized world. I don’t remember the details of how this happened, but my Dad and I got invited on their expedition one summer along with our other friend Matt.
The decided-on location was a 70 mile stretch of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in central California. The concept of walking 70 miles through the woods at that point in my life was something I had a hard time wrapping my head around.
To prepare for battle, we visited the local EMS outfitter (the East Coast equivalent to REI, at least back in the early 2000s). We walked into the store with glossy eyes. Neither of us had any idea what we needed or what would work. We combed through the aisles and stopped by the backpacks, looking over the dizzying selection of pack sizes and brands.
An employee in his early 20s came from behind and startled us with his hello.
“What’s up, guys?” he asked, a spectacular grin forming on the corner of his mouth. “Can I help you find something?”
He had an unkempt beard and a red and black flannel shirt, the type of dirt-bag look reserved only for people that spent too much time outside. “Brody” glistened firmly on his name badge.
It would have been impossible for him to have missed the slight desperation in our eyes.
“We need a lot of help,” my Dad said in his thick, East-Coast accent. “Christ, it’ll be a miracle if we don’t die out there…” He lingered painfully with this thought.
“What do you need?” Brody asked.
“Everything,” my Dad said. “Backpack, sleeping bag, cookware – all of it.”
Brody smiled wide, revealing a set of pearly white teeth that sparkled under the blinding glow of the fluorescent store lighting.
“I know exactly what you need,” he said, patting my dad’s shoulder reassuringly. “First, let’s get you boys a backpack. How long will you be out there?”
“10 days, at least,” my Dad answered. “We’re going to California, into the Sierra Nevada mountains, 12, 13, 14 thousand feet up there!” He raised his hand higher in the air as he spurted out each new elevation mark.
“You’re gonna want to consider this beauty,” Brody said, taking down a mammoth canvas-green Kelty branded backpack and handing it over to my dad. “This is a top of the line, 80-liter expedition backpack just released this year. You won’t have ANY trouble carrying 10 days-worth of food and supplies with this thing.”
My Dad turned the bag over in his hands, studying it, and then tried it on.
“Here,” Brody said, “let’s put two of these 20-pound bags in it so you can feel how well it carries the weight.”
My Dad walked around with the pack, cinching the shoulder and waist straps tight to his body. There was a small “incline” walking feature by the hiking boots and he stepped up and down testing out the pack. People from inside the mall looked through the glass at my father pretending to be a hiker as they passed by.
“How does it feel?” Brody asked.
“Okay, I guess. Heavy…but comfortable.”
“Excellent,” Brody replied as slapped him on the shoulder. “Now, let’s find you something warm and cozy to sleep in.”
We walked quickly to the next aisle over. Sleeping bags of every shape, size and color hung from a rack like butterfly cocoons ready to hatch. Each one had a temperature degree rating on the information tag. One of them said -20 degrees. I wondered why anyone would want to sleep outside in such cold conditions.
“It’ll probably be super cold up there at such a high elevation,” Brody told us while he shuffled through the maze of hanging rainbow colored pea-pods.
“Even in July?” my dad asked.
“Oh yeah. For sure,” he spouted, matter-of-fact. “It may even snow up there if the conditions are right.”
“Are you kidding me?” my Dad blurted, mouth agape.
“Sir, do I look like someone who would lie to you? We need to make sure you and your boy here can survive the night. I’d recommend this synthetic 0 degree sleeping bag. You’ll be plenty warm while snuggled up tight and cozy in this masterpiece of a sleeping garment.”
He took down this humongous black bag that was in the shape of a mummy’s tomb. I supposed the thinking was that if you died during the night it could also serve as a burial device for easier disposal of your remains.
I could sense the weight of the thing in my dad’s hands. It was a bulbous and awkward beast, taking on a personality of its own.
“Lord, how much does this thing weigh?” my Dad asked.
“About 5 pounds,” Brody replied. “A fairly standard weight today.”
My Dad looked at the price tag and rolled his eyes. “Early Christmas for you this year,” he said. “…And Birthday.” It helped that both resided on the same day. I was a Christmas miracle, born on the same day of Jesus Christ himself. But it seemed more like a curse each time the day rolled around, especially as I had gotten older. It turns out sharing your birthday with our lord and savior is pretty much the worst day you could ever have hoped to be born.
The rest of the shopping escapade was a blur. We bought a bright orange, two-person tent, a stove that ran on iso-butane canister fuel, bowls and utensils, a water filter and water bottles, base layers, hiking boots, hiking poles, rain jackets and rain paints, headlamps, a first aid kit, and so much other crap It looked like we were shopping for the apocalypse rather than a week-long wilderness adventure.
When we thought we were nearing the end, our personal shopping guide would lead us down another aisle filled with gadgets and gizmos and all sorts of other paraphernalia. He talked frantically and wildly like a salesman on a mission to squeeze my poor father out of every penny he had.
“One last thing…” Brody said, thinking hard. “Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot about this!”.
We turned down another aisle in the store, zig-zagging by everything we had already had the pleasure of exploring, until we neared the sleeping bags again. Tucked into a little corner were the sleeping pads.
“Can’t forget a sleeping pad!” Brody exclaimed. “One of the most important pieces of gear!”
My dad looked through some options before settling on a hunter’s orange inflatable model.
“Do you want the same one?” my Dad asked me.
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t think I need one. I have too much other shit to carry.”
“Are you sure?” the employee said, tilting his head. “I think you should really reconsider.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m positive.”
My dad and I eventually escaped to the check-out line. It was time to see how much money we were going to drop on all this fancy backpacking gear, none of which we researched nor had any business using. We had put all our stake into one young man’s opinion on the subject, without knowing whether he was leading us on a path towards success or leading himself to a hefty commission and an untimely death for us in the mountains.
There had to be some amount of truth to his recommendations though, right? He seemed like an outdoors type. Heck, he was even wearing fancy hiking boots along with those pants that zip off at the knees, so he must have had some sort of understanding, however small, of what he was talking about. And besides, it was certainly better than anything my Dad and I could scrap up on our own. That part was crystal clear.
“Did you find everything you were looking for?” the cashier asked as we approached the register. Her smile was wide and forced, and I wondered if most people that worked in retail went home with sore faces at the end of the day.
I somewhat expected a witty response from my Dad. He’s typically an expert in this field. But instead of saying something funny or amusing he only smiled and nodded, watching the register intently as the dollar figure ascended to heights rivaling that of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The total that was displayed on the register was a number that was quite shocking as a broke teenager. My Dad reluctantly handed over his credit card, and we were soon out the door into the bright afternoon sunshine once again, barely able to carry all the bags that were drooped on our shoulders and clasped in our hands.
The thought that everything we carried was coming along on our journey was shocking to say the least. I hoped our 80 Liter Kelty packs would be big enough to fit everything inside.
“I think this trip is going to be terrific,” my Dad said to me on the way to the car. His optimism was reassuring, as if he had access to a crystal ball and could see how the trip would turn out. Surely my own father wouldn’t lead me astray. He was my protector and guardian after all, and he had never let me down in the past, so why stop trusting him now? And he was right, this was going to be terrific. Hell, maybe even fantastic! Perhaps it would be the best experience I’ve ever had in my entire 17 years of existence.
“Besides,” my Dad went on. “Even if it’s a monumental failure, there’s sure to be a good story or two to tell afterwards.”
***
It didn’t take long for mid-summer to come along. The night before our flight to California on a hot and sticky July evening my father and I packed our gear into our Kelty packs and walked around outside in the back yard to get a final “test run” in. The crickets chirped loudly as the sun set over a quiet evening in New England. My mom stared at us from the kitchen window as she washed dirty plates in the sink. The smell of grilled chicken lingered faintly in the pre-dusk glow as citronella candles flickered along the perimeter of the deck.
My dad hoisted his pack up on one shoulder with a grunt. He winced once and then willed the other shoulder strap over his body, grunting a second time. My mother looked through the window watching us bumble about as she gripped a large pan with bright yellow rubber gloves.
Once my father was all strapped in I flung my pack over myself, instantly sinking into the grass a few inches. It felt heavier than when I had first tried it on months earlier. Of course, I did nothing to prepare for this excursion physically, electing to sit inside in the basement playing video games instead of getting out and walking with my pack on.
“How does the pack feel?” my Dad asked.
I shifted the shoulder straps around and clipped in the waist buckle. “This is going to suck,” I said.
I walked across the yard pretending I was on a hike in the forest. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ear and bit at my ankles as I circled the perimeter of our above ground swimming pool.
“We need to make sure we don’t forget the bug spray,” I said once I returned to the deck.
I wanted to tell my Dad how nervous I was but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to seem like a wimp, because even though I was scared, I knew deep down that everything was going to be okay.
But it wasn’t entirely the hiking that kept me up at night. There was something else that was on my mind that had been bothering me for a long time.
A short pain ran down the right side of my neck into my shoulder blade. I took off my pack and set it on the deck and rubbed my neck where it was bothering me.
“Are you alright?” my Dad asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” I replied, grabbing the pack and dragging it inside the house. “I have some homework to finish before we leave tomorrow.”
I left my Dad on the deck with his pack on and stormed upstairs. The pain in my neck was getting more uncomfortable. Massaging it seemed to help, it always did, and I laid on my bed for a while and rubbed my neck, pushing my fingers hard into the soft skin. I wished the pain would go away but it was something I knew I just had to deal with.
Two years prior, I had suffered a collapsed lung at work. I had a part time job at Sears as a cashier and it was a few hours into my shift when the pain started. It was dull at first, starting underneath my right armpit and then branching out into my head and down the right side of my body into my leg.
The managers played the worst music at Sears, and I remember standing at my post in a deserted hardware department barely able to stand while Marvin Grey’s I Heard it through the Grapevine blasted through the ceiling speakers.
“Oh I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind.”
Eventually a customer came into the store with a big bucket of used tools. He heaved the bucket up onto the counter and it made a large thwack as screwdrivers, hammers and an assortment of socket wrenches jingled on impact. The thing about buying a Sear’s Craftsman Hand Tool (or Crapsman, as my father would like to call the brand) is that they came with a lifetime guarantee, no questions asked. If you wanted a new hand tool all you needed to do was bring in the old one and Sears would make a one to one exchange. It was a great deal if you were a customer, but if you happened to work in the tool department during an exchange it was a big pain in the ass.
I looked through the assortment of rusty tools in the bucket as I leaned on the counter.
Barely able to talk, I half gasped, “Can I help you?”
The customer had a large grey mustache that fell over his teeth. His dirty and greasy hands rested on the top of the orange bucket, glowing underneath the bright fluorescent ceiling store lights.
“I want to replace all my tools,” he offered, licking his teeth. “They don’t work no more.”
Usually if it wasn’t busy I’d go around and help the customer pick out new ones. Sometimes the tools people brought in were so old that they didn’t exist anymore in the system, in which case we’d just pick something that was similar and offer them that.
But that night, I couldn’t give two shits. He could do it himself.
“Pick out what you want and bring them up here for an exchange,” I offered.
“You’re telling me I need to go and pick out all these myself?” he grumbled.
“Yes, sir,” I said, leaning further over the counter and moving my weight onto my left foot.
He left the big bucket on the counter and headed off huffing into the aisles with his arms folded across his chest.
Luckily it was my 30-minute dinner break and my relief arrived to cover my station. They could deal with this ass-hat once he returned.
The pain at this point was so bad I had a hard time walking and I couldn’t take a deep breath anymore. I thought that maybe I needed to take a shit, that somehow the pain was a result of some epic blockage in my colon.
I limped downstairs to the break room bathroom and sat on the toilet. The pain was rushing through the right side of my body as if a hockey player socked me in my ribs. I tried pushing a turd out, squeezing my eyes shut and pushing harder than I ever had before. I managed a small rabbit sized bowl movement and immediately felt way worse.
I thought that maybe I just needed to eat something and that the pain was because I was hungry. I threw a few quarters into the vending machine and sat in the break room eating a bag of pretzels. I could barely get anything down.
I finished the remaining few hours of my shift and eventually drove home. The pain was so bad my body was crumpling to my right side, and every time I took a deep breath an even worse pain took over.
“You don’t look good,” my Mom said when I got home around 9:30 at night.
“It’s my side,” I said. “it hurts… so bad…” I was terrified.
We rushed to the emergency room and I was quickly admitted after a few short tests and x-rays. I remember walking through the packed hallway as sick people rested in gurneys along the side walls, waiting for a room to open or to see a doctor. I walked by all these sick people like some VIP hotshot and was led to a room that was separated by pale blue curtains. A doctor came in right away.
“You have a collapsed lung,” he said, getting right down to it. “We’re going to have to put you to sleep so we can fix it? Okay?”
What? A collapsed lung? How?
“How did this happen?” my mom asked, her voice high pitched and nervous.
“It’s called a spontaneous pneumothorax,” the doctor replied. “It just happens. No reason. It’s quite common among tall and skinny young men. It’s good you brought him here right away. This can be life threatening if it’s not corrected quickly.”
Another man came into the room. He was short with a thin, brown beard. The doctor and anesthesiologist exchanged pleasantries.
“Lay down,” the anesthesiologist instructed me with a small smile. There was a tall green cylinder that he had rolled in with a long clear tube that was attached to a plastic mouth piece. “I’m just going to give you a little gas to put you to sleep, alright pal? Everything is going to be just fine.”
I nodded my head, scared that I wouldn’t wake up.
“It’s times like these that make you appreciate how precious life is,” he said, putting the plastic mask over my face and turning a nob on the cylinder. “Now, breathe deeply.”
I looked at my mom and held her hand as the room faded to darkness and I drifted away to sleep.
***
I laid on my bed and watched my dad fiddle around with his pack outside as I touched the scar that was left under my armpit from the surgery. The doctor had cut a small hole in my chest where a tube was used to suck out the excess air in my chest cavity, re-inflating my lung and fixing it.
Ever since the operation my chest hadn’t felt the same. I figured that after two years it should have certainly been healed, but it continued hurting from time to time which made me scared that I had gotten a collapsed lung again. I felt like most of it was just in my head, and the pains that came and went were phantoms that visited me from time to time just to terrorize me.
I didn’t really care about being in the woods, or having to hike all day for 10 days straight, or getting bit by hungry mosquitoes, or getting sunburned so bad my skin peeled. I was scared about getting a collapsed lung in the wilderness without access to a hospital or doctor. Thinking about that kept me up at night and only made me focus my attention on the right side of my chest where I thought I felt something, some discomfort, and I would rub my neck and side and it would maybe get better or maybe get worse.
I never told my parents about this fear because I thought it was irrational. And besides, the pains had come and gone over the past two years and I never did end up getting a collapsed lung again. So, the pains, well, they were just pains. History would suggest that nothing much worse than that would come to pass.
I sat on my bed looking over the trail map. The sun had descended, and the warm turquoise night had transformed into urban black, the stars remaining just visible over the soft glow of the city lights. We were going somewhere called Kings Canyon National Park, and the map I had spread out on my bed had a dizzying array of tightly packed together contour lines representing huge mountains and wide, steep valleys. I followed the thin red line with my index finger that represented the trail we would follow. It crossed over many rivers and zig-zagged up and down a large mountain pass that was over 13,000 feet. I wondered if the elevation would have any effect on my chest and breathing.
I heard a small knock on my door and my Dad cracked it open and poked his head inside.
“I’ll wake you up around 5:00 AM, okay?” he said.
“Yeah, sounds good,” I replied, folding the map back up and putting it inside my pack. The cars outside hummed back and forth as my Dad lingered in the doorway. Cool air crept in through the open window, thick with humidity and the stench of summer.
“Sleep good,” he eventually said, closing the door softly until it clicked shut.
It was hard to imagine I would be preparing to go to college a year from then. I gazed around the soft comfort of my room. The walls were pale blue and blank. A lone wooden dragon rested on top of my dresser, a souvenir from a trip I took to Oaxaca, Mexico with my school a month after the collapsed lung surgery. The dragon was menacing with yellow and orange flames protruding from its open mouth. It didn’t look scared of anything, and it was a look I wished I had possessed. Even if I had half the courage as the dragon I would have been satisfied.
During the trip to Mexico I had developed a crush on a girl. I thought about her then as I turned off the lights and looked at the ceiling. We had spent an afternoon playing basketball with the village kids under a dusty pavilion in bright, winter light. I saw her smile as I closed my eyes, her strawberry blonde hair moving when she moved, how she kept pulling it back away from her bright hazel eyes and tucked loose strands behind her ears. I never had the courage to tell her how I felt, not then and certainly not within the last year as we slowly stopped talking to one another. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t say anything to anyone. My life was just me and my thoughts and the phantom pains from my lung, the lonely nights in the dark basement of my parent’s house where I’d spend hours in front of a television, and the occasional weekend spent at my friend’s house experimenting with vodka we’d sneak from his parents’ liquor cabinet and trash weed we bought from the stoner kid at school.
I hadn’t experienced that much in my short 17 years on this earth, aside from an awkward first romantic relationship, spending too much time on homework assignments, and coming in last place in all my high school track events, instilling a sense of paralyzing defeat that left me believing I was the biggest athletic disappointment in the history of sport.
And just like any other teenager, I was searching for who I was, what I was good at and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was a normal moody kid with big dreams and the inability to see much further past the next weekend. The world was out to get me, I was sure of it, and I could do nothing to stop it from happening. It was a feeling that inspired me to dream and fantasize about a life beyond my city home. It was one of those feelings you only get once in life, a pit in your stomach that is too delicate to recapture at any other point in life.
***
The Sierra Nevada mountain range stretches for roughly 400 miles north to south along Central and Eastern California. It is one of the most famous mountain ranges in the world, made popular by John Muir who visited these majestic landscapes frequently in the late 1800s to wander and write about its beauty and charm. Almost everyone knows of John Muir, the quintessential mountain man, slim and old with a long white beard and an unquenchable appetite for the outdoors. “None of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild,” he’d say, pipe in hand, gazing out towards Yosemite Valley during a colorful sunset, light refracting over steep granite peaks and bathing everything in a gentle, pale orange glow. It was an easy statement to make considering his location.
It was with John Muir’s efforts that many areas of the Sierra Nevada Range became protected Federal Land, spurring the creation of 26 Wilderness Areas and three National Parks: Sequoia, Kings Canyon and the most famous, Yosemite, which now receives over 5 million visitors each year. It is hard to imagine what would have happened to this area had John and others not done everything in their power to protect it from private enterprise. There is no doubt it would look and operate very differently than it does today. It is easy to take our National Park System for granted or misunderstand its value, but without wild places there would be little physical space to wander, reflect and dream, a resource more precious than most physical things.
My Dad and I followed Zack and his father up into this mountain range on a cloudless end of July afternoon. The sky was an azure blue I had never seen before, deep and endless, like someone had painted it in one sweeping stroke. The winding road weaved continually upward into the mountains as desert shrubs slowly turned to towering pines that lined steep embankments.
Fast flowing rivers paralleled the road, gurgling down towards the direction we had just come, spraying white-water over rocks and fallen trees and branches as it found the path of least resistance towards some unknown destination near the desert floor. Varying species of birds flew overhead and rested on large boulders near the streams and rivers, hunting for grubs or otherwise resting in the bright sunlight.
I had never seen anything quite so picturesque in my entire life. I had seen mountains before, sure, but I had never seen mountains and forests like these. All I had known were the mountains of the east in Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine. They were miniscule compared to the giant peaks in the Sierra, with their jagged granite cornices bursting into the heavens and their indents and crags filled with wind-blown snow that had not yet melted from the previous winter. The trees were bigger too and they stood headfast towering into the heavens like skyscrapers in a cityscape, gently moving with the wind as it roared through the canopy several hundred feet in the air.
As we neared the road’s end, we pulled into the dusty parking lot of a small rustic ranger station. We talked with the rangers and laid out our plans, securing a backcountry wilderness permit in the process. They checked that we had appropriate bear canisters and let us on our way, trusting that we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
Eventually we were off hiking after we spent several awkward moments fastening all our belongings that didn’t fit inside our packs to the outside straps. Pots, sandals, sunscreen, cups, bandanas and a whole assortment of other random garbage dangled from our packs like dingleberries clinging to the fur of a long-haired dog that had just taken a shit. The kids led the charge with the grown-ups in back and we ascended gradually up what I remember to be Bub’s Creek. We were sucking air not even an hour into the walk and decided to sit by a stream to catch our breath and fill up water bottles. My chest hurt, and I rubbed the right of my neck as I laid sprawled out on a large boulder in warm sunshine.
“How far you think we’ve come?” my Dad asked Cookie, a nickname he bestowed on Zack’s dad, mainly because he was our designated backcountry cook.
Cookie unzipped his front pouch and retrieved a large map, unfolding it rather unsuccessfully in the wind that gusted up from the river valley. He finally knelt and rested on a rock to keep it from blowing away.
“We started here,” he said, pointing a finger at the map. “And we are at a creek crossing right here.” He pointed at the creek crossing east of the trailhead. It seemed like an impossibly short distance for the effort we had put in. “By my estimation… probably a little over a mile and a half.”
He seemed neither surprised or alarmed. He folded the map back up, not without some trouble, and tucked it back into a pouch on his bag. He rubbed a hand through his short but thick black hair and gazed into the creek.
I didn’t know Zack’s Dad very well, but he was a nice, soft spoken and mild-mannered man. I could tell he liked being out here backpacking and that this was certainly something he enjoyed and had done many times before. There was no doubt that he was the leader of the trip and we all looked to him for guidance on where to go, how much water to carry and how much further we had to walk to get to the next camp spot. He urged us on but never pushed, listened to our silly questions without bestowing any judgment, and provided good comic relief as my Dad poked fun at his adventure hat and zip-off pants, the sunscreen that he put on his nose without rubbing it in, and the length at which dinner would take to cook which often left us waiting well after the sun had set to gorge on the first bite.
“Ready to move again?” Cookie asked gently as he stood on a rock with his pack fastened. We grumbled as we stood up and stretched, hoisting our heavy packs over our bodies and continued marching on.
We followed the creek as we ascended higher into the mountains. I talked with my friends and the dads talked about grown-up things. Things like mortgages and taxes and wives, politics and religion, the merits of good coffee and stiff whisky and what it was like growing up as a teenager in the 60s and 70s. My friends and I talked about World of Warcraft, a game that had taken over all our free time back home in the dark basements of our houses. Our parents thought we were alone, but we played these games together over the internet, chatting over digital highways well into the morning hours as we battled monsters and explored a huge, virtual world. It was hard for our parents to understand what we were doing, but it was a very social thing. My mom would tell me to go out with my friends more often and I’d always argue that I saw my friends every night. To my parents it looked like I was alone, staring into the void of a glowing computer monitor, wasting away my days and nights when I should have been out with my friends doing, what, I am not sure, just something else. They had no way of understanding how we bonded over these games.
I’d joke and ask her if she would rather have me go out and do drugs instead. She wasn’t too thrilled with my sarcasm and it wasn’t a very tactful way to present my argument.
She was half-right, anyway, maybe even more than half. But like any unreasonable teenager I wasn’t about to take advice from anyone, especially my parents. I had satisfied their requirement that I participate in one sport each semester. Golf was in the fall, which was the only sport I was good at, and then, because I was terrible at everything else, I ran indoor and outdoor track in the winter and spring with my friends. I told myself it was good just for the exercise despite coming in last place in every event the coach put me in. I felt bad for my parents when they cheered me on at the meets. I was a big bumbling idiot, slower than a turtle whose flat-footed stride wouldn’t even allow him to run away from a snail. I wished my parents would stay away from the meets and allow me to fail in relative peace and obscurity. But no, there they were on the sidelines, cheering me on every shameful step of the way.
“Way to go!” they’d shout from the stands as I trailed several seconds behind every competitor in the 100-meter sprint.
“You’ll do better next time,” they’d encourage me afterwards. “You did your best and that’s all that counts!”
But I wasn’t discouraged. I knew what to expect each time I laced up and headed out to race. Nobody had any expectations for me to contribute points to the team, which was perfectly fine by my standards and I preferred it that way anyway. It was a no pressure situation. I was on the team to fill a line on my college application and to get my parents off my case so I could play video games without getting guilt tripped. Like the creek flowing down the mountainside I preferred the path of least resistance. It was a smart but lazy way to float through life and a personality attribute I loved and equally despised.
It was late afternoon when we arrived at our first campsite. It was near the creek which meant there was plenty of water nearby for drinking and cooking, but the ground was wet and saturated forming pockets of murky, stagnant water. It just so happens that mosquitoes love stagnant water and as soon as we stopped they began attacking us with gusto. Of all the insects in the animal kingdom mosquitoes are the absolute worst.
“Jesus Christ,” my Father blurted after smacking the back of his neck. A bright red spot was left when he took his hand away. He looked at the crushed mosquito in disgust as he frantically swatted a dozen more away from his head. “We need to set up this tent…and fast!” he ordered.
Being that this was the second time we ever set up our orange two-person tent (Brody told us this was one of the easiest tents to erect), it took us a long time to bring it to life. We rushed inside and zipped it closed once it was complete. There were a few mosquitoes that snuck in during our quick but bumbling entry, and we spent a few minutes seeking them out and dutifully destroying them.
“Jesus Christ,” my dad said. “These fuckers are relentless!” He looked back at part of the mesh and saw a handful of large mosquitoes buzzing around the no-see-um netting trying to get in. We sat in the tent for a while, itching our arms and legs and trying to delay getting back outside to help cook dinner.
“Hey Cookie!” my Dad shouted. “Let us know when the spaghetti and meatballs are ready, alright?” He looked at me and laughed. “There’s no fucking way I’m goin’ back out there unless it’s to eat.”
He was joking of course, and we donned our rain pants and rain jackets before heading out of the tent, like knights readying ourselves for an epic battle.
It was getting dark and we all sat in a circle as Cookie rehydrated a large can of spaghetti and meatballs as we swatted away mosquitoes. I don’t remember how far we hiked but it was the furthest I had ever walked in a single day, and my legs and feet felt like they had been squeezed through a meat grinder. We sat listening to the creek nearby and the soft sound of crickets and birds that chirped within the forest. The sky was clear, and the stars started popping out one by one like popcorn kernels exposed over the heat of an open fire. It was dark in the sky and we could see more stars than we had ever been able to see back in the city. The Milky Way was somewhat defined, and Cookie pointed it out to us with his right index finger, following it through the air along its’ black and white-speckled spine.
“The night sky is great, isn’t it?” Cookie asked nobody in particular as we stared into the black abyss. “Makes you wonder how small we all are in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t it?” He smiled at this thought.
It made you wonder, yes. There was a whole universe out there and earth was just a tiny speck of space dust within this vast and unmeasurable vacuum, like a small grain of sand in a large ocean, or a single atom in a strand of human hair. We were impossibly small and insignificant, and I felt the gravity of that thought weigh on me as we sat around eating rehydrated Italian food that would have made my Italian Grandmother turn over in her grave.
None of my problems seemed so big staring into infinity. In fact, it made me feel a sense of relief knowing that in the grand order of things, I mattered no more than a tiny mosquito flying around, or an ant crawling over rocks. All of us could be removed from the universe in no time at all. We could be alive floating around minding our own business, and then – THWACK! – that would be it.
***
My dad and I both slept little during the night. It became apparent early in the evening that not bringing some sort of ground mat was incredibly stupid. The earth was cold and uneven, and pebbles and sticks jabbed into my back and side all night long no matter what position I tried to put my body in. Every little noise kept me on edge, too, and I spent hours wondering if a bear or some other woodland creature was outside the tent getting ready to devour me.
“Your feet smell horrible,” my Dad told me as we rested in our sleeping bags while the first sliver of light emerged from the darkness.
“It’s not like yours smell any better,” I snarked.
“Yours smell like something died and curled up inside your sleeping bag for a week,” he pressed. “My feet don’t smell half as bad as yours.”
“Well, I guess you’ll just have to sleep outside the tent from now on,” I said. “I could use the extra room anyway. Plus, you snore.”
We heard the others shuffling around outside and got up and joined them. Cookie was making coffee and boiling hot water for oatmeal.
“How’d you guys sleep?” he asked us while stirring the pot of instant oatmeal. His hair was wild and matted down but he looked alert and refreshed.
“Just fantastic,” my Dad joked. “In fact, I’ve never slept better in my entire life.”
“That’s great,” replied Cookie as the sarcasm evaded him. “We have a big day today. We need to get over Forester Pass. It’s a long way up and over.” He looked to where he thought the pass was and nodded his head in its direction.
I remembered Forester Pass from the map. I had no idea what elevation we were at, but I realized it was going to be a long day because we were still under a thick layer of trees. My feet and legs were sore from hiking the previous day, and I spent a few minutes putting band aids over half a dozen blisters on my toes and heels. My boots were garbage and poorly suited for my feet, and I could hear Brody telling me, “Make sure you break these bad boys in before your hike, okay?” I was starting to realize that maybe there were some important truths hidden within all his bullshit.
We broke down camp and began ascending the valley, following the creek which gradually transformed into a raging, cascading river. The mountains began revealing themselves as the trees thinned, offering our first breathtaking and expansive views.
“Wow, that’s incredible,” my Dad said as we both looked back towards Kings Canyon where we had just hiked from. Jagged silver and white mountains spread out before us stretching out as far as we could see towards the horizon. Dominant peaks in all sorts of shapes peppered the landscape and loomed over dark, green valleys. It was one of those moments where you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. It may as well have been a dream.
We could all finally see where we were heading and where the trail meandered to the pass. To our surprise, a layer of white blanketed the trail after a certain point. None of us had any experience hiking in the snow and we never thought that this would be an obstacle we would have to overcome. It wasn’t like any of us had been smart enough to get a snow report anyway. The rangers probably figured we had done some research on our own, or perhaps at the very least they didn’t think the snow was much of a problem and figured it wasn’t worth bringing up.
We proceeded with caution through the snow and continued going up at a snail’s pace. We postholed quite a bit as we attempted to follow the footsteps of other hikers. Postholing is when you sink into the snow after you step on top of it. If the snow is very deep, which it was, you could sink well up to your knees or thighs, which is both frustrating and time consuming. Had we known better we would have chosen to hike up the pass in the morning when the snow was hard, so you wouldn’t sink as much. But why do that when you can hit it in the late afternoon sunshine when the snow is the consistency of Thanksgiving mashed potatoes?
“Dom, stay close to me!” my Dad shouted. He looked timid and unsure of his footing as he navigated the deep snow. The embankment to our left had become steep and a misstep here would send you sliding down the side of it. We stopped and took a breath. “We need to be careful,” he instructed.
It was quite scary as we continued forward. I broke trail in the front and my dad followed behind. After a variety of switching back and forth up the snowy embankment, we finally crested the pass. A sign greeted us at the top, “Forester Pass, Elevation 13,200 Feet”. We dropped our packs and high fived each other.
“Amazing,” said Cookie, patting his son on the back. “Good work gents.”
I felt a sense of accomplishment as I stood near the sign looking out to the north where we had just come from. It took me a few minutes to realize how tired I was. My neck started to hurt, and I rubbed the right side of it near my shoulder blade to try and ease the discomfort. Breathing deep made it hurt more so I tried to take shallow breaths.
It’s no big deal, I said under my breath, trying to calm myself. This shit happens all the time and it will go away just like it always does.
I sat on a rock next to my dad eating trail mix out of a gigantic gallon Ziploc bag. “Help me eat some of this crap,” I told my Dad. “It weighs like 5 pounds.”
He shoved a filthy hand into the bag and came out with an assortment of peanuts and M&MS, shoveling it all into his mouth in one go.
“This is pretty cool, right?” he mumbled.
“Yeah, it’s something,” I said, staring South to where we were going next. A wide bowl was on the other side filled with snow that stretched for at least a mile. More peaks poked into the sky beyond, some larger than we had previously seen. Somewhere within this forest of spires was Mt. Whitney, the tallest point in the lower 48 states, which was our next goal before hiking back down out of the mountains to the desert. I tried to determine which one it could be but didn’t have much luck. Everything was tall and big and indistinguishable, a mess of rock and stone, yellow and iron and silver, strong as an ox but delicate like falling snow. You wanted to love it, but you knew that it was unable to love you back.
“Now we get to go down the other side,” I said to my Dad. “That should be fun, right?”
***
It took us several more days to arrive near the base of Whitney where a long alpine lake sits in a bowl below the final ascent to the top of the world. The lake, appropriately named Guitar Lake, is a beautiful shimmering body of water that overlooks impressive valleys and the mountains beyond. As we arrived we noticed a man fishing near the banks. He’d cast his line in the lake and wait a few moments before reeling it back in. He didn’t seem to be having much luck.
We set up camp on a raised and exposed hill near the lake. We were high up and there were no trees. Boulders rested along the shore that appeared to have fallen from the mountains above. The lake was clear and cold, and you could see straight to the bottom where more rocks and pebbles layered the lake floor. I dipped a hand into the water to test the temperature.
“You may not be able to find your balls after you go swimming,” I said to my friend Zack. He studied the lake for a moment trying to decide if it was worth it.
He apprehensively stripped down to his boxers and slowly waded out to waist level. He took a final plunge and came up gasping.
“Fuck, that’s cold!” he shouted.
It was another pleasant night and we could see the stars a little better than previous nights. We had befriended another group of hikers, a man and woman couple, and sat in a circle eating dinner with them. The man had a guitar and he played old Grateful Dead songs as Cookie sang along. Like us, they were going to the top of Mount Whitney tomorrow and then down the other side to Whitney portal.
“We love it so much up here,” the man said after he had finished a song. “There’s no place like it in the world. Makes you want to quit your job and stay out here forever.”
“That would be nice,” Cookie said. “But I’m just happy to get out and do this once a year. It resets my mind. Makes me appreciate life a little more.”
Cookie was always saying thoughtful things like that. He seemed to have a deep understanding of what we were doing out here. On the other hand, my Dad and I were just trying to survive from one moment to the next. Neither of us could walk very well anymore and we both smelled like the back of a garbage truck filled with weeks-old rotting onions.
My foot odor was a common topic of concern for us. “Jesus! Your feet…” my Dad would say as we crawled into the tent each night. “Put those filthy things in your sleeping bag before I throw up!”
“I’ll only put them away if you promise not to snore tonight. You sound like a fucking jet engine!”
We’d toss and turn throughout the night, never able to sleep well. Sticks and rocks would jab into my back and the ground would be too cold making me shiver because I didn’t have any insulation underneath. Meanwhile, my dad was overheating in his 0-degree sleeping bag and he had to sleep with the top part unzipped and one leg dangling out. He’d wake up in the morning sticky with sweat and bags underneath his eyes.
“Stupid fucking Brody,” he’d start insulting. “He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Probably never hiked a god damned day in his life!”
We’d both crack up and laugh at our misery. It was the best and only way to deal with the nature of our situation.
The following day we woke up earlier than normal to get a head start on the large climb to the summit. Guitar Lake rested at 11,460 feet and Mt. Whitney was at 14,505 feet. The overall distance to the top from the lake wasn’t too long, but it was steep with dozens of switch backs that zigzagged towards the mountain crest, making it a difficult ascent for us. Halfway to the summit I started to get bad pains in my neck and ribs and told the group I needed to stop and take a break.
We dropped our packs and sat for a few minutes while I caught my breath.
“Are you okay?” my Dad asked, looking me straight in the eyes. He could tell something wasn’t right.
“Yeah, I should be fine,” I said. “I think it’s just the altitude, you know?” Jesus, just tell him the truth, I thought.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll sit here until you catch your breath. Let’s not push it.”
I was more concerned about my chest than I had been since the surgery. The pain was getting worse rapidly, and any deep breath sent a sharp pain down the right side of my neck and into my chest. My mind raced to how the hell I’d be rescued way up here on the side of a steep cliff outcropping. Would a helicopter come to sweep me away? Would I have to be taken down the mountain in a stretcher (or body bag)?
It was time to tell my Dad the truth about what was going on, but I didn’t want him, or anyone else in the group for that matter, to have to worry about me. We were so close to our goal that I was ashamed about being so concerned with a pain that I knew would probably just go away on its own. It always had so what was the big deal? Why was I still so scared?
But what if it didn’t go away? What then?
I finally broke down. “My chest really hurts, Dad.”
“Where does it hurt?”
I pointed to my neck and chest. “It comes and goes. It’s been happening for a long time. Not just out here but ever since the collapsed lung surgery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking away from him. “It’s not a big deal. It always goes away eventually. But I’m scared because of the elevation. It’s hurting a lot more now than it ever has. I think being up high is doing something to it.”
“It’ll be okay,” he reassured. “We don’t have to go to the top. I’ll stay back with you and let the others go up instead.”
“No..,” I started. “You should go with them. I’ll be fine. I’ll just wait here… It’s not much farther to the top. You should go. Really.”
“No fucking way,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m not leaving you behind by yourself. We’ll wait for the others and then descend to Whitney portal. I think you’ll start to feel better once we lose some elevation. There’s no point in pushing yourself to the point where something bad could actually happen.”
We told the others what our plan was going to be. Cookie stood and stared at me for a moment, hand rubbing his chin, studying the situation. “I feel really bad,” he finally said. “I wish there was something I could do to help. Can I carry your bag?”
“It’s okay. Really,” I said. “You guys should leave your packs here with us, so you don’t have to lug them all the way to the top. It’ll be easier for you that way.”
The three of them dropped their bags and left to go to the top. My Dad and I sat in silence as we watched them disappear around a corner. Everything got quiet and we watched a few low clouds roll by.
“I didn’t want to fucking climb anymore, anyway,” my dad said, clearing the air. “I’m exhausted.” He forced a smile.
I didn’t know if he was serious or trying to make me feel better. We had come all this way to make it to the highest point in the contiguous United States, and we sat less than a mile away from our goal. We could see the false summit just ahead, and it was so close it looked like you could reach out and touch it.
I’m just a stupid athletic failure, I thought. And now my Dad isn’t going to be able to reach the summit because I suck.
I got quiet. There wasn’t much to do or say. I tried breathing slowly to make my chest hurt less and rubbed my neck back and forth. The sensation of pressure didn’t relieve the stress, but it felt like it was doing something anyway. Your mind can play tricks like that if you allow it to happen.
I wished I didn’t have to deal with this pain, whatever it was. I closed my eyes and tried to rest. I missed being home and being clean and I didn’t want to be in the mountains anymore. I thought about college and school and everything else back home. I wondered what my mom and sister were doing as I sat on the edge of a cliff dying. I thought about my crush from Mexico, her hair, how nice it would be to touch it.
I’m not good at anything, I thought. I can’t even walk to the top of a lousy mountain.
The world lay suspended in front of me. It was peaceful up there in the nook of a rock outcropping despite my imminent peril. We had a good view and it was hard to imagine it would be much better at the top. Maybe getting to the top was overrated. Why did I care anyway?
The others came back down a little over an hour and a half later. They tried to avoid explaining how awesome it was, but it was clear they were happy they had reached the top of the world.
“There was a sweet hut up top,” said Zack. “You could sign your name in a book and everything.”
“I’m sorry you guys missed it,” said Cookie. He frowned as he rubbed a dirty hand through his wild and matted black hair. “It won’t be going anywhere soon. There will be other opportunities to summit.”
This was a once in a lifetime thing as far as I was concerned. Cookie’s intentions were good, but this was our one chance and I blew it for my Dad and me. There was no way in hell we were coming back here, especially on our own.
The descent down to Whitney Portal was tough. The blisters on my feet were swollen and bloody and I limped as I tried to breathe shallowly to avoid sharp pains. The sun was bright, and my face was flush. Sweat dripped down my temples and penetrated the corners of my lips. We rocked back and forth along the trail like zombies, wishing the campsite would appear around the next bend in the trail, but it never did.
We were under the canopy of towering pines our last night. It wasn’t much further until we would reach a parking lot and get a ride back to our cars. Dusk descended as we sat around rehydrating our last meal together, and the fact I hadn’t made it to the summit was starting to release its grip on me. I could finally breathe deeply without any sharp pains and this put me at ease. I wasn’t going to need a helicopter rescue after all.
“I think this was a great trip,” said Cookie as he stirred the pot.
We all nodded our heads in exhausted agreement as we watched the vapor from the boiling water trail into the air and disappear with the wind.
“What’s on the menu for our last meal?” asked my Dad.
“Beef Stroganoff,” Cookie said. “Only the finest for you, Jerry.”
We ate our meal and rinsed the dishes like we had done each of the other six nights. I was starting to understand that backpacking was a rhythm. There was a certain way to do things and you did them at roughly the same time in the same order every day. Nothing was more complicated than setting up a tent or taking a poo in the woods, and life was simpler this way. You ate and slept and walked and thought about things. It was more than enough to occupy your days and nights, and boredom was something you had to let in and try to enjoy. It taught you that you didn’t have to be doing something all the time.
The forest was starting to come alive with songs of insects that frequented the twilight hour. Crickets and beetles and all sorts of things chirped and wheezed in the trees and from behind rocks. Wind rushed through the canopy and gently cascaded into our tent making the outside flaps rustle and snap. A hoot from an owl echoed overhead as I lay in my sleeping bag and stared at the ceiling of the tent.
I didn’t know what I was feeling, but it was something strong. Perhaps it was a new sense of purpose or the beginning of a greater realization that there was a lot more to this world than I had originally thought. It was a fleeting moment, precious and light, something that flew into my head for half a second and then left without saying goodbye.
I shifted to my side. “Hey Dad?” I whispered.
“Yeah?” he replied.
I let the noises from the forest linger. The owl hooted again above the electric night, a high pitched below that penetrated the woodland.
“Thanks for everything,” I finally said.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied, turning towards me. I could faintly see a grin grow on his face; a face that looked just like mine. “I think we have a good story to tell, don’t you think?”
Afterword
In 2016, when Carolyn and I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, we retraced the same steps I took on the John Muir Trail back in 2004. This time I didn’t have any injuries holding me back, and we summited Whitney on a nice sunny day without issue. I would have liked for my father to be there alongside me to get his own redemption on the mountain, but I’m glad one of us was able to try again.
Looking back on this story, I am amazed how two novice backpackers who hardly spent any time outdoors were able to navigate this terrain. But somehow, we did.
I am sure Brody would have been proud.
But seriously, fuck that guy, for real.
