Trail Vertigo

(Tuesday May 13, 2008)

I left Big Bear the other day hiking from Highway 18 and after a ways I get to a trail detour up some forest service roads because of a fire last year.

There wasn't much dager of a flare up, but they wanted people out because of falling limbs from dead trees.

Originally I had just planned on hiking through it anyway, but it was about 3:45pm when I got there so I wouldn't have made it all the way through before I would have to camp.

So no big deal. I hike on the Forest Service road detour (by the way PCT Guidebook, your Forest Service roads are not accurate and sometimes not even on the map so thanks for your help!) until about 7:00pm when I decide to pack it in and camp next to this giant mound of rocks.

I picked that spot because the detour, while trying to protect us from falling dead trees, took us right through a massive burned out area with nothing but dead trees in every direction. Good planning guys.

So now I'm paranoid that trees are going to fall on me so I figured this massive jumble of rocks would protect me from any crashing pines or firs or hickories.

Problem was that there wasn't a single area that could be made flat except next to one on the outside of the group that wanted to play just the tip. But in this version of everybody's favorite game, the tip of a really tall tree would be the only thing that would break off upon hitting the rock, leaving the rest of the thicker, lower portions to crush me. I figured it was better than nothing and held out hope that the rock would also perform some sort of deflectionary duty and the tree would break at the top and roll away, at the very worst ruining my tent.

Tree falling death scenarios aside, my biggest real concern was with maroon beetles and the most awful sounding bird alive.

I'm guessing that these beetles are one of those harbingers of a burned out forest's recovery because I haven't seen them anywhere else on the trail and they were everywhere in the detour. They wopuldn't do anything to you, just fly on you and sit. But even though I am one with nature right now so to speak, I didn't want these bastards flying all over me for any reason.

So I set up my tent, which I wasn't originally planning on doing, but they forced me to and I climb inside, get myself situated and start writing when I hear this sound like an animal being strangled to death.

I have no clue what it could be and hoped that whatever it was would be satisfed with the meal it had just made for itself and wouldn't come looking for larger prey.

Then I hear it again, higher up in a tree...and again...and again. The most annoying bird ever created. It's not even like it's an eagle or hawk. At least when they screech, hey're probably about to capture a squirrel or mouse. This thing on the other hand is a small bird and should be singing sweet sounds to lull you to sleep. Instead we get the victims of a roving strangler.

i wonder who it was that woke me up at 5:00am? Ugly bastard.

So...the hiking continues and after a few hours, I make it around to mile 291 where the detour rejoins with the trail. I can't say where exactly I started, but I'd been going for around two and a half hours or so. The same time later on, I make it to a bridge at 297, so I figure I went about the same distance in the morning.

I decide at lunch to head for the Deep Creek ford at mile 312. That's 15 on top of the 12 or so in the morning, but it was only about 1:00pm when I set out for the afternoon and the sun hadn't started setting until well after 7:00pm, so I figured I had plenty of time.

Fast forward four hours and I haven't seen a single person since lunch or a single marker indicating that I'm on the PCT. It's easy to mindlessly wander because for the most part, there's nowhere else to go on the PCT. Occasionally it will cross a jeep road or meet up with another trail, but most of the time you're walking on a two foot wide trail on the side of a mountain with nowhere to go but forward. And so I had been walking forward for four hours without thinking.

So I decide to check the map. Down to my left are a bunch of people hangig out at a camp near the river. The map says that should be the Holcomb Trail Camp and if it is, there should be a hot spring nearby. The description in the Guidebook says to look out for skinny dippers. Two heavyset naked guys are standing facing away from me. Ok then.

So I'm in the right place, and if I keep going, I should hit what the Guidebook describes as a 90 foot steel and wood arch bridge. I figure I'll get there about 6:00pm, but winding down the switchbacks, I hit it at 5:15pm. It's a little early, but the bridge is in fact about 90 feet as good as I can guess from looking and its made of steel and wood and in the shape of an arch.

I am worried because I got there way early, but again I check the Guidebook description and it says that after you cross the bridge you head west along an old aqeduct wall, and the creek will drop about 150 feet below you with cottonwoods and alders on its banks.

I check my compass. I'm heading in a westerly direction. I saw the aqeduct wall when I was coming down to the bridge and now I'm walking alongside it. The creek looks about 150 feet down and there are trees along it's banks.

I check my altimeter and it's supposed to read somewhere between 3200 and 3800 feet. It pauses, the displays 3400 feet.

And last but not least, the Guidebook says to be on the lookout for something below near the creek that the Forest Service is planning to convert into an equestrian camp. After a few minutes, there is some kind of shack down near the creek. I'm no equestrianologist, but it's close enough for me.

Except that for some reason, I decide to check the map one more time to see what side of the river I'm supposed to be on and look knowingly at the wrong map. I knew I was past that map and yet I looked at it and it said I was supposed to be left of the river while I'm standing up on the right. So I panic.

Even though my altitude was right, even though I saw the naked dudes at the hot spring, even though I passed over the steel and wood arch bridge heading west along the aqueduct wall past what could possibly be a horse related shack, I looked at a map that I knew was for a part of the trail I had already passed and decided to ignore every landmark in favor of freaking out and turning around to hike back until I found another hiker who would tell me I was on the right path.