August 1, 2023

~12 miles 

Another chill morning, another day when we leave slightly later than planned, but hey ho, we’re doing the thing. I have my breakfast and coffee and then pack up and have a little cathole moment and I’m ready to go!

We walk downhill towards the huge bog at the floor of this valley around the creek. It is very, very boggy. Hello. Good morning. Squish. We cross a pretty powerful and very cold river and I get the screamin’ barfies but don’t dwell on it. On the other side we skirt around the bog as best we can by sticking to the edges of rocky “islands” in the bog. We then wind up at the “grassy ramp” we had been looking at from camp. It looks decidedly less chill from here.

As we start up the ascent, we hear a loud whistle. At first I think it’s a bird, but then I place it just as Carrot says, “Is that a marmot?” Sure enough, the squishy fluffy friend is standing up on a rock above us, whistling his little alarm call. Aww! My heart! I love marmots so much. He dips back down into his little tunnel network and keeps beeping as we get closer, but it’s quieter every time. “Are you imitating a Doppler effect?” Gahl ponders. I want to hang out here with this marmot all day, but unfortunately we must climb. 

It is very steep because of course it is. Not as bad as some of the ascents we’ve done but not chill either. I’m so winded and over it by the time I reach the top that it takes me a second to register the view behind me when I turn around. We’ve just climbed out of the mist and are now in the sunlight! Everything is glittering. There’s a glacier in the distance. The mountains look very dramatic against the mixture of blue sky and swirling clouds. Worth it.

We head down from the saddle and take a quick break to check the map. Carrot proposes a bail option that deviates from our original route on CalTopo because this “uppy downy stuff” is not it and we are not covering the kinds of distances we need to be in order to finish our loop and make it back to Anaktuvuk Pass without having to ration food. Something we’re all learning is that even if something is marked white—meaning pretty chill and not too steep—on the USGS topo map we’re using, it is often still very not chill. Our goal is to follow this creek down, curve around the toe of a peak, and then dip down into another drainage to hopefully wind up on kinder terrain. 

We start heading down the creek, which turns rocky. I keep tripping over things and rolling my ankle. What is wrong with me? I slept enough and had a big breakfast. I just feel not right somehow. When I catch up to the group and say this, Carrot suggests that it might be DEET because some people are sensitive to it. I’ve never had an issue with it before but I try washing it off with water from the creek. I also fill up again and add some electrolytes. Maybe that was my problem. 

At the bottom of the creek we switch gears and head up another mossy slope, walk across a plateau, and then consult the map again. We’re close to our original line but lower, so we’re going to have to cross another creek and go up another terrible steep hill. But hopefully after that we will reach the proverbial promised land of chill terrain.

We cross and start up, and everything within me just rejects the idea of going up another hill. Listen, I don’t know what else to give you, I think at my bones. I fed you, I rested you, I wiped the bug-killing poison off you, I gave you electrolytes. What else do you want from me? And then it occurs to me: music. I need music. I haven’t listened to anything hiking out here because I’ve been with a group, but I dearly miss my little moments of hiking solo and jamming along to music. Let’s see if that helps.

I start with “The Actor” by Alt-J because it’s been stuck in my head all morning. The minute it starts, it feels like I’ve just had serotonin, or dopamine, or adrenaline, or all three injected directly into my veins. I feel like my blood has been replaced by rocket fuel. Finally! This is what I’ve been waiting for! I shoot past the others, flying, finally moving the way I want to. I’m Pulling a Jimmy at long last. 

It takes five songs to get to the top, by which point I’ve obviously switched to King Gizzard. I feel like a different person, like I’ve been returned to myself, shed the miserable melting layer from earlier. 

It doesn’t last. But that’s okay. It was nice while I had it.

We follow slope down to another creek, walk along it for a while, and then go up and over another mossy toe, then up another creek. By now I’m back to sad slug mode.

I walk next to Gahl for a minute and ask how she’s doing. She sounds pretty good. Then she asks me. 

“I’m going to be honest,” I blurt out, “I’m having a hard time keeping a positive mental attitude today.”

“That’s so fair. This is hard,” she replies. 

“Yeah. Like. This place is amazing, it’s such a good opportunity, and I really appreciate the skills I’m learning, but I think I’ve decided that I just do not like cross-country hiking and I’m not going to do it again.”

“That’s totally understandable. But think about it this way. You ran a marathon this year, right?” I nod. She ran one recently too, also her first. “Well, when I was in the middle of my marathon, a thought that kept me going was like, ‘Once I’m done with this, I never have to do this again.’ So like, you’re here now and doing it, but when you’re done, you don’t have to do this again if you don’t want to.”

I laugh. I remember that feeling. 

“Yeah, but the moment I crossed that finish line I was like, ‘I’d do that again.’”

“Exactly! So maybe when you finish this you’ll actually want to do it again.”

We talk about our respective marathon experiences until we come upon Carrot and Chelsea sitting at the edge of a slope. We’ve reached the creek where we’ll bail to (hopefully) nicer terrain. We head down the steep slope and arrive at the creek bed, where we take off our regular socks and put on our waterproof ones for their intended use for the first time. (A couple of us have been using them as camp shoes, which is also a good application.) I can still feel the water squelching in my shoes, but it’s magically not as cold so I don’t get the screamin’ barfies. Amazing!

It’s actually pretty chill walking despite having to cross and recross the creek a zillion times. At one point I fall behind and then catch up as Gahl and Chelsea are starting a little Leonard Cohen singalong. “I heard there was a secret chord…” Gahl is leading and she has a really nice voice. I join in. I forgot the magic of singing a song together on trail! We run out after that one, but I teach them the beaver song (more a chant really) that Patches taught me on the AT. It’s not as good as Gahl’s singing. But it cracks me up remembering how we used to walk down the trail singing that vast repository of camp songs that lives in Patches’s brain. 

We’re all very hungry but we’re trying to make a certain mileage before lunch. Chelsea struggles with a rock as we cross the creek at one point. “I’m so hungry. I’m getting wobbly.” Then she finds a patch of caribou hair and puts it on her face like a goatee. We’re losing it. Every time I see Carrot stop an unreasonably intense hope rises within me, but then she keeps going. Gah! When is lunch! I love lunch! 

Finally, Carrot puts their backpack down and looks to be settled in. “This looks like a good lunch spot!” We all plop our packs down in relief. The sun is out too! We spread all our wet gear around and set about the very important business of eating. I lie on my tyvek in the sun, spooning peanut butter into my face, recalling Washington and how we were all so over everything that we started having  breakfast lying down in our sleeping bags before even sitting up.

I finish lunch—your standard wrap with sweet and spicy tuna—and have a little nap, but it’s suddenly very cold. It becomes time to go so we pack up and head up another climb. This one isn’t as bad and when we get to the top the sweeping green valley is there before us like a luscious carpet of dreams. Sure, it looks boggy as, but if we cling to the sides it shouldn’t take us long to reach Chandler Lake.

HA! We should all know by now not to trust our eyes in this shifty place. It’s the entire rest of the day and into the evening before we reach our goal. But in the meantime there’s some nice walking. Chelsea and I talk about the PCT, our families, and big goals we have for ourselves. We cross over a bog and go up onto the ridge on the other side. My left foot starts hurting out of nowhere and I don’t love that.

We take a break, Gahl gives me a tasty ginger candy, and between the two I’m feeling better. Rocks, bog, rocks, VERY steep rocks, side slope, bog. I walk with Gahl and we talk about teaching and our areas of study. We catch up with the other two. 

“Alright, there are rocks up there,” Carrot says of the next ridge. “But there’s moss betwixt them.”

“Betwixt themst,” I correct.

“There is moss betwixt themst.”

We giggle. Carrot talks like they write. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, I love it.

We go over the moss-betwixt-themst rocks and it’s really not that bad. On the other side we stop for a look at the last slope we have to climb—“It’s the last toe!”—and I see movement in the rocks to the left. 

“Ah!” I gasp, for we have seen very little life out here apart from us and the moss and the marmot. “A creature! A vole? A ground squirrel? What is it?”

As we stop and look, the most precious little mammal comes popping into view. They’re sort of brown on the back with an off-white underside, little hands like a squirrel, and a face that comes to a point at the nose something like a mouse.

“It’s a weasel!” Carrot exclaims. “Well, some type of weasel? It looks like a baby.”

“Is it a marten?” Gahl offers.

While we ponder, the mystery mammal keeps popping up behind rocks, then disappearing, then reappearing once again. We keep hoping it will come closer.

Carrot switches into that unhinged crackly voice she uses for animal impressions. “Give me food! My parents are dead! ALL DEAD!” 

The contrast between this and the sweet looking creature makes me so unwell I can’t stand up straight for a moment.

I want to hang out with this little friend but alas we are so close to camp. Just one more toe! I walk through another damn bog with its evil hairy basketball tussocks and start up the climb. Gahl, Chelsea, and I are so loopy that we begin to make jokes about nothing and laugh way too hard at them. “This is the biggest toenail bed I’ve ever seen,” Gahl comments when the slope absolutely refuses to end. 

But then finally we come upon Carrot, who says, “This grassy bench looks like a good camp spot. Our mark on the line is over there, but this one looks better.”

We all express immediate and happy relief and head down to the bench. It actually turns out to be kind of shitty. Carrot goes on an expedition to the lower parts while the three of us thrash about higher up, trying to find a good place to set up camp. Carrot is eventually successful, which she signals to us using the high-pitched ululating call we’ve somehow developed as a sort of war cry over the last few days. 

It’s a nice spot with a good view of the lake. Chelsea, Gahl, and I set up our tents in a tight clump while Carrot undertakes a concerted search for water. “There’s a good pool here!” she’ll cry, before finding another. “Actually, this one is better!” Between the various pools of bog water we all collect enough for dinner. 

It’s mosquito hell so I wind up cooking as fast as I can and then going into my tent to eat. When I finish and take my bear bag over to the pile, the sudden cathole urge hits me. Ughhh, are you kidding? All I want to do is sleep. But when nature calls and all that. So I crankily trudge over to the far side of the hill. I realize I forgot my trowel. No time now. I pull up whole clumps of mossy earth with my hands. This is about the only environment where you could get away with this and I find myself suddenly loving the tundra. 

Afterwards, walking back to the tent, the sun pops out and the entire world is illuminated. Settled in for the night, emptied out, and with no pack to weigh me down, I feel as though the veil has been lifted from my eyes and I can actually enjoy this landscape. It is brutal and harsh up here, even in the summer. I can’t imagine the winter. But it has such beauty. The gray mountains, the green bog, the shifting clouds. There is so much water everywhere. There are marmots and mystery mammals and so many wildflowers, and rocks betwixt which grows all of the moss. It’s so hard, and I am so tired. But in the bright sunlight of nearly 10:00 PM, I finally feel content.