36.59238, -117.03262
One of the things I’ve learned about hiking the Desert Trail, and of hiking deserts in general, is that they never run out of ways to surprise you.
Many of those surprises are good–a show of wildflowers, a waterfall, a bear. Others are not so welcome.
Today’s surprise was of the unwelcome type. A look at the topo map showed flat hiking over open country, conditions that usually make for fine walking, the kind of day where you can just enjoy the scenery, the feeling of freedom that comes with being at large in the wilderness.
Instead it was a hike where every step was a challenge. A small challenge, to be sure, at the level of individual steps. But those steps (some 39,000 according to my phone) add up. 39,000 small challenges can really wear you down.
Why so challenging? It was a full day of dealing with the footing that I spent only half a day with yesterday. I’d been hoping and expecting some easier walking and instead it was harder: more salt-mud spikes, more soft dry sinking mud on the flats, more loose foot-turning rocks on the alluvial fan uplands.
It made every step a negotiation, a decision as to where exactly to put my foot to avoid sinking or slicing or scraping or turning. No way to get a rhythm of walking, no way to just flow along with the landscape, one of the things I love about long walks. I was fighting the land, not merging with it.
There were some potentially interesting side trips not far from my route: Cottonball Marsh, salt springs, the upper Salt Creek which probably holds more pupfish. But there was no way I was going to add even half a mile to my route. Or stop to take pictures. I was just focused on pushing forward.
I covered only about 14 miles, with maybe 100 feet of elevation gain, but I was utterly played by the time I pitched my tarp against the insistent north wind. Too tired to write more than a few lines in my journal, too tired to play a few songs, too tired to cook dinner, too tired to even eat.