Old Geezer on the John Muir Trail

                                           

In the spring of 2012, I read Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild: a memoir of her 3-month hiking journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. Many people have hiked the PCT, but few of them have described the experience in such an intimate and compelling way. She successfully juxtaposed the challenges and obstacles of her personal life with those encountered on the long dusty trail. My first thought was to get out there before the mobs of people who learn about this story from Oprah’s Book Club to lace up their boots.

There is a mountain out there waiting for all of us. To be alive is to struggle. Sooner or later everybody has to walk uphill: fight the powers that be and overcome the obstacles. In the high Sierra, you zigzag up steep switchbacks over loose gravel and talus at altitudes of 10, 12 or even 14,000 feet. The blazing, unobstructed California, summer sun will dry the throat and cloud the mind.

The air is thin: containing sometimes as little as 50% of the oxygen available at sea level. So much of success depends on pacing: the steady rhythm of steps, breathing, and hiking poles scraping the arid earth. Too fast, and you fall short of breath; and your heart will pound. Step, breath, step, breath. Slowly, calmly, deliberately winding your way to the top of the pass. The magnitude of the goal will make it seem utterly impossible. Pay it no mind. Bear down and proceed. Put one foot in front of another. No bravado necessary, only persistence. The first step requires the most effort.

For me the first step was boarding a jet from Newark, New Jersey to Reno. I felt downright daft, sitting at a bus stop with a 40-pound backpack, waiting for a bus to carry me from the Reno airport south through the sizzling Owens Valley to the desert town of Lone Pine, CA. It was July and, and unlike 22-year-old Cheryl Strayed, I was 57 years old. I had six weeks and wanted to follow the Pacific Crest/John Muir trail from Mt. Whitney to Yosemite and possibly beyond.

57 years old and alone, I knew that normal people don’t do this kind of stuff. I felt self-conscious of my nuttiness when I stopped by the post office in Lone Pine to pick up my first supply box. The woman at the counter was non-plussed. She had seen my kind and worse over the years, and cheerfully passed the over-sized parcel to me.

I had climbed Mt. Whitney a few years before and I already knew what the arduous journey would be like on the first day. After 11 miles of walking uphill with the big bag, capped off by 99 high-altitude switchbacks, the hike reached its highest point at Trailcrest (13,645).  

Looking west, 2000 feet below Trailcrest, lies a lake shaped like a guitar. Not surprisingly, it’s called Guitar Lake. I descended from just south of the Whitney Summit, to make my first nights camp at Guitar Lake. A steady 15 mph wind blew across the lake from the west and brought a welcome chill to the late afternoon air. My knees were still waffling from the long dissent. I gingerly set up my tent near an unoccupied one which was shielded from the wind by a large boulder. I went about my business eating dehydrated trail food (hunger is the best sauce) and enjoying the early evening alpenglow. I never saw signs of the neighbor in the tent by the rock. I settled into my sleeping bag after the sun went down and dozed off. An hour later I was startled awake by the sound of footsteps crunching in the gravel next to my tent: one set of rapid steps and then another. I lifted the tent flap and saw two more head lamps coming like bats out of hell down the dark trail from the summit. I quickly determined that these people must be fucked in the head to descend from the summit of Whitney in the dark with only headlamps and the bright sierra stars to help them navigate through the steep talus without breaking their necks.

I met these carefree souls the next morning. They were all through-hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. They had monikers (trail names) like: Apocalypse, Pitfall, Link, and Snacks.

They were young men in their 20s, deeply tanned with mud-caked skin and dusty clothes. They carried with them only the bare necessities of food, shelter, and the worn clothing upon their backs. I liked them immediately and in turn they exhibited a friendly camaraderie. They laughed easily and rolled their own cigarettes. They liked their weed as well. I broke camp and started walking west toward Crabtree Meadow. They bounded ahead of me like long-horned sheep across the plateau and were quickly out of sight.  Since I was 30 years older than all of them, it came as no surprise that their foot speed was superior.

Later that afternoon, I encountered the same foursome under a cool shady tree admiring the broad expenses of the Big Horn Plateau. We, once again, bumped fists and I went off on my way through the alpine wilderness.

The backcountry of the high Sierra is so mysterious, and otherworldly it’s hard to imagine being on the same planet as, say, New Jersey. Life becomes a series of ascents and descents. I walked throughout the day, stopping occasionally to rest, eat a Cliff Bar and take in the splendor. Undistracted by the complexities of adult contemporary life, my mind was galvanized by the power of nature. The rhythm of my steps lulled me into a deep, hypnotic state of singularity.

Five days of alpine nirvana float past and, my food supplies are depleted. I cross over Bishop pass into town.

To get to Bishop from the trailhead I have no choice but to hitchhike, something I hadn't done since I was in my 20s. The driver of the pickup truck that stopped to offer a ride, laughed as I groaned while lifting myself with 40-pound backpack on to the tailgate. He was about my age and understood the orthopedic limitations of the situation. He took me into town enjoying stories of a hapless old man on the trail. Descending from the mountains into the town of Bishop you descend a series of switchbacks. You feel like a feather slowly floating down into the flat basin of the Owens Valley. The temperature increases nearly 20°. 

I spend two nights in a humble, clean hotel run by an ambitious Indian (from India) woman who actually grew up in South Africa. My hands were chapped and cracked from the dry air of the high Sierras. Despite this I was eager to play my violin which I had mailed to myself in a “bounce box” from the town of the Lone Pine to the post office in Bishop. For two days, I rested and prepared for the next segment of the hike. It was the fourth of July weekend and I passed the hours watching several innings of heart-warming, entertaining, amateur softball being played in the searing mid-day heat at the town recreation center. Bishop is a trail town with a half dozen gear shops and decent Mexican food. The world-famous, adventure photographer, Galen Rowell was a longtime resident of Bishop. After his death in 2002, a gallery of his work was opened on the main street in town. I enjoyed the permanent display of his work housed there.

I hired a car to take me back to the trailhead in so far as I felt awkward hitchhiking back out there. That day turned out to be one of the most strenuous of the trip because I had to hike over Bishop pass, nearly 12,000 feet, and then descend nearly 3000 feet into Le

Conte Canyon. The climb up to the pass was slow and deliberate over well-maintained talus, followed by a long, knee-cracking, dusty descent over slippery scree. I was almost always in the company of pack animals and their drivers. Pack animal waste was abundant enough for some people to call it the “John Manure Trail”.  

The air in LeConte Canyon was hot and thick as guacamole due relatively low altitude. Despite the uncomfortable heat, I fell asleep like a bag of wet cement. The next day my legs felt like they were stuck in quicksand and the prospect of climbing out of the canyon and over Muir pass was too much for me to handle. I logged in a measly 4 miles that day, resting for the afternoon in a pleasant campsite. I met a ranger, a woman in her 20s, who stopped by to look at my permit. With impressive strength, she dismantled a fire ring that had been illegally built, as the campsite was above 10,000 feet. The fire ring was made out of large granite rocks that must have weighed at least 30 pounds each. She hurled about ten of them twenty feet into the woods. I asked her if she ever threw shot put.

The next day I made a slow step by breathless step ascent over Muir pass stopping to have my picture taken by the stone hut at the top.

The hut had a curious round shape like a yurt. Inside, there were benches and a non-functioning fireplace that had deer antlers above the mantle. Also, on the mantle, were various handwritten journals and artifacts left by other hikers. The descent from Muir Pass was long and onerous. I stopped to camp at Lake Wanda, named after one of John Muir's daughters. The lake was windswept and lovely with numerous islands and peninsulas surrounded by the mountains (Mount Darwin, Mount Mendel, Mount Fiske, Mount Haeckel, Mount Huxley, Mount Wallace, and Mount Lamarck) of the Evolution group.

Going down 4000 feet over the course of about 14 ten miles, I was quick enough to reach the Muir Trail Ranch at the bottom of the hill in time to pick up a resupply by 5 PM. The ranch is run by a miserly, curmudgeonly, old woman named Pat. She possesses a wit that is as dry as the dust that covers the ground. For the service of holding your resupply bucket she will charge you $55. In fact, she seems to have a fee for just about every little hiker's service she provides. She reminded of the Bob Dylan song “Maggie’s Farm”

She hands a nickel

She hands you a dime

She asks you if you’re having a good time

She’s 66 but she swears she’s 54

If you were craving chocolate, beer or Coca-Cola, forget about it, she doesn't have any. The ranch has a collection of cabins that look like a throwback to the pioneer west. There is a Protestant feeling to the place. One expects to hear a church hymn being sung out of tune by a congregation somewhere on the premises. Wading across the river you will encounter many informal camp sites next to a small group of hot springs. The springs were spare and almost dried up when I visited. This is probably not always the case. The people who I met at the Muir Trail Ranch all seemed restless. One either hikes over the pass to get there, or takes a boat across Florence Lake and then hikes 7 miles to get there. There were people who were begging for soda pop, ice cream, or a motorized vehicle to take them away. I chose to take my backpack, now heavy with new supplies, up four miles and 2000 vertical feet of switchbacks to camp by a stream, halfway up Seldon pass. I fell into my tent at 8:30 PM with gentle rain falling on the tent. Just as the raindrops had lulled me to sleep I heard a woman’s voice outside the tent. Through the fabric of the tent she said that her name was Blue Sky. She asked if she could set up her tent at my site. She seemed pleasant enough, although I couldn't actually see her. It was raining and she had as much right to camp there as I did. The helpful thing to do would have been to assist her in setting up her camp. Dry and warm and cozy in my tent, I selfishly stayed put. When the rain had let up, I got out of my tent and went to greet her. She was 50-ish with dyed brown hair and vibrant blue eyes. Hence her trail name. We savored dehydrated dinners together and shared trail stories. I was happy for the company even in the mosquito infested drizzle. She had hiked the entire Appalachian trail the summer before and seemed a lot more trail tough than me. The steady, light, rain did not dissuade her from hunkering down and enjoying a leisurely meal. She was divorced with 2 grown kids. Like a lot of folks I met on the trail, she seemed to be escaping from a life that she wanted to forget. I sat with her for a while until the rain drove me back into my tent. Many nights on the trail I ended up someplace where people congregated with their tents seeking the comfort and safety of having other humans around.

The next day began with a long ascent over yet another pass. Just one mile down the other side, I was already tired enough to set up camp for the night. I just ran out of mojo and had to rest. After 12 hours of sleep, I hiked 15 miles downhill to the shores of Edison Lake where I caught the ferry to Vermillion Valley resort. The boat ride across the lake was beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight. My fellow passengers were all hikers laden with heavy backpacks such as my own. The water level of the lake was disturbingly low, and the boat had to land nearly a half a mile from the resort. This forced us withering travelers to trudge across a half a mile of low-traction beach sand. When we arrived at the main building, the resort owner informed us that there were no available lodging facilities except for a small backpacker area where we could set up our tents and camp for no charge. All of us did just that. Unlike the Muir Trail ranch, the resort had plenty of beer and abundant quantities of junk food. The beer and food were served by a wonderfully snarky waitress named Olive. She dished out wholesome food along with stinging sarcasm at no extra charge. We were all entertained by her frank, irreverent commentary and I for one enjoyed dishing it right back.

It was a young crowd at the bar. Olive loudly proclaimed that she absolutely loathed people in their twenties. They adjourned to a large campfire at about 9PM and partied into the wee hours. I drank one bottle of beer that made me dizzy with delirium and sent me crawling in my sleeping bag at dusk. A trio of recently graduated guys from Santa Clara University in California were in good company with a duo of female hikers who had just finished up at Harvard College. Olive told them that they were spoiled brats. But she didn't mean it.

The resort was a wonderful place for through hikers to bond and to feel the warmth and camaraderie that the PCT and the JMT are well known for.

A small tear fell from the corner my eye when I boarded the ferry to re-embark on my journey. I would miss Olive. During dinner, we exchanged pleasantries:

Olive: Hey New York asshole. What’s your name?

Me: Richard.

Olive: Do people call you Dick?

Me: Not people I like.

Olive: Hey Dick!!

Me: At least have the decency to call Big Dick.

Olive: Why don’t you like being called Dick?

Me: I don’t want to stick out.

The trail between the ferry landing and Silver Pass was steep and insistent. Clouds were beginning to gather, and rain was imminent. I set up my tent at 6 PM in a small meadow by a lazy stream with way too many mosquitoes. I was lucky because the downpour did not occur until I was safe and dry in my small cozy tent.

The next morning, I spent four hours slogging my way up sun baked switchbacks to the top of Silver Pass. Mid way to the top five young hikers passed me. One of the hikers (trail-named Pitfall), immediately recognized me from Guitar Lake and called me by my name. The rest of his crew had earbuds on and were pushing their way quickly to the top of the pass. The last hiker in the procession actually had a boom box that he was loudly listening to on his way up. The guy must have been deaf. I continued at my steady 57-year-old pace and an hour later I was warmly greeted at the top of the pass by the same quintet of hikers. They were passing a joint. We spoke briefly about our first meeting at Guitar Lake and then he introduced me to his entourage. The group consisted of Pitfall, his girlfriend Pinchot, Apocalypse, Stone, and Preppy. They reminded me of the 20-year-old friends that my own children brought around the house to visit. We exchanged another 20 minutes of mirthful conversation until I picked up my backpack and continued down the other side of the pass.

They must have idled away quite a bit of time, smoking roll-your-own cigarettes and passing spiffs. About 6PM that night they glided past my campsite at Tully Hole: this time joined by, guitar-toting, “Tuscan Raider”, and his pretty blonde girlfriend, “Smiles”. Pitfall shouted, " See you in Mammoth. Beer at Base Camp!!" The next day I walked 16 miles to Red's Meadow slowly circumnavigating the copious blow-down on the trail. The campground was shabby and depressing but I spent a perfunctory night there waiting for the store to open up at 7AM so I could pick up my supply box and another box with the violin I had bounced up from Bishop. Nobody in the store believed it was really a violin, so I had to take out of the box and play it. One woman said it reminded her of the Titanic. It seemed like a California thing to say.

Since my visit to Bishop, I hadn't been in the "civilized world" for more than a week. The denizens of this world seemed softer, cleaner, and shallower than I had remembered. I observed them with detached wonder as I boarded the National Park Service shuttle bus that would take me to Mammoth Lakes and the motel room that I had reserved, via IPhone, for the next two nights. With a 40-pound backpack and an awkward box carrying my violin I had to change buses 3 times under the watchful curiosity of many National Park tourists. I was worried that the staff at the Best Western hotel might turn me away in my awkward, unwashed state, but they were actually quite accustomed to PCT hiker types and were cheerful and friendly.

The dirt that was caked on my legs and feet was so ground into the skin that it took two showers over the course of the evening to even get 80% of the lower half of my body clean.

While my trail friends were ether staying at the youth Hostel or squatting in the town park, I was living it up in the Best Western. The room was spacious and quite classy. The shower was fully equipped, and the flat-screen TV was full of the latest ball scores and political posturing. On that account, I had missed little.

What I had missed most was my family and my violin. My mother was undergoing initial treatments for breast cancer and I was anxious to get the latest news. Whenever I go away there is always an ache in my heart for my wife. We had a wonderful, hilarious talk for a half an hour, and I felt so much lighter afterword. The world just seemed like a better place knowing she was there. My appetite took off like a rocket. I wanted to eat the junkiest food I could find. I wanted calories: thousands of them. Tacos, beans, rice, fries, pie, chocolate, muffins, scones, eggs, home fries, Doritos and cafe mocha.

I ran into Pitfall, Tuscan Raider, and Stone just walking around town. It was embarrassing to tell them where I was staying. I gave them my cell # but none of them had phones.

I must have spent five or six hours playing the violin over the next two days. It was like catching up with an old friend.

The hike from Mammoth Lakes to Tuolumne was supposed to be three days in duration however it ended up being 2 1/2. I could have done it in two days easily, but I was so enraptured with the Thousand Lakes area that I took my time. The entire Yosemite area was overrun with tourists. Most of them seemed more interested in shopping, talking on cell phones, and eating than anything else. An interest in nature seemed secondary to most of them. There are regular shuttle buses that will distribute the otherwise distracted tourists through a gamut of natural wonders presented like paintings in a museum that one breezes through. Lodging and services are not cheap and demand for them is nearly frantic during the peak summer months. I tried to ignore the masses and enjoy the natural beauty of the Valley. I was able to do this for a 24-hour period before I became inpatient with the crowds, prices, and insistent heat. I happily hitchhiked back up to Tuolumne Meadows, insofar as the bus only runs twice per day. I was fortunate enough to make it there fleetingly with the aid of two quick rides. The first ride was with a backcountry ranger who offered a wide range of insights about the park and what it is like to work there. The second ride was with a middle-aged Australian man who had many questions about the United States and its political issues. I was more than happy to expound upon my political beliefs.

Once I was dropped off at the Tuolumne Meadows store, I commenced with my hike North on the PCT. I camped that night at a designated area called Glen Aulin. It had a number of tent cabins that you could rent for the usual exorbitant cost or you could simply walk up the hill and camp for free at a beautiful site overlooking a deep rocky gorge. I chose the latter option and I have no regrets. The tourist element was still quite prevalent, but the numbers were thinning due to the increasing remoteness of the area. The section of the trail from Glen Aulin to Sonora Pass is long and remote. 68 miles and no towns or roads. I had no way of packing enough food. The clouds above were becoming more organized and thunderclaps were rumbling in the distance. At this point is seemed wiser to turn around. And so, I returned to the Tuolumne store where I waited four hours for the bus back to Mammoth Lakes. One of the store employees was playing a guitar seated on a bench in front of the store. I approached him and reassured him that people appreciated his contribution to the scene even if they seemed to be it ignoring him. I told him that I had been a musician my whole life and I knew his position. Since he lived in a tent cabin behind the store, he offered to retrieve a mandolin that he had so that we could jam. We played music for the entertainment of ourselves and curious passersby. In this way, we managed to pass the time pleasantly until I had to catch my bus and he had to go to something he referred to as a “safety meeting” with his coworkers.

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Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro 2014

The evening air in Africa is full-bodied, rich, and complex. The humidity gives it body; the rich red earth and thick vegetation give it aroma and richness; and scent of living beings gives it complexity. My first drowsy late-night memories of Tanzania are hazy. In the Dar es Salaam airport, once you have passed through customs, you walk past the barrier where there are the universal limo drivers waving their usual signs with client names on them. You are not in a glassy, high-ceilinged greeting area. You are in the open sultry air of the African night. A taxi driver wearing a clean white shirt, with, a necktie and an official looking ID badge, quickly approached me. For about $7 he took me to the Transit Hotel that was literally right across the street from the terminal. He honked his horn when we reached the gate so that the security guard could buzz us into the front yard of the Hotel. This must have been a precaution against the rough customers who patronized the sin spots and gin joints in the surrounding neighborhood.  

The room was stale and hot: the air-conditioning hadn’t been turned on in days. Even though I had taken malaria, the presence of a mosquito net suspended over the bed was disconcerting. I cranked up the AC, such as it was, and slept poorly thinking about all the unfamiliar bacteria crawling over every surface.

There was another $7 car ride across the street in the morning to catch a flight to Kilimanjaro International Airport in the city of Arusha at the foot of the mountain. From there I caught another overpriced cab ride to Moshi where the rest of the expedition members would slowly gather in anticipation of our impending trek up the mountain. Nobody became acquainted until we had a meeting with our guides at 6PM on the night before the expedition.

We introduced ourselves: there were two people in their early twenties from Vancouver Canada, an elementary school principal from Edmonton Alberta, a couple in matching t-shirts from Melbourne, Australia, A mercurial hiker from Vienna, Austria, A nice couple in their early thirties from Philadelphia, and me. Our guides were all in their 20s and 30s hailing from the immediate area.

The plan was to meet for breakfast at 7:30 and depart on the bus at 8:00. I dutifully set the alarm on my wristwatch for 7AM. At 8:10 I was startled from my sleep by desperate pounding on the door. The wristwatch alarm was too weak to wake me from my jet lag induced sleep. The guides were all in my room frantically helping me get my gear packed while everyone else was sitting on the bus patiently waiting. They were all staring at me as I boarded the bus to take my seat. I was super embarrassed. Despite the tardiness, everyone seemed friendly enough. People asked about whether or not I’d had any breakfast. They all offered food. I sat down in a seat next a woman named “Lucky”. I felt better immediately.

We drove around for a few hours, ferrying from one office to another picking up and dropping off paperwork. Finally, we arrived our starting point: Rongai Gate. At this location there were perhaps 75 potential porters waiting around for work. We were required by park regulations to hire a porter for every 20 kilos of weight. After everything was weighed (trekking gear, tents, food, kitchen utilities, etc.) we were required to hire 27 porters. A man named Manrai was assigned to be my porter. He would carry my bag and set up my tent for the duration of the tour.

Every day at about 9AM we would start out trekking while the porters broke camp. Within an hour they would come charging by us at twice our own speed so that they could arrive the next camp in sufficient time to have everything set up for us when came trudging in later in the day. They were overtly cheerful and always offered a friendly "Jambo" as they passed. On the second day they had sufficient time to set up camp and then welcome us with a musical performance that included three well-rehearsed songs and some low-down, hip-shaking, dirty dancing that some of the female trekkers happily participated in. The second day had been a slog up about 2000 meters that required eight hours of walking. Most of us were too tired to dance but we all felt energized by the music and goodwill.

Bowls of hot water were bought to our tents for the washing of face, hands, and perhaps one other body part per day. After washing we would go to the mess tent where all ten trekkers and the guides would dine together. Dinner table discussion gravitated toward raunchiness. By the end of the trek we were all freely exchanging words and ideas that most people would not repeat in front of their grandma. Dinnertime was jolly for most of us excepting those who were feeling the effects of altitude. Each night we slept at a higher altitude. The first night was at 8000 ft., the 2nd night 11000 ft., the 3rd night 13000 ft., and on the fourth night we slept at nearly 16000ft. Sadly, we are not all created equal when it comes to altitude. Each night after dinner we were given an overview of the next day’s adventure and then one of the guides would come around to each of us with a device that was supposed to measure our blood oxygen by clipping onto your forefinger and reading out a number that had to be somewhere between 70 and 100 in order to carry on.  By the fourth night some people were raring to make a summit bid while others were just barely able to get a few mouthfuls of food down their throats.

We began our trek for the summit at 11pm. The ascent is made possible by a long series of switchbacks that zig-zag upward. The first five hours of the walking take you up a slope the same pitch as a chalet roof. You can see the headlamps of all the other groups glowing in rows. It looks like an ancient ritual: tribes ascending to the rim of a volcano for a human sacrifice at dawn.

The combination of altitude, and steepness make this a place where many people either start doubling over with the dry heaves, or just plain run out of gas. At this point two members of our expedition were doubled over, and one had decided to go back down because he simply could not go up any longer. A woman from Australia fainted right in front of me. Her knees buckled, and her husband had to catch her in his arms so that she would not go tumbling down the mountain.

A science professor from Pennsylvania started staggering from light-headedness and fell down in front of me. After that I kept a constant vigil upon him. There was a woman that I had to step over who was so distressed that she lay curled up in the path screaming at the top of her lungs. She must have had plenty of oxygen to produce such a sound.

There were five of us left. When we made it to the rim of the mountain at Gillman's point there was no question the we would all go on to Stella point and then the highest point at Uhru.

At Stella Point we met up with all the people who had come up the Lemosho trail. This is a far more populated trail than the Rongai route that we took. It began to feel like 5th Ave. at lunchtime. Every other person seemed to be throwing up or passing out. The general pallor of the Trekkers was an eerie gray. I had to take the last 500 ft at a snail’s pace: Pole, pole, stopping to catch my breath every three or four steps.

The five Trekkers in our group made it to the top and took pictures by the famous sign that reads: Congratulations you are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania 5895m. Africa’s highest point. Highest free-standing mountain in the world. UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Who wouldn’t want to pose next to a sign like that? Indeed, there was a ten-minute wait to get your photo taken there. There were 40-50 people at the summit at the same time as us.

It was not a good day to linger at the summit and have a picnic. The winds were bitter, and the dust blew in our faces, making it hard to see. The glaciers were a spectacular sight with their layers of deep blue ice. I had been hoping to look down upon the vast Serengeti plain, but it seemed like we were miles above a layer of clouds covering the earth below. It looked like the view from a jet. The crater of the volcano was shallow but vast with, filled with dirty snow.

The trip back down the mountain took about 1/3rd as much time. The cardiovascular part of the hike was over and now it was all orthopedic. It entailed 4000ft. of steep, sandy, quad-busting descent and by the time we got down we all made haste to our tents for a recovery nap. My favorite part of the descent was running into the Australian woman who had collapsed in the wee hours of the morning. I thought for sure she would turn around. But we met up her a quarter mile past Gillman's Point. She had made it through the worst and was determined to make it all the way to Uhuru. I told her that she was one gutsy woman and wished her good luck. She came stumbling back into camp about three hours behind the rest of us. We cheered her on. She turned out to be the hero of the day.

But there was more.

We had to hike another three hours down to our next camp. Nobody was in the mood, but the hike was all downhill and it went through a wide-open dry expanse between Kilimanjaro and Mawenzi called “the shoulder”. We managed to keep ourselves occupied with the scenery and good conversation, but it was still an awful lot after summiting Kilimanjaro already that day. After about 14 ours of walking we spent the night at Horombo Camp: a major outpost on the Marangu route.

Despite the Promethean effort of the day we still managed to have a jovial time at dinner. By now we had come to know most of the crew by name and enjoyed each other's company. Nearly everyone in the expedition had taken to calling me " Papa" by then. This was no doubt because I was the oldest person on the expedition. It was all good. I felt like Hemmingway.

Although it took us 5 days to make our ascent up the Rongai Route; our descent only took two long days of walking downhill on the Marangu route. The Managu route is also known affectionately as the “Coca-Cola route”, because it is the shortest and most crowed way to get to the top. There were throngs of day hikers in crisp clean clothes along the last few miles of the trail to the park entrance in Marangu. One of them came up to me and asked if I was Hulk Hogan. I liked Hemingway better..

By the end of 7 days of  camping in the dirt with possibility of a shower, I wore my filth like a badge of honor. When we got back to the hotel however, I was happy to turn in the badge. Everyone in the group had been dreaming of a hot shower. It didn't take long before the hotel water heater was overwhelmed.

That last night we all met for dinner around 8:00PM. Everyone was clean and also distracted by the electronic devices they had all brought with them to the table. Everybody had communications to catch up with. Things were sedate. I thought we were about to make an early night it. Suddenly the Kilimanjaro beer came out along with a deck of cards. Someone looked up a card drinking game that had us all doubled over with laughter from the raunchy humor that ensued. We finished up at about midnight and shared tearful, heartfelt hugs all around. We all had one hell of a time.

These group expedition experiences are like a sugar high. Once everyone has said goodbye there is a kind of crash where the exhilaration is over and all that’s left is an empty vacuum. If you don't fill the vacuum in a timely manner a blue period ensues. I tried to thwart off the depression by going to Zanzibar. It's not far from Dar es Salaam in distance but there are many hustlers to be circumnavigated along the way. Everywhere I had gone by myself on the streets in Africa I had been greeted by young men trying to figure out a way to get money out of my wallet. 

The approach was consistent: " hello sir How are you? Are you enjoying your time in Tanzania?" The fellow would follow me down the street like a dog trying to hump my leg: offering all manner of guide services, logistical assistance, artistic wears and great deals at the store of one of their relatives. The number of these " flycatchers" increased to swarms when the cab driver left me off at the ferry terminal. The streets are lined with travel agencies who offer the same services as the flycatchers, except they are licensed, and you have some chance of meeting them again if things don't go right. I allowed myself to be buggered by a travel agent that the cab driver had selected for me. He sold me an overpriced first-class ferry passage and a return plane ticket on a funky local airline. Then I was assigned a porter who railroaded me past all the lines and found me a seat in the premium class section for a $42 fee which he insisted was fair.

All of this made me disappointed in myself for not pre-arranging all these details so as to avoid the swindle.

The ferry took an hour and 45 minutes to make its way over to the island where, low, and behold, there was another swarm of flycatchers waiting just outside the terminal to swindle me for the second time. I only needed to hire a car to get me to the Marishiki Palace Hotel in the heart of Stonetown. The hotel itself was a renovated palace that once belonged to an Iman but now belongs to an Italian woman who looks to be in her fifties and well preserved. The place oozed charm and elegance at a $200 per night rate. The hotel had a rooftop restaurant where I could eat scrumptious seafood from local sources and watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean.

Stonetown is the biggest municipality on the island of Zanzibar. At the center of the city is a spice market surrounded by an impossible maze of ancient narrow streets lined with dry goods peddlers and artisan’s shops. It reminds me of other spoiled and beautiful cities like Havana, Casablanca, or Venice. The architecture is full of old-world detail and has aged like a crumbling but lovely autumn leaf. The weather was hot with enough humidity to make your clothes stick. Islamic influence is everywhere. I visited during the month of Ramadan. Women in black, full length gowns with headscarves sat in weary groups. They languished in the shade of trees by the mosque where they could starve in solidarity with each other during the long hot days. The men stayed inside praying in unison. They prepared themselves to meet Allah by washing face, hands, and feet along the rows of faucets and drains that line the walls on the outside of the mosque. Restaurants were not allowed to serve dinner on the sidewalk until after 6:30 when the sun went down.

Argentina/Chile/Patagonia "O" Circuit

The “O” circuit 2018

This year it became official. My wife will no longer drive to JFK Airport. The traffic jams on the VanWyck Expressway are so bad that I can no longer ask anyone I care for to drive me to JFK and subject themselves to that kind of frustration without paying them good money. I took the Trailways bus from my home town of Rosendale, NY (about a 2- hour ride) to the Port Authority bus terminal in mid-town Manhattan. From there I took another hour-long bus ride to JFK via the Airporter bus that runs hourly from the Port

Authority, Grand Central, and Penn Station to JFK so that your wife doesn't sue for emotional distress.
I caught a 10: 30PM flight to Buenos Aires Argentina, via Sao Paulo, Brazil. I flew on Latin American Airlines and 14 hours later arrived at the Ayers Recoleta hotel in the toney Recoleta section of the city where tango was born. As usual, when traveling to a South American city, I heard the typical precautions: I would most certainly be robbed at knife point on the street, and that all the cabdrivers would either kidnap me or rip me off by charging double the normal rate.
The sections of Buenos Aires that I visited were in fact safe, sophisticated, urbane; filled with shops, cafes and educated people who, for the most part spoke admirable English. Buenos Aires has a strong European flavor to it. Other parts of South America are populated by a stronger mix of indigenous culture. Buenos Aires not only has the flavor of its or earliest hegemonic Spanish settlers but also of later migrations of Italians and Germans. The city has charm and abounds with the kind of architecture you would find in France or Italy. I had no trouble finding suave places to hang out.
The biggest attraction in the Recoleta was a cemetery. This was not a typical cemetery with granite headstones, tall trees and green grass. It was more like an upscale neighborhood for rich dead people. Each mausoleum was a large, ornate, residence constructed in elegant rows like brownstones in the upper east side of Manhattan. The mausoleums themselves were gaudily decorated in a melodramatic South American Catholic style: lots of thorns and crying saints. Eva Peron, the beloved first lady of Argentina during the 1950s and the subject of the Broadway musical Evita is buried here. Due to her humble roots, it took a while to get her admitted to this elite necropolis. There are no signs that will direct you to the tomb of Eva Peron: you have to ask one of the

security guards where it is. When I finally found the proper site, it was already crowded with people seeking to have their picture taken next to the grave of the illustrious Evita.

It was late December, just after Christmas, and the temperatures were hot and humid in Buenos Aires. On the second day there I made the preposterous decision to go jogging. There is a beautiful wildlife refuge, the Reserva Ecologia Costanera Sur, that stretches along the oceanfront shoreline of the city. I had to jog about 2 miles to just get to the refuge. I jogged another couple of miles through the refuge and then another few miles back to my hotel. I was moving slowly and schvitzing like a schmendrick. I would've felt more peculiar if it hadn't been for the fact that there were legions of other joggers right there with me at the Reserva Ecologia Costanera Sur. They were tanned, younger, better-looking than me, and did not seem as bothered by the heat as I was. This was normal for these denizens. Most of them simply ran shirtless. Damn.

I wanted to stay in decent physical shape because Buenos Aires was simply a stop on the way to Patagonia where I was planning to embark upon a 10-day hike around the Torres del Paine. Getting there would entail a three-hour flight to Santiago, Chile then another, to Punta Arenas and ultimately, the next day, a 2-hour bus ride to Puerto Natales.

The excitement began when I took a cab to the airport. On the way to the city of Buenos Aires I had taken a cab for a short distance and a $10 fare into the city. On the day of departure from BA the hotel hailed me a cab and they asked me if I was going to an international location.

Since Chile is a different country from Argentina, I told them to go to the international airport. It turns out that there is more than one airport. My ride to the first airport was about an hour from the city. It cost $80. When I got there and tried to check into my flight they told me I was at the wrong airport and that the right airport was a good hour

drive by taxi. I had about an hour and a half before the flight departed. The airline employee at the desk printed me a boarding pass for the flight that was waiting at the airport an hour away and then I frantically sought a cabdriver who would take me to the correct airport at the speed of sound. Fortunately, it took only a couple of minutes to find the appropriate driver. He went through heavy traffic with the skill of a test pilot. He performed reckless, unlawful acts that I applauded loudly and he got me there on time. The final bill was $120. This mistake cost me a total of nearly $200 and a good hour and a half of high stress. I had to go straight to the gate bringing my 50-pound expedition bag down the gangway to gate check it. They looked at me like I was mad as a March hare.
In Santiago, I thought for sure they would misplace my luggage and I would end up having it delivered to me days later in the nether regions of Tierra Del Fuego. As I got to the baggage claim, in Punta Arenas there was already a long line forming of people who had lost their luggage on one flight or another. I assumed that I would become another person in that line. It turned out that while I was waiting in the line, an airport employee came through with a big handcart carrying many pieces of luggage on it. One of those pieces was (gasp of relief) my 50-pound expedition bag. Fyew!!! If my luggage had been misplaced, all my trekking equipment would be unavailable at a time when I needed it the most. This would involve even more money to rent equipment once I got to Puerto Natales where I would meet with my fellow hikers and begin our adventure together.

Punta Arenas is small city that was built along the Magellan Straight on the Southern tip of Chile in Tierra del Fuego. The local people call this place “fin de la Mondo” and it feels that way. The landscape is flat, semi-arid and wide open like the high plains of Wyoming. The Austral winds blow in from the Antarctic and chill the late December air like the Maine coast in November. It is summer here although the average daytime high

is around 55 degrees Fahrenheit though the nighttime temperature seldom dips below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. At least some of each day is cloudy and periods of rain are the norm. When sun comes out it is strong, and Antarctic ozone depletion will cause intense UV rays to scorch unprotected skin.

I spent my first night in Punta Arenas at the Best Western Finis Terrae Hotel in the center of town. Not surprisingly, my bank card wouldn’t work in local ATM. I had informed my local bank that I was going to Chile, but this place must have spooked them. They immediately sent out a fraud alert.

Punta Arenas might not appeal to many travelers if it weren’t for the fact that it has the most convenient airport to the Torres del Paine national park which wins the most hiker polls for most beautiful place on earth.
I had come here to hike “O” circuit. This entails nine days of walking rugged trails around the circumference Grande Massive de Paine.

The bus to Puerto Natales takes about two and a half hours from Punta Arenas and the landscape turns to rolling hills called the pampa: grasslands that support wild herds of llama with light brown fur and long proud necks with camel-like heads. Man-made structures are scarce and miles apart.

Puerto Natales is a mountaineering town like, Silverton, Colorado, Chamonix, France or Huaraz, Peru. These towns are surrounded by humble agrarian culture but cater to upscale skiers, climbers, and trekkers in trendy active wear who dine in posh/funky cafes and stay in adventure lodging. Puerto Natales has a gear shop on every corner and wholesome, hip eateries abound.

It would be the first day in 11 days of planned activity organized by G adventures. We were to meet at our assigned hotel at 5:45 with our guide Sergio. Slowly the 12 people on the tour showed up in the hotel dining room and informally introduced themselves to each other. The cast of characters included a middle-aged couple from Melbourne, Australia; two young women from the Netherlands; a young couple from Switzerland; a single woman from Adelaide Australia; a single woman from New York City via Belarus; an American single woman from Atlanta; two men in their 20s from Toronto; and a single middle-aged woman from London.
Sergio came promptly at 5:45 PM and launched into his introductory comments. He showed us a map of the 130-km route around the Grande Massive. He then gave us a list of general guidelines and things that we should bring along on the hike. He said that rain gear was essential because the weather in Patagonia could change quickly and one never knew if it would be sunny, rainy, hot or cold. Within a weight limit of no more than 5 kg we had to bring along: two pairs of socks, underwear, a pair of trekking pants, rain gear, a couple of shirts, a fleece, a headlamp, a first aid kit and, something to take pictures of breathtaking landscape with, and a pair of sandals to rest your tired feet in camp after a day of tramping over the mountain terrain.
We would be eating in refuges and sleeping in tents each night except for the first night and last night which we spent at the hotel in Puerto Natales. Each night we would hike into a designated Camping area and, if we were lucky, there would be working, hot showers, a decent meal, and some drinkable booze. Our days would be filled with walking over hilly terrain, sometimes very steep, and then showing up at the designated camp areas staggering with fatigue. A lot of the stuff for our expedition would be carried by a crew of six porters. These were all rock climbers from the area: handsome, strapping, young man who immediately caught the attention of the younger female

members of our expedition. These guys would carry packs that weighed 80 to 100 pounds. I had trouble even picking one up. The porters would place them on to their shoulders and run down the trail leaping like gazelles over rocks and roots.
Our first day of hiking entailed 23 km of walking up a very long hill to a moraine where one could, on a clear day, get a grand view of the famous Torres del Paine. Sadly, the towers were completely obstructed by low lying clouds. As the group ascended the final steep slope, rain, hail and wind began to hamper our progress and limit our pleasure.

At the end of the day we got on a little bus and went to a camp site where we were fed fantastic New Year’s Eve dinner. Pisco sours and Diablo red wine were poured with generosity. After dinner, we retired to a geodesic dome with beanbag chairs around the periphery and a big open dance floor in the middle. It turned out that one of the Dutch women had a great mix on her iPhone and a suitably loud, portable, bear-shaped speaker. Her name was Desiree, but she became known that night as DJ DeeZire. We danced to DJ DeeZire’s music throughout the night. We also played an uproariously silly game of truth or dare. This group was vivacious, joyful, convivial, congenial, and just one big hell of a lot of fun. By midnight when we rang in the new year we were all the closest of friends: hugging and kissing and wishing each other happy new year. Then we collapsed contentedly into our sleeping bags.

On the second day of our trek we ventured onto the, lesser traveled, “O” section of the trek. Peace and quiet were there for the pleasure of all who took the time to wonder its trails. We had a much shorter hike on the second day and Sergio stopped quite often to identify the local flora and fauna. He also gave long talks about the geology of the area. Sometimes these were interesting other times my mind wandered off and I simply enjoyed the scenery. This was a gentle hilly terrain: the grassy pampa lands around the

edges of the park. It was relaxing and painless day. In the evening we settled into our tents, took our showers and ate a good meal at the refuge washed with our usual rounds of Pisco sours and red Chilean wine. We always dined in the company of the porters who had a relentless energy and unending joyousness that infected the whole expedition. The Porters spent most of their spare time rock climbing on the sheer cliffs of the towers. This pastime is usually taken up by people with daring adventurous personalities. Each day on the trail they would run past us with their heavy rucksacks and we would stand on either side of the path with our hands extended to high five them like a sports team. We would shout out each of their names as they passed by and cheer them on. After all they were carrying all of our heavy stuff – including copious bottles of wine for the refuges that had no booze. The third day of the hike took us to Dickinson lake and wonderful views of the snowcapped mountains. It was an unusual day weather-wise for Patagonia in so far as the sky was clear and blue and the sunshine was warm. As has been noted many times over the recent years, the ozone layer of this part of the world has been depleted and the UV rays are unobstructed: blistering to those who forget to bring sun cream. It was a great picture taking day and we all took social media profile quality pictures in front of Dickinson lake. The campground at Dickinson was of good quality with tents on platforms. Each of the campgrounds we visited had plentiful numbers of tents that were already set up. This spared us the task of setting up and breaking down. In general, the tents were of high-quality and made by the most reputable of mountaineering equipment companies. There were always comfy pads in the tent and sleeping bags were provided. Some refer this as “glamping“ a combination of the words “glamorous”, and “camping”. Things were pretty soft when you consider the sumptuous meals that were provided at each refuge, and the comfortable atmosphere that included niceties like chocolate, booze, hot showers and useable toilets. I’m 63 years-old at this writing and have put in hundreds

of miles with a full pack on my back. I make no apologies for “glamping’. You would not experience any of this in the outermost reaches of treks in Peru, Africa, or the Himalayas where the designated campgrounds would have very little to offer besides squat toilets and perhaps potable water. This was more in line with many European trekking routes like the Tour du Mount Blanc, The Dolomites, the GR 10 or any number of other Caminos where each night you can stay at a comfortable refuge and carry light load (slackpacking) during the day.

On the fourth day of our trek we came into some mud. A lot of mud. Way too much mud. All day we spent doing a dance from rock to rock, root to root, and from one side of one trail to the other. We made up a game where we would sing popular songs and replace the word “love” with the word “mud “. This resulted in some rousing renditions of songs such as “All You Need is Mud”, “Falling in Mud Again”, and “Mud Stinks”. For a while I was referring to myself as the “Gangster of Mud “. By the end of the day most of us had prodigious amounts of mud on our shoes, socks, and pants. There was almost nothing we could do about this in so far as the unpredictable weather made impossible to wash clothes in the bathroom and then hang them on a line to dry outdoors.

The fifth day of the trek was considered to be the most difficult. If you looked at an elevation graph of the hike you would see that we go almost straight up and then almost straight down. The hike was about 23 km and it went over the famous John Gardener pass. Being a heart attack survivor and the oldest member of the expedition, I took my time and stayed behind the group when we were going up the mountain to the top of the pass. This looked strange to many of my mountaineering mates because I had actually been at the front of the pack up until this time. I made a conscious decision to put the

truck in low gear and take my time. The way down from the pass was an orthopedic challenge. The route was steep and fraught with slippery mud. Large steps mad from old railroad ties had been placed in the steepest areas so as to aid the hiker and to discourage erosion. For those of us with any kind of knee issues this was the hardest part of the trek. Fortunately, I have inexplicably good knees for a man my age. I hope that bragging about it won’t jinx me.

Once we made it down the other side of the pass we came into the area of Grey Lake and the immense Grey Glacier. Sergio told us that it was over 100 square miles in size. It was grand and endless with beautiful blocks of blue ice. It looked like a frozen lava flow.
On the sixth day, we rested at the opulent Grey refuge. The refuge dining room and bar were spacious, modern, well-lighted, and downright fancy. The fact that there was a rest day after the laborious crossing of the pass meant that we would be compelled to eat hearty and drink heavily. I drank Fernet, a bitter tasting liquor, mixed with Coca-Cola. Too many of these were purchased for me by playful porters who were interested in hearing about my past life in the 60s and 70s. They had me pegged as an old hippie. I can’t imagine how they got that idea. I told him that I indeed did smoke a lot of marijuana when I was young and that I took hallucinogenic drugs. They were delighted to hear this in so far as they were currently smoking a lot of marijuana and experimenting with LSD, peyote, and psilocybin. This led into deeper and deeper discussions about philosophy, existence, and Zen pursuits of nothingness. The more Fernet we drank, the headier the conversation became. I politely bowed out of the reveling at midnight. From my tent I could still hear the jubilant sounds of voices singing, music thumping, and my fellow wanderers hooting and hollering as I fell into a deep mountaineer’s sleep.

Day six, our rest day, was highlighted by an activity called the “whiskey walk “. It took place in the late afternoon hours before dinner. Someone had organized a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and some glasses. We carried them on a short walk down to the glacier. Sergio cautiously made his way onto the glacier and extracted the chunk of ice for us to break up into small pieces to put in our cocktail glasses. The ice sparkled in the southern light as we poured Johnny Walker over the crystals. The resulting cocktail was both elegant and exotic. It didn’t take much for us to feel a glow there on the edge of the beautiful Grey Glacier.

Day seven took us to the other side of the W circuit which we would be following for the rest of the hike. This was good and bad. It was good because some of the most stunning scenery is observed on the W circuit. It’s bad because there are many more people than on the “O”. Large groups would bottleneck on the trails. Day hikers in clean, well pressed clothes, came off the tour boat that docks at several refuges along the “W” circuit. At one lookout, we saw clean, delicate people with a picnic that included salmon, mustard, wine, and stemware served on a portable table with a spotless gingham tablecloth.

I had embarked upon this journey to Patagonia fully expecting plenty of rain, wind, and cold. All the guidebooks warned of this. I am happy to report that there was hardly any rain, or wind, during the first week of our hike. The last couple of days had more weather problems.

On the end of the eighth day we settled in for our usual refuge reveling at the end of a long hike. Sitting at my table, I started to hear chant from a table across the room where the porters were sitting. I could hear my name: Ree-chard! Ree-chard! Ree-chard! Ree- chard!. It was a rhythmic chant that started quietly and crescendoed to a fever pitch

accompanied by pounding on the table. I was being summoned. These guys had a fresh bottle of tequila, a bowl of sliced limes, another small bowl of salt, and they insisted that I join them. I felt like a mythic figure. I had learned how to drink tequila late in my high school years and continued it with great zeal into post-secondary education. I licked the web that connects the thumb and forefinger on the left hand; lightly sprinkled the area with salt; placed the lime between the thumb and forefinger of the same hand. In a fluid motion I licked the salt, drained the shot glass that was poised in my right hand and sucked on the lime slice in the proper way that a tequila drinker should. A great cheer went up. The porters began to chant my name again, Ree-chard! Ree-chard! Ree-chard! Ree-chard!. Again, I licked to salt, hoisted my glass, sucked on the lime, and pounded the glass on the table do the continued cheering applause of the porters. Ignoring the call for a second encore, I repaired to my comfortable tent to watch Netflix on my phone and stay the hell out of trouble.

It rained like hell on the night before the last day of the hike. And indeed, it rained like cows pissing during the first half of the last day. This made the trails muddy and the rivers run much higher than usual with blasting currents of whitewater. The first river crossing still had enough exposed rock to get across without getting your shoes and socks soaked. On the second crossing, I lost my balance and fell in. After that I simply walked straight through the water, come what may. I had seen through-hikers of the Pacific Crest trail do the same thing but was never tough enough to do it myself. My fellow trekkers soon followed suit and after a while it became childish fun to simply walk through the rushing currents, getting our shoes, socks and pants soaking wet. We were hiking in torrents of rain and getting soaked anyway. You would think this would make one miserable but actually I felt free as a bird. It reminded me of being 10 ,11 or 12 years old

when I would simply walk around in the rain all day with my friends and not really care that much. The final 2 miles of the hike were downhill and I started running down, down, down, getting way ahead of the other trekkers who were cheering me on. And that was it. As we reached the parking lot where the shuttle bus would soon arrive. The sun came out and we gathered in a circle, put our arms around each other and danced around and around and around chanting “O!!,O!!,O!!,O!!” Then we went to dry off.