DT20 day 9 – At the base of the Marble Mountains

As expected, I woke with a fine coating of grit over all my gear. It is a peculiar kind of grit–a bit greasy, and it sticks to things (including my skin and remaining hair) and can’t be brushed off easily.

But it is just dirt and I have been living in dirt for days. I was more concerned with a change in weather. The east wind that had been blowing all night shifted to the west and felt cool and damp. 

I looked out and saw what I feared – the leading edge of a storm front. I have had quite enough rain and storms on this trip and dreaded the thought of another forced march in nasty weather. 

But it’s not like I have a lot of options here. Can’t call in sick. No postponements due to rain. Walking is all I can do. I  ate my breakfast of peaches and muesli, slurped down my coffee, packed up and headed out, threading my way through the skirt of hills that surround the Calumet Mountains. 

The Mojave features big views. Views big enough to see the course of a storm front. There were low clouds to the north cloaking the mountain tops, looking very dark and threatening. But as I watched I could see they were moving east, with blue sky behind them. I was just south of the storm track. My mood brightened as I realized I would be spared another drenching. 

But I would not be spared a long walk through a very wide basin. 

It was a good 15 miles across to the Marble Mountains, 15 miles of sky and sand and creosote. And views. The views are unending in their variety and interest. Cloud and sky and mountain do-si-do around one another, swirling off to grab another partner in the planetary square dance.

It is intimidating to walk into such a large space. I am so little – am I really going to cross such an immensity with just my two feet? Sustained solely by what I can carry?

The answer could only be yes. I would be totally exposed to this immensity, my sins and faults plain and naked and undeniable. No hiding. Just the truth of existence and being, both smacking me in the face every step of the way.

Plus, my last cache is at the other side of the valley just before Route 66. Besides water, I had also buried a Coors tallboy. Time to get walking. 

The plain is a monotonous treadmill of sand and creosote. Every step looks like the last. I find it difficult to decide where to stop and take a break. Every spot is exactly like every other spot. There is no shade, no rock to sit on, no wash bank to lean my pack against. I finally just stop, drop my pack and sit down in the sand. I drink some water and have my usual snack: a bite of jerky, some dried fruit, a few nuts, a few nibbles of a Snickers bar. I can go far on these.

I pass some tracks in the gravel, but they are not jeep tracks. Too wide, about 10 feet apart. From the 1940s to the 1960s this valley was a training ground for tank exercises. The tanks are long gone–relics of the 20th century–but the tracks remain.

A couple hours more of walking and I approach the train tracks that parallel US66 to the south. It’s a busy line; trains pass every 10 minutes or so, the only sound and movement save the wind.

There’s a row of not-quite-dead Athol trees lining the tracks and they provide the first shade I’ve found today. Time for lunch.

A mile later I arrive at my cache just south of Route 66 and dig it up, everything intact. The cool weather means I don’t need all the water I buried, and I decide to use the excess for a little desert laundry.

On mountain hikes, where I expect to encounter water at least daily, I typically wash out my boxers and socks (I carry two pairs of each) every other day. I clip them to the outside of my pack and they are dry the next day.

That system doesn’t work so well in a waterless desert. Other than getting my clothes soaked in a rainstorm, they have been steadily accumulating dust and sweat and grime for over a week and are stiff and smelly. I get out a ziploc bag, put in half a liter of water and a few drops of Dr Bronners and then stuff in a pair of socks and underwear. I’d hoped to wash my shirt also but it’s clear I don’t have enough water for that. I squish the clothes around in the bag, then wring them out, then add another half-liter of fresh water as my rinse cycle. The rinse water is just as brown as the wash water was. I wring it out, and hang the clothes on my pack and start walking.

I’m headed toward my last mountain range, the Marble Mountains. My target is an alluvial valley about half-way up the range, five miles distant. But the quickest path is not a straight line. The terrain adjacent to the mountains is broken and fissured, littered with rocks large and small, scarcely a place to set my foot.

I swing out a mile to the west, where the ground is sandier and more walkable.

A couple of hours of this and I’m near the entrance valley and the sun is going down so I make my last camp.

I pitch my tarp to get out of the wind, drink down my beer from the cache and then do a bad thing. I just toss it out into the desert. Normally I am a Leave No Trace guy. I despise littering. But this time I feel compelled to do it.

Ed Abbey was an advocate of this practice, notorious for tossing beer cans out along the highway. He reasoned that it was the highway, not the can, that was the eyesore.

I have no such excuse. I’m in a wilderness, there is no highway. But I feel a certain satisfaction when I let fly. I’ve been beaten down by this desert for days. Maybe this is my act of defiance, telling the desert that it is not the boss of me, that I have some control over my own fate, some measure of freedom from its dictates.

I cook dinner, play a few tunes on my uke, then lay down to sleep the sleep of the innocent and untroubled.