The moon is bright on me in my lair of soft, gravelly sand. The wind blows on my head, but never cold. I’m sweating and so glad I asked Richard to send my lighter quilt to Oracle.
I pack up in the dim light and eat breakfast as two guys pass on the switchbacks. They don’t notice me tucked in here. I leave soon after them, the rocks like drip castles ahead of me turning pink in the morning light.
The trail is easy on long switchbacks, the water crashing in the canyon going in and out of earshot as i turn. The men who passed give me a kind of courage. I’m not all alone and this is being hiked by people right now.
It’s mostly long grass, juniper and oak here with oddly eroded rock with long black streaks from water. I’m glad I stopped when I did because I don’t see anywhere to camp.
That’s until I begin to turn up the canyon and run into Holly or Hobbit in a bright pink pullover and equally bright red pack. She introduces me to Grumpy Bear, her purple stuffed toy attached to the front of her pack.
Ah! Grumpy! I saw a note at Molino Basin that Grumpy was lost, but he seems to have been found and returned. We all need some special talisman to keep us going. Hobbit immediately falls in behind me and asks if she can walk with me.
These are flat spots by the water which I might have reached before dark, but it’s crowded with three women – Pee Rock, Hard head, and Drugstore plus the two men who passed having breakfast, Navigator and Captain with identical shoes and packs.
We march up slowly on this beautiful trail which I know won’t stay this way. My map app, “FarOut” is filled with comments about treacherous trail to come, hard to find and filled with scrambling. There are also comments about it being hard but to ignore the fear mongering.
I figure if people have done it with backpacks, it’s doable and to just allow time for it. Hobbit tells me an AZT trail worker told her Miller’s the highest (9100 feet, check) Mica’s the longest continuous climb (a burning 5400 feet non-stop up, check) but Lemmon is the steepest.
Oh dear.
Hobbit talks nearly non-stop and it’s a delightful change. She stays right behind me as I plod along. She has been section hiking for a decade and saved this hardest bit for nearly the end, doing all of it from the border like me, but finished tomorrow and will leave the same way I plan to go. How fortuitous for me.
We climb up and up, never meeting those lumpy rocks I had in my sights, but rather taking a sharp right and almost a U-turn towards the trail junction when things get hard. I stop in shade before we arrive and down an entire electrolyte-laced liter, then we push onto very steep rock.
It’s a little under two miles to a ridge, but we move very slowly on weather-worn rock, clingy to my shoes. I don’t need to use my hands yet, so it’s less scrambling and more large steps and looking for cairns. It’s beautiful here and we can see all the way back to our first sky island, plus into the deep canyon we just walked out of.
A young man passes us like we’re standing still, but we are having so much fun in this jungle gym of exposed rock and aerie views. We take a short pause in the shade and Hobbit lights up a smoke. I’m surprised she has the breath capacity to get up this, but she only smokes a tiny portion.
I share some beef jerky and realize we underestimated the amount of water we’d need. It’s bone dry here, though running streams over the ridge, so we continue up.
You have to understand this is hard work, every step calculated and different from the last. But it’s astoundingly beautiful too as we catch glimpses of the desert beyond so far away. Hobbit tells me our climb up takes us through as many biomes as from here to Canada.
Soon, we come to giant ponderosa pine and know we’re getting closer. When we crest, it’s like entering a whole new world. We’re in a bowl filled with these whimsically shaped stones. Some look like ice cream cones, others Easter Islanders. One stone will balance on a piece below and still others are an army of statues.
At first, the trail is easier and I’m so ready to return to those gloriously easy switchbacks. But that’s not how it goes in this alpine environment of azure sky, snow patches atop pine needles and the smell and feel of the Sierra.
Now we climb steeply up and down on the grippy rock, winding around our hoodoo forest, in and out of one perfect specimen after another. And I’m really getting thirsty.
At first we spy pools but they’re slow moving so we move forward towards the spot on the map that marks running water. it’s only two miles ahead, but again in such hard terrain we move slowly and deliberately.
Soon, I’ve just got to stop and come to water running into a pool. We share my cup to scoop its loveliness and have lunch. I’m instantly revived with a full liter drunk. We’ve been talking the entire way about our lives, our loves, our families, our work. Only now do I realize we are the same exact age.
Certainly explains our compatibility. I laugh that I just rounded a corner and Hobbit jumped on the train going up. “Thank the Goddess!” I say, to which Hobbit points out this mountain we’re climbing is one of very few named for a woman, Lemmon.
I point out a less happy fact – we still have 1,000 feet to climb.
As we leave the water, Nav and Captain pass us, promising to buy the first round of beers in Summerhaven. The trail changes dramatically, heading into forest of tall pines, but still an up and down rollercoaster on sometimes hard-to-find path. A couple of times, I have to use my hands to throw my body over boulders.
We see them again at the rushing stream and another couple wisely starting their backpack trip from the top. Then it’s up and up and more up. As I begin to regain power on the ups, Hobbit runs out of steam. I won’t let her lose hope, pointing above to where we’re headed, the last hard part.
She tells me she started backpacking to lose weight and feel better about herself, also that she really needed to hike today with someone encouraging.
It’s not all a hard slog, it’s also beautiful and pungent in this forest high above the searing hot desert. I can see radio towers and know we’ve made it. One more crest, a whoop and a holler meeting two people who can’t imagine where we’ve come from.
We take no break heading down into snowy forest, another creek running the other way this time. We meet a family with small kids and take one last break in a place that looks like my home of Minnesota before meeting the road.
Funny how a garbage can makes backpackers so happy. We unload here and greet dozens of day hikers before walking up the road for pizza. There’s no chance of a ride since everyone is walking. Even the forest service folks can only give us s thumb’s up as we plod up our last hill.
We order a large pizza to share – only two choices, cheese or pepperoni – then sit on the terrace with Nav and Captain. I wonder what they think of us two middle-aged ladies keeping (somewhat) up with them?
Other people wander in including lovely bicyclists who rode up the mountain on the highway. Many are curious about what we’re doing, but it’s hard to understand unless you do it yourself. Most laugh at how we take two pieces of pizza and make a sandwich, dispatching that entire greasy mess in minutes.
It’s a bit of an ordeal to fill our water bottles. The Department of Health won’t allow them to fill from their faucet, so they pass us cups of water to fill ourselves. We don’t take chances on the exposed Oracle Ridge where we’ll camp, free of vegetation after recent fires, but I can barely lift my pack.
As we get ready to leave, Arthur arrives. I’m so happy to see him, but he appears disturbed I’m here. Oh dear, something that happens a lot if it’s all about miles and speed. He barely talks to me at all, but perhaps that will change in time.
I coax a couple to drive us the mile up the road. They’re not entirely excited to do it, at least the man isn’t, but it saves us time as the sun begins to set.
It’s mostly downhill, some on dirt road and some on trail, a kind of jutting peninsula into the desert. My water is so heavy, I can barely walk. We see a horny toad right away and I feel like it’s such a cap to an extraordinary day.
The trail is steep, but good, dropping us through agave-dotted grassland, past a massive mine of some sort down to a saddle where we pitch our tents just as the full moon rises. The pegs won’t go in, so I pile up rocks and hope for the best. My legs are tingly and sore, but also happy taking me to such beauty. Thankfully, it’s cold up here, and I imagine that means a very deep sleep for this Blissful Hiker.
2 Responses
Had a blast hiking with you. Good luck on the rest.
It was the best kind of serendipity that I turned a corner and there you were, suited up and ready to roll!