A South-Northerly Direction

Happy New Year Everyone!!

The final days of 2016 were full of contemplation and review. I text Josh in hopes that one of us had dropped the tug-o-war rope, and by one of us I meant him, but alas we remain at an impasse: He refuses to be friends, and I refuse to be a couple. Maybe one day the timing will be right...maybe one day I'll be able to be in a committed relationship...maybe...or maybe not. 

I woke new years day to realize I still had the on-call phone for my job and tried to contact my staff to take it over so I could go out of cell service to hike. I began texting people at 7:30am, (sorry guys) and after no response I resigned myself to staying local and headed out to Mission Trails for a walk along the river. Eventually someone text me back about taking the phone and I was able to ditch the cluster fuck that was Mission Trails and head up to the shit show that was Mount Laguna. 

Even amidst the chaos I was overcome with gratitude for being there and watched hawks hang on the wind currents and snow blow out of the trees in grand displays of sparkling mist.

Amazingly, I came to a turn-out with no one in it and stopped just long enough to take a photo of the PCT covered in snow as it headed down into Chariot Canyon.

Back on the Sunrise Hwy all traffic came to stand still as fire crews worked to remove the driver from a spun out Tacoma. Everyone looked shaken but ok as I passed by.  I sat in traffic again at the turn off for Julian until I could stand it no more and jumped the curb passing everyone going left so I could make a right and head down Banner grade to Anza Borrego.

I turned off at Scissors Crossing and followed the San Felipe Hills eventually turning down Montezuma Road toward Ranchita. It was beautiful, crisp and cold with a wind driving the clouds over the rocky mountains as I crested the grade and wound my way down to Culp Valley.

Jerry Schad says there is a waterfall here in upper Hell Hole Canyon, and I half heatedly set out to find it. I followed a dirt road thru the camp as it turned west toward Pena Spring. I parked at the turn out and headed down the sandy wash. Schad's instructions say to head toward the spring and then take a northerly direction across the open desert. Once I arrived at the spring I followed a use trail thru the marshy soil and slippery grass only to arrive back to where I started. I followed another use trail and again, ended up back where I started. I laughed at myself but felt annoyed and I abandoned the use trails, being unable to discern what was people trails vs. animals. I headed cross country plowing my way thru creosote and yucca in what I thought was the right direction. 

I dropped into a small valley where I was being pounded by wind and started to feel lost. I couldn't recall Schad's directions beyond 'head north' but didn't want to stop and pull it up on my phone, so I followed some footprints up hill into the on coming wind. I pushed myself hard up to a boulder field and looked head on into the incoming storm. Finally, I looked at my compass and realized I wasn't heading north at all, I had actually been heading west on the most difficult route I could have chosen. What a dummy, I thought to myself and turned back the way I came.

Back in the little valley I found a spot where the wind calmed down and stood there for a bit to take a breath. I took out my compass again, this time keeping it out, and headed in a northerly direction acoss the desert like the book said.

For some reason I kept choosing the hardest paths to my undetermined destination. I'd hike up, then down, then back around, check my compass and then go the wrong way. What the fuck, Mandie?!

I finally realized there was a wash with a million footprints heading down the canyon. I thought to myself, "oh, that would have been a much easier path to take." By this time I'd been wandering around in this small valley, being pounded by the wind, and only going about a half mile point to point in about 2 miles of random up hill circles.

I eventually crested the top of Hell Hole Canyon and found myself too tired to continue. I looked back the way I came and saw dark skies and mist heading toward me. I decided to turn around and head back, hopefully on an easier route.

But still, I ended up making small circles all the way back! Uphill and back down, thinking something was a short cut only to find it lead to a cholla patch and having to backtrack. I felt something switch inside my head and I stopped, looked at the clouds and realized this hike was a metaphor for my life over the last year.
I've been walking fast in uphill circles against a head wind to no defined destination.
I am exhausted by it.
I am over it.

Back in my truck I drove into the storm on my way home and thought about the new year that was upon me. "I need to focus", I thought, "I need a direction." Just then John Graham popped into my head. I don't know this guy, I just follow him on social media and read his blog. I watched him do the 52 Hike Challenge during 2016 and he has gone to some places I never even knew existed in San Diego County. I thought back to my mom who told me recently that perhaps the reason I'm not seeing Spirit in my life is because I'm going to the same places and doing the same things and Spirit has nothing new to say to me.

Maybe it's time to stop doing it my way and start doing it a different way. I need to join a community, join the world, be part of something bigger than myself and make friends...make girlfriends... because hanging out with girls is a challenge for me due to self esteem issues. I realized that if I continue to try to maintain friendships with men, they're just going to keep turning into relationships which are going to lead me to lose the friendship I wanted in the first place. I know this because it has been happening since I was a kid, over and over; me going uphill in circles toward an undetermined destination in a familiar location while pretending it's some place new.

Just as I came to these conclusions a Coyote friend crossed my path and held eye contact with me for a long time as if to say, "Yes ding-dong. You're finally getting it."

So, when I got home I signed up for the 52 Hikes Challenge Explorer Series. No sooner did I share my plan to social media did I get a response from 4 women wanting to hike with me. This is going to be good, challenging, and good. Perhaps 2016 was like the Earth switching poles, energy wobbling back and forth until it finally committed and fliped for good.
I hope so.
I'm ready to flip.

Japacha Peak Do-Over

The stupid Santa Ana winds are killing me at home. It's been almost 100 degrees at the beach for a couple of days and I can't deal. 

Seriously November. C'mon now.

I have been feeling super bazaar lately, with a lot of visual disturbances that are migraine like but with no pain. I feel generally out of body, and when I'm not blinded by sparkly lights, things look really big or really far away and sometimes I think I'm moving when I'm standing still. I went to the doctor and she didn't seem concerned, so I figure since its been going on for weeks, this is my life now and I need to get used to it. 

I was hoping some exercise would help get me grounded, so I took advantage of the cooler inland temps to get a hike in. I drove without a plan on where I was going and listened to old 90's rock super loud as I drove thru Mount Laguna. 

The only redeeming qualities of the Santa Ana's is that the air gets really clear between brush fires and you can see for a looooong way. 

I have been annoyed at myself for not being able to reach Japacha Peak. I'm tired of being fat and sick and not hiking like I used to. Before I knew it my subconscious took the wheel and I was back at the West Mesa trail head. I got a late start and headed up the fire road around 11am. I was pleasantly surprised at how good I felt, albeit still dizzy, and I made it up the road in record time for me.

I stopped to pee and noticed this cute little birdhouse hanging form a tree! 

In hindsight, I hope its a bird house and not a trail cam because if it is, it totally has pictures of me peeing. -_-

I didn't see as many tracks as I did the last time I was out here and I felt a little bit better about the hike.

But as the fire road turned to trail I kept hearing rustling in the bushes. It would happen while I hiked and stop when I stopped. Some I could attribute to birds and wind but others sounded much larger. I started to get 'the fear' and I thought it might be a good idea to play music on my phone so I could announce my presence to any unsuspecting mountain lions. I normally hate when people play music on the trail for all to hear, but on a Thursday afternoon I didn't think I was going to run into anyone else and bum their trip (even though I secretly hoped I would because I was scared).

I was grateful for the wind as it helped to keep some of the bugs at bay while I trucked thru a damp creek drainage. I was feeling tired but ok and pushed hard to make it to the top. 

Finally, after several long and winding switchbacks I crested the hill onto a small saddle. Cuyamaca peak came into view and I looked down on the west face that I had viewed from the bottom a few weeks before. You could totally summit from that side. It wouldn't be fun but it would be cool!

I turned my attention to the high point to the south. I knew it was going to be a bushwhack but I didn't realize how bad it would be. I spent a long time looking for some kind of use trail through the buckthorn but to no avail. Even Middle Peak, which is a bushwhack and a half, had a use trail. I got frustrated and just kind of charged into it, all the while cursing myself for wearing capris while my legs were being shredded by the plants. I made it up to a boulder pile but couldn't find solid footing. I looked around for some kind of summit marker or register box but found nothing. There was another slightly higher boulder pile a short ways away but my legs were scratched and itchy and I was just generally over it. 

This is my summit for today, I thought. Close enough, fuck it.

I climbed back down with no particular direction, just trying to find the route with the least possible contact with scratchy plants. When I got back to the saddle I sat on another boulder pile and ate a snack and drank some water. I was smart this time and brought three liters after cameling a fourth in the car and I definitely needed all of it.

It was just before 2pm but the shadows were already starting to get long (curse you time change) so I started my descent. My body was super duper sore and I knew it was going to be a slog but I rode the satisfaction of having made it to my destination, albeit approximately, most of the way down the switchbacks.

As the Burnt Pine trail met with West Mesa, I again started hearing noise in the brush that was too big to be birds. I was nervous so I turned up my music and looked behind me every now and then, scanning the brush for what might be following me. I wanted to know what it was just as much as I didn't, and it made me pick up my pace to an unnatural gait. The trail dropped into the creek drainage and I came across some very large, very fresh mountain lion scat next to tracks that led to the bushes and felt my stomach get tight.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid I told myself. I have been walking with a lot of fear these days since the break up. I keep telling myself it's due to a lack of confidence and self reliance and the only way out is through. I have to keep pushing myself to do the things that make me, Me, and work through the anxiety. After my self pep talk I let out a little woooooo! Which I hoped would be a motivator to myself and a detractor to whatever was watching me in the bushes and I high tailed it out of there.

Finally, the narrow brush lined trail met with the wide fire road and I felt a bit better about my odds. It was here I found a set of  very fresh bobcat tracks weaving in and out of my own and figured that was who was stalking me. 

I had a run in with a bobcat and her two kittens on the Airplane Monument trail a few years ago which isn't far from where I was. Sorry for the potato quality. Phones didn't have great cameras like they do now way back in 2012!

This one you can actually see mom on the top right. On that hike I decided to head back after I saw them because I wasn't sure how crazy mama bobcats will get over their kittens. She ended up stalking me by zigzagging the trail behind me, and in no secret kind of way either. I waited by a tree for a bit with my camera ready to see if I could catch her crossing, when all of a sudden one of the kittens popped out on the trail right by me. I kind of freaked out and stepped away and the kitten let out a little squeak and jumped back in the brush. I was close enough to the road by then that I didn't fear an altercation, but I still walked pretty fast back to my truck!

 But I digress, Back to this hike...

 I was pretty sore by the time I made it back to the truck and my eyes burned something fierce from all of the salt on my brow, but I didn't get eaten, so I had that going for me which was nice.

I drove home tired but satisfied at being one step closer to once again being comfortable in my own skin as a solo hiker.

If anyone has a gps track or directions to find the use trail to the summit register of Japacha please hit me up! I don't know if I'll attempt it again anytime soon but I kind of want to see how close I was to it!

Break Up Drives

I feel inspired by the mountains again, the PCT sadness has shifted, replaced by the familiar uneasiness of being alone. Driving thru the storm, the fog paints the world white. My eyes ache and body strain to see ahead, when suddenly it clears and everything is sharp and focused, all the colors are vivid and the tension in my body gives way to a great release and I sigh, "wow". The air is cool and the hills are cloaked in orange and gold and I am happy, at last, to be there. 

I know I've hurt him and all I can do is keep moving forward. I am searching, trying to find the self that I lost so many years ago. I can't stand living this way, as this stranger, this sadness, this selfish desperate shell. 

My mind drifts and I think of Yosemite and that day on the Merced. Random visions of places I've been, memories I didn't know I had of vistas and creeks and trail, all generic then, but somehow locked deep inside my mind, and I go back, all the way back, while I'm sitting in my car.

Will I go back in earnest? Can my body carry my will? Shouldn't I be longing for a companion? Shouldn't I be planning "a life"? All I long for is mountains and a body that is healthy enough, to carry a mind that is open enough, to direct a spirit light enough, to take me there, to that place where I look out from the edge and know I can fly. 

Like that night at City College when I stepped out of class, hands covered in paint, and the atmosphere looked like liquid; downtown the bottom of a great ocean and I felt my insides click together and I knew if I stepped off the ledge I would float, neutrally buoyant, out across space into nothing, or everything; into familiarity, into Home. 

I don't know if I've ever loved anyone or if I ever will. Love is just acceptance, possession, someone I need to please; a rock I have to wrap myself around, like sea foam; thick and untethered, easily smashed by waves or blown by wind; lost in the space between. Not belonging to earth nor water nor air, but a collection of everything it bumps up against, and nothing of its own creation. 

And those traits they loved in me? Those cliff-side boulders, those sandstone monoliths that I draped myself over, what did they see in me? They saw the beauty of a thousand shores, a million loves platonic or more; they saw the others, the remnants of themselves; pieces of sea and stone trapped in bubbles, floating where love dissolved; the empty space that remained when they left. 

Is that what everyone is? Just a collection of everyone else? Pieces of other people trapped in the void; 

The photos she left behind when she moved out while you were at work; Those memories you can't wash off. 

Is it possible to be made out of mountains instead? Voids created by alpine lakes and snow. 

Not the people you loved, that didn't love back, 

Not the love amidst the fray,

Not the love you took for granted, 

Not the love you hoped would stay. 

Can you fill those spaces with aspens and pines? 

With sagebrush and cactus, with birds and sunshine? 

No pieces of others reflecting in the dark, 

calling their replacements who'll only break your heart. 

Be empty, be blank, be slick like river rock. 

Trust yourself to nature,

Be more than what you're not.

Horse Tracks On A Mountain Bike Trail - Gatos Ravine

It was such a pretty day out, but hot where I live, so I took off for higher elevation. I drove up to Mount Laguna in search of something do-able with my feet but still new for my brain. I stopped at the grocery store in Pine Valley and cracked open my copy of Afoot and Afeild to see what jumped out.

I couldn't really decide on a particular trail so I just kind of drove up the hill until I came to Wooded Hill road. I actually passed it at first and swooped into the fire department's parking lot where they were busily shredding trees into mulch. I back tracked and turned onto what was a paved road but with massive potholes so I took it slow. I reached a locked gate after about a mile and a horse staging area where I parked. I saw a trailhead that I thought was the Wooded Hill nature trail but it turned out to be a spur of the Big Laguna Trail. I shrugged my shoulders and hiked out anyway and soon the trail turned to road. I then crossed a fence and came to a junction called the Gatos Ravine Trail.

After a short stroll down the spur I came to this sign. I read it thoroughly and while it said it was mainly intended for mountain bikes, it wasn't off limits to hikers. I thought for a bit and decided that since it was a tuesday afternoon, how many mountain bikers can there be? I took off down the sandy path all the while keeping my ears trained behind me for the sound of whirring tires.

It was clear as a bell out and the smell of the cedar trees in the sun was amazing. I walked slowly down the meandering path and tried to clear my mind.

After an easy climb I arrived on top of a small butte and looked around at the ranges across in the distance. I could see the Palomar Observatory, Cuyamaca Peak and the Laguna Observatory. The trail then wound down, down, down, for a long time in a slow and winding fashion and I noted to myself that I was going to pay for all of this easy going later when I had to hike out.

Hiking this trail made me actually want to ride mountain bikes! The trail crew have carved dead trees into ramps and made jumps and cool stuff like that! I came to a junction in the trail where I could head into a really hard mountain bike route or divert to the Chico Ravine trail. I checked in with my feet and my map to figure out where I should go.

I opted to take the hard path and do the Gatos Ravine in its entirety. It wasn't particularly difficult for me, but I could see how it would be a challenge on a bike.

After what felt like half a mile (I have no idea if it was though, my internal mileage ticker is super off lately) I arrived at another spur of the BLT. I found a shady spot in the grass and sat down to rest my now aching feet. I looked at my map to find the most direct route back to the truck without having to climb back up all of that elevation I'd just lost when I was visited by a couple of equestrians. I recognized the horses as those that were prepping for their ride in the staging area where I parked my car.

The lady on the pretty white horse said I looked very peaceful sitting there and I commented at how nice a day it was. We finished our pleasantries and I watched as they continued on into the valley. I thought to myself, horses love easy paths so maybe I should follow them.

I did just that, and headed on toward Chico Ravine. The trail opens up into a huge valley with waving grasses and birds popcorning out of the brush catching bugs. The air was warm but there was a breeze and I was loving the poofy clouds.

I followed the horse tracks across the valley and to the Chico Ravine trail.

Something caught my eye off to my right and I diverted from my route to check it out. As I emerged from the tree cover I found a tiny grave yard.

The internet has since told me that these people were once the owners of the Laguna Ranch, which is still there today, and that two of them were called the Campo Cowboys. I guess there was three brothers and two are buried here, the other in the Owens Valley. 

It's hard to see by my picture here, but there were tons of guys going cross country with big heavy packs all around the areas I was hiking in. I couldn't figure out what they were doing but I settled on them being hunters. Whether or not they were, I don't know.

I returned to the Chico Ravine trail and started to gain back that elevation I had lost. I was now getting hot and tired but still having a good time even while out of breath.

I knew that the elevation gain here was not that crazy, but damn, I was huffing and puffing! I finally rounded back to the junction between the Chico Ravine and the Gatos Ravine trails. Here I met up with a couple who asked me if I knew if the trail connected with the road. I told them that the way I had come it didn't, but that I had seen a sign for a spur that said it would take them to the S-1. I asked if they had a map and when they didn't, I offered them mine. I had been using google maps most of the day, so I felt I was ok without it, especially being back in familiar territory. 

The couple thanked me and headed on and it was only a few more minutes before I realized I had taken a wrong turn. Too filled with ego I refused to backtrack and meet with the couple I just convinced I didn't need my map, so I decided to repeat a section of the Gatos Ravine trail. The steep part. I'm still working on that ego.

I climbed steadily and in the heat and while it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, my out of shape body said we might throw up so I took frequent breaks in the shade to keep that from happening. This is my "I hope I don't barf" face.

At last I reached the junction of trail and road back to my truck. This spur took you to a camp ground called Agua Dulce and it rekindled my memories of following the PCT into the actual Agua Dulce and the Saufleys'.  I think I've come a long way mentally since then. At least, I hope I have.

I passed thru the fence to get back onto Wooded Hill road and spotted a random seashell stuck in the fence. 

The road walk was way longer than I remembered and I doubted myself a few times, thinking I had made a wrong turn. I thought back to all of my road walks and realized they always seem longer than they are, no matter how pretty the scenery, because walking on concrete sucks no matter how you slice it.

My truck came into view and I smiled like a dork at the fact that I had a budding blister on the side of my foot. Good times, good times. 

I felt like I had hiked at least six miles, but when I calculated it later it was only 3.5. 

Wah wah wah.

Doesn't matter;went hiking.

I took off my shoes and ate some saltines to settle my stomach and headed toward Cuyamaca. I passed a few PCT hikers cruising into the Laguna Lodge and some checking out their feet on the front steps and I mentally balled up all of my positive energy, love and admiration and sent it to them like a cosmic hug. 

I hope you all make it safely to your destination; especially if it isn't where you planned it to be.