verbose brevity

Even Muir could be plain spoken and brief. A man known for his expansive and sermonistic prose could still have days with little to say, sitting in the meadows of Tuolmne, gazing on his favorite place on earth. Some days just are, as they ever were. It didn’t make them any less, but some moments deserve fewer words.

I want to get back into the writing groove, it feels satisfying to even write sparsely. But the writing prompts feel so pithy and distant. And so many days are just the same as the last. Sarah has really encouraged me to dip my pen back in the mental well, but I feel a bit stalled.

But this is the intent of writing exercises after all; the practice of using words to no other intent than finding better uses for them.

I should try my Fallout fiction again. I just need to find the right voice for it.

someone i used to know

Increasingly in recent years, the most jarring thing I keep running into about getting older is that if I think back far enough, and really put myself in that moment in time, I get a glimpse of what it felt like to be a different person. At first it’s just the memories of people and things, where I was physically in that moment. Then if I think more about it I get the sounds, the smells, the things that hit deep in our core memories, which suddenly rope in so many other scattered details as the strands of memory snap into a dense web. And within that web I get to re-experience who I was in that moment.

I get to look at that moment with the eyes that have seen a good chunk of life lived already, but still yet to see so many things, and with the weight of not knowing what was coming. All the comforts and unease, all the newness of now forgotten things, and the almost overwhelming sensation of what it felt like to care about the things that mattered most right then. So many things yet to know and do that hadn’t even occurred to me yet.

It’s an odd kind of memory, that sense of self, because it’s a disquieting feeling to be a stranger to yourself. Someone you knew once, but over the years lost touch with. But you get to periodically rediscover parts of yourself that you’d forgotten, and maybe dust them off for re-use.

the mountains win again

These days I feel restlessly claustrophobic more often than not. I grew up in fairly small towns, regularly left to my own devices, and encouraged to do my own thing with few boundaries I didn’t set for myself. So to live in a large city as I’ve done for the past ~14 years, where you are hemmed in by sheer numbers and rules weigh heavy to spread out limited resources among the throng, I’m never able to actually relax because I feel constantly on the verge of crossing some sort of line which will then dominate my time and attention. I dread to live at the whim of someone else’s displeasure.

I find my few asides here and there. Staying home of course is easy, but still has its own caveats. I rent, so the rules are not wholly my own, and my peace of mind still has a definitive width, length, and height. Outdoors is a relative term in Los Angeles; no matter where you go within the county, there is never a moment of solitude that does not have a hefty price tag attached to it. Even the enjoyment of personal peace has been monetized or at the very least socialized. And it’s simply not the way I function.

So often this claustrophobia leaves me spinning my wheels, feeling directionless in a box of disquiet. In my effort to avoid the weight of others, I leave my goals open-ended or even undefined, and I glide into a holding pattern of boundaries, feeling comfortable for the moment but ultimately unsatisfied in my own immobility. Like a rubber ball in a frictionless vacuum I start to bounce off the enclosure around me, faster and faster and with increasing force until something breaks and I’m propelled outside of it.

This past weekend my momentum had been gaining force until I simply took off for the eastern Sierras with no other idea other than go places I’d been wondering about on a map. I didn’t care about weather, snow, closed parking lots or campgrounds, I simply knew that out there I could reach the edge of perceivable humanity and have only myself to answer to. I could have the space every part of me was trying to find.

It took me a while to reach that level of comfort in the mountains. For a long time road trips were the extent of my freedom, because I had more room for all things I might or might not need in my car (which was always a high-clearance 4wd, because I never wanted my car to be one more thing creating boundaries). Then five years ago my dad and I spent 2 1/2 weeks section hiking the PCT and I started to learn just how open the mountains could be. Since then I’ve studied and geared for more and more advanced expeditions, not to achieve a goal but to push the bounds of my enclosure further and further away.

While the trip didn’t go as well as planned, it still culminated in filling in gaps on my personal map and spending a full day almost completely alone in high alpine meadows and forests. Reaching a point where I was actually able to relax took a while. My body had to get past the discomfort of steady use again, my mind had to be able to settle the details and find its rhythm. Aches and pains became part of the meditation of walking, one item on the short list of things that my mind chewed on over and over, considering and adjusting with each step. I struggled for air at 11,000 feet and my legs, hips, and shoulders ached as different muscles found and worked on solving different problems. I walked where I wanted until I decided I’d walked far enough. And as I went home I swore I’d do it again as soon as I could.

America the Baysplosionful

I came across this in my drafts from a couple years ago as an unfinished idea that I don’t remember writing, but I feel like it still holds true as an allegory of the path the United States has taken over the years.

I have come to realize that if you boil down the current state of politics in America, really distill it to how we got where we are, you’re left with the movie Armageddon.

Hear me out here.

It’s no drastic revelation that Michael Bay’s films are a medley of over the top American nationalistic fantasy, but Armageddon is a special case. This is not simply a movie about explosions. This isn’t just another movie that takes drastically oversimplified film tropes and gender stereotypes, wraps them in an American flag, and shoots them from an Apache helicopter. This is a movie about how Working Class Joe is going to save the world because he knows how to do one thing, which means he knows better than anyone about everything.

It doesn’t even matter what that one thing is. For some it’s a trade, for some it’s running a household, for some it’s wielding guilt like a taser of shame for existing. But in the ethos of the American dream, it is our duty to take our knowledge and show up those people who aren’t us, because by God we are proud of who we staunchly insist on remaining, and Ben Affleck WILL make it home and sleep with Liv Tyler again.

The analogy kind of falls apart at the end there but you get what I’m saying.

as it is written

The desire to write kind of faded on me a while back. I feel that the claws of social media, especially Facebook, sunk in deeply, especially the gratification of the “like” feedback loop, combined with its inherent lean towards brevity making it easy to put in minimal effort. You don’t have to do much, you don’t have to think much, but you get that dopamine hit in greater quantities. It’s an easy payout.

But then came 2016, and the parking break of decency seemed to have been taken off and society began to roll downhill. Everything just seemed to get sadder and everyone got meaner. Then 2020 came crashing down, and that feedback loop just became a reminder of all the things you wanted to forget were happening. An itch that you’d long ago scratched until it bled, and only then did the pain start to get to you.

So I stepped away for a while. Didn’t write, didn’t interact, just covered the spot of irritation to try and let it heal. But when I came back, it hadn’t fully healed. It had left a nasty, sensitive scar. People weren’t quite as mean, but the desperation was still apparent, and my own desire for validation stared back at me as something I couldn’t just keep feeding. Like any true addiction the pull was and still is there, but with an unpleasant bitterness of knowing where it leads.

So maybe it’s time to pick up truly writing again. Create as I want, but keep it away from the circus of aggressive attention seeking and competitive interaction. Maybe writing is just the start. Maybe it’s a good time to focus my lens closer.

striking a chord

Some days you listen to music to pump you up, some you listen to music that mellows you out. Today was an Africa by Toto kind of day, the musical equivalent of huffing nitrous oxide. Spotify radio was churning out some classics; Kansas, The Cars, America, then suddenly it landed on Don Henley.

I’ve never been a massive Eagles fan, but even as a kid I got into Don Henley’s solo stuff. Actual Miles, his greatest hits compilation, to me was infallible. As 80s-laden as it can be, it’s quintessential American rock, like the John Cougar Mellencamp of Los Angeles.

But this one song in particular, The End of the Innocence, even from the moment I first heard it in the early 90s, somehow can deftly hammer one particular key of my psyche. Hearing it is an immediate emotional gut punch, one that I rarely get from a song, but one that is distinctly nostalgic. This song came along at just the right time in my formative years and drove home those sudden existential and incredibly visceral emotions that come with the revelations of puberty; love, loss, uncertainty, disillusionment, all stinging raw from being freshly exposed.

The remarkable thing wasn’t that I remembered those feelings, because I didn’t. There aren’t any distinct memories around that song and the emotions it encapsulated, just fuzzy suggestions of general preteen confusion. But almost 30 years later, on an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, I felt them all over again. Just because an incredibly unsubtle 80s pop song came on the radio.

when it counts

I have a confession: In all my years since I turned 18, I’ve never once voted. Not once. Until today.

Call it cynicism, call it apathy, call it simply the selfishness of being a part of the demographic that our system is currently built to ensure succeeds above all others, but I never really saw the need. For the presidential primaries, every state I’ve lived in has been firmly blue for decades, and the electoral college essentially negated the need to cast my ballot among an overwhelming majority in a two-party system. It would have been effectively the opening shovel of dirt at a groundbreaking ceremony while a dump truck backed up behind me.

As for local senate, house, judicial, county, and city candidates and measures, none ever came up on my local ballots that were of any great importance to me. There was no great change to be made, no leap forward for the country waiting on the choice of its citizens; those battles were being fought elsewhere. I was a single white upper middle class male with no children renting his home, the only changes that hit my radar were big systemic ones, landmarks for the rights of a generation.

Then 2016 happened, and the already tenuous bottom the US political climate would stoop to fell out. I consider myself extremely politically moderate, able to appreciate the arguments of both sides even when I fall firmly on one of them. However watching the Republican party set itself on fire, collapse, then somehow re-emerge as some sort of hellish mutation of itself was baffling. But then its own victims rallied to support it, like some sort of large-scale Stockholm Syndrome. Dirt was flung from all sides, the Democratic party had more than its own share of scandal material unearthed and painted across the sky, but nothing could touch the political Godzilla that was the Republican presidential primary, seemingly growing stronger from each radioactive media meltdown it left in its path, our hubris coming to haunt us as a destructive monstrosity of our own creation.

I couldn’t not register this year. The true cynic in me could’ve sat back, Australian passport in hand, and waited, like watching your drunk neighbor try to prove his gun was in fact unloaded by pointing it at his face and pulling the trigger. But this wasn’t just about what could be tangibly lost, and there was plenty of potential for that. I’d be damned if I could let myself stand by and leave my dignity in the hands of others.

And so I voted.

playing in the parks

Today marks 100 years since the inception of the US National Parks Service. Normally I’m not much more than a passing history buff, certainly not when it comes to government programs, but this one in particular not only represents some truly great moments in my life, but is tasked with preserving and representing what are to me some of the greatest and most important parts of the country. In a time of burgeoning industrialization and expansion we had the foresight to not only set aside these places against our own talent for destruction, but to recognize that they needed an agency to continue their defense and to educate new generations about what makes them truly remarkable.

My introduction to the wilderness of the US actually started in a state with very little federal parks presence, but with an extremely visible delineation between protected and unprotected land. As I was growing up whenever we would travel from the valley into the hills and mountains we would pass vast areas of barren hillsides, denuded by logging. The contrast to the rich, lush green of the still untouched forests of protected wilderness areas was as stark a lesson as any children’s book, more lasting even than the pastel pages of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. This was very real loss happening before my own eyes. Growing up around logging and mills and with my dad working for a stint as a reforestation tree planter I knew that this destruction was not undertaken frivolously, but it was nonetheless a visible scar, the hills a Frankenstein patchwork of tree growth and the obvious sweeping hand of industry.

Ironically my first real exposure to the national parks was Volcano National Park, a place notable for a significant lack of trees. But the most important aspect of this park wasn’t necessarily preservation, but education. This was one of the best places in the country to see the earth itself function as a living, changing thing and see how we came to understand it. This park was also a prime example of protecting us from ourselves, as without guidance a shocking number of people would try to wander into a live volcano.

In 2005 I set out on my first ever multi-state road trip that spanned a significant section of the northwestern US in just under 2 weeks. Initially I had intended to hit a few highlights on my way from Oregon to Colorado and back, but the further I went the more I realized just how many parks I passed, some I had never even heard of. When I saw a park or monument on the map near my designated route, I had to detour to it. Some were iconic, like Devil’s Tower or Little Bighorn, others were simply grand and could only be sampled in relatively small portions like Rocky Mountain National Park. Each place was a unique and humbling experience.

On this trip I began my habit of keeping every National Park Service map as a souvenir, marking off the seemingly endless number of parks. While not representative of all the places I’ve been, for instance just last month my dad and I visited Crater Lake National Park however I neglected to get a map as we walked in off the Pacific Crest Trail, it reminds me of all the fantastic places in the US I’ve been and have yet to see, and for most cases would love to go back to. Before I even moved back to the US from my time in Australia I began compiling road trips to nearby parks, eager to see more of these amazing places I’d only experienced secondhand through glowing and breathless accounts and ethereal footage.

These parks to me represent not just the icons of America, but a gateway to appreciating the greater whole. They are a guiding hand into enjoying and understanding the larger world around us, its past and its future, and by proxy our own. And for those of us with the curiosity and enthusiasm, they represent the opportunity to rejoice in the best of what the natural world has to offer.

“There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

 

tr: mt san antonio, california

Of the things most people associate with Los Angeles, tall mountains are not among them. This is I’m sure in no small part due to the fact that it takes so long to get free of the city to get to them, they might as well be in another state. Not to mention that for a significant portion of the city’s history, the air was so bad you couldn’t see them if you were standing on them.

Among the tallest peaks is San Antonio, locally known as Mount Baldy, one of the few peaks tall enough to reach above the treeline. Baldy is something of a local test piece, the third highest peak in Southern California, and closest of the three to Los Angeles. From the trailhead, the direct route via the ski hut and Baldy Bowl climbs just around 4000′ in about 4.5 miles. While this makes it a serious lung burner starting the day at sea level, it makes the entire hike one long scenic viewpoint. Most people opt for a round trip via the Devil’s Backbone trail, but having done the loop last year I found I really didn’t care for the tedious hike along ski slopes and access roads, so I decided this time to take the ski hut trail both directions.

The day got off to a slow start, and I didn’t even get up to the trailhead until just after 11am. With clouds hanging low over the entire LA basin and backed up against the mountains, I’d actually somewhat hoped the mountain would be socked in by clouds and would thin the weekend crowds on the trail. That hope dried up with the clouds as I started to wind my way up into the mountains, and by the time I was parked the sky above was brilliantly blue, and the road lined with cars for a good quarter mile. I wouldn’t get a lot of alone time on this hike.

Having only just gotten off the couch a week or so ago following my wreck, I figured I might be a bit slower than the last time I did this hike, but I optimistically set out at my usual brisk pace. Unfortunately my body was not as optimistic and within the first mile I found myself sucking wind, hard. Thankfully for this trip I had brought along two new pieces of gear that I wanted to try putting fully to use: my trekking poles, and a new 3 liter water bladder in place of my usual Nalgene. I’ve always dismissed trekking poles as at best an old man’s accessory and at worse a hindrance equivalent to trying to hike while assembling your tent poles, but now as I wheezed my way up I was happy to have something to give my legs a little backup and to simply lean on whenever I had to stop long enough to put out the fire in my lungs. The water bladder I found to be a mixed blessing, as I’m notoriously bad at drinking enough water, however given it was buried in my backpack I had no concept of just how much water I had left and wound up drinking a fraction of it. Still, by the end of the day, I would be one of the only people who still had water.

Burning legs and lungs notwithstanding, I still made good time up the final ridge above the treeline where last year I had bonked hard. Swallowing my pride and not taking long, rangy strides in favor of short, rhythmic steps let me fight my body’s objection to oxygen deprivation up the last 1000′, and I finally crested the summit along with the steady stream of other groups. I immediately propped myself up against a rock, pulled out my meager dry lunch, and sat back to the sounds of the rush of the wind, the distand call of birds, and the endless chatter of people comparing selfies.

After an hour of resting up I decided to forego the longer Devil’s Backbone trail back, which eventually devolves into trudging along dirt access roads, and headed back via the ski hut. Only a dozen feet or so from leaving the summit I found myself followed by a trio of hikers who had no idea where they were going, and suddenly became an impromptu guide. The descent was fast and increasingly quiet as everyone’s energy and enthusiasm waned, and eventually the silence was only occasionally punctuated by grunts and groans of discomfort, including my own. The dirt road I had turned my nose up at from the summit was a welcome sight as we hit the home stretch, and we reached the parking lot tired but all in good spirits. Since my trail groupies had landed a little ways down the mountain from where they started I gave them a quick lift back in my car then headed home, stopping briefly for gas and grabbing coconut water and a protein shake in a desperate but futile attempt to placate my very, very upset leg muscles.

the long walk

My dad had been talking about doing the Oregon leg of the PCT for some time, and initially I had brushed it off as something we’d talk about but ultimately settle for a week somewhere along it. But over time, he talked more and more about it. Then he started buying gear. Talking about daily miles and food. Last month he came up with a daily mileage plan from Fish Lake to Cascade Locks, including resupply locations. And finally, two weeks ago we set dates and we talked about when to buy one-way tickets to Medford, OR. It was at this point I suspected we were actually going to do this.

The PCT as a whole seems not just daunting but wearyingly long. And I mean that literally; roughly measured at 2650 miles long from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, it’s actually 400 miles longer than driving. The average daily hiking distance is around 20 miles if you want to do it in under 5 months. It is one of only 3 trails in the US that let you walk anywhere near as far uninterrupted.

The Oregon portion is of course much more approachable, and has the bonus of being “home” territory for us. In his youth, both as a Boy Scout and with his family, my dad spent plenty of time up in the Oregon Cascades. I did my share as a kid growing up in Oregon, and again when I moved back as an adult. It is still a good 4 weeks of walking though. No amount of lightweight, modern gear will eliminate the daily need to cart around your food, water, and shelter for a month.

I’m already in decent shape, and have been trying to up my workouts in anticipation of this, but the need is very real now to literally get my ass in gear and start getting my body used to this kind of daily work. Working a cushy desk job, I’ve been spending the vast majority of the past 20 years sitting. I’m sure I can do this, but I know it’s going to hurt when I start, a lot. And there are plenty of question marks about the trip that are going to gnaw at me with doubt and concern until we’re walking.