It was about 4 AM. We had arisen early and were making our best effort to stay between the lines as we jettisoned out of Los Angeles. Our original plans had absolutely nothing to do with where we were. The evening prior we had been in Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, circumstances outside of our control required us to relocate and we had ended up in LA, exactly where we had planned not to be.
And now we were on our way back to SG after what must be one of the quickest trips to California ever. KB and I were chatting about the circumstances that had lead us to be on the freeway in the middle of the bloody morning. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was any correlation between mental illness and high population density. We made it back to St. George, loaded up the bikes and some other gear and drove to Moab. We needed to escape.
I picked Ben up around 5. He grabbed everything but his water bottles and we headed for the hills. It was planned as a quick trip. Well, “planned” might be a bit of a stretch. It was so well “planned” that neither of us had thought to purchase some whiskey the day before. Undeterred, we wanted our time off and headed up the mountain any way.
About half way up there Ben realized that he had forgotten his bottles. We stopped at both gas stations in Veyo, both were close. Luckily, I had grabbed a bottle for the drive up so Ben had a receptacle for his water. Besides he had purchased a six pack at the Maverick when I gassed up so we had plenty of hydration.
Our “plan” wasn’t going so well up to this point, but we’re clever and made it to the trailhead with about two hours to skip and jump up to the top. Mill Flat is about 5 miles up Mill Canyon and we were going to camp on the far side, so we had about 5.5 miles ahead of us. It also happens to be one of the easier ways to get on top of Pine Valley Mountain. We were confident that the trip wouldn’t take us more than two hours getting us to our campsite a little before dark.
There is something magical about backpacking. It’s one of the simplest forms of recreation. You are walking. I don’t mean that metaphorically or metaphysically. No, you are literally just walking. And for a species that evolved to move upright how many thousands of years ago, backpacking is also one of the hardest activities that we have created in the last century. In reality, it’s just what people used to do. Pack all your stuff onto a trailer or pack of some sort and then venture into the world. The idea that the wilderness was a pocket of land surrounded by humanity and not the other way around, is a pretty new idea. Maybe that’s what we are all trying to escape, the waves of humanity covering all of our space.
Backpacking is magical. It minimizes you and your stuff into one being and whatever that being puts in their pack. If you don’t pack it in, you don’t get to have it, regardless of how much you want or need it. And somewhere along the trail, the pain strips away your worries, your stress and all the other bull shit you’ve mentally packed. Then you reach the “spot” and you take a deep breath, unload your pack and just sit.
Which is more or less what we did. We made our way to the flat and then to the equestrian campground at the far end of the valley. Ben thought I was joking or exaggerating when I said we would be crossing the stream at last 15 times. Once at the top, he estimated it at closer to 200.
We stashed the three beers that made it to the top in the stream to get cold and started preparing food. Then Ben turns around with a huge smile on his face and a bottle in his hand. It’s about 2/3 full and says Pendleton Canadian Blended Whiskey on the side. I guess God does love Mooseknucklers.
Our first thought was that it had to be urine. But who would hide a bottle of urine in a bush and why would they be peeing in a bottle on top of a mountain. You don’t usually worry about where you are peeing when you’re on top of a mountain. We timidly popped the cork. It smelled like whiskey. It looked like whiskey. It tasted kind of like whiskey. We didn’t finish the bottle, but chose to store it back in the bush for the next Mooseknucklers to come along.
Then the temperature started to drop.
Ben got up first and built the fire. I was cozy in my down cocoon and wasn’t too interested in leaving it, but was coaxed out with thoughts of coffee. It was cold. We had thrown our bed rolls out on the ground and slept under the stars. I picked my bag up and placed it on a boulder so it could dry. It was damp from dew. The Garmin surprised me with a temperature of 26. I thought that sounded a bit low. About a half hour later I checked to see how my bag was drying out, the dew had not dried but was frozen in small clumps of ice. Yea, it was cold.
And then as quickly as we had come, we headed back down the mountain. Our escape was short. As we walked back toward the “thing” we had escaped from, I started to wonder about why we needed to escape. I’m a bit of a dreamer, but it seems that we have created a prison for ourselves. We live in these little boxes with walled off portions of “open” space that we try to keep green and alive, but not too alive. We work doing things that we probably wouldn’t if we didn’t have those little boxes to pay for. And then we take short trips back into nothing to get away from it all. It’s no wonder we need to escape.
Or maybe it’s no wonder that we are all so fucked up.
P. L. and R.
