The Desolation Wilderness is something to behold -- a stark, jagged, boulder-strewn, vast alpine lake-spackled moonscape. And it is something entiely different to hike across. It is a place so easy on the eyes, yet hard -- oh so very hard -- on the feet.
We walked our last day down to Hwy 50 today. For me, it was a brutal, painful trek. The descent down to Echo Lake was interminably long and ankle-breakingly rugged. I am sure that to some degree my body was simply shutting down early in anticipation of the break before us. My socks, a pair that I've been rotating through since Mexico finally gave out, the gaping holes giving way to searing, sore hot spots -- the maddening pre-blister pain foci. My sneakers seem to have lost all rigidity; each and every sharp little stone, cobble, and boulder drilling into my pounding foot like an electric cow prod or some such thing.
We made it at last to the nice but uninviting resort spot of Echo Lake. The store had just closed but they let us in for a quick ice cream bar before we pushed on through and covered the last mile down to the highway.
We caught a ride with a nice, talkative guy -- Dan, I think -- who works for the California Conservation Corps doing conservation and restoration team work out near Yosemite. He had done a Peace Corps stint in Tanzania years ago and seemed to know exactly where we are at in our own lives. He brought us as far as Placerville, just east of Sacramento (this northern California is much larger than we had thought), and after a quick attempt at thumbing another ride farther west we decided that this would have to be home for the night and strolled into town.
We spent the evening watching horrified and stunned as the images of hurricane Katrina and its destruction rolled, over and over agan, on the TV above our table at the pizza place. Eliza sobbed in disbelief at the hopeless extent of human suffering projected on the insensitively broadcast Fox News special. We left soberly and climbed a hill to find a relatively secluded spot behind some Oak cover and set camp for the night.
Tomorrow, it's on to the San Francisco Bay.
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