Round Two - With Wingman Paul (Day 3 & 4)

The morning of day three found me groggy but alive. I checked my watch and was surprised by its reading. 9:00 am. I popped the door open and crawled out of my sleeping bag and stumbled over to a Forest Service bathroom in my socks. My feet, legs and hips were sore and stiff from the past day. I came back to the car and sat around until Paul woke up. As we made breakfast a man came over from the camp that we had driven our car out of the past night.

“Morning”, said the man.

“Morning”, Paul and I mumbled back.

The man was dressed in a well worn undershirt and a pair of grey sweat pants. His receding hair was cut short and his face aged him to be about forty-five or fifty. The man made me nervous. He looked like the kind of person that it is best to avoid less you get caught up in their troubled lives. The man continued.

“Hey, I just wanted to apologize about setting up in your spot. We figured you guys were parked there for the day”

“Oh, not a problem”, I responded. “We’re fine right here.”

“Alright, just wanted to make sure. Hey, do you guys party?”

I was a bit confused by his question. Why does this guy care if we party? We’re as far from the party scene as you can get. Being simple minded a slightly out of the loop, I took his question literally.

“No, I don’t”, I said in all honesty for I had never gone to anything that I considered to be a party of the type I thought this guy was referring to. “But this guy does”, I said, pointing to Paul who I knew had gone to many a party in his high school days. The man shifted his attention to Paul.

“Actually, I gave it up. Just not my thing”, said Paul

“I’m freakn’ confused”, I thought.

“Ok, I was just wondering” said the man. “Well, you guys take it easy”

Paul and I said goodbye and with that the man turned and walk back towards his camp. After he was out of ear shot I started trying to figure out what the guy was all about. Then Paul turned to me and said, “Hey man, when someone asks you if you party they are really asking you if you smoke pot.” I felt about as bright as bat shit in the bottom of a cave. We still managed to laugh about it and agreed that the sooner we left the better.

After a light breakfast of instant scrambled eggs, we were about ready to move on when our sketchy friend came back over. This time he told us that they were there because they were traveling the country and that they had run out of gas and money. He asked if we had any cash to spare. Now I was really feeling nervous. His story wasn’t making much sense. The camp ground we were at was well off the main highway. If you were running low on gas it would make much more sense to press on towards Ely rather than drive into Cleve Creek. I had twenty bucks in the glove box but had no desire to give it to him. We simply said we didn’t have any cash because we were backpacking.

The days walk would take us 6 miles up Cleve Creek and then another 6 miles up to the top of the Schell Creeks where we would camp for the night – a 4,374 ft. elevation gain.

As we walked up the canyon, leaving my defenseless Suzuki with the pot smoking road tripper I couldn’t help but think that I was going to return in a few days and find my car’s windows smashed in and its insides gutted.

The road up Cleve Creek was easy going besides the fact that it crossed a broad creek several times. We ran into a brood of Blue Grouse and stopped to eat some ripe elder berries. We also ran into our first rattler. I heard it hiss as we approached. The ol’buzz-worm was of fair size but like most snakes wanted nothing to do with us. I poked at him with a stick just to get it to rattle then we left. The further up the canyon we went the smaller the road got. Maybe four fifths of the way up the road, some movement caught my eye. It was big and close and standing in the trees. It wasn’t spooking like a deer or an elk would have. It was silent except for its footsteps. I was so puzzled by the creature that I had trouble focusing on it for I didn’t know what to look for. Finally after a few seconds I realized what it was. A horse, a tethered horse nonetheless, seemingly materialized in front of my eyes. Then I looked up the other side of the road and right before us was a sheepherder’s camp.

The camp looked like any other sheepherder camp. The iconic covered-wagon-like trailer sat off to the side of the road with provisions scattered about. Unlike other camps this one had a vehicle parked near it. Most camps lack a vehicle for two reasons. The herders, immigrant workers from South and Central America as well as South Western Europe lack the financial income to purchase and maintain vehicles. Secondly, even if they could afford a vehicle they could never use it for their job entails being stationed in the backcountry with the sheep for months at a time. Their job is to watch and move the sheep which leaves little time for joy rides except on the back of a horse. This of course explained the horse in the trees. My mind jumped and played in the field of logic.

With the camp set right next to the road we couldn’t help but walk through. As we passed the trailer the occupants came into view - two men and a woman. Being the only humans for miles we were all intrigued by one another’s presence. Paul and I stopped to say hello and were met with unexpected hospitality. The herder, a young man not more that thirty stepped forward and introduced himself as Caesar and told us he was from Peru. We introduced ourselves and told him where we lived and briefly about our hike. He spoke broken English but smiled with interest. He introduced the other man and woman, actually a mother and son who turned out to be visitors from Las Vegas.

Caesar ran back to the trailer opened a chest cooler and pulled out two ice cold bottles of water and gave them to Paul and I who were happy to have the water after the long walk up the road. We talked some more about the area. We mentioned elk and Caesar again ran back to the trailer and pulled out his prize possessions - two elk dead heads he had found while riding his horse in the area. Someone thought of taking pictures and so I took pictures of Cesar and Paul each holding a head and then had Paul take my picture with Cesar. Wishing each other good luck and farewell we parted and Paul and I resumed our walk up the road.

In a short time we reached the end of the road. Caesar’s sheep had been hard at work grazing the forage to stubs. The water, ground and air reeked of sheep crap. A perfect place to break for lunch and pump water before entering the high country. As we sat in the shade, the ruckus of a car engine could be heard making its way up the road. Before long a silver heavy duty pick-up truck rolled up the road. It was turning out to be a people filled day. The truck was no regular civilian truck. It had state license plates, and as it veered to the right a familiar emblem could be seen stuck to the door. It was that of the Nevada Division of Wildlife, the same agency my father worked for.

Anxious to see who it was, we approached the cab of the truck. The face of the driver was unfamiliar to me. So was the name. But he knew my Dad. We talked about our hike, what the biologist was up to and what we thought of the creepy people back at the camp ground. With yet another farewell Paul and I shouldered our packs and headed up Taft Canyon - a side canyon of Cleve Creek. We had been watching for the canyon on the map all day and now, around mid day we were fairly confident that we were at its base.

According to the map and what we had heard there was a trail that led up Taft Canyon to Cleve Creek Baldy, one of the local peaks in area. From the peak, a foot trail led back to Success Summit where we intended to camp that night.

We found a trail that led out of Cleve Creek and up Taft but it wasn’t apparent whether we were on a human trail or a deer trail. As time went on it became more and more clear that it was of the latter type. The trail led up the bottom of the canyon, passing under and over fallen trees. The duff from unknown years of needles and droppings made our trail beaten feet a little happier. In the dense pines we lost sight of the surrounding topography and began to loose track of ourselves on the map. Obviously we were still in Taft Canyon but we were unable to tell what part of the canyon we were in.

“See this little bump in the topo lines?“

“Yeah?”

“I think that’s this ridge to our left”

“I don’t know man, are you sure were not over here? That looks kind of funny”

“Yeah, I can’t tell”
“So where to?”

“I don’t know. Let’s keep going up. We’ll have to climb no matter what way we go.”

“Sounds good.”

In the end we ended up taking the wrong route which led straight up the northeast side of Cleve Creek Baldy rather than the slightly less steep route which approached the peak from the north. The climb up the peak was probably the hardest of the whole trip. On a slope close to 45 degrees with sage brush up to your thigh, every step was a struggle. Our feet were in great pain but there was nothing we could do about it. The rewarding aspect of the climb was that we could look back all the way across Spring Valley to Mount Moriah and the table. A total distance of 30 miles and 56 percent of our entire trip lay in one view.

Late in the day after several false summits Paul and I climbed up and out of the steep slopes of Taft Canyon. We were beat from the climb but we had another 4 miles to go before reaching Success Summit and camp. The hike off of Cleve Creek was aided by a trail that I had been on before. Finally we reached Success Summit and found a suitable camp site in a small gully filled with scattered aspens. We walked under the light of dusk and set up camp as the sun left the glowing sky. That night, after dinner, Paul led us down a road that took us to Camp Success, a place which I had heard about but never been to.

Camp Success is a collection of cabins and bunk houses that has been used by youth groups, scouts and the general public whenever someone wants to hold a shin-dig up in the mountains while maintaining certain civilized standards like running water, electricity and refrigeration. The camp is nestled in a thick forest of firs of a north facing slope. I must say I was impressed. Besides just wanting to check out the place, Paul and I had empty water bottles which could be filled at relatively lightning speed with a hose. Paul was disgusted when he found that the main door to the main lodge was unlocked. It is a relative of his that has become the prime care taker of the camp. We went inside and looked around.

We were standing next to the kitchen filled with grills, refrigerators and utensils. We looked out into the dinning center that was filled with tables and chairs. Curiosity got the best of me and I took a peak inside one of the refrigerators. Expecting to see nothing more than the typical empty mayo jar and a box of baking soda, I found the exact opposite. The fridge was packed! Bread took up most of the space but the regular non perishables were all there. Crackers, chocolates, even ice cream in the freezer! I wanted to tear into it all as I was still hungry after dinner. I managed to keep my composure. I did however find a jar of jelly that had already been opened along with a jar of peanut butter and proceeded to make myself one of the best tasting PB&J sandwiches I had ever eaten.

Water bottles full and curiosity satisfied we plodded back up the road which took nearly a half hour. It was pretty late when we got back to the camp and a smoldering campfire. We crawled into our sleeping bags for the last night of our trip. Tomorrow we planned to hike out of the mountains and into town whose lights could be seen from just over the hill.

The morning came. Bright light, clear skies and crisp air. Tucked in this package of mountain joy was a whole slough of aches and pains. My feet, specifically the heels, were swollen the point that any up hill walking caused my boots to compress my heel which was very painful. There were no blisters, just pain. Paul’s feet were hurting a bit as well but had held up surprisingly well considering he was in running shoes. The packs had left their marks as well in the form of sore shoulders and raw hips. The camp which we had selected in the fading light the past evening had proved to be a little more sloped than was comfy. Thus the night had been interrupted with adjustments and repositioning. But all of this didn’t matter much as we knew we were on the last day and would be home by dinner.

After breaking camp we hiked up and out of the tiny gully that held our camp and onto a two track that led to the local apex of the mountain ridge. All the uphill walking was a terrible way to start the day but after a while our feet, boots and motions fell into somewhat of a harmonious state which slightly dulled the pain. As the road climbed to the top of the ridge it became steep and heavily rutted which would have made it a challenge for anyone in a vehicle but for us it was still easy walking after the miles of bushwhacking. This made me realize the true versatility of backpacking.

Other forms of recreation have their merits but most are strictly limited by their fundamental elements. You can go a lot of places on a mountain bike and even more on a four-wheeler or dirt bike. The degree of comfort one can experience in the wilds when riding inside a climate controlled air tight bubble of an SUV is unreal. And yet with every one of these mechanism one flirts with total disaster. One bad belt, one pesky sparkplug or bent frame and you’re up a creek. Not so with backpacking. Compared to the complicated forms of short term recreation, backpacking is beautifully simple and always adaptable. If you pack smart and keep your wits about you there isn’t much that can go wrong that can’t be dealt with successfully. When the shit hits the fan, when you are forced to offer your pack to the bears, when your tent blows off a cliff, your walking sticks break in half or your water pump is smashed to bits with a rock, there is really no problem because all you have to do is walk home because you, being a backpacker, will have no problem walking for a day or two to extract yourself from a predicament. Better yet you are presented with the opportunity to make your own repairs, sleep under the stars, christen a new walking stick or drink from water boiled and smoked over a fire.

Why is backpacking so adaptable? Because the sport is based on human anatomy. What is backpacking besides walking with a heavy load? Not much. But what is walking? Walking upright, my friend is a characteristic not shared by many creatures on this planet. Even fewer are capable of the level of efficiency that we humans possess. And this walking is an age old tradition. Over three million years of practice has gone into walking bipedal and to not take advantage of it, to not put it to use whenever possible seems a waste. Any dog, pig, dolphin or jellyfish can perch upon a four-wheeler and go for a spin. But it takes a human to go backpacking.

Cresting the ridge, Paul and I cast our eyes on the all too familiar Steptoe Valley nested under the foothills and benches of the Egan Range. Ely sat quietly to the north, too far to see or hear the details of its existence. Its dusty summer-roasted streets and buildings blended nicely with the sage and juniper. I felt an urge come over me and wandered off into the woods to take a crap.

Paul and I debated over which route to take. Again we had the option to descend directly into the canyon (Mosier Canyon) or take a slightly longer and less steep route along one of the ridges. With all our aches and pains in mind we opted for the gentler but longer route. We decided we would side slope under Camel Peak which rose directly to our south. After reaching the other side of the peak we would take the main ridge down which was in view and looked fairly easy going – limber pine and aspen that ran into open grassy slopes that dropped into the mahogany forests which slowly transitioned to pinion-juniper. By the time we hit the mahogany it would be hot and dry but it’d be down hill. Paul and I posed for one last picture, he and I with our backs to the camera looking out over Steptoe Valley with Ely in the distance.

The walk down the ridge was long and tiresome. To be honest I don’t remember much of it. We followed deer trails and passageways through the dense mahogany. For a while we were on some form of a trail that was more than deer. Paul thought it was an old pack trail that he had heard about once. We bottomed out in the bottom of Mosier sometime in the afternoon. An old sheep trough was overflowing with water that watered a gassy meadow. Paul and I took five under the boughs of a chokecherry tree.

The signs of civilization were becoming more and more apparent. Beer bottles and cans of every kind could be spotted while walking around. The road out of the canyon, which is a popular drive for locals, was littered with cans. Scrap tin lay further off the road, slightly more interesting that Coors and Bud but still unsightly.

We could see the end of our trip was going to be the hardest. So far the endless stream of curiosity had kept us going. Every bend in the road or crest in the trail held the possibility of surprise. But now we were in known territory. We knew that what lay ahead wasn’t anything exciting or grand. The only prospect was final relief from the trail.

The walk out of Mosier canyon was on a hard-packed two track. The sun shown brightly and the air was hot. My feet were throbbing with pain on every step. We broke out of the canyon and onto the bench where we followed another road. I opted to walk on the shoulder or out in the brush where the ground was softer. Paul and I didn’t talk much. He stayed on the road while I wandered out in the brush. The distance between us grew and shrank. We were beat from the trail. We took another break under the shade of some spindly Juniper. Sausage and cheese washed down with water then back on the trail. It was probably another three or four miles to the house from where we sat. The town sat in the distance busy with nothing in particular. I wondered if anyone would see us two lone souls walking in from the mountains. Would they be curious? Would they even enquire as to where we had been? If so I’d happily (and proudly) tell them. If not, it wouldn’t make a difference.
We polished off the last four miles in a single run. The less breaks we took the faster we’d be home. The whole way was on roads. The last mile was on pavement which I found excruciating and again, opted to walk where it was softer. Being in the suburbs, this meant strolling through lawns. Paul and I did take one little break in a park three blocks from my house, where we let ourselves fall into the cool grass where we lay until we were ready to finish. Even in the urban setting we were still on our hike. If we ate, we ate trail food. When we drank, we drank warm water from old plastic bottles. We did pass a pair of women out on an afternoon power walk. We passed each other in silence.

We walked the last few blocks to my house, the same walk I had made a hundred times in the course of my life. We walked into my house, I dropped my pack said hi to my thoroughly confused little brother and then out to the VW to give Paul a ride back to his house. I dropped him off and our trip was through.

Round Two - With Wingman Paul (Day 1 & 2)

Round Two

In late August of 2003, Paul Bath and I struck out on what has become known as Trail 22. The ‘trail’ was more of a collection of hunting roads, Forest Service trails and backcountry routes that I had formulated in my head during the doldrums of my junior year in high school. The route ran from roughly the Utah border to our home town of Ely, Nevada. I had found the mileage to be somewhere around sixty miles and later found the net elevation gain to be more than 13,000 feet. We had given ourselves four days to hike it.

Earlier that summer I had attempted to complete the route alone but had reluctantly given up half way through on account of a failing camp stove, failing knee and ominous premonitions of snakes. But I believed that if I had a wingman of sorts, I would definitely be able to complete the trek. Paul Bath had become my wingman.

I had played high school soccer with Paul for three years but until the day of the trek, I had never spent much time with him off the soccer field. He had invited me over to his house after an ultimate Frisbee game. He asked if I wanted a glass of water. I accepted and asked if he wanted to trek from Utah to Ely. I don’t think he believed me at first but when he realized that I was serious he jumped at the bit. The only problem was that he had college starting in the end of August. “Time would be tight”, we said, but we had confidence that we could do it.

The first day of our hike involved driving two cars out of Ely - me in my Suzuki Side Kick and Paul and his father in their rig. As a safety measure, we would leave my car in a primitive campground half way along the route. After ditching my car I hopped in with Paul and parent and we motored on out to Utah. We bounced and bucked up the last mile of road to the trail head of Hendries Creek. We ran through last minute checks and said our farewells to Paul’s father and began to walk.

Those first few minutes were hard on the mind because that’s when we first realized what we were about to do. I had run through the trek a hundred times in my head but each time the entire trip was covered in mere seconds thanks to my advanced CPU (Cranial Processing Unit). Now that we were actually there, the thought that, “We are going to be walking for the next four days” left me with a feeling of anxiety.

This first day of our trip would take us from an elevation of about five and a half thousand feet to an elevation of about eleven thousand feet over the course of eleven miles. There, on top of the Snake Range, we would camp. The next day we planned to hike out of the mountains, across Spring Valley (elevation, 5,580ft), and to the Cleve Creek Campground. We would spend the night at the campground then hike up Cleve Creek and up to the top of the Schell Creek range (10,700ft) where we would sleep for the third night. The next day we would hike out of the Schells and into town.

We started in the bottom of Hendries creek and followed a Forest Service trail up the canyon. The creek was present for more than half of the distance so we didn’t have to pack much water which made for light packs. The canyon, like most, was filled with leafy trees, cool shadows and green meadows of grasses and flowers. The trail cut back and forth across the creek and at times we had a hard time keeping track of it but it made for a more active hike.

Through stages, we eventually gained enough altitude to leave the moist green forests behind us. We then found ourselves amongst the regions oldest elders; Limber Pine (Pinus flexilis) and Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva). White firs and Engelmann Spruce soon surrounded us as well. The thick grasses and ferns had long since thinned into a scrappy carpet of grass, small forbs and spindly brush. The water had thinned out as well. While Hendries Creek was still flowing strong, our trail had led away from the water and now our bottles were near empty. No worries though. On my previous excursion I had discovered a tiny spring of flowing water near the top of the trail. There hadn’t been much but there had been just enough to pump. Now, late in the summer, I was wondering if the water had dried up. We dropped packs and deviated from the trail with our empty bottles to where I remembered the spring to be. At first we couldn’t find it but eventually we located the water. The pungent odor of elk urine gave the impression that the seep was heavily used by the wild life. Sure enough there was still a pool deep enough to successfully pump the diluted elk piss into our bottles.

Bottles full he walked back to the trail and our packs. One final push and we were on The Table, a flat expanse of tundra-like landscape that sits at eleven thousand feet. Twelve thousand foot high Mt. Moriah lay just beyond a ridge line to the south. Lightning flickered in the distance as the sun began to sink. We hiked across the table and into a thick stand of bristlecones were we set up our camp for the night. Eventually, a storm that had been off in the distance was upon us. We walked out into the openness of the table and sat on an ancient piece of eroding wood and watched the lightning until it moved on. With the lightning gone and the evening light fading fast, we retired to our tent. We felt good after the first day. We were both sore and tired from the hike up but saw no problem with going on.

The night before we left, I was down in the basement running through check lists for the last time. It was nearly 11:00pm and after a full day of work, I was wishing I was asleep. As I stuffed some things into my pack and tightened some straps I heard a voice behind me. I turned to see Paul. He was covered in dirt and his cloths hung off of him like he’d been crawling in a ditch all day.

“Hey man, what’s up?” I asked

“We had to go out to a wreck. A semi carrying lumber drove off the road on Antelope Pass. I spent all day hauling lumber out of a ditch.”

“That sucks, man” I responded. “You still game?”

“Yeah. I had a question though. Do you think these shoes will work?”

I looked down at his pair of New Balance Running shoes.

“They are all I have right now” he said.

“Yeah, I guess they’ll have too” I said.

The fact that Paul was attacking this trip with a pair of running shoes had me worried but as I would later learn, it was symbolic of Paul’s attitude which was: Don’t worry about the problem at hand, just keep working on the goal and a solution will arise.

The sun pushed us out of the tent the next morning. We had slept in a bit but not beyond reason. We ate and broke camp and were hiking by 8:30. To get off the table we followed another Forest Service trail that both Paul and I had been on before when we were younger. The trail took us down into and then up out of Dead Man Canyon until we reached the trails head. Once at the head of the trail we followed a road to the head of another canyon that we planned to drop into so we could get out of the mountains. After looking into our canyon and assessing our situation on our map we decided to stay on the road and swing around the mountain to the north and hike down a ridge rather than drop into the crotch of some wild canyon.

We made good time on the road. We encountered our first cows and discussed weather or not we could manage to kill one if need be. The issue was left unresolved. A little further down the road we passed our first human establishment – wall tent, four wheeler, pick-up truck, beer cooler – the unfortunate usual. Archery season had begun a week or so earlier. No human to be seen. Finally we arrived at the top of the ridge we intended to hike down. A faint two track followed the ridge for a while so we followed it. Eventually the road died and we were left to find our own way.

By now we had lost enough elevation that we were into the mahogany and pinyon forest. Bitter brush, cliff rose, ephedra and prickly pear were abundant as well but on the south facing ridgeline there was almost no underlying vegetation. Descending further, the ridge too began to die out. The slopes on either side began to get steeper and steeper. As we looked off either side of our ridge, we could see cliffs of rock becoming more prominent so we decided to slip off the east side of the ridge and down into the bottom portion of Salt Marsh Canyon. The going was rough. Thank god we were going down. The slope was littered with huge boulders and loose rocks, the result of thousands of years of erosion. I couldn’t help but push a boulder off the lip of a small cliff and onto the top of a pinyon.

After working our way down the bouldery hillside we ran into and paralleled a fence that led us out of Salt Marsh Canyon and into the main drainage of Negro Creek. A well establish two-track led out of Negro Creek and into Spring Valley. Once on the road we resumed our quick pace. The bush-whacking that we had to do to get down the ridge had taken it out of us. So far we had hiked 10 miles and lost five thousand feet of elevation. Luckily the march down the road was made bearable by heavy shadows from the building cumulonimbus.

About two miles down the road we stopped to pump water on account of empty water bottles. As Paul got started pumping water I scampered of into the basin big sage to respond to the calls of nature. Just as I was wrapping things up several fat rain drops pelted my head. Then another few, and more, and more. Before I knew it, the sky was down pouring. I ran down the road to help Paul knowing that none of our packs were covered. I rounded the bend to see him dragging our packs like wounded soldiers into the scant shelter of two massive cottonwoods. We broke out our pack covers and raincoats but most of the damage was done. It felt good to be wet after the dusty day. We sat under the trees and watched the road fill with water. The torrent was soon accompanied by salvos of thunder. The rain and rest rejuvenated our bodies and as soon as the rain eased, we finished pumping and moved on.

The rain still fell as we walked down the road. The thunder was mind blowing. Every thirty seconds a fait flash of light would wash over us and then three to four seconds later the thunder would follow. At times each thunder clap was overlapping with the other to the point that there was almost constant rumbling. I was a little worried that with so many strikes, our odds of getting hit were slowly improving. Nevertheless we marched on. Eventually the rain ceased and near 4:00pm we reached the mouth of Negro canyon and stared out across Spring Valley.

As I looked north up the valley a lightning bolt from another storm cell rocked the valley floor. A few moments later, another bolt streaked down from the heavens and solidly connected with the earth. The thought of walking across the valley under such fierce skies made me nervous. We’d be the biggest lightning rods out there compared to the sage, rice grass and wild rye. Paul and I talked about if either of us felt up to it and what time we would be getting to the campground. We concluded that we were both beat and that if we started walking right then, we would get to the car sometime around midnight. We decided to go for it but not before another downpour forced us to improvise a rain shelter which we sat under for most of an hour.

It was close to 5:00pm when we started walking. The valley was about nine miles across. All I had ever been told about the valley was that it was filled with snakes. This rumor had helped me give up on my initial attempt. The thought of walking in the dark and stepping over a bush and onto a hunting rattler had always been on my mind. Now, snakes or no snakes, we were going to walk it.

We cruised down the bench of sage brush for a mile or two until we got to the main dirt road that ran up the valley. There, we stopped for our last big break before the last push. Rested and ready we crossed the road and walked down a steep slope that used to be the shore of an ancient lake that had filled most of the valley. The valley floor was filled with small sand dunes, dried up springs, and shallow empty basins that hold water in the rainy season. A whole new array of plant life surrounded us that we had not yet encountered on the trip. Of course, all of it had seen the vicious hooves of hundreds if not thousands of cows over the past few seasons. The rain clouds remained as the evening light began to fade. However, the sun was not about to be out done. In the last minutes of light a fiery sunset managed to break through the grey.

By the time it was getting dark, we were about half way across the valley. I was starting to feel tired and my nerves were starting to fray. I still hadn’t given up the thought of death by snake bite. At one point I was following Paul along a trail when his foot brushed the seed pod of some plant (likely a larkspur). The pod shook violently and its dry seeds rattled in such a way that my tired mind took it to be an angry rattlesnake. I jumped back and let out a curse before I realized I had been fooled. A good laugh nonetheless. Throughout the night a thunderhead that could be seen over the Schell Creeks routinely blinded us with bursts of silent lightning.

Sometime around 10:00pm we hit State Route 893. A paved road that felt funny under foot but a fine place to stop. My usually busy mind had grown weary of all other tasks except placing one foot in front of the other. I snapped a couple of pictures and we sat down on the side of the road to relax in the cool of the night. I ate the last of my food and drank the last of my water. We had walked over twenty miles that day and we still had a few to go. As we were about to leave, a halo of light appeared on the south horizon of the road. Headlights of a car soon crested the hill. “Let’s see who it is”, I said.

The pickup blasted past us in the dark. “Odd”, I thought, so much for country hospitality. The brake lights suddenly blinked on and the truck rolled to a stop then drove in reverse back towards us. The truck slowed to a stop in front of us and a man in his forties appeared in the driver-side window.

“You boys alright?”

“Yeah we’re fine. Just taking a break.”

“Oh?” said the man

“Were on a backpacking trip”, said Paul.

“Where you boys coming from?” the man asked.

“Well this morning we were on Moriah.” I said, figuring he was a local and familiar with the area.

“Are you serious!? Whoa! You guys are some crazy bastards! Shit, grab some beers! There’s a bunch in the cooler in the back.”

Paul took up the offer and slipped two Coors into the breast pockets of his flannel shirt. We thanked our road bound friend and ambled off into the darkness.

Finally, near 11:30pm we tramped into the campground. My car was where I had left it but someone had made camp right next to it. There was a pickup with a camper in the bed and a tarp canopy stretched off one side. A pile of fire wood sat next to a fire pit filled with smoking, glowing embers of a dead fire. I didn’t care that the occupants were asleep as I started my car up and moved it to another camp sight.

We decided that it’d be easier to sleep in the car rather than set up the tent or risk getting rained on. Sleeping in the front seat of the Suzuki probably wouldn’t have worked the other 364 nights of the year but after hiking nearly 30 miles in one day we weren’t too concerned with the cramped quarters.

The First Attempt

The First Attempt

[Italics indicate trail-written journal material]

I pull my Suzuki Sidekick into the cleared parking area at the bottom of Hendry’s Creek and its trailhead. It's about 9:15 on a Friday morning during the summer of 2003. "Oh man", I think, "This is it, you're actually going to start this." I park the car in the shade of a large water birch and shut the engine off. There's a moment of silence before I open my door and get out. I find myself in the bottom of a canyon. On both side of me, steep talus slopes rise up, covered in sparse soil, low brush and cheat grass. The bottom of the canyon is flat but filled with scrub brush and a small but perennial stream that is hidden by birch, willow and rose hips. Hidden from view are the rocky toped Snake Range Mountains of eastern Nevada. Mount Moriah - one of the highest points in the range - cannot even be seen from the canyon bottom where I stand.

My father, who had been riding in the passenger's seat, also opens his door to get out into the fresh air. We both wander around to stretch our legs. I walk off to relieve myself and finishing that, return to the car. Dad has peeled an orange and offers me half. I accept. We wash our hands in the creek and return to the car.

"You want me to take your picture at the trail head?" he asks.

"Sure, that'd be great"

I shoulder my gear-laden pack and walk from the car over to the trailhead. While I try to contort my facial muscles into a decent smile, my dad snaps the photo. He slips the camera back into the top compartment of my pack and steps back while I tighten the necessary straps on my pack. Finished, I look up at my father who is looking at me. "Well" he says, "I guess this is it". We approach and shake hands then pull one another into the half hug that is customary of the time. Standing there I realize that this is the first time that I have embraced my father in a long time. With our farewell completed we exchange a few words then I turn and head out on the trail.

Something inside me doesn't like what is happening and fights it by filling my body with emotion; most noticeably a lump in my throat. I ignore it. As I walk on I hear the tiny engine of my car jump to life. I keep walking. I can tell that the car is not moving or that it has only moved slightly. I stop and turn around and see that the car has moved but instead of it facing the way out it is facing me. What my dad is doing I have no idea. Is he having trouble with something? Does he see an animal? Is he holding the car there as an act to give me a chance to call it off and return to the safety of my home? I don't know, maybe he just wants to watch me go. I turn and walk away, partially wanting to turn back.

So that was it. That was the start to the great adventure that I had spawned in my head several months earlier. The plan…? Well, at first it really wasn't a plan, more of an idea. The idea was that I would load a pack with gear; head out my front door and into the mountains. Four or five days later my parents would drive the hour and a half over to the Utah border and hopefully pick me up. Needless to say, my parents were not too thrilled by the idea. I was 17 and relatively efficient in the outdoors but they believed they had put to much time and money into me to take a chance like that.

The idea eventually evolved into a plan complete with a mapped route, preplanned campsites and emergency supply caches. The trek would start at the Utah border and end on my doorstep in Ely, Nevada. The route would cross over 60 miles of Nevada terrain, which included three mountain ranges, one wilderness area and two valleys. I planned to do it in 4 days. As far as I knew no one had ever done it.

Why anyone would want to start such a trip was still relatively unknown to me. I do know that I had been inspired by my Nevada History class, which dealt with westward expansion. After reading about the Donor Party and their adventures I felt an urge to experience a situation of similar circumstance (the traveling part more than the collapse of social norms). I was also eager to hit the mountains after spending most of my winter in the lowlands. My adventurous spirit had to be satisfied.

It was these reasons that resulted with me at the Hendry's Creek trail head on July 18^th at 9:30am. Not much to do but walk. Not a lot happened. Eventually I depleted my one full water bottle so I decided to take a breather and pump some water from the stream that I had been following. I pumped enough to fill the bottle then pumped directly into my mouth to quench my thirst. Finished, I packed up the water pump and grabbed the water bottle. What I saw sent a wave of panic through my body. FLOTSAM! "No, it can't be" I thought. My bottle was filled with it. The water was almost cloudy with debris when it should have been totally clear. "Shit! Did the pump fail? Oh God! I pumped all that water into me!" I was petrified with the possibility of a broken pump with twenty-plus miles to go until there was totally safe water and terrified with the fact I could have ingested water that could hold any number of water born parasites. Was I going to get sick? No help from below, still another 10 miles or so to the table. Was I going to die? "Damn" I though, "How did this happen?" I dumped the water out and tried again. Less flotsam. I figured that was a good thing. I walked back onto the trail. As I looked at the water I realized that most of the particles were fairly large. These, I concluded (and hoped) were actually particles that had washed off the rubber tubing. I was still unnerved about the water. "Carry on", I thought. I realized there was really nothing I could do about it now. I could boil it. Not worth it, to much fuel. The damage, if any, was done. Besides, I'm always up for making friends, even if they happen to reside in my small intestine.

To keep my mind off the water incident I let it wander. Several thoughts passed through my head. The first, weightlifters. Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about those big, burly, iron pumping, vein busting individuals of society. Someone of such dedication and devotion to one's self should deserve quite a bit of respect, no? Ha! Respect!? You'll get none from me. You'll get none until I find you where I stand now. Until you put your freakishly built body to work you are deserving of nothing. You wouldn't even know where to start when it comes to backpacking. Weightlifters; kiss my ass. Another thought, more of a realization, is that all of us, in various and often hidden ways, are dependant upon our parents. As we live out our last hours of life, it is apparent that all that we were in our lifetime can be based upon our rearing in the home.

Further up the trail now. I find myself amidst the Aspen, fur trees, columbines and grasses. The stream is smaller now and flanked by mosses and ferns. I need water. I pump. Looks clean, I'll trust my gear. Could be the last water for a while, so I fill four liters into water bottles. One two-liter bottle is throwing my pack off balance. More hiking, more thoughts.

Again I find myself without water and thus in need of it. Goddamn life cycle. I'm close to the table of Moriah now. Less life about. The grasses thin, trees make room between one another. The lush Nevada forest I had been hiking through for the past few hours gives way to the alpine landscape. I see a dry creek bed and decide it's worth investigating. I drop my pack, drink the last of my water and proceed up the dry creek bed in search of a seep. The creek bed runs west to east. Its head is a talus bowl that runs down from the high ridges that lead to the peak. It runs downhill, across my path, down into the trees and I assume back into Hendry’s Creek. My uphill search ends waterless. I return to my pack and decide to search downhill. Success! About 400 meters down the creek bed water breaks the surface and pools about the rocks. I am elated, for now I don't have to hike the three miles back to the last water I saw. I also pride myself in the fact that not many people would have found the tiny seep due to its size and ephemeral nature.

I settle into a comfortable position and begin to pump from a small pool not more than six inches deep. I am careful not to stir up the silt. Don't know how much this pump can take. As I sit pumping, a small sparrow appears at the edge of a pool below me. It flits onto a rock, freezes while it checks its surroundings. Assured that it is safe, it dips it's beak to the water and returns to its cautious stance upon the rock. All of this being done in the blink of an eye. The bird goes on like this for a minute or so. While the bird drinks and I pump I feel a strange yet strong connection to my environment. Here we are, bird and man, one small, one powerful, caught in the same dance for life. I, the member of a social group so powerful that we alone could determine the fate of the entire planet (my feathered comrade included) and the bird, who's presence on this planet is only noted by myself and his or her mate. We now sit together with one shared objective: to drink. So simple. So beautiful.

Thunder rolls through the rocky crags of the high country. For me there is no better sound than that of thunder. It is a sound of good things to come. I love it. I love it now more than ever. At the sound of the thunder my mind is cleared except for her. I see her, with all her grace, intellect and beauty. She fills my head and life is good. Sonic aftershocks rise and fall, and she too fades then returns in my mind as the thunder rolls on. I long to share the moment with her but would it be the same?

My bottles filled, I hike back up to my pack. The extra weight of the water is painfully felt. My hips are raw from the hip strap sliding over them. Some pack adjustments are certainly needed.

The steepest part of the trail now lies beneath my feet. Soon I crest the hill and find myself on the table. A wondrous, nearly level, tundra-like place. There exists only small forbs and grasses, a few trees cling to the ever rising mountains but for the most part it is a level tundra. A murder of crows, numbering close to 200, rolls along the table. I assume they are feeding on the grasshoppers which appear to be quite numerous.

I find a camp site after chatting with two gentlemen who came up from the west. It begins to rain. I sit in silence under a tree and wait. The rain slackens enough that I can set up my tent. I spend the evening watching animals, eating dinner and writing.

That night, I fell asleep without a definite plan. I knew I was going to hike off the table and down into Cricket Canyon and the south fork of Big Negro Creek. Once out of the canyon I would be on the eastern side of Spring Valley. I had planned to cross the desolate valley under the cover of darkness to avoid the sun and ranchers whose land I would be crossing. Once across the valley I would camp for the night then head up Cleve Creek the next day. I would hike up Cleve Creek until I reached the bottom of Kraft Canyon at which point I would follow it out of Cleve Creek and up to the top of the Schell Creeks where I would camp for the third night. The next day I would hike out via Mosier Canyon and into town. It had never sounded extremely difficult before but after the incident with the water pump, I felt like I was pushing my luck on borrowed time. My stove was also on the fritz and required constant attention when in use. To add to my indecisiveness, the only things that I had heard about the ten mile wide Spring Valley was that it was full of snakes. I hardly had to imagine how easy it would be to step over a bush and onto a prowling rattler in the dark of night.

Morning found me sleeping in, and I wasn’t able to break camp and begin hiking till close to 8:00am. Luckily the clouds from the night’s thunderstorm were still thick and succeeding at keeping the temperature low. The hike off of the table was easy due to the fact that there was a trail and I was in slightly familiar territory. The trail was steep and with a heavy pack it was very easy to hurry along. I reached the trail head some time later then bushwhacked a mile or two to a point on my map that showed a clear but steep ridge that dropped into Cricket Canyon. I had never been into the canyon before but the mapped showed a road heading out the bottom of it so I figured it’d be an easy walk.

My assumptions about the canyon turned out to be dead wrong. The canyon walls were cliffs of crumbling limestone which limited my points of access from Cricket to Negro Canyon, and the Negro Canyon bottom was choked with vegetation. The road was there, sort of. Parts of the road were open but most of it was shrouded in thistle, choke cherry, rye grass, birch, rose hips and many other species of plant. By now the sun had come out and the temperature was beginning to rise. Inside the canyon, with its thick foliage and stone walls, it began to get rather warm and humid, a rarity in the Great Basin. As I barged my way down the road I realized I was in perfect snake country. I was grateful I was in Nevada and not some place back east where you really have to watch where you step. I totally lost the road at one point and, faced with a wall of foliage, resorted to walking down the creek. At least I could see down the creek and the fear of snakes dwindled. The going wasn’t much easier. At one point I slipped while walking a log and instinctively grabbed onto foliage for balance. I was disappointed but not shocked when I realized I had grabbed a hand full of stinging nettles.

I left the creek after fifty yards, clawed my way through the rosehips and eventually found the road again. At one point I stopped to catch my breath and to take in the sights that were around me. I examined a tree for no reason in particular and was stunned when I followed one of its branches out to its extremity. There was fruit in the tree! “Apples!?” I thought. Sure enough, tiny apples about the size a chicken egg were in the tree. I marveled at the tree and thought about how old it was and who had planted it. Maybe there were more trees like it in the canyon. In the garden paradise that was Negro Canyon, I took the fruit from the tree and did eat them so. When I realized my seemingly biblical situation I was certain that the serpent was lying somewhere, basking in the warmth of solar radiation.

I had lost about 4,000 ft of elevation over 7 miles in the course of four hours. My right knee which had ACL problems in the past was starting to feel strained. I stopped for a quick lunch of crackers, cheese, and meat then forged ahead through the Nevada flora. As I moved down the road an impulsive buzzing came from behind me and I added an extra yard to the step that I was in the middle of. There, under a ledge of limestone, the unmistakable coils of the rattler slowly restricted around themselves. The serpent of paradise had finally showed himself. I examined the snake while my heart and lungs began to function again. It was a medium sized snake that, had he struck, would have left me in pain and sickness for a few days but alive. I apologized for disturbing his basking and eating his fruit, then cautiously walked on. A lot of people shoot snakes on the spot. I for one have never killed a snake out of spite. Like most ‘dangerous’ animals, if left alone they really pose no threat.

I finally broke out of the jungle that was the south fork of Big Negro Canyon. My arms and legs stung as the sweat oozed into the numerous lacerations that were left from a dance with the rose hips. It was another five and a half miles down a well defined two-track. The sun was high in the sky now and the temperatures were nearing their highs. I arrived at the stashed car around four-o-clock. On the way out of town the previous day, Dad and I had each taken a vehicle. We drove to the bottom of Big Negro Creek and left one rig then drove the second to the other trailhead where I was dropped off. The only problem was that the car to be left at Big Negro (our Ford Expedition) had suffered a flat tire. This was resolved by installing the spare, but this left the rig vulnerable to future flats and left me with a sub-par escape vehicle. Dad planned to return with the Suzuki and a patch the tire before my trip would end.

I ate some food, lounged in the shade, then heard the whine of a car engine and saw my white Suzuki Sidekick crest the hill with my parents inside.

They asked how I was and if I was going to go on. I though about it for a few minutes then said no. My knee, the stove, the snakes…they all had twisted my will into submission and I couldn’t argue myself into continuing. As we all left the canyon and I left my endeavor unfinished, I vowed that I would begin as soon as possible with a second attempt. If only I could find a friend to come along…