Today it rained some

By morning clouds fully covered the sky. The trail was steep right off, and I was breathing hard one minute after leaving camp. The dusty path rose through lumpy, sagebrush-covered hills and patches of stubby conifers. I switchbacked across the southern face of Sonora Peak, which loomed above stolid and red and bare and jagged. Sunlight peered beneath the last thin unclouded bit of sky to the east and lit up the mountain tops on the other side of the pass, the mountains I’d come through the day before. But soon the sun rose into the clouds and the light washed out.

After about three miles I passed over a ridge crest, at 10,500’, and traversed along the last bit of PCT over 10,000’. Soon I began to descend into a deep valley, and the volcanic gave way to a return of granite. The trail wound down through pale boulders and thick green bushes, stands of pine and cedar and everywhere wild flowers, purple lupine, red fireweed, yellow and pink flowers too. I crossed a tiny stream, the upper reaches of the East Fork of the Carson River, and sevral small tributary streams too, or maybe just the East Fork again, it was hard to tell.

I’d decided that I didn’t mind the overcast, that it was a pleasant respite from the sun and heat, but then mid-morning it began to rain. Lightly at first—no problem—but would it come on harder, I wondered….

It would, and did, but still not hard, and only intermittently. I had my breakfast beside a stream in an interval, then I stopped again when the rain recommenced, to put on my rain jacket and the pack cover…. I came down into the bottom of the beautiful canyon, and a high granite wall rose up on the east side. The wind increased in velocity…. I passed a campsite and paused to poke at the ashes in the fire ring; they were still warm….

Nine miles from my camp the trail bottomed out in the canyon—it had been a lovely stretch— and then started climbing up the west side. Steep in bits, but only a 500’ gain over three miles, up through forest. Lots of deadfalls through this stretch…. The rain continued on and off but when on came harder, and the wind came harder too…. It has felt odd to move through one day after another without ever seeing or hearing a weather report. I didn’t know if the rain would continue to grow in intensity, or how long it would last…. I did know that after the initial novelty of a cloudy sky, a bit of light rain, I wanted the return of the sun. I don’t like hiking in the rain, not at least if I’m going to have to sleep out come night time. It’s not bad to get wet but only if one can get dry. I paused often to search the sky in the south and west….

The rain fell harder yet, and at a stop I discovered that my pack cover didn’t work very well…. I considered putting on my rain pants but instead simply emptied my pockets of camera, watch, and maps and found a spot for them deep in my pack.

I took my lunch at a campsite beside tiny Boulder Creek, in the dry lee of an overhanging boulder. I thought, if this continues, I’m going to put up the tent and get inside…. But it didn’t. A blue patch soon appeared overhead, and while the rain wasn’t done completely, it was interrupted by more blue as the afternoon progressed….

After coming out of the big canyon, I was back to the sort of drylands I’d found south of Sonora Pass. The rare “lakes” were small and shallow ponds of still and dark and buggy water. The creeks were tiny affairs but more pleasant, lined with thick bushes and wildflowers, the water mostly hidden and trickling down through narrow green meadows that descended from a high ridge standing to the west…. Stony, wooded spines rose up between creeklets, parched and dusty, the forest floor lumpy with pine cones. I passed through a gate in a barbed-wire fence, and after that I began to find dried cow patties in among the pine cones too, and on the edges of the little meadows.

In the evening I camped in a stand of pine trees on one of the spines, at about 9000’, in a rare bit of flat ground. I had to clear away a substantial amount of ancient cowshit, but otherwise it was a pleasant spot. It was only 4:30, but I’d come nineteen miles. The creek bottom in an adjacent sunny meadow was dry, so I walked back down the trail ten minutes and filled my water bottles from two-inch, foot-wide stream. The water still tasted good, and it seemed the cows hadn’t been around for some time.

Back in camp I sat down in the dust and duff in the lee of a big fallen tree and made dinner, couscous with spam. The clouds had cleared off completely, but the wind was still blowing steady….

I’d only seen one person on the trail the whole day long, a young woman, and that late in the afternoon. She was stopped at one of the rivulets, collecting water. She told me she had started at Echo Lake five days previous and was headed for Yosemite Valley. Her pack was large and bedecked with gear, sandals and a pot and sleeping pad. She wore some sort of large pouch at her waist, and it looked cool but annoying. She was probably about thirty, and she had dark hair pulled back, a pale complexion and a longish face; her dark hiking pants fit well.

She told me she had tried the same hike last year but had bailed at Sonora Pass because she didn’t have enough food. She patted her pack and said, “I’ve got plenty this time,” and I could believe it…. After ten minutes conversation I was liking her and wished we were going the same direction. Of course, I don’t know how she felt….

She told me she was covering about fifteen miles a day, and I asked her what she did when she wasn’t hiking. She was surprised by the question and didn’t seem to know how to answer. “I don’t know,” she said, “I guess I’m just making camp or cooking, or that sort of thing.”  I laughed off my question, said I had just been wondering what other people did…. But I wasn’t satisfied with her answer. There was time unaccounted for, and I wanted to know how another solo hiker occupied herself…. I read, mostly, or stared at my surroundings…. Sometimes I felt at loose ends, with so few of the usual means of entertaining myself. What I really wanted to know, to ask, was, how are you living out here? It’s so different…..

Another day a passing woman said to me, “I’m loving every minute,” and I thought, “come on….” I loved some, even many minutes. But every one? The days up in the mountains were strange as well as fabulous.