">
Aug 20, 2024 : Jane Boxall
The Trek
The big burndown (mile 11/211)
I maintained my pattern of walking from shade patch to shade patch, but through the big burndown there was hardly any shade, no foliage to interrupt the aggressive sun. If I hadn’t been doing the shade pattern, I wouldn’t have heard the invisible woodpecker drumming away.
The squirrels here act more like lizards. So do the birds. I saw a small grey bird with a red crest. Black lizards with blue trim like sequins. Ants and more ants. I find when I am doing long hikes, there are push and pull days – and this one was a pull (after the heavy-duty push up out of Yosemite Valley). I’m stepping over steak-sized chunks of charred redwood on the trail, blue-black edges. I saw the tiniest, fastest chipmunks I’ve ever seen.
I dunk my bandana in the creek and put it on my head. It is so hot. I ask for information from northbound hikers – whether there is water at the sunrise camp. They say only a trickle – you wouldn’t be able to get a good filter on it. There are two water sources between here and there, and so I drain and refill at the first and plan to probably camp at the second. I’m up above 8,000 feet and it’s scorching. The burned trees’ dead limbs look like ribcages, bleached and curving down.
I try to get through an hour of uphill hiking by going through and remembering the whole show of a musical-theater production I’d played on just weeks before. But I couldn’t recall any whole song. This is always the way for me, with distance. The mental jukebox is a mosaic of snippets, nonlinear.
In the afternoon, I’m about to astride a fallen tree across the trail. I have my right foot up on it when I hear creak-crack-snap to my left. I look over and watch a big dead tree fall. The luck-synch of being where I was at that moment zapped me out of my song-splatter.
I set my tent up around 2 PM. I have some unhurried housekeeping and cold backpacker chili in a bag. It’s good to have salt and flavour today. I probably drank 5 litres of water. So now I worry about hyponatremia as well as altitude sickies. This is the hottest and highest I’ve been and slept. I want to continue on the trail, so I don’t hurry. I realized the cold bag of chili is the first unhurried, focused meal I’ve eaten without my phone in a good while.
Earlier, trudging up along a ridge, I saw a bird of prey – brown body, white moth pattern underwing. It was soaring on updrafts. I thought about The Guardian Saturday interview questions that I often ask people I’m trying to get to know. One of them is, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? Most often, people want to fly. Today’s ridgeline trail, looking into massive canyons, felt a little like flying. Of course, very slowly and with a load of sloshy weight strapped to my back. It was an incredible perspective, quite literally. What would your chosen superpower be? Let me know in the comments.
Affiliate Disclosure
This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in the articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support The Trek's ongoing goal to serve you quality backpacking advice and information. Thanks for your support!
To learn more, please visit the About This Site page.
Comments 5
Yeah, flying superpower.
My super power would be shape shifting, to look like any person or any animal. I’d have so much fun,lol, id look like a big grizzly bear walking around in my mother in law house,lol, she’d soil her uppity pants😂😂🤣😂😅🤣😭
Hahaha, love it – that would be fun.
Loving being able to follow along on your journey.
If I could be granted a super power I have always said I would wish be to be fluent in every language and dialect in the world including sign language.
Oh my gosh, that would be a great superpower. Tonnes of love to you xx