Adirondack Journals - Part IV
August 2, 2008 – 9:55 amJuly 15, Tuesday
A much better rest and my eyes are open to watch the sunrise. The peaks obscure any view of the orb, but the pink hits the clouds as the mist disperses, and there’s a quadrant of pastels on the surface of the lake.
This is the last day for all of us. The Maryland crew rise early, groaning and stretching, sticking to a cold breakfast of candy bars and nuts. They have a seven-hour drive ahead of them.
I hang back, watching them pack. I offer to take a picture of them, and when they’re suited up (complete with machete) I borrow one guy’s Nikon and snap a few shots of the lake and Mount Colden behind.
I shake their hands as they pass. “Thanks. Take it easy. Thanks for the stuff.”
They smile and wave and I can hear them joking and laughing as the trail rounds the lake, then that is gone as well.
I linger, writing in my journal, till around ten o’clock when a young guy comes by, inquiring about the lean-to. I let him know it’s available; I’m just slow to get a move on.
I finally pack up and head out around 10:30, heading north around the lake through Avalanche Pass, and the Loj, roughly six miles away.
The day quickly grows warm, even more perfect than the last. Sunny, with the deepest blue skies.
Avalanche Lake sits between the rocky shoulders of Algonquin and Colden, steep faces of exposed rock on the walls. The trail hugs close to the rock, in places jutting out over the water with constructed wooden planking bolted in to the very cliff side. The steeper traverses also include ladders and planks, and the entire stretch resembles some sort of backcountry obstacle course, or as Hank (one of the Marylanders) said - Eliminator challenge from American Gladiators. It’s fun and picturesque but straining.
At the far side of the lake a pile of dead wood looms above the trail in an enormous, misshapen pile. This is how the pass gets its name - an entire section (acres) of forest shorn from the slopes of Colden, ravaged by a wave of relentless snow. (I find out later it was actually rain during a Hurricane).
I can see the line of trees, the bare cliff side that was swept clean. And even in the heat of July, I can imagine the late winter day when the cornice on the ridge breaks and the thousands of tons come roiling down, the sound of a thousand cracking tree boughs, the entire white crackling mess moving down the mountainside. I can imagine the resounding boom, the settling of the ice crystals, screeching of winter avians as the mass settles into the cleft of the valley.
And I recall again the life cycle of mountains - and this too part of that chain. On a scale much larger than the cycle of seasons or rainstorms, but just as vital.
The exposed rock will be worn by the wind and rain, perhaps decay, reshaping the contours of the mountain. And the detritus of leaves and underbrush will fill in those cut chambers and topsoil will accumulate, and eventually, a hundred or two years, the slope will once again be covered in forest.
Beyond Avalanche Pas the trail flattens out, wide and smooth, devoid of jutting rocks. There are makeshift stairs up steep slopes and bridges over dips. Pretty much a highway.
I follow a meandering creek, wide and gurgling slow in the sun, and there are many lean-tos, roofs thatched with greening moss, overgrown fields with pure views to the summits.
Not far is old wooden Marcy Dam, hemming in a small man-made lake with pristine views of the ridgeline, the scar of Avalanche.
There are children here, old couples, pregnant ladies, teenagers in flip-flops and fishing poles. One of them exults as a catfish flops from his line, laughing at the thing no bigger than his hand. The scene is nearly stunning in all its collected beauty, the clarity of nature under the illumination of direct light, and I nearly tear up taking it in, and I must continue on into the forest.
Only a few miles left to go, and I lean into my pack straps, tromping the highway of sandy trail. The clean and beaming families I pass gawk at my dirty, unshaven face, raw, scarred shins, the bulk of my gear. I greet all with a courteous hello. Only a handful return it.
Less than a mile from the trailhead, I take off my pack, swig water and finish the remainder of a Snickers. The forest is wide and shaded, but the sun still splotches the brown of the earth. There are no sounds but birdsong.
I pause for a long moment, committing the scene to memory, the entire long trip off it. This is it.
This was it.
And then around the bend a clomping line of backpackers, fresh faced, their gear shiny and clean. I nod and bid them well - and then it is time to move on - move on out.
I drive into Lake Placid, hoping for a burger and a beer. The town looks like it’s on holiday, crowds on main street, the prime tourist stretch of lakeside restaurants and trinket shops. I continue on to a public beach and boat launch - where a small cluster of kids splash in the water, cannonball off a floating dock, the adults sunbathing.
Lake Placid pub and brewery is across the street, and I settle into a seat at the bar - order a Smokin’ Blonde Ale from the bartender, pretend to watch Sportscenter, but mostly just marvel at the wonders of civilization.
An hour later, two beers and a burger, I shuffle out to the car. The sun is still beaming, the most perfectly imaginable summer day.
I stop twice to take pictures, buzzing. A private soybean patch, lined with rows of wildflowers and overgrown grasses, the green of the high peaks beyond.
And then, later on, a red barn out in the sea of grasses and flowers. There’s a framing tree and hints of mountains beyond, but it is that red barn, its sunken roof and dusty empty windows that draw me in.
I step out of the car, out into the field. I sink to my hips in long amber grasses, the tops gone to wheat, surging in a breath of air. I squint, trying to find the perfect angle of the barn. Sundrunk, I blink away tears, and the cool wet joins the sweat on my cheeks and I am overwhelmed with joy.
The stresses of tomorrow will indeed come, but there has been a respite in this place, a return to the empty set, the place where the spirit can grow, and I can live with conscious purpose again.
Adirondack Journals - Part III
July 29, 2008 – 9:04 pmJuly 14, Monday
I’m awake when the light first bursts above the peaks - the black of the night giving way to faintest blue. The rain has stopped.
I unzip, sit up and stretch, creaking joints and sore muscles. The cuts on my hands ache.
Today will be a peak day. I decide on my route after studying the map, in combination with my original goals. Ascend Marcy, hopefully by lunch, then loop around the backside to Haystack, which feeds back into the original trail - a nice 14 miler. It will be tough - for sure, but much better than bringing the backpack (along with soaked tent) all that way.
I go light - using the top flap of my backpack as a hip pouch (packed with bagels, m&ms, peanut butter, nalgene, water filter). My camera bag’s slanted over my shoulder and poncho tied to my waist.
I set out before the group, skirting south around Lake Colden. There’s a bridge dividing the lake proper from its outflow stream, with a makeshift wooden ladder leading down from the overlooking rock.
From there the trail wanders through thick mires of mud and rotting logs to come alongside the Opalescent River. The first indication is the roar of rapids, then a swaying suspension bridge right out of Indiana Jones. From mid-bridge, the cables bouncing widely, the view upstream is white with angry froth and boulders.
Beyond the bridge the trail rises rapidly, with the addition of a few more wooden ladders and planks. The ferocity of the river continues, the water cascading through channels in the rock, tall limestone cliffs rimmed with lush moss, drinking the moisture. I’m wary of that same mist on my camera but take a few shots.
When the roar of the river subsides, the next mile weaves through narrow gaps in the thick brush, logs laid out over ugly pools of mud. The rains from the previous day continue to roll down the mountainside, and where the trail is sloped and rocky, makeshift streams; flat and earthy - pits of mud.
I make a wrong turn at a confusing cairn but turn back after a tenth of a mile without blazes. Look at me - learning my lessons.
This loops me right back with the Maryland group from the lean-to, which are surprised to see me emerge right out of the woods. We share a minute reviewing the map (theirs were melted in yesterday’s downpour), comparing routes.
They want to do Skylight then Marcy, but I think they’ll end up only doing the latter, especially once they can compare the bold facades of both peaks.
I set out before them, not because I’m antisocial, but because I don’t want to intrude on their time.
I take a break at Lake Tear in the Clouds (Tier or Tare?) to munch some chocolate and pump another bottle. An old man in jeans catches up to me-
“Man, you’re fast. Where’re your buddies?”
“Oh, they’re coming.”
He marches off.
From the lake the peak of Marcy is clearly visible, the bald knob of rolling hills and sandy boulders. The clouds cut through and obscure it.
The climb isn’t that hard, the hip pack is perfect, light and hardly weighing me down.
The trail ascends rapidly along faces of weathered stone - the runoff tumbles over in wide slick sheets or splashes through tiny channels cut in the rock. The result is a slow slog up the steam - lots of handholds of spiny underbrush, solid footholds. Even so I slip a few times.
Above tree line the wind picks up. The expanse of the surrounding High Peaks is here evident, rows of rounded mountains and rock faces clear to the cloudy horizon. The trail is now all rock, eroded into sharp textures and liberally painted with lime green lichen.
It almost reminds me of ascending some otherworldly peak, a lunar landscape. Slow motion trod on strange rocky surface, slow labored breathing. Must be what Everest’s summit felt like to Sir Hillary.
The top is populated by a handful of people (including the old man and a bearded ranger) with even more coming up the other side. It’s somewhat windy, and I pull on my poncho, watching the red plastic buffet before me like some malformed dress. I try to snap pictures in the few moments the adjacent peaks are not enshrouded in blowing cloud.
There’s a plaque at the summit - a pressed bronze acknowledgement bolted into the stone. The first ascent - 1837 - sponsored by the Governor of NY, along with the names of the men who made the journey. They printed their professions - geologist, botanist, biologist, professional explorer. Three unknown woodsmen (who probably were paid in coon skins and did the heavy hauling). But I am amazed - it was college professors who made this journey 170 years ago. Not the military or some federal expedition. And it felt like such a noble and honorable pursuit - these men who made that strenuous journey, without trails or markers or topo maps.
But on the way down from the mountain and around back to Haystack, I look at the streams coming down the trail once again. I see how the moss lining the edges soaks in the rain, even the needles of conifers, filtering the water to slide down this exposed stone, clear and clean. And I see the mountain as a whole, the shape and gravity and size of it, all the water cascading down into rivers to support yet more life. All of it connected in this vibrant pulsing web, alive down to the very bones of it. The trail we so rudely carved only serving its own purpose: directing the water downhill. And if it wasn’t for the trail the water would find another way.
I remember again the Heart of Darkness from that first day of bushwhacking, the dense tiered lushness of it. I realize we’re not in it. We’ll never be in it. We are tourists, a few hundred years of passing through a place that has been churning through the rains and snows and sun for millions of years. Even the black fly is a more vital part to this place - for when it dies it falls to the earth and its nutrients grow into the trees. Me, on the other hand, simply taking, giving nothing.
Haystack is a tougher climb than Marcy - a piled stack of rough boulders, roughly pyramidal, giving the place its namesake. Actually, there’s a smaller hump broken off from the spire, like a loose patch of hay, which proves the steepest of the climb, forcing me to wedge my boots into the rough cracks of red-brown lichen. The top of the peak is windier, with an excellent view of Marcy across the way, Gothics and Wolfjaw opposite, and far down below the twin lakes Ausable. Atop Marcy near insignificant specks mill about: other tourists to this place.
Many miles yet to go, so I resume the climb down to Panther Gorge. This is by far the steepest trail I’ve climbed in the High Peaks region, and down climbing is perhaps even more treacherous. In the narrow gap between dense underbrush, the trail is composed of a solid slab of rock, tilted 45, 50 or 60 degrees to the vertical. Water runs down the face, riding through intricate channels and undulations. I’m constantly holding onto spiny outthrust limbs, and even resort to sliding on my ass the final ten or so feet. There are nearly a dozen of these drop-offs, the water continually accumulating into a regular downspout. I fall a few times - once completely losing the planting of me feet and slamming to my backside, my thumb caught on some sharp rock or branch - tearing away a good chunk of skin.
So, bloodied and muddied, I emerge to Panther Gorge forty-five or so minutes later. Here, out from the lee of the mountain, the sun is bright and brilliant. There are a scattering off white puffy clouds but they are moving quickly - sending patterns of shadow racing through the trees and across the brook. It’s early afternoon and the rays hit the water sharp, reflecting back like scattered jewels.
I pull off my boots and socks and stand to my calves in the frigid flow, drinking it all in. Then I rinse my socks, squeeze them dry, pull back on my muddy boots, pump some water and crunch some M&Ms. Then it’s another climb up and out of Panther Gorge.
I’m at the limits of my endurance here, the fourth big climb of the day. I can feel the muscles in my legs quivering, at times too weak to push up a large boulder or over a slick root. I dig through my pack for some quick energy - a Golden Delicious Apple. I devour the thing to the core and the natural sugars seep in my legs and I am rejuvenated. Soon, I’m back to Lake Tear in the Clouds, this time filled with sun, clear views to the top of Marcy.
The final three miles of the day are a gentle decline, populated with the boulders and logs and soft earth trail. I begin to rock hop - flying along the path.
Given an adequate down slope and a good spacing of relatively flat boulders, it’s possible to rock hop at a speed greater than regular walking. The hops - aided by gravity - exceed a normal stride, and momentum can be maintained. Of course - it can require zen-like concentration and agility, a constant stream of recalculating balance, adjusting the angle for each boot to contact the rock, picking the route. And it’s nearly impossible with the awkward weight of a 45 lb backpack.
But I’m able to fly those last three miles back to Lake Colden, the sun continuing to slide between the trees, the shadows pulling out behind me.
Now, the green of the forest takes on a heartier color, the brown of the earth gathering hints of red, rust and clay, and bark, the yellow of the sun’s brief glare through the foliage, molten metal on the surface of the mud puddles. Every new stretch of trail takes on the aura of a mystical glen, each delicate leaf and frond blessed with a halo of sun.
There is intense beauty, and it feels distinctly different from other hikes thus far. I’m not fighting the terrain - breaking through brush, heaving my sore carcass over rough stones. Instead, I’m gliding down the mountain - the very terrain itself my propulsion. I hike those last three miles in about an hour.
Back at Lake Colden I go through the motions of retrieving the bear canister, washing up, sifting through gear left out to dry. I step out into the lake, run water through my hair, arms, chest.
The other crew isn’t yet back so I make a cup of tea, do some writing, watch the lake.
They trudge up maybe thirty minutes later, weary but happy.
“That was a hike,” they say, plopping themselves up on the wooden planking. We all cook and eat together, only a few bowls packed and passed around tonight. They are more careful of the bear canisters, now that there isn’t driving rain without.
As the light drains from the day and the hills grow black, we’re already zipped into our sleeping bags, the first snores grinding out before the propane lantern has been snuffed for good.
Adirondack Journals - Part II
July 28, 2008 – 11:35 amJuly 13, Sunday-
I wake at first light, sore, in need of water. The wind is surging through the trees in force, and when I step outside the sky is overcast.
I figure it will probably rain, but I’m too tired to pack up camp so I lie in my sleeping bag, listening to the encroaching storm.
After a quick breakfast (pop tarts and dried fruit) the rain does begin, first a few teasing drops then torrents. I quickly move everything into the tent, watching the water collect at the edge of the vestibule. I could pack my backpack - but it was going to be hell trying to disassemble the tent in the downpour. And I don’t want to risk my camera getting wet, since it’s stuffed into the center of my bag without the protection of plastic.
The best course of action: hike down to the shelter, drop off the pack, then come back for the tent. The rain is almost refreshing - puddles accumulating on the trail, the leafy fronds tickling my bruised shins.
At the shelter I meet a friendly Canadian couple - Max and Gabrielle - and we share stories, comment on the weather. Turns out, they hiked the trail I’d been looking for just yesterday. They inform me it isn’t too far and there is a well marked sign.
I admit sheepishly that I’d bushwhacked a good bit looking for that trail, and I tried to slog up the wrong stream.
They say it is very difficult. It took them eight hours from Colden to their shelter here, with very steep ascents. And it would be certainly worse in the rain and mud.
After trudging back to get the tent - which ends up getting completely drenched—I pack everything up as watertight as I can manage and bid them farewell.
So off to find that elusive trail.
It isn’t hard. As I guessed I’d quit too soon. It juts off from the main blazes into the deep of the wood, following the brook roughly upstream. At times the trail itself becomes a tributary - waterfalls off the roots and boulders, deep puddles of mud. It also lacks maintenance, and the wet foliage presses close.
Then the trail grows steeper, a long hard haul up the mountain. My muscles are sore form the day previous, red welts and bruises where the hip belt hugs my waist. And even more, my shredded hands arms and legs now filthy.
The trail to Colden is only 3.3 miles, but I don’t get in till 1:30. There are bits of beauty along the way - the tiny white flowers with matching butterflies, flitting between raindrops, or the gray bits of cloud blowing through the trees and along the trail, like beckoning spirits.
But mostly it is physical hardship - aches and jolting landings, near falls and slides. It makes me think of transcendence through pain - something truly spiritual about pushing the body to its limits.
When I finally made it off the hill - a ranger stands there to both greet and interrogate me.
“How are you?”
“Drenched.”
“Are you planning on staying over night?”
“Yes.”
“Have a bear canister? The bears are out in force.”
“I do.”
“No campfires.”
“Of course.”
He leans on his shovel and metal pike and points down the trail.
“The shelters are that way.”
I trudge along, marveling at the elaborate wooden bridge crossing a tiny rivulet. Oh, the priorities.
Lake Colden stretches out before me, wide and grey and shrouded in mist, the black-green outline of conifers angled up from the shore line in the distance, but soon they are swallowed in sky - no indication of the enormity or majesty of the surrounding peaks.
The rain has temporarily stopped, and when I get to the shelter I collapse.
Ten minutes of lying there dripping. I figure it would be a good idea to change out of my wet clothes. I sit on my mat, study my map, eat some lunch. Even brew a cup of tea.
But outside it storms, not a warm summer thunderstorm, but a cold relentless downpour.
I realize now how ill prepared I am for this trip. Another jaunt into the rain will be miserable. It’s only 2, but I may just stay here, looking out over the lake, drying off, reading Conrad.
This is vacation after all.
I drowse, huddled under my damp sleeping bag, hearing the surges of rain out on the lake. There is nothing worse than a damp sleeping bag -yet another thing I can blame on myself.
I doze off - a few soaking travelers stop by, ask about the other lean-tos. They move on.
Around four o clock, a group of five college guys stumbles in. They are drenched, dirty cotton t-shirts sticking to their skin, feet and ankles encased in black mud.
They throw off their packs along front of the lean-to and rest out of the rain. A couple wander off in search of other options, but the three that stay pull out flasks of Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels, swigs of fire in the gut between exhortations and laughs about angering the mountain gods.
When the other two come back they decide to stay after a bit of halfhearted debate and deliberation. Most just want to pull off their wet clothes and rest.
“Do you smoke weed?” they ask. “Sometimes.” “Good.”
They pull out thick bags of tangled bud, little blown-glass pipes. And soon the lean-to is filled with billowing layers of thick smoke, just feet away from the wall of gusting downpour.
They’re a bunch of childhood friends from Maryland on vacation. They have driven seven hours to get here. When they arrived, they honestly looked more miserable than me - most of them in drenched gear, thin ponchos, cotton clothes.
But now they pile in the rectangle of wood, this single dry spot, to warm their chests with whiskey swigs and THC.
We start our stoves and boil up dinner, amid lots of jokes about Smoky the Bear coming to smell what’s up. Shared complaints.
In the early evening the rain lets up and I can see across the metallic lake the rock slops of Mount Colden, streams of white water from the peak, sliding down like white icing. I offer to fill up water bottles and I shoulder my poncho and step into flip-flops.
I wade out to mid-calf in the silken water, resting the bottles on a rock, pumping the filter. Black flies land on the cuts on my legs and knees, and every minute or so I drop my leg to the water to drown them away.
It is gently raining now, not cold or persistent, just tiny drops all across the surface of the water.
They talk about their plans for the next day. They’ll be day hiking up some of the nearby peaks, Algonquin or Marcy. One of the guys vows not to shoulder his backpack until they’re on the way out for good.
It makes me realize that I’m fine with day hiking. I don’t need to complete the crazy route I initially set out on. I can store my stuff here in the lean-to, pack light, and knock out much more.
It reminds me of Europe - jaunting around on a whim, without concrete plans – and how it turned out better that way. As Max said yesterday in his garbled French Canadian: “Not about destination. It’s the journey, right?”
I also realize the serendipity of the moment. If I’d continued on in the afternoon, I wouldn’t have met these guys to give me the day hike idea or the knowledge of Avalanche pass. But even more - the good pot and laughs to lift my spirits.
As the sun sets the clouds cover the peaks and the gap of sky through the valley purples. One of the guys lights a propane lantern, we attempt to play cards with a soggy deck, pack more bowls. Later, we trudge off through the sticks in flip-flops to hide the bear canisters. Then it’s back into the damp sleeping bag, the soggy sweatshirt, the crumple of plastic pillow - and attempt to sleep till morning.
Adirondack Journals - Part I
July 26, 2008 – 12:02 pmJuly 12-
For weeks I’d been anticipating it. Four days and nights on the trail, the great north woods - dozens of high peaks and deserted trails, alone.
The stress of the daily grind had been growing, until it was to become insurmountable and induce some sort of emotional collapse. Thus, hiking. My ideal vacation - a time to let the body work as God intended and the mind to wander freely until settling down into some sort of zen.
But those very stresses would not relent and they manifested themselves in forgetfulness. It was almost as if I couldn’t get anything right. An hour into the drive (leaving Manhattan in that crisp morning hour when the pigeons flock through the sidewalks and the sky is held buzzing electric) I realized I’d forgotten both my rain jacket and fleece. I had a poncho that could stand in for rain gear, but if the temperature dropped, all I had were t-shirts.
Thankfully, Wal-Mart to the rescue. The store amazes me even now. This one in Albany was clean and vast, with every niche item - even comparable backpacking stoves! And a sweatshirt for $7.
But there were other things I neglected - extra batteries, ziplock bags, any sort of cleaning paper, towel, etc. Small things, but they added up in the wilderness.
I arrived at Adirondack Loj about 11:30. Did the whole preparation bit where I compress, squeeze and shove the hundreds of assorted pieces of gear scattered around the trunk of the car into their respective compartments in my pack. The thing is weighty, owing primarily to the bear canister I’m required to carry.
In addition to the large backpack I have a camera bag with my new Canon SLR slung diagonally across my chest. It’s handy there for impromptu shots of butterflies landing on sun-lit flowers, but it swings against my hip while walking.
The first section of the trail is well groomed, plenty of helpful hewn-log bridges, their surface polished smooth by the tramping of a thousand boots. There’s a nature cabin, even benches surrounding Heart Lake, with a gentle lapping short of fine ground pebbles. Little kids in the bathing suits splash around as if it were the Atlantic, their parents cool in sunglasses, watching tiny clouds puff across a perfect blue sky.
And it is perfect: mid seventies, sunny and clear, the occasional breeze through the trees. After a good long tromp along the trail, my back is drenched.
The insects are out in force, mosquitoes and gnats and tiny red-eyed flies, occasionally nasty black flies. DEET, however, is a miracle spray, and keeps them off. I only have to suffer the smell and the sticky residue.
Four miles in there’s a prim lean-to - a nice clearing with views down the stream to the jagged cliffs of Indian Pass. There’s a convergence of waterways here - sun dappling the rocks peacefully. I check my map; figure I’ll take the shortcut through Iroquois and Marshall Mountain over to Lake Colden, my first camp of the night.
I hike uphill about a half mile, realize I’ve missed the turn off. Judging from the topo map it crosses a major stream and juts off into the hills. I backtrack, spot a few places where it looks like the trail would cross the rocky brook. But there are no blazes - little colored plastic discs nailed into trees.
I decide to follow the stream up a ways, hoping it will cross the tail in a few hundred meters. It doesn’t. I’m still rock hopping, avoiding the deep water, the downed deadwood that lie across the stream like natural gatekeepers.
Looking at the topo again, it appears the trail follows the stream right up into the low ridge, then connects with its sister tributary on the down slope - all the way to Lake Colden. It’s only two miles. I can rock hop that far, and it will save time, instead of the long trod looping miles south of Mount Marshall.
This decision turns out to be both the hardest and most foolish of anything I’ve done in the woods.
Climbing the stream to its source gradually begins to get more difficult as the creek bed narrows - faster channels of deep water, huge waterfall drop-offs. If something is too difficult to climb I have to go around, up into the underbrush. This wouldn’t be terrible in a deciduous forest of nice soft leaves.
But both banks of this creek are lined with dense evergreens, full of sharp needle and spines in the dead underbrush. The steep sides are caked with rotten wood, layers of it, and then covered over again in soft moss. I hear the dead wood crumble, my leg sinking to the knees, sometimes hips in soft fertile earth. Even more treacherous - when this false ground covers boulders and caves. Put your foot through one of these and you might never touch solid ground.
Foolishly, I push on, all in the hopes of reaching the ridge, spotting the cold blue lake just through the trees. Every new stretch of rocks and moss to be climbed brings hope of that elusive destination.
But also pain, and hardship. My legs are butchered from the slips and the crackling of dead pines and hemlocks. My arms, just as bad. Pushing through especially dense sections, I can do nothing but lower my head and drive through, dozens of fiery sharp twigs cracking off to nest on my sunbeaten neck, or worse, catch on my pack.
Before long I am drenched in sweat, filthy, streaked with cuts and scrapes, which now attract flies. I’m miserable, and no closer to my goal.
Granted, the scenery is beautiful, the light playing against tumbling waterfalls, reflected like a golden aura against a bold red cliff. The rivulets of pure mountain water channel through healthy growths of moss and algae, long fronds dangling over ledges.
Bu it is treacherous. At first I think myself like Bear Grylls on his harrowing climbs up ragged cliffs, cracking underbrush and quipping Briticisms. But after a few more hard and embarrassing falls, increasingly accompanied by cries of rage and pain - I began to see myself Aguirre, trekking through the Heart of Darkness in search of El Dorado. For him, a lost city of gold. For me, a fabled ridge and clear shot to Lake Colden.
But there is no end in sight to the rise of the brook. Boulders pile ever higher, thicker windfalls (which must have been a spectacular sight bombarding down the channel in the spring melt), more treacherous footing.
I decide to climb up the hill on the right slope to see what I can see. This is horrifically hard. It’s a forty-five degree incline through deep and decaying moss - a dozen jutting twigs that blind just as well as jab your leg. Very few solid living handholds.
I make it to a slope of naked rock, crusted with colorful red lichen, under the full glare of the late afternoon sun. I scramble up about halfway and am able to make out the bald head of Algonquin above the tree line.
I’ve gone wrong.
I’ve cut through the wrong peaks, followed the wrong stream to its painful source. I’ve wasted hours. Lake Colden is unattainable this direction.
It’s then I begin to despair. Then hemlocks close in, so tight I can barely gulp air without their dusty sap scent. I can’t rest. There are no cozy boulders or logs, only the steep slope continually sliding out from under me. My legs are coated with dirt and blood. My face - cobwebs and hemlock needles. I am beat, nearly exhausted. And I still have hours to bushwhack back to a proper trail.
I whisper a quick prayer. Not a common thing for me, and in a way - incredibly humbling. I admit the beauty of the place; realize the personification of the mountain, there to stomp down on my cockiness. I admit I have been foolish, and I’ve broken one of the primary rules (stay on the trail) out of arrogance.
It is time to turn around.
There is a brief respite. As the sun moves to the west it’s angle of light shines on the flats of the tumbling brook - the water reflecting gold. I find a deep pool with a waterfall overhead, strip my boots and clothes, and duck into that amber water. My legs and arms billow dust and moss and earth, but then I am clean, pushing out across the cold refreshing deep to let the water cascade on my head.
That’s my El Dorado for a day of backtracking and foolishness and Plan B. That’s my reward for admitting my pride.
I make it back to the camp closing on seven - nearly five hours after I’ve left it. I am thankful but beaten.
I cook dinner and strip off my wet socks, assemble the tent for the first time (it is quick, solid and roomy).
Down by the clearing I see a beaver in the shallow pool, chattering. I approach with my camera, crack a shot, and he dives, gliding through the creek bed like an otter. The half moon is rising, still huge and mystical in the lower atmosphere, and there’s a hint of purple in the sunset.
Then the breeze picks up, roaring through the tops of the trees and I’m off to bed.
Playground to the World
July 26, 2008 – 11:44 am
Cyclone Rollercoaster
Wonder Wheel
Siren Music Festival - Broken Social Scene
Two More
June 10, 2008 – 11:41 amPut up two more short stories. Both are vaguely sci-fi and feature solar panels. Figures, given the soul-searing heat of the last week.
Uploaded - The old man sat and watched the day wane. He knew he was dying. He could barely climb the rickety steps of the brownstone, breathless and shaking. He could feel the press of gravity in his bones. The door to the balcony was beyond his strength.
The Sheikh of Ma’aJannah - He looked to the south, into the deep Gulf. The sun warmed the flat solar sheets on the gentle sea, long strips of metal and white. He breathed in the moist air, fighting back a nauseous urge, the weakness in his knees. Then into scene of the murder.
As always, comments are appreciated. Something feels missing with these two stories but I can’t quite put my finger on it
Blue Gods
June 6, 2008 – 11:37 amShe watched the dying boar.
She settled into the shadowed crook of the hill where the brook ran through the deep roots of the hemlocks. The light dappled through the needles, splotches on her visor.
The stone spear vibrated, perpendicular to the slope of the blood smeared dirt, straight through the muscled shoulder, the lungs and gut. It had missed the heart. The boar screamed again.
She felt an itch at her finger. The urge to end the suffering. A quick pulse of the heat beam and she could end it. But she wavered. Turned back to the gored hunter.
He was probably her age, or younger, tan and muscled. Bare skin save a harness of thick leather and hide, a strap for his sharp atl-latl spears. He held his ruptured stomach in with clasped fingers, watching the boar, watching the sky, her.
He had been surprised when she had burned down from above the high peaks, the white fire in her jump boots searing the limbs of the trees. She saw him tense, eyes wide as he beheld the “blue god”, sleek and bristling with machinery. He had lost more blood than she expected. He’d die in an hour or two.
He inclined his head to her, moving his lips. His eyes gestured to the rippling brook a dozen meters out of reach, beyond the throbbing pig. Water. He wanted water.
She wavered, still crouched, resting her heavy gloves on the big steel kneecaps. Then she rose and walked to the hunter, popping a latch on her belt. A hose extended from her hip. She lowered it to his lips and thumbed the release. Cool, clear liquid rained down.
“To hell with the directive,” she muttered. Watching the water rinse the man’s face, fill his cracked lips, wash away the lines of dirt sweat. She glanced at his stomach.
The wound. The tusk had pierced him through the navel and out the side. Congealed black gore glued his enlaced fingers.
She knew she could heal him in minutes with a nanobyte patch, but that was far beyond the initial infraction. Water for a dying man was one thing, employing miraculous medical technology on a native was another. Something that could severely affect the balance, the controls, the datasets.
Her HUD blinked with a few incoming messages. Queries concerning her current actions. They were watching. Field works was envisioned as fast drops, stealthy reconnaissance. Not leisurely naps in the deep woods, especially not in the vicinity of mammalian heat-signatures.
“To hell with the directive,” she said again, this time loud enough - and amplified by her helmet - for the hunter to lift his head and look at her. He muttered a stream of syllables her translation software couldn’t decipher - perhaps a prayer. His hands moved at his belly and he groaned.
She popped off the power gloves for dexterity, digging through a thigh pack for a nanobyte packet. She tore it open, the white crystals starting to glimmer.
“Give me your hands,” she said. The man was confused, and for the first time the wonder in his eyes gave way to fear. She reached down and touched his hand, sticky with black red. He fought her, struggling.
She employed the shoulder hydraulics, pinning his arm.
“This is for your own good,” she said, remembering to flip on the auto-translation. “I’m helping you.”
She pinned his other arm and his belly heaved and seeped, the thin coagulation ripped away. When she poured on the crystals he screamed.
Then the auto-opiates found their nerve receptors and he swooned into drooling bliss. The nest of messy entrails began to reassemble, writhing worms in a blood bed. She stretched a self-adhesive plastic sheet across the wounds, held the entire thing together until the skin cells began to regen.
When she had patted the tape in place, the gears in her knees whirred for her to stand. His hand suddenly on her bloodied wrist. She startled, instinctively jerking away, but he was strong. She let him hold her, his sticky fingers winding through hers.
She looked at him, the weary grey eyes. The fearsome prideful brow. He choked something out, clenching his jaw as the surge of opiates reached his brain, rendered him unconscious. Her software glitched out and she couldn’t find it in her HUD.
The boar was dead.
The spear had been a solid thrust, nearly a killing blow, but the cross hatch had splintered and the animal had run clear up the shaft, flailing its sharp tusks in its dying rage.
The hunter would be too weak to butcher it when he woke. Worse - local predators would be drawn to the scent of all the blood and make a meal of the helpless man and the pig.
But something else compelled her. A blue god would require a sacrifice. Lacking any proof of the visitation - and rescue - the hunter’s tale would be all the more ethereal, mystical.
And besides. She was craving some barbeque.
Her power gloves back on, she hefted the beast, cradling it in the crook of her arms. It probably weighed twice that of the man.
Eyeing the flashing messages in her HUD, she jumped a hundred yards downstream, then another thousand up the ridge, the fire in her boots flaring.
Atop the mountain she butchered the pig with a nanoshiv, spitted it above a themal flare. Then browsed correspondence and munched bacon.
Only much later, as she watched the sun sink into a cloudy purple haze and the celebratory campfires in the village- did she check the blinking red dot in her HUD. The translation had retried and succeeded from audio backup - the hunter’s words: “Thank You.”
She smiled until the dropships arrived.
The Evening Redness
May 21, 2008 – 9:17 amWhen I finished the Road I knew I’d read something amazing. This was a writer who tapped into something beyond the popular trends in literature, the name-dropping and cultural rhetoric. This was a story outside of time, prose so honed and pure it hit on something primeval. Back before Oprah and the Pulitzer, McCarthy won the McArthur Genius Grant and spent a decade writing an amazing book.
Blood Meridian follows the kid, a sixteen year old Tennessean venturing into the “wild” west. It’s a violent and distorted bildungsroman as the kid puts his lot in with the historical Glanton Gang, a wild group of scalpers and outlaws that ravaged the Texas-Mexico border circa 1850. The “Ahab” of the tale is Judge Holden, a hairless monster of a man, erudite and philosophical, but also barbaric and depraved.
The first third of the book is possessed with untouchable prose, imagery of the stark desert under the night sky, the sun like a jealous god, the very decaying rock - fossils of past civilizations. In this the book mirrors Moby Dick - a journey of men through the wilderness, deserts of the American southwest rather than the wide Pacific, and a quarry of Apache scalps instead of Sperm whales. And like Melville, the landscape and the actions of men stand as grand metaphors for question of deep import - the violence in men’s souls, technology’s place in the ravage of the land, the very notion of creator in this hellish place.
As the book progresses, the Judge explicates his philosophy of violence as man’s only noble goal, and leads the crew into increasingly dire situations. The licensed scalpers resort to brawling with uniformed soldiers, hijacking a river ferry, backstabbing benevolent tribes. And inevitably, those who live by the sword fall by the sword.
While Blood Meridian dwells within history, it does not attempt to explain or reconcile. The novel moves beyond cultural morality to a deeper universal - the eternal violence of man and his relationship with the land. These are the same rocks and mountains that serve as setting for No Country for Old Men, a hundred years later.
And while the subject is bleak, the prose itself is so incredible the book reads ecstatic and fast. As one reviewer mentioned, the scariest thing about Blood Meridian is not the violence itself, but the quickened pulse that accompanies its reveal, the knowledge we’ve been caught up in the timeless dance.