Bonnie and I take a good drink of water from our bottles. I'm feeling uneasy, but I have a resolve. I need to ignore my misgivings and move on down the trail and find Vivie.
Vivie is a puzzle to me. She's the sparkplug we need to move forward, put our ideas into action, but they've been our ideas, not hers. When we lose faith in the reward of long effort, she stands smiling, cheering us from an inner source of joy we don't have in ourselves, a silent presence that reassures us. She is a Kansan, direct from the heart of the heartland, and grew up taking her bearings on wheat silos standing tall above the small towns to the east and west of her family's farm.
She is earnest and naive and incredibly strong, with a bounce in her gait that I attributed to drinking a quart of coffee every day. When I met her in college, she was busy reading a handbook on hikes in the Ventana Wilderness and said she wanted to stand on top of every high place she could find because she'd never had anything taller than the silos on the horizon all her life. I imagine a hilltop view to her was like taking the first step to heaven. At least it looked like that on her face when she finished a hike. Hiking heightened her sense of introspection and gave her a feeling of possibility. We were similar in that way, but I couldn't match her energy or strength.
I reach the bottom of the slope with Bonnie and we look to our left toward the steep dropoff we'd seen from above. Its base is a bramble of scrub oak and broom. It looks dense and a bad place to land.
"Vivie!" I call and pause to listen. My heart leaps when I hear half cry/half sob. "Bonnie! She's over there in the thick stuff. " I pat my pocket down for my knife, find it there, chuck my backpack to the trailside and set off in a trot to the brambles and scrub while Bonnie keeps calling. We're yelling for Vivie to hang tight, we're coming, you're okay and our hopes are high that she's good and nothing's happened bad.
We reach the near edge of the brambles and begin to look for a way in, to find a way to get to the base of the cliff and find Vivie. She's making a small whimpering sound now that makes my heart lump up in my throat. I don't want to find her broken and hurt. I fear the worst. At least she's making a noise, I think.
"I see her!" Shouts Bonnie and she begins a wild thrashing approach toward her glimpse of Vivie's form, half hidden in the brush and sticks. Bonnie holds a branch back for me to get to Vivie. I kneel down and crawl the last few yards.
Vivie's in a heap, face down in the dirt, one arm underneath her, legs bent up behind her and her other arm jammed in a crook of two saplings growing tightly near each other, crossing trunks at about 18 inches off the ground. She looks like she cartwheeled into the brush from above; there are shreds of her shirt in trees up overhead. I wonder when she had screamed, if she can breathe or move.
"Vivie, we're here, we're going to get you out and you're going to be okay," I say to reassure her, but I'm not coming up with a plan very quickly. My heart is pounding and adrenaline is overwhelming me. I have to keep calm, be smart, think this through. I'm the one who's trained in first aid. I check her pulse and see if she's breathing. Miraculously, her heart rate is strong and steady. More amazingly, she is breathing even with her face seemingly stuffed into the dirt floor of the ravine.
"Hey Viv, I think you bounced. You are one tough cookie and you know what? No crumbs!" I groaned at my own stupid joke, but I had to keep talking. I sent Bonnie back to my pack, to bring me the first aid kit and look for a clear spot to get Vivie to somehow. I'm thinking about Viv's neck and how it might be broken, that I can't move it or it really would break. It's awful to think about Viv paralyzed, but I torture myself with the prospect of it. She needs to always move, to climb every hill and mountain, to beam us forward with her smile. I need her to be whole and calm and capable.
I tell myself to just knock of the melodrama and get to work getting us out of this mess. Vivie's body is essentially in a skydiver's pose with back arched, feet and one arm up and behind her with the one arm, her right, underneath her and her face down, a little to her left. I scoop out the dirt from under her nose and mouth until just her right cheek is resting on the ground. She can breathe a bit better. I keep a running commentary whispering into her left ear, telling her what a tough cookie she is, not to crumble, be strong, think about how good she's going to feel once we get her out of here.
"Vivie, can you wiggle your fingers for me?" I check her left hand and see a finger slowly curl and uncurl, a huge relief. No paralysis. Yet.
"Viv, Bonnie's gone for the first aid kit. I'm going to try to free your left arm from the crook of the tree it's stuck in." I tell her what I want to do and how it's going to work, hoping it's a good plan, feeling like Bonnie's taking forever to get the kit back to me. I worry about the right arm under Viv's body and the possibility of a break and Vivie going into shock. Her pulse is still strong. If it gets thready, it's a good sign she's going into shock and the stakes are going way up. I can't lose Vivie, I can't lose her.
She's my blood sister, joined to me by a heroic act I'll be forever in debt for, one that saved my life three years ago. Dear Vivie, look at you now, looking like a rag doll in the middle of nowhere with your clothes all ripped and your body all bent and twisted in the bushes. My eyes close and I try to remember a quick prayer, but my mind's blank.
"Bonnie!" I shout. "Hurry up!"
Showing posts with label summer hike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer hike. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Summer Hike - Part 5
Bonnie and I are just reaching the edge of the darker forest. It's much more dense, thick with trailing vines and grass thickets, downed branches tangled around the tree trunks. The trail goes straight ahead and then disappears downhill to our left.
"Viv-veeeee!" Bonnie yells. We stand listening. A long way away is the rushing sound I think is the river. Sometimes the wind in the pines sounds the same way, hollow and melancholy.
Bonnie and I look at each other and listen. We hear faint insect noises, the wind, our hearts beating, and our low voices. I wonder if Vivie is up to one of her pranks. She's so full of herself today, maybe she's lying in wait. "You think she's spying on us?" I ask.
"This isn't like her. My spine's been prickling ever since I heard that sound. I don't like the way this feels. It's just off. I'll kill her if I find her. She should just stop this now." Bonnie is exasperated but I hear the unease in her voice.
We start into the cool dark shade of the pine forest, walking more slowly so we can pay attention to sounds. I look in the powdery dirt for Vivie's bootprints. She would have just been there about 20 minutes before. No prints. Nothing but the dirt.
"Bonnie, I'm looking for Vivie's boot marks. Can you see very well? Will you look?"
Bonnie squats down for a minute to look closely at our trail, takes note of our own boot tracks and says, "I think all I'm seeing is ours. Charm, this is so weird. Did we miss something on the way? Like, did she maybe trip and roll down the hill and way off the trail? Vivie is our mountain goat. She wouldn't do that. I would do that, but Vivie wouldn't."
There has been no sound other than our talking for the whole time we've been in the dark forest. No jays, no woodpeckers drumming, no bees. Dead silence all around.
I motion to Bonnie to follow, slip my hand into my pocket and feel for my knife. Damn I wish I'd brought the larger hunting knife. I just have my Swiss army knife. I'd wanted to save weight, and it was lighter. I feel spooked and angry all at once. Vivie's not here, hasn't been here, may be down and hurt somewhere and we have no idea about where. Damn you, Vivie, I think to myself.
My mind is reeling back to the day we'd met Bob Shorter and asked about the trail. He had said it was an easy trail and the river would be pretty for a camp, told us about the area and some history, said good luck. Since we were all fed up with our jobs and needed a weekend hike to get away from the humdrum of office life, we'd lit up about the idea of hiking here on the weekend and being free of everything. Just us, Triple Threat, having another great hike on our own. Easy as pie. We had hiked half a dozen times before on weekend hikes and always been good with each other, never had any more trouble than a blister or two.
"Twobie, we need a plan. I don't want to be one of those knuckleheads who walks around in circles and never figures out the obvious. We're toast unless we figure this out first. It looks like Vivie hasn't been here. I don't see her footprints. It doesn't make sense. She was hiking strong and should have been here, but I have a feeling something else happened back a ways, right?"
"Like what? She fell? If she fell, we need to go for help, one of us anyway, and the other stay with her. But, where the heck is she? When did you see her last?" Bonnie wipes her forehead with her forearm and looks all around, back up the trail. She's scanning the hillside for movement. It's still quiet as a grave in the forest. Bonnie curses and I see her hands clenching and unclenching. She's shaking out her hands like she's trying shake off bugs. It's what she does when she's nervous.
"When we were approaching the ridge, about a quarter mile back from her, and we mooned her, right? Wasn't that it?" It seemed really long ago now, the fun and hollering.
"Yeah, I think so. She could have fallen right after that, if she fell," Bonnie says.
"You sure you never saw her after that?" I ask.
"Pretty sure. I thought I heard the scream down here where we are right now. Charm, this is ridiculous. We're wasting time. Let's go back up the trail and check for signs maybe she fell. It was steep and she could have just gone down and we'd never know it. We have to at least check." Bonnie starts up the trail. I follow.
It takes 15 minutes to get back up to the ridge and we stop. We find Vivie's last footprint in deep powder but no other sign. It's about 50 yards down the trail from the ridge crest and we see that the slope is very steep far below, after a steady grassy slope downhill that's studded with granite outcroppings and a few scrub oak. If Vivie's down there, she's out of sight and we have no idea how far down the hill goes. It's probably half a mile and looks like there's about a 70-foot drop straight down after the steep downhill.
I check my watch. 4 PM. A few hours of daylight left. I look at Bonnie and take off my pack. She takes off hers and we stare downhill, then back down the trail.
"The best way to get down the hill is on the trail. We can go down the trail as far as it goes and then double back and bushwhack until we find Vivie down there," I say.
"What if she's not down there?"
"Well, she's sure as hell not up here," I growl. "Best bet is she tripped, fell and rolled. We'll only find her if we go downhill, too. Can't see her from up here, so we have to go down there."
We shoulder our packs and go back down the trail once again and head into the dark forest, hearts filled with dread. Daylight is still strong, at least outside of this heavy woods, so we can possibly find Vivie before the sun goes down and then take care of her until the next day when one of us can go for help.
The trail is heading straight downhill, no switchbacks anymore, and the trail is very rocky. We have to pick our way down more slowly than we wanted. What we really wanted to do was pick up a phone and call the sheriff's office and ask for a rescue party to be sent up, but we've only been out here a few hours, so rescue would be highly unlikely. Until we find Vivie, we are of no interest to the sheriff anyway.
I'm lost in thought for a moment and cease paying attention to little noises. There haven't been any noises except for our boots scrabbling on the trail and our breathing as we descend the rough hill.
"Twobie, remember the story about this trail; Jim-Jim Trail, right?" I ask.
"Something about an Indian. A little kid can't say Indian, so he says Jim-Jim. Was there a story, too?"
"Yeah. Bob Shorter told me the story. It's kind of a weird story. Not sure if he was pulling my leg because he wants us to get freaked out about hiking or what, but there's this little kid who sees an Indian in the woods around here. He's a little kid, about nine or so he told me, and he has a really big imagination. He's playing down by the river where he's been told he should not be playing because it's dangerous. " I stopped. I'm thinking about the story and about Vivie and the silence and the river. I get a chill that stands the hairs on my back up and chicken skin on my arms.
"Viv-veeeee!" Bonnie yells. We stand listening. A long way away is the rushing sound I think is the river. Sometimes the wind in the pines sounds the same way, hollow and melancholy.
Bonnie and I look at each other and listen. We hear faint insect noises, the wind, our hearts beating, and our low voices. I wonder if Vivie is up to one of her pranks. She's so full of herself today, maybe she's lying in wait. "You think she's spying on us?" I ask.
"This isn't like her. My spine's been prickling ever since I heard that sound. I don't like the way this feels. It's just off. I'll kill her if I find her. She should just stop this now." Bonnie is exasperated but I hear the unease in her voice.
We start into the cool dark shade of the pine forest, walking more slowly so we can pay attention to sounds. I look in the powdery dirt for Vivie's bootprints. She would have just been there about 20 minutes before. No prints. Nothing but the dirt.
"Bonnie, I'm looking for Vivie's boot marks. Can you see very well? Will you look?"
Bonnie squats down for a minute to look closely at our trail, takes note of our own boot tracks and says, "I think all I'm seeing is ours. Charm, this is so weird. Did we miss something on the way? Like, did she maybe trip and roll down the hill and way off the trail? Vivie is our mountain goat. She wouldn't do that. I would do that, but Vivie wouldn't."
There has been no sound other than our talking for the whole time we've been in the dark forest. No jays, no woodpeckers drumming, no bees. Dead silence all around.
I motion to Bonnie to follow, slip my hand into my pocket and feel for my knife. Damn I wish I'd brought the larger hunting knife. I just have my Swiss army knife. I'd wanted to save weight, and it was lighter. I feel spooked and angry all at once. Vivie's not here, hasn't been here, may be down and hurt somewhere and we have no idea about where. Damn you, Vivie, I think to myself.
My mind is reeling back to the day we'd met Bob Shorter and asked about the trail. He had said it was an easy trail and the river would be pretty for a camp, told us about the area and some history, said good luck. Since we were all fed up with our jobs and needed a weekend hike to get away from the humdrum of office life, we'd lit up about the idea of hiking here on the weekend and being free of everything. Just us, Triple Threat, having another great hike on our own. Easy as pie. We had hiked half a dozen times before on weekend hikes and always been good with each other, never had any more trouble than a blister or two.
"Twobie, we need a plan. I don't want to be one of those knuckleheads who walks around in circles and never figures out the obvious. We're toast unless we figure this out first. It looks like Vivie hasn't been here. I don't see her footprints. It doesn't make sense. She was hiking strong and should have been here, but I have a feeling something else happened back a ways, right?"
"Like what? She fell? If she fell, we need to go for help, one of us anyway, and the other stay with her. But, where the heck is she? When did you see her last?" Bonnie wipes her forehead with her forearm and looks all around, back up the trail. She's scanning the hillside for movement. It's still quiet as a grave in the forest. Bonnie curses and I see her hands clenching and unclenching. She's shaking out her hands like she's trying shake off bugs. It's what she does when she's nervous.
"When we were approaching the ridge, about a quarter mile back from her, and we mooned her, right? Wasn't that it?" It seemed really long ago now, the fun and hollering.
"Yeah, I think so. She could have fallen right after that, if she fell," Bonnie says.
"You sure you never saw her after that?" I ask.
"Pretty sure. I thought I heard the scream down here where we are right now. Charm, this is ridiculous. We're wasting time. Let's go back up the trail and check for signs maybe she fell. It was steep and she could have just gone down and we'd never know it. We have to at least check." Bonnie starts up the trail. I follow.
It takes 15 minutes to get back up to the ridge and we stop. We find Vivie's last footprint in deep powder but no other sign. It's about 50 yards down the trail from the ridge crest and we see that the slope is very steep far below, after a steady grassy slope downhill that's studded with granite outcroppings and a few scrub oak. If Vivie's down there, she's out of sight and we have no idea how far down the hill goes. It's probably half a mile and looks like there's about a 70-foot drop straight down after the steep downhill.
I check my watch. 4 PM. A few hours of daylight left. I look at Bonnie and take off my pack. She takes off hers and we stare downhill, then back down the trail.
"The best way to get down the hill is on the trail. We can go down the trail as far as it goes and then double back and bushwhack until we find Vivie down there," I say.
"What if she's not down there?"
"Well, she's sure as hell not up here," I growl. "Best bet is she tripped, fell and rolled. We'll only find her if we go downhill, too. Can't see her from up here, so we have to go down there."
We shoulder our packs and go back down the trail once again and head into the dark forest, hearts filled with dread. Daylight is still strong, at least outside of this heavy woods, so we can possibly find Vivie before the sun goes down and then take care of her until the next day when one of us can go for help.
The trail is heading straight downhill, no switchbacks anymore, and the trail is very rocky. We have to pick our way down more slowly than we wanted. What we really wanted to do was pick up a phone and call the sheriff's office and ask for a rescue party to be sent up, but we've only been out here a few hours, so rescue would be highly unlikely. Until we find Vivie, we are of no interest to the sheriff anyway.
I'm lost in thought for a moment and cease paying attention to little noises. There haven't been any noises except for our boots scrabbling on the trail and our breathing as we descend the rough hill.
"Twobie, remember the story about this trail; Jim-Jim Trail, right?" I ask.
"Something about an Indian. A little kid can't say Indian, so he says Jim-Jim. Was there a story, too?"
"Yeah. Bob Shorter told me the story. It's kind of a weird story. Not sure if he was pulling my leg because he wants us to get freaked out about hiking or what, but there's this little kid who sees an Indian in the woods around here. He's a little kid, about nine or so he told me, and he has a really big imagination. He's playing down by the river where he's been told he should not be playing because it's dangerous. " I stopped. I'm thinking about the story and about Vivie and the silence and the river. I get a chill that stands the hairs on my back up and chicken skin on my arms.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Summer Hike - Part 4
Vivie's gaining speed down the switchback trail that will soon swallow her up in the pines flanking the hill. Bonnie and I take a rest, with our packs off, to survey and figure out the terrain ahead of us. My bandanna gets another soaking of water and I reknot it around my neck, feel its cool touch there.
"I think I can already hear the river. Sounds like rapids are pretty big still. This is August and it's still going strong. Must be a fall, right? Odd it's so strong with the drought and dry weather." I was puzzled.
"We'll see. I think it's just beautiful here. Feels like we have the whole world to ourselves," Bonnie is peaceful, happy to take a breather after the uphill five miles. I hand her a piece of jerky and offer her a bite of my apple. I like to pack fresh stuff like apples for the first night when I hike. I have a collapsible pole to cast for fish later at dusk. She hands over a bagel chunk and raisins. We sip our water and fall into silence.
Vivie is now out of sight in the pines. She's got energy to burn today, the fittest of us.
"Let's go, Toob. Viv's gotten away again. I think she plugged into some nuclear energy plant." I rise and shoulder my pack, adjust the hip belt. "See those clouds over there?
"Yeah."
"Think we'll get rain?"
"Could."
"I think they've gotten bigger or more of them since we first started out. Might just be rain up high there, but let's keep an eye on them. Ready?"
"Yeah. Ready. That was a nice break. Let's go find Vivie."
Bonnie set off ahead of me this time, her ponytail swinging gently with her strides. Downhill felt good. The dust and pebbles sounded dull underfoot. The trail was gently winding back and forth on the downhill and we were striding along, lost in our own thoughts. Suddenly Bonnie pulled up. I nearly piled into her.
"I think I heard something. It sounded like a scream. Did you hear anything?" Bonnie' head was tilted up, concentrating on any sound she could hear, intense in her focus, eyes closed.
"No. Are you sure? I was just thinking about..." She cut me off with a wave of her hand.
"There. I heard something. I think Vivie's in trouble. Hurry!" She took off with a new energy she hadn't shown before. I could barely keep up, but my mind began to race. It looked like we had about a quarter mile to get to the pines where we'd last seen Vivie. We moved quickly down, adrenaline giving us wings. Bonnie began to call out.
"Vivie, you there? Vivie!" No answer. No sound at all when we stopped to listen. It was very quiet.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Summer Hike - Part 3
With Vivie taking the trail by storm up ahead, even in the wilting heat, Bonnie and I have our bar set high. We both push ourselves harder because Vivie does that to us. For her, moving is something you do quickly and without hesitation. She checks back on us with quick glances, eyes that assess and gauge our pace and movements. She's like having a trail dog with us but one with a quick mind and wit.
Vivie reaches the crest of the ridge and whoops down to us, gives a big window-washer wave with both hands above her head. She's five feet tall and carries a 30 lb pack that seems just as big as she is. We're both taller and also carry about 30 lb. I'm already looking forward to taking it off at the crest, letting my back dry off again. I sweat heroically under any hint of strain or even modest heat. Today, midday at the height of summer, the sweat is beading up on body parts I had no idea could sweat. Bonnie's looking comfortable still, with her Mona Lisa smile.
Bonnie grew up wrestling with five brothers who jostled and fought for everything, even things that didn't need fighting over. She learned how to throw a ball hard overhand and spit with deadly accuracy. She was the youngest, kind of an afterthought, and an oddity in a home where girls were an unknown element in the universe. That is, until later when girls became fascinating to her brothers. Until their hormones began to color their vision, Bonnie was both teased mercilessly and shielded from harm with an intensity only five older brothers can muster. If anyone at school even looked at her sideways, they were dead meat. Then, they'd shove her around at home, call her a sissy and mock her dolls, put frogs in her shoes to make her scream.
Bonnie learned to roll with the male energy because she has a natural patience to her. She learned that if she waited long enough at the bottom of the scrum of brothers, eventually they'd let her up and she could get away and find a quiet place to be still and calm, sing to herself, dream of beautiful things.
One day when Bonnie was six and she's being stuffed in an old fridge whether she wants to be there or not she says, "Betcha two bucks you can't climb that tree," to her brother Samuel to get him distracted so he'll stop cramming her into the tight space. She says it out of habit as if it were the first words she could speak as a baby. He takes the bait and disappears up the tree and screams from the top of it, "Pay up, Toobie!" But, she's gone.
Nicknames are all she and her brothers go by. She's Two Bucks or Toobie. Samuel is Whammy. She made up my name Charm, and Vivianne is Vivie.
The three of us formed a bond a long time ago in grade school when we were free and young and happy, before we knew about trouble in the world and how men could break your heart so bad. Something in each of us made us tough and soft at the same time, the toughness a shield for the softness at our core. I worried about Bonnie's core when the toughness had to be so thick, but she knew how to hang onto it. It was a cool spring within her. She was very patient, had a quizzical way of looking at a situation and figuring out what was safe and when to get the heck out of a tight squeeze.
"Charm, this is the exact thing I need to be doing at this very minute, right now. I could hike forever," Toobie says, "Look at Vivie up there. Aw, look, she's waving at us. I think that girl needs a full moon, don't you?"
We whip around, yank our shorts down and shine two moons at her.
"You girls are blinding me with your pale asses down there," Vivie yells. We laugh and scream just for the sake of screaming, blowing off a few months of pent-up energy. "What a sight to see." She moons us back.
Twobie and I finally reach Vivie and we take a look at the valley below us, which stretches to the northeast. It's about 1:30 and we figure we've got about six hours to get to our camp and get set up before dark really settles in.
Vivie takes off again, striding downhill, her boots stirring up little explosions of soft dirt. On this side of the ridge, we feel a small breeze coming from the north, and far off to the east clouds are gathering in the cornflower blue sky.
Vivie reaches the crest of the ridge and whoops down to us, gives a big window-washer wave with both hands above her head. She's five feet tall and carries a 30 lb pack that seems just as big as she is. We're both taller and also carry about 30 lb. I'm already looking forward to taking it off at the crest, letting my back dry off again. I sweat heroically under any hint of strain or even modest heat. Today, midday at the height of summer, the sweat is beading up on body parts I had no idea could sweat. Bonnie's looking comfortable still, with her Mona Lisa smile.
Bonnie grew up wrestling with five brothers who jostled and fought for everything, even things that didn't need fighting over. She learned how to throw a ball hard overhand and spit with deadly accuracy. She was the youngest, kind of an afterthought, and an oddity in a home where girls were an unknown element in the universe. That is, until later when girls became fascinating to her brothers. Until their hormones began to color their vision, Bonnie was both teased mercilessly and shielded from harm with an intensity only five older brothers can muster. If anyone at school even looked at her sideways, they were dead meat. Then, they'd shove her around at home, call her a sissy and mock her dolls, put frogs in her shoes to make her scream.
Bonnie learned to roll with the male energy because she has a natural patience to her. She learned that if she waited long enough at the bottom of the scrum of brothers, eventually they'd let her up and she could get away and find a quiet place to be still and calm, sing to herself, dream of beautiful things.
One day when Bonnie was six and she's being stuffed in an old fridge whether she wants to be there or not she says, "Betcha two bucks you can't climb that tree," to her brother Samuel to get him distracted so he'll stop cramming her into the tight space. She says it out of habit as if it were the first words she could speak as a baby. He takes the bait and disappears up the tree and screams from the top of it, "Pay up, Toobie!" But, she's gone.
Nicknames are all she and her brothers go by. She's Two Bucks or Toobie. Samuel is Whammy. She made up my name Charm, and Vivianne is Vivie.
The three of us formed a bond a long time ago in grade school when we were free and young and happy, before we knew about trouble in the world and how men could break your heart so bad. Something in each of us made us tough and soft at the same time, the toughness a shield for the softness at our core. I worried about Bonnie's core when the toughness had to be so thick, but she knew how to hang onto it. It was a cool spring within her. She was very patient, had a quizzical way of looking at a situation and figuring out what was safe and when to get the heck out of a tight squeeze.
"Charm, this is the exact thing I need to be doing at this very minute, right now. I could hike forever," Toobie says, "Look at Vivie up there. Aw, look, she's waving at us. I think that girl needs a full moon, don't you?"
We whip around, yank our shorts down and shine two moons at her.
"You girls are blinding me with your pale asses down there," Vivie yells. We laugh and scream just for the sake of screaming, blowing off a few months of pent-up energy. "What a sight to see." She moons us back.
Twobie and I finally reach Vivie and we take a look at the valley below us, which stretches to the northeast. It's about 1:30 and we figure we've got about six hours to get to our camp and get set up before dark really settles in.
Vivie takes off again, striding downhill, her boots stirring up little explosions of soft dirt. On this side of the ridge, we feel a small breeze coming from the north, and far off to the east clouds are gathering in the cornflower blue sky.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Summer Hike - Part 2
The first mile of the hike has been on graded dirt fire road, relatively flat and easy. We're alert for small rocks on its surface that can roll a boot and twist an ankle. After this easy striding walk in puffing soft dust, we see our trail marker off to the left near a dust-coated sage. We have to wiggle through a cow-proof baffle gate and then we're on a single-track trail that heads uphill gently into the pines flanking the road.
This is Jim-Jim Trail, named after a boy trying to say "indian." That little factoid has stuck with me, and I've made up lots of parts of the story as I hike along behind my two trail mates, Bonnie and Vivie. We joke about our names and call ourselves Triple Threat. My nickname's Charm, short for Charmaine. Most people call me C, but Charm works better out here where we want all the luck and ease that can be had. It must be lucky for us today because we're all feeling good.
The trail winds along the flank of a steepening hillside, switching back and forth as it begins the last two miles of steady gain to the ridge. The grade is about 15 percent, not too bad, but the sun's hot and the air is very dry. We set our sights on the ridge itself and stop to examine the slope for the trail coming up. We're out in the open for a half mile and then the trail disappears back into trees again. We continue with Vivie leading up the steady rise that crosses the open area, keeping our eyes on the trail and settling into a rhythm of breathing and steady uphill walking. Vivie has short sturdy legs, unlike my long lankier ones, and she looks like she's driving up the hill instead of just walking. Bonnie is also a better climber than I am but goes along more slowly, stopping to survey distant scenery and sigh deeply.
"This is so perfect. Why don't we do this every day?" Bonnie says it almost to herself. She's looking across the small valley we've emerged from down below. It's studded with trees and is beginning to look like a distant idea in the blaze of the midday sun. Nothing is moving down there except a fence lizard rustling in the dry oak leaves. It's August, our last chance to hike this summer before getting back to our careers and studies.
"Yeah, but it's hot, you know? We should take it easy. It must be close to a hundred out here."
The Jim-Jim is a trail we'd heard about from a rancher, Bob Shorter, who used to work around this area back in the day, riding the trails on horseback. He'd said not many people used the trail and we'd be able to enjoy a spring in the valley one ridge over if we were willing to "rough it."
"Yeah, it's pretty hot, but I feel good. We don't have far to go, and we're at the top and then it's all downhill, right?"
"That's what he said. All downhill."
This is Jim-Jim Trail, named after a boy trying to say "indian." That little factoid has stuck with me, and I've made up lots of parts of the story as I hike along behind my two trail mates, Bonnie and Vivie. We joke about our names and call ourselves Triple Threat. My nickname's Charm, short for Charmaine. Most people call me C, but Charm works better out here where we want all the luck and ease that can be had. It must be lucky for us today because we're all feeling good.
The trail winds along the flank of a steepening hillside, switching back and forth as it begins the last two miles of steady gain to the ridge. The grade is about 15 percent, not too bad, but the sun's hot and the air is very dry. We set our sights on the ridge itself and stop to examine the slope for the trail coming up. We're out in the open for a half mile and then the trail disappears back into trees again. We continue with Vivie leading up the steady rise that crosses the open area, keeping our eyes on the trail and settling into a rhythm of breathing and steady uphill walking. Vivie has short sturdy legs, unlike my long lankier ones, and she looks like she's driving up the hill instead of just walking. Bonnie is also a better climber than I am but goes along more slowly, stopping to survey distant scenery and sigh deeply.
"This is so perfect. Why don't we do this every day?" Bonnie says it almost to herself. She's looking across the small valley we've emerged from down below. It's studded with trees and is beginning to look like a distant idea in the blaze of the midday sun. Nothing is moving down there except a fence lizard rustling in the dry oak leaves. It's August, our last chance to hike this summer before getting back to our careers and studies.
"Yeah, but it's hot, you know? We should take it easy. It must be close to a hundred out here."
The Jim-Jim is a trail we'd heard about from a rancher, Bob Shorter, who used to work around this area back in the day, riding the trails on horseback. He'd said not many people used the trail and we'd be able to enjoy a spring in the valley one ridge over if we were willing to "rough it."
"Yeah, it's pretty hot, but I feel good. We don't have far to go, and we're at the top and then it's all downhill, right?"
"That's what he said. All downhill."
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