Desert Trail: Mojave Desert Part 2

Maybe the bruised ankle bone was a blessing in disguise. I got to see my nephew take his first steps, spend some time with family, and prepare for the next long stretch of the Desert Trail even more especially with the impending heat. After 2 full days of resting and icing the ankle I embarked back out on route but not before placing 3 water caches at strategic highway crossings. I even dropped off 2 resupply boxes that otherwise I would have to mail out. All in all, it worked out.

As we were driving back out through the Mojave memories of a lifetime flooded in my head vision. I grew up in the big Mojave. The drives to and from LA to Las Vegas for family visits, riding in the back of a pick-up truck with my brother laying down hidden from view wrapped under blankets, riding in the back of my Granny's truck touring Death Valley in the summer and catching blisters on both my shins from the menacing heat, living in the town of Mojave and one day snapping my ankle jumping off a huge dirt mound and landing on a rock, and getting chased by 3 bullies through desert flats of creosote, the wind howling and a small pack of coyotes running along side flanking my strides. I even recalled my first memory of hearing about human powered travel and peregrinations. A family friend, Cade, rode his bike from LA to Las Vegas. I never forgot that. 

Cruising up Summit Wash, the Mojave Desert is in, always has been. Traces of burro and cow, piles of horse apples and cow pies littered the wash, hoofed trail ribboned up the channel. Near small pour-offs of water worn marble the burros had dug small mud pits in an attempt to reach ground water in saturated areas. Probably a month ago I bet some water reached or pooled near the surface. Near Summit Spring 2 bulls scattered away from me. Fire scarred the land side and pinyon totem stood ghostly watch over the basin. At the spring a cow carcass, picked a part clean of meat with patches of matted hair against bleached bone, the eye sockets black and hollow, the horns yellow like rotten toenails. The spring was a muddy seep with the only water standing in hoof holes. Little bees hovered around the water pockets and landed on the ridges of the hoof holes to slurp some shitty sludge-water.

At the crest I could see Wild Horse Mesa and the basin badlands below. The basin held thick groves of juniper and pinyons. Sage and other typical Mojave cacti and brush plotted thick in the washes and pleats below. I marveled at this basin form the pass as the sun set, a sight so hidden and reeking of wilderness. In the evening I camped on a ledge and as i sat on my sleeping pad I could hear burros descending and moving precariously loudly on the cliffs above. Their eyes glowed a golden yellow as I shined my light on them. Loose rock spilled and rattled like ice cubes in an ice chest.

The next morning on the mesa I found my first rattlesnake under a deep crimson boulder. The mesa looked like spring and the morning sun rays felt good as they brushed my legs. A green tinge glowed in the surrounding hill sides and mesas. I entered Banshee Canyon and the porous cliffs. A neat little trail went through here but at the campground all that illusion of cooler temps vanished and the heat soared. The basalt and pyroplastic rock told of a 18.5 million year old blast. Intense heat showed instantaneous cooling which pockmarked the cliffs and hoodoos. The heat now resembled that furnace with no cooling in site. I ambled on after filling my bladders and walked across the burnt high plains of juniper and pinyon. Cattle munched on the sporadic sprigs of green grass.

The spigots were turned off at Mid Hills Camp. This caught me by surprise and turned my waterless stretch into roughly 40m. I got a little stressed. The stressful part is that I carry and drink water in heat without necessarily knowing I have a confirmed source ahead unless it is something I have cached. This spring has been real dry. And without any confirmations I sometimes embark on these long stretches without knowing where I will get my water from. So, I started from the camp in dire need of water. I took a chance at Burro Spring. Only a dug out hole had been gouged out in the hillside. A decent sized tamarisk sat right plop in the center of the spring source. I bet that tamarisk has something to do with how dry this spring is, let alone the drought and dryness. I soberingly continued on.

Cima Dome looks like a giant mole rising in the horizon. You can see the rise from miles around. Finally climbing up it I found a veritable desert cactus garden. Huge stands of Joshua Trees held up the slopes with their pom-pom spiky florets and thick barked trunks. An occasional bouquet of white flowers sprouted at one end of one pom-pom, the lengthy arm resembling the slowed-up stages of a shooting star. At Cut Spring I was surprised to see not only the cottonwoods and the water trough present but a makeshift cabin with a hay spread out in front had a good sized herd of deer feeding. Quail rambled about and fluttered away at my arrival. The deer scattered but I could still see their burro type ears poking above the shrubs. Game and motion sensors were set up in places and I slugged down 2L of water right in plain sight. I couldn't pass this source up. I tanked up and headed for camp.

Owls hooted at night and I could see the lights of Las Vegas to the northeast. I slept soundly in the cooler temps up on Cima Dome. I awoke to a purple sky, then pink, and then orange. I found a full trough of water at Deer Spring. I had my umbrella out and open for most of the day as I walked through volcanic lands toward Interstate 15, where I had a water cache waiting. At Halloran Summit I laid in the shade for 2 hours and lazed about drinking water. I left in the late afternoon as temps became cooler. I even saw a wild burro which snorted at me sounding like a burst of a jet engine. I found reliable Francis Spring. The water tainted by burro and cattle, mucky and reddish brown with a steer's skull and horns laid sidelong up on the salt grimed shoreline. I filled 2L and left for camp. I slept deeply that night in the big wide open Mojave Desert.

Long day again. Kingston Spring has overgrown willows, cattails and tamarisk, even coyote tunnels into the thickets with bones strewn about, but no water in sight. I had a long and hot crossing of the Valjean and Dumont Hills. The wind blew incessantly, annoyingly. No shade; hot as fuck. I crammed under a large creosote in a dune field, umbrella and all, my legs sticking to each other. I then found a shaded rocky outcrop that sheltered the sand but filtered it so well that a small dune abutted the outcrop. I forced down an energy bar even though I needed food. After hours of staggering through the desert heat I found the Amargosa River. And there was more water than I expected! A real river! And I was down to my last half liter and I was completely under saturated. I filled up with 2 gallons for the night after slugging 2L right then and there. I walked about a half mile and called it quits. I set up my ground sheet but couldn't get really anything done. I simply wanted to sit. I laid back against my backpack and propped up a knee and marveled at the humongous dark blue and purple sky, the shades between ending day and oncoming night. I drank another 2L and watched the bats flit about the dusky sky feasting on insects. I worked so hard all day, beaten down by the sun, the ups and downs mentally, no shade, just fucking plastered, simply to get to this moment. I chuckled and said aloud to myself: you're a fucking idiot.

The constant sun; nothing is as ubiquitous as the sun. Even at night here in the desert. I am cramping, my finger nails glow with an eerie bio-luminescence, sun drenched, and the night inhales before the cauldron is open to flame again. From 6am-11am things are tolerable. I push with ease while starting slow and pursing on my water attentively. Then, the rage begins. I battle with a lion's heart only to fall to inner turmoil and guilt. I desperately seek shade while trying not to obsess about my water situation, or lack of or uncertainty or surplus of it. If I get shade, I tell myself, I will sleep for a few hours. That helps. But then times merely have no shade, the sun high noon, directly overhead, its apogee of terror, the mindfuck. I keep at it, trying to eat something, my belly bloated from water mixed with electrolytes. So positive minded in the morning only to be crushed by the heat. I get trapped by the head and I start to think about things, like ancient childhood things and my relationship with my family, how guilty I feel I am as a person, within the deep recesses of eroded beds of my heart. I begin to doubt myself while just believing it will subside by late afternoon. I peel back up after a brief spell of shady rest,even though my calorie intake is minimal. I am able to force down a bar but only by muscling it down. I keep going. All day. At 5pm, it is the worse. The sun is angled perfectly to wreak havoc on my brain and face. The umbrella isn't helping anymore. The incessant sun is making me mercurial, vacillating between morbid and positive thoughts. Back and forth. I keep at it. Plodding along. The a trickle of sweta ruins it all. Down my forehead, through the quad-wrinkles between my brow that shows when I am focused or intense, the squint that intimidates people, at the bridge of my nose, an awkward nose, the drop goes left on a protrusion on my bone and slowly weaves its way to the corner of my eye until the salty bead plunges right in stinging my eye. And I blink and I blink to get it out, to absorb the stinging, all to no avail. I rub my eye fervently. I use my index finger and it just makes it worse, even smearing my sunglasses, staining everything with salt. Salt is everywhere. I am stale with salt, aged. The mirage in the mind is becoming clearer while getting blurrier at the same time. Only the narrow focus of water, of finding water, of sometimes the exaggerated discovery of water, of a cold fucking soda, of pouring water over my head, dunking my shirt. And when I get there, I guzzle. So much so, the cistern in my belly is jiggling, no, swishing with water. My belly is protruded, extended with the beautiful liquid, no matter the color. Shitty, muck-tainted, pissy, green algae tinted, stained with decaying flesh and bone; it's all mine.

Then, it's dusk. I forget all that has happened. The day a dream, fuzzy. It's all unknown, all of it, the epitome of ignorance. Just unknowing. I find myself in a small town. I'm shy, shell shocked from the desert blasting. I speak my order to the waitress and feel the cool air on my neck. I shake my head of the mirage.

Desert Trail: Mojave Desert Part 1

Across Joshua Tree, I have been following game track----deer, jack rabbit, coyote, fox, rodents, bighorns. I stumble upon skulls and sun-baked bones, even a tortoise shell here or there probably dropped from a raptor high above lies empty within. Near the calcified tortoise shell, sometimes square, opaque shell tiles and bone fragments are scattered near the main shell body. Across the vast distances, through huge boulder mounds of granite stained with a pinkish-brown desert patina, long expanses of gradual alluvial fans, erosion on an ancient scale, amidst large creosote and the occasional tall ocotillo, I amble. In a random drainage between a low pass, the rock has a blue tint, some of the sheen in the wash sprinkled even a bit druzy, even looser in stability too. Once the desert patina is washed and scrubbed and rinsed away a beautiful gneiss and blue rock is left behind. Along the gradual slopes, flat and compacted gravelly strips line and groove the desert floor make walking pleasant. Other times I find old fire pits, probably from miners and surveyors, partially buried in the sand, wind-piled. Old, rusted tin cans will litter the adjacent area of the rings, of times past where people sat and entertained themselves the old-fashioned way. 

The sky is enormous, both day and night. My views show range upon range that resemble an undersea spectacle of lonely islands. The constellations and stars twinkle on a magnificent scale, as light pollution is scarce. A highway signifies the northern boundary of Joshua Tree. The route weaves through volcanic cones that have filtered out the blowing sand, a pediment impediment, creating blowsand dunes. Chilly nights, big and clear, black, let me sleep comfortably and restful under the great wide open. Broad high points start a new basin. Some of the terrain is like pavement, then the ripples of the sand within tiny ribbons of washes showing show that the wind is alive resembling finger-dragged marks, ephemeral and delicate, create an artistic wave, the hand of water in an invisible air. Then, the holes and burrows lie in wait from underworld dens. The dens show a swollen desert where activity from rabbits and rodents show their toil. Brushes and dried stalks chollas sprout up as the root system has been eaten and scraped from below. I punch through, sometimes buckling the knee, hyper-extending the joint. 

I am purposefully ignorant on this route. Just a tad. I've researched as much as I can, walked with the visuality of the route, of the desert, but knowing too much prohibits the flexibility I need to employ on the fly. Trying to hike the Desert Trail in a 'thru-hiking' fashion has its challenges, especially if only one other person has hiked it (Buck Nelson, '12). Information can be hard to find these days on a forgotten route. Time has passed, the land is managed differently now, some springs have run dry or the towns have different or abandoned amenities. With that in mind, flexibility is crucial, as I don't have the freedom and availability of having water and food readily available. So, what route has been 'created' usually I see what is most scenic and most full of highlights as not being most achievable and practical without having these crucial cache points, especially without natural and reliable water sources.  I have already seen my resupply strategy change due to the long waterless stretches and the carry of the appropriate water needed for safety. Here's a quick recent breakdown and example:

Facing a 60m waterless stretch through Joshua Tree I trimmed up the route with a 'reasonable yet still scenic' 40m waterless stretch. I did this with the section after that in mind----another 60m waterless stretch, which at the highway crossing I was able to cache 2 gallons of water. Based off my needs due to weather, food weight and length of section, and knowing how much water I need to replenish for my body. So, my plan by trimming the Joshua Tree route and waterless stretch would hopefully leave me with at least 2L, leaving me with 2.5 gallons to do the next 60m. Unfortunately, I showed up at the highway with half a liter, for the incessant wind had dried me out.

I decided then to hitch into 29 Palms to replenish and rest up a bit, which was totally unexpected. So, to make this route achievable as a thru-hike I need to adjust the route a bit, trim up some of the old maps where the termini are located for the sections which were mainly used as parking or shuttle areas, as well as adjust the resupply and water strategy. The trick is tip-toeing that fine line between what is safe and scenic versus what is unreasonable and scenic for an achievable thru-hike.

On the way into 29 Palms, I hitched in with a couple, the dude from Ireland and the chick from Britain, both of whom moved from LA to live in J-Tree. We had a great conversation about the impact traveling has on one's life. We spoke of India and her experiences there, even Southeast Asia. I spoke abut hiking, of course and the good-natured folk associated with hiking and how if you're in the dumps about the world going for a walk is a good refresher on how good humanity is. As I was climbing out of the car, Dave threw me a fist bump and in his Irish accent said, 'Hey, do us a favor.' Not a question, not asking, but an assertion, a true sentiment.

'Never stop.'

Needless to say, I am thoroughly enjoying this challenge, especially without much up-to-date resource information. I am happy to be purposefully ignorant.

I hit a high wash. The plant life more fecund, the desert appeared shagged with a thick green carpet from afar. Large willows straddled the wide wash at curvy bends, large and robust, full of birds and jackrabbits, aromatic with the drying-out white blossoms delicate as a flake of a skin cell. Ephedra, or Mormon tea, became more prominent. Rotund shrubs with a sweet smell. The sand is of a different sort. Decomposing granite from the high points above peltered from downpours, careening down gullies until settling in the beds for who knows how long. Dusk is different too. A different type of blue rather than a deep purple associated with the blanket of a usual oncoming night. The dusky blue is the most beautiful color I have ever seen. Spring flowers stood in a newness. Pinks, yellows, purples, and whites, all popped up in disturbed soil, loose for growth.

I am so fascinated by this planet we inhabit. Every ridge line, every vista, the countless contours, the serrated horizon shapes, the infinite spectrum of shades and colors, whatever it is, an unending curiosity, beyond the innate exploratory nature, the ceaseless wonder, I just need to see it all. With vision I learn as I walk experientially. It all ties in to my understanding of the world, of my self, and defines me as a wanderer, a traveler. And, right now, the Mojave Desert is the epitome of my sentiments. Startling scenery coupled with an intense lonesomeness is stirring the spirit. It's times like these where I wish I could look into a fishbowl, or gaze from a distance and see the dark silhouette of a wanderer roaming the vast and empty land. No footprints but my own.

That night I laid my bed down along an old dirt road. Around 2am I somehow woke up out of a deep sleep to headlights staring me down. Befuddled, I looked around blankly for what I do not know. After a few seconds I shook out of my slumber. A man walked towards me. A grizzled beard and dressed like a desert traveler, turns out Dave is a student of rock, a geologist. Out here in the middle of no where where he field researched his dissertation on a pyroplastic event some thousands of years ago, he comes back every year to keep verifying and validating his research and others. We connected in that sense. I related in that I am validating Buck's route and research. At 2am in the morning, we talked of the age of rocks, the earth, the lonesomeness of the desert, the animals of the desert, and management of public lands. The stars glittered above us and I felt a mutual connection with this scientist in the middle of the desert, of no where.

I spent the next morning walking to a rendezvous with my grandparents at an Interstate 40 exit. My family has made this desolate stretch much more doable in the scope of things. After a day of eating, getting gear situated, and just relaxing and hanging around with my grandparents they dropped me back off the next morning. The Granite Mountains and a 3000ft ascension and cross country scramble stood in the way. This blockade proved to be more than a challenge. Massive granite piles, remnants of spillage from the higher reaches, lay around like a pile of marbles made for giants, all patina stained with a spackled rust. Budweiser Spring, first on trail water source dripped slowly from a pipe into a very shallow mud puddle. The cattails around and in the corral and cement tank were dry and tinder-like. I gathered 4 drops in a cupped palm and tasted the sweet water. Birds chirped within the cubbies of the shaded, sun-drenched boulders. Up the drainage I went solving the maze of willows choking the canyon floor. Within the cattails a game trail showed the way. A cliffed out amphitheater, smoothed and enormous slabs of precarious granite loomed over me and made travel difficult. Once on a long ridge line the real climb began. I negotiated my through some of the bushiest terrain I've experienced. The jaunt through the Granites showed the typical rugged burliness and overgrown nature of a high desert range, except only heightened on so many levels. Down water-worn chutes and craggy pour-offs, weaving foot paths amid catclaw, cholla, and Spanish bayonets, and slurping pothole water sludge; this route is getting better and better.

In the evening, after finally getting out of the tangle of Bull Canyon, I strode towards camp. Evening slunk down with coolness and a beautiful deep purple hugging the western horizon, I stepped on a rock jammed in the dirt. No twisting or spraining motion occurred, but I flipped the rock up with my footstep. With a quick strike like a rattlesnake, the rock smacked right on the tip of my ankle bone. I felt that nauseous light-headedness associated with quick blood movement traveling through the body and yelped out. I limped into camp. A few hours later, I awoke suddenly writhing in pain. The ankle ballooned up and I forced down some meds to alleviate the pain and help me sleep. The next morning I hobbled through the Kelso Dunes to the Mojave Preserve Visitor. Once I assessed my situation I knew what I needed to do. Begrudgingly I put out my thumb and hitched to Baker, CA.

Desert Trail: Borrego and Sonora Deserts

My trick in all this, I'm not letting you know what's real. And it's because I don't know what is real. it's not you, really. I slip into my own reality. Then, I step foot out on trail.

The border feels uneasy, mostly because of our political state. It's probably hyped up more in my head, or it's because I can't fathom a wall being any bigger without it symbolizing tyranny or racism. So, I shoo my mom away quickly, telling her to scurry back to the highway. 'This is no place to fuck around,' I tell her. I spot a border patrol jeep hidden under a canopy of an oak tree. We both see it. She abides my shooing and I try to get her to crack a smile. She does, then she leaves. I start northward walking through a small, dusty border town of Jacumba Hot Springs. At the railroad crossing I decide to take a foot path paralleling the rails. Abandoned, I encounter old rail cars. I knew of this place and I had a keen interest in seeing this place. Graffiti painted on the side of the rail cars, quite beautiful and colorful, yet I see the empty red cushioned seats, the shattered windows, the pried off doors, and the long echoing and hollow corridors and I cannot help but envision what once was. Maybe that's why I'm so enthralled by the desert, the ability to take things and people all away. Machines, towns, mines, communities, homesteads, water, all gone in the wind and the fiery sun. Bodies were once in those seats. A conductor pushes the train across precarious trestles above the deep Carrizo Gorge. People were smiling; the scene is exceptionally apocalyptic now. The wind whistles a seepage of moans, the ululations of ghostly gasps eerily through the rail cars and I leave. I cross trestles still heartily in tact, hovering above steep and incised gullies. I even slip through a tunnel or two.

This easy walking and I cannot help but start on a random thought. Lately, some close friends have or are going through some sort of mental disease or some other and I stop and look around and wonder what has me here and not there. I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. Maybe I don't give myself time to think. 'Just keep going,' I tell myself, 'keep the mind busy.' Then my heart will take care of the good stuff. Yea, that's my notion. But, I feel so much empathy out here in the emptiness of the Carrizo Gorge. Like, this is the only place I could feel empathy. I get it: balance. And I only feel it when my life is on the line where the next second in the moment matters.

I step on a large boulder and it is loose. My shin slips off and the rock scrapes off some skin. I catch myself amid a tangled mess of mesquite. I'm okay. I'll take better care of each step. I notice a couple gashes on my right hand, bleeding and smeared with dirt. I am part of this whole thing already; the desert. The ruggedness in this gorge is crazy. It is a real fight in here. I climb and push through tamarisk that choke the channel. A few pools linger while the slowly evaporate under the desert sun, sludge-filled with gunked up algae. The thicker of impenetrable tamarisk is flanked and guarded by hordes of low and brushy mesquite and rip-tearing catclaw. Slow progress ensues and I show no teeth. I plod and swipe and push. Everything else pokes or jabs and it's not long before I'm part of the trail. Blood smears and runs down my shin. No matter, I need it.

I find a ramshackle camp underneath two very large boulders. The hollowed out camp has a colorful hand woven bag, green with a strap and some serape--type designs used for sitting on and carrying provisions. Lying next to the satchel is a couple burnt out ravioli cans and a wad of toilet paper with shit caked on it that lies next to a covered up and stamped out fire pit. Adjacent to all of this is a burrowed out fat stem of a barrel cactus and a mangled deer carcass. This migrant knew what he was doing. No wall big enough will stop the tenacity of a people trying to find a 'good' life, no deserts or mountains will evaporate the deaths of people; they'll never stop. If you want something bad enough, your back against the wall, you will go to extreme measure to attain it.

I camped stealthily on an island above two creek channels behind a large boulder buried in the compacted sand. The wind howled for most of the night as I laid on the top of my quilt feeling the cool desert air. I hardly slept, but I was tantalized by the stars above.

A rivulet of a pink ray peered over the jagged ridge line. I startled up as I felt the morning light grow behind my closed eyelids. I set off early and before I knew I was at Box Willow campground, which had a water spigot. But not before I startled a coyote family of three, the little one unawares of my arrival, so he darted off with his tail between his legs yelping a low chirp. I packed out 2.5 gallons of water for the 35m stretch, not knowing if that would be enough, for the temps around 830am seemed to dictate a hotter day ahead of me. 

And Arroyo del Diablo proved no less. Within the eroded time-froze mud walls the sun bore down like a beast's breath over the neck of a prey. The hot wind blew off mud caked flakes from the walls. Temps soared and I couldn't stop drinking my warm water. With a swollen tongue I muttered a word. Only a raspy and gravelly voice sounded, although I do not know what I muttered. I just remember muttering. The balls of my feet burned and salt crystallized around my neckline. My eyes burned. My umbrella, useless. While keenly aware of my condition I paced out my steps conserving energy and enduring the sweltering heat. My water ran scarily low, so  went down Fish Creek Canyon towards a quicker route towards water, rather than up canyon towards the eventual Hapaha Flat and Harper Canyon. I was aware what was going on, of my state and staggering. I kept wobbling down the wash but the heat was overwhelming, confounding. My water kept hot, shade laid scarce. Finally the cool of the evening came as I sinewed down the tall narrows of the canyon. The geology of the canyon took my mind off things, yet I was reminded of time, or the age of things. Then, I looked up and saw that night was encroaching like any last light of day, the end. The wind picked up, quite gusty at times, as I kept on until I found a spot with cover. I nearly collapsed from exhaustion but I urinated first. A brown, murky piss came stiffly flowing out. I knew what that meant. I slugged a half liter and I flopped down. I fell right to sleep on my pad and woke about an hour later in pitch blackness. Beautiful out, with the twinkling stars and the eerie yet luminous layered shadows of the high walls and ridges above me, a bat flitted across my night line and I plowed into some beans and chips. I laid back down, my kidneys cramping in my lower back. I forced a snore.

The next morning things were cool. That is until I neared the open desert. Huge clouds of whipping sand mushroomed up in the sky. The wind fiercely blew and drove the loose sand towards the Salton Sea. At one point, I hunkered down in a ditch beneath the sparse canopy of a greasewood to avoid the blowing sand. Gusts kicked up easily over 50mph. The dust storm passed and I heard a tiny beep. To my surprise, a truck stood nearby, the driver mouthing words that I could not hear. Larry asked if I was okay. I told him, 'Yea, but I won't turn down some water.' 'What about breakfast?' Turn down that?"

Nope.

At his compound, high powered trucks lined under car canopies. Men were scrambling and preparing for what I knew not. Larry said this was a place that worked on souped up trucks. But I became suspicious when everyone called the charismatic Boston cat 'sir.' Even the blokes in sheriff's uniforms and and the military men in fatigues. Computers lined long rooms with manned stations. Radar looked present. I thought Larry was Hannibal of the A-Team. He totally charmed me over and helped me out of the brain dump. To be honest, he got my mind out of the sun-exhausted and wind-blasted muck from that morning and the previous day. Feeling full of food and motivated he dropped me back off. I figured later on that day that that operation must be there for drug running purposes. But what a shift in mentality Larry provided.

Across the Borrego Badlands through a wind and dust storm, I squinted my brow and forged ahead. My left ear filled with dirt, my nose became a bit caked with dirt boogers.Then, I applied my buff to replicate a turban. Cross country I went through the badlands, tip toeing on ice cream ridges, mounds of pink and orange mud baked well done every second of every day. The lion within roared. Under 5 Palmas a calming sensation occurred within me. I relished in the shade while the blowing fronds lulled me to a meditative sleep with my eyes open. After a highway crossing, I filled up with 2 gallons of water from a cache I stashed there. I battled the screaming wind on an exposed ridge, then played a fun game of climbing steeply up loose hillsides, scampering over broad mesas, then back down gravelly rims and slopes. The end of day three, in a tight wash, quiet save for the ringing in my ears, I laid down tiredly. The absence of wind made the ringing quite loud, like a shell shock, a mad lullaby, a chiming chaos, and I toyed with the volume in my head trying to control the cacophony.

Ah, the next morning was grand. A slot canyon entrance guarded by a large catclaw the size of a small tree had a mylar balloon saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY pried within the talons of the giant shrub. For all I wished the balloon said GO FUCK YERSELF. These are all too common in the desert east of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Attaining a sky line after Wonderstone Wash I was afforded views of the Coachella Valley. After walking all day I got to my first town stop. People lined up at a Starbuck's drive thru, and I fund irony in the people of the desert, blazing hot, looking to get a hot cup of joe in broad daylight. I waited until dusk to walk out of town. The Friday streets of Mecca lined with Mexicans all said hello as I strolled by. I hoofed it out carrying a gallon of water in hand. Sleeping on the Coachella irrigation canal under a dazzling night sky I couldn't help but think of those buffoons at the famous music festival and here on this canal I had the whole valley and the lights of the sky to myself.

The Orocopa Wilderness had a maze of canyons and washed within tumbled mountain ridges pirouetting from the main axis of Orocopia Peak. The landscape showed utter erosion scraped clean from fast moving water, although rare spectacles as those floods may be. Transitioning from the Sonora to the Mojave Desert has been fascinating. From palo verde to ironwood, to ocotillo blending in between with red blooms around 2000ft; greasewood toe creosote, various chollas to yucca, the fan palms and oases disappearing while the jojoba and the occasional juniper appear. Even the rock is different, more volcanic and less-sea bed quality. Either way the wind howls and I am grateful for it. Water is non-existent, stretches between replenishing my bladders is 50m, over and over. I'm pushing it to say the least. But the mornings and the late afternoons are of dreamboat material. And I walk through puzzles of drainages, pour-offs to navigate keep me focused until I hit wide open country and let loose in singing, no, screaming out loud, letting it all free from what ever is diseased in me. Alive I feel, maybe that's how I keep my sanity.

The desert evokes a fear, deep inside of us, even me, a lover of the desert. You simply do not know what to expect. No cover, no shade, utterly exposed, only left to talk and think among the many selves of you. It can drive a man to insanity.Everything is so bare, so eroded, naked. It's the deepest crevasses of the human mind and spirit, all of it, like a desert. The desert shows us who we are, what we are afraid of. If we succumb to the fear, may the lion roar.

I don't know what lies ahead. Temps may get too hot and the water may be run dry. This sensibility thing, I know enough not to die no matter how hard I push myself. I've seen the brink, I know what I'm made of.

I'm the lone straggler waddling into the truck stop to eat food, wash  myself in the sink basin, and find a cubbyhole to hide my body to sleep within the desert fringe as the world moves slowly on. That thought, that empathy for what ails, the striving for balance, that thought has ended for now.

The Forgotten Route: The Desert Trail

Along forgotten paths, I see human migration, abandoned industry operations, game paths leading to safety, to an unreliable water source, or to a lair. Most of all, I see human exploration coupling with an undying curiosity and love for a landscape. It’s more than a recreational endeavor, more than a notch to list off in this day and age of ‘me' and comparison. I can see the vestige of previous human existence. Overgrown grasses and shrubs carpet an old road, wheel ruts are gouged beneath the small canopy of sagebrush and creosote in time frozen. Rusted metal pokes out of the sandy ground, heavy cogs and corroded rotors bake in the sun, the maw of adits exhale a cold, deep-in-the-ground-breath. The wind whips up grit of tiny sand pebbles erasing the nostalgia of times past, that vision of thriving or bustling wiped out by immediate needs: lack of water, thirst, the blazing sun, the unforgiving wind, the eerie stillness of harshness. And I see the wavy lines of the distant horizon. I leave the forgotten area for an illusion ahead.

I think of the Desert Trail as the Forgotten Route. The excitement that Russell Pangelly must have had in the early 1960's in potentially establishing the DT as a National Scenic Trail must have been fervorous. He evisioned a trail, with little signage and little actual trail path, and route finding navigation by map and compass. He scoured over maps to determine a route through a continuous desert environment on public land. He patterend his idea of the DT around the Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails, which at the time were the only 2 National Scenic Trails. This interesting and unique concept of the DT is that the common geological, biological, historical and scenery would integrate the common theme of the desert ecosystem spanning from Mexico to Canada, close to 2500m. The essentially unspoiled landscape, in particular a public land landscape, would be open to hikers to roam and explore. The DT promoted a wide-open space for hikers to explore and relieved pressure off of well-trodden and heavily impacted trails like the PCT and AT. An immense wilderness, a trail corridor, protected and backed by Congress, a National Scenic Trail that embodies the iconic West? What happened to this idea, this incredible concept? I imagine back in the 1960's the notion of a thru-hiker must have been far-fetched. Maybe it seemed more feasible in 1975 as Pengelly's son hiked the Oregon Desert section in 35 days and some 452m, which spawned parts of the eventual Oregon Desert Trail in its seedling days. In this day and age, with the popularity of trail culture and long distance hiking, even with craze of conservation, the concept of an actual Desert Trail, in a country with the greatest trail system in the world, seems unreasonable, a forgotten idea and a dream.

'Trail contruction will be minimal. Instead, the path can be marked in areas simply with cairns and it can be a point to point route.' excerpt from Backpacker article in 1976 by Betty Tucker, Building the Desert Trail

The Desert Trail Association formed in 1972 in Burns OR by Pangelly. He began ceaselessly writing letters to congressmen and officials at the USFS and the BLM, along with letters to wildlife and recreational groups, and conservation and hiking groups. Enthusiasm built and a year later, along with public land managers, the DTA scouted and hiked the first 30m of the DT from Diamond Craters to the Steens Mountains in southeastern Oregon. Pengelly's dream had legs. The proposed route described high desert peaks and barren yet brushy basins stretching from Southern California to northwestern Nevada. old stands of pinyons, ancient bristlecones and mountain mahogany stood watch over carpeted basins. Alkaline flats shimmered in the distance, the trail stumbled upon oases and thermal hot springs in random and remote locations, even shallow lakes squawking with waterfowl are abundant. The desert changes crossing volcanic lava fields, skirts craters and tip-toes over abrupt escarpments. Even water flows in some areas and you wonder while you pass old mining camps and caves, tramping near ancient indian camps and finding fossils and arrowheads, who survived here, thrived here so long ago. 

Interest ran high, but little was done in implementing the route further than a route description. Legislation even introduced to Congress in 1973 and 1975 to become a NST became unsuccessful. But that didn't stop the DTA from trying to keep establishing the DT corridor and route. Over a period of years the DTA began devloping and scouting routes in California and Nevada, with the section north from Diamond Craters in Oregon to and through Idaho and up into Canada never scouted or walked. Individuals of the DTA kept the vision alive and painstakingly placed cairns in lonesome ridges or plotted routes on maps or walked seldom-seen drainages and braved the lack of water and heat to do so. 

Original Desert Trail sketched route

The Desert Trail was a work in progress. As a matter of fact, it still is. Maps have been developed by the DTA with original maps from High Rock Canyon in northwestern Nevada to Diamond Craters published by the DTA throughout the 1980's at various times. The USFS and the BLM even have plotted the DT route on some maps with advanced planning in mind. I have even seen the DT signified in the Nevada Benchmark atlas maps in the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge Area. Then another group emerged into the picture, the Desert Survivors, a desert conservation group. Steve Tabor of the Desert Survivors worked with the DTA and developed the exquisite and incredibly informative Desert Trail Guidebook series of the California and Nevada portions of the DT in the late 1990s. Then, George Huxtable of the Death Valley Hiker Association published a guidebook of the Death Valley section in 1999. 

Another desert themed concept sprouted up in the mid-1980s with the forming of the Oregon Natural Desert Association from a diverse group with a shared love of the Oregon Desert. In 2010, Brent Fenty, ONDA's executive director, envisioned a route across southeastern Oregon connecting the wild places he and ONDA cherished so much, which eventually ONDA dubbed the Oregon Desert Trail. In 2011, ONDA took on this initiative and concept to make that desert landscape accessible and to become even more protected. The ODT spanned 750m and is still a work in progress having been hiked and explored by lovers of the desert, day, section, and thru-hikers alike. The ODT overlaps with the DT in the Pueblo Mountains traversing rugged hillsides under cliff faces scampered by bighorn sheep, across the barren yet colorful Alvord Desert, up in to the craggy Steens Mountains where one my encounter snow and brushy overgrown paths, all the way to Page Springs near the southern boundary of the Malhuer Refuge. In 2013, Sage Clegg, first hiked, even pedaled some, the entire 750m or so length of the ODT. Then in 2015, Renee 'She-ra' Patrick began working for ONDA as the ODT Trail Coordinator, as well as hiking the totality of the route and scouting further routes for the ODT. These accomplishments and She-ra's hiring are quite notable since Sage and She-ra are Triple Crowners, which brings critical attention and validity to the route and brings more eyes, ears, and feet to the desert.

'The biggest challenge is water.' Favorite line from Backpacker's 1976 article

The DTA still remains the de facto organization supporting the Desert Trail. At one time, 400 members supported and promoted the route. But just as the route lost steam from Highway 78 near Burns OR, the DTA did as well. Members aged, public attention shifted to popular hiking trails and more 'scenic' areas, and volunteer numbers dwindled. In 2007, momentum finally hit a wall and the DTA took a 7 year hiatus. In my eyes, from a desert lover, the route vanished because no one walked it. From my outside perspective, the DTA deteriorated in a similar light. Organizations need people, trails need walking. Although the DTA is an aging group, enthusiasm has grown and gained some steam slowly. In 2014 the DTA rebooted and 100 members now exist with the number of members and volunteers slowly growing. Besides the work of ONDA and She-ra for the ODT, the DTA is kept breathing by Dan Chamness, who provided me with some DT maps and is the editor of the quarterly newsletter Desert Trails. The DTA, Death Valley Hiking Association, and ONDA provide guided hiking trips, as well. Even trail work opportunities construct and support the life of these desert routes. It seems the DTA and the DT are survivable, but in my opinion, no one brought more critical attention to the DT than Buck Nelson. Simply put: he walked it.

In 2012, Buck hiked the then 'offical' Desert Trail route from Jucumba Hot Springs at the CA and Mexico border to Highway 78 near Burns OR. The route to that point was roughly 1500m. Buck's plan was to pioneer a route, roughly another 700m, to Canada. He eventually did. His route north from Highway 78 in central OR through the Blue Mountains, the Columbia River Plateau, through Spokane and up into the Selkirks and the Salmo-Priest Wilderness is now adopted by the DTA as the 'official route.' What Buck did was to complete a vision held by Russell Pangelly back in the early 1960s. Suddenly, the Desert Trail was not forgotten.

Buck Nelson on the Desert Trail in the Mojave Preserve

Buck's idea sprang from his work as a wildland firefighter and in the wild horse program across the expanse of the West's deserts, mountains and basins. He dreamed of a another route from Mexico to Canada in the West. Then, he stumbled across the DT in his research for a route. In the summer of 2011, he began planning in earnest. He received the guidebooks, the maps, and schemed up a route to connect to Canada with as much of a desert theme as possible. After all, the DT was to mimic the PCT and AT in stature, though slightly less stature. I asked both Buck and Dan Chamness, DTA secretary, why the original idea and sketched route of the DT stopped at Highway 78. Both wrote to me telling me the DTA planners ran out of steam. Private land posed an issue as well, and the route never got hiked. Buck came along with tons of outdoor and long distance hiking experience. A Triple Crowner himself, he developed a strategy and timing, scoured over walkable areas on maps, researched resupply options and caching points, and communicated with DTA folks, especially Dave 'Seldom Seen' Green, who at the time was the DTA chair. Most impressively, Buck spent a month caching food and water along the route, in particular in CA and NV, the first 1000m of trail. Water sources are scarce and unreliable in these vast areas, and the food hauls long and far apart. Caching food and water might be a painstaking and an exhaustive effort but it was important to Buck to lighten his pack, to be self-sufficient and reliant. I believe all this planning also showed his committment to hiking this route successfully. Then, as he walked, he tracked his route on a GPS and Google Earth and developed an actual walked route. From March to July in 2012, he hike the length of Mexcio to Canada, some 2223m, through a desert landscape. He finished the Desert Trail at a lone obelisk right near the triple point of the WA, ID, and Canada borders.

I think Buck's timing was perfect. New technology in mapping and research, the popularity of long distance hiking in the U.S., even the trend of route-invention to extend past the popular trails and areas, along with his outdoor experience all influenced and enabled him to complete the first ever 'thru-hike'of the Desert Trail. And now, I think the DT needs to be acknowledge, verified, and validated by other hikers to celebrate a different type of landscape, one that has a fear associated with it. Dryness, heat, lack of water, poisonous snakes, death----even more inherent fears of the desert stick in the mind. My intention is to hike the DT in a traditional thru-hiking fashion, carrying the long hauls of food and gallons of water on my back. I think I can do it, because I believe this is a route worth fighting for, worth walking, worth exploring. In totality, the desert is in me, more than what you think, even what I think. I truly hope to re-create Buck's route and/or modify the route to make it better, more walkable for others. The Desert Trail is a work in progress, certainly, and I aspire to push that progress towards something more real, more attainable, in the eyes of hikers, let alone the mindscape of our population.

The Desert Trail is mainly a trackless route across the deserts of CA, NV, and OR. Barren and wide open views, to say the least, with remote walking across basins, through sandy washes, and lonesome ridges. The DT consists of 656m in CA, 685m in NV, and about 159m more in southeastern OR until Highway 78. Included in the adopted route of the DTA is Buck's 723m extending to Canada. Most of the route is what I described in the beginning of this article, at least in my vision of what I drum up in my imagination. I cannot wait to re-create what I have in my mind, to solitary walk what I have been dreaming of for some time. 

The Desert Trail is an original idea that uses no other defined or named trails, a concept within a harsh landscape within a now popular trail culture: this route should be on the map of the mind of experienced long distance hikers. The route is a forgotten trail. Pushed and failed in legislation, an again and fading membership in a once-defunct organization, private land issues hindered a route further north, diminished public interest in an inhospitable place, environmental and mental obstacles in hiking the route complete, other cooler and more scenic trails gained in popularity like the PCT, and no one hiked it until Buck in 2012 all contributed to the lapse and fading memory and construction of the Desert Trail. Maybe that was the original intent of the DT----to have the ephemeral characteristic of a desert implanted in the underlying theme of the route. Trail-less, sign-less, lonesome and isolated, challenging and threatening, the vestiges of thriving times and ages extremely susceptible to the harshness of the desert, the boom and the bust---the bonanzas and the borrascas---the fat and the lean. All I know is my footsteps will remain temporarily, swept away in an ethereal air never to be seen again. One day my bones will be out there drying and baking in the sun, buried in the sand. The desert is here and now. The Desert Trail still is and, for me, not forgotten.

Desert Reflection

In the looming distance. abrupt angles signify a rise in the desert, a hazy butte wrestling with the veracity of what water formed; I relentlessly walk towards what I am not sure exists. What is it about the desert that validates my existence or what can be tangibly manifested from a force of nature? In contrary, what is it about the desert that validates nothing, that emboldens the void of a vacuum? Gazing at the blurry butte wondering if what is in front of me is simply created from my imagination deep within me or if the phenomena of the sun is an emblazoned mirage of something falsely physical, either way the impulse of curiosity, the instinct of my nomadic human way pushes me forward. Am I seeing through my eyes a manifestation of what my spirit imagines, or what my heart wishes to teach me? Or is it something on a basic level of survival? The need for water, thirst; the need for food, hunger; the need for existence, essence.