9:15pm: It smells like pine. Not air freshener pine or Pine-sol pine or some other chemical pine combination. Real pine, the needle kind.
I’m alone, lying inside my tent watching the full moon emerge from behind the adjacent hillside like a giant wheel of cheese. At the moon’s center, where the hill divides it in two, dark, jagged shapes of silhouetted trees stand guard like a warped picket fence. Hundreds of feet below, sparkles ripple over the surface of a small, isolated mountain lake.
A breeze carries over the ridge. The fence posts sway as the sounds of fluttering leaves crescendo into a blanketing shushhhh – the Great Mother cooing her restless children to sleep. Then the breeze passes. The leaves flutter out. And a deep anticipating silence descends upon the mountaintop like a held breath. Just then, like a glowing beacon, the moon's reassuring smile makes its first reluctant appearance just above the treeline.
How interesting, I wonder, the worries and anxieties that had been rallying inside my head falling quiet, how far this day, a single day, has taken me.
8am (earlier that day): An alarm beeps. She moans and presses the snooze button and rolls over to face me. Our eyes meet, and at a glance they say everything our mouths cannot: I’m leaving. We both know it.
"I'm going to miss you," she says as we embrace minutes later by the door. I tell her the same and she steps back and looks at the ground. A brief hesitation. She hands me a letter, a letter that, perhaps, will change the trajectory of our lives, then walks quickly out the door, the latch clicking with finality behind her.
It's foggy outside when I leave her apartment, a break in the warm, clear San Francisco weather. A strong wind rushes around street corridors. Pedestrians grip their jackets tightly and trudge up and down hilly sidewalks.
I spot my old Subaru up the road, a surfboard strapped atop, purchased a month ago on Craig's List. It's stuffed with the essentials: a cooler filled with little plastic baggies for each backcountry meal, a foam mattress cut to fit into the trunk, two bags of clothes, a Nikon D7100 camera and two lenses, my writing backpack, camping backpack, guitar, bear box, a box of books and notebooks, and “Sniffles,” the smiling beagle stuffed with odor-absorbing beads that’s nestled into the far corner of my dashboard. On the passenger seat is a tote bag filled with letters from my San Francisco friends, written as a goodbye for my thirtieth birthday two months prior. To be opened on the road.
One last view of Polk Street. One last listen to the morning sounds of San Francisco. Then the car door closes – the sounds stop. I look to the passenger seat, to the tote bag containing my friend’s letters, and remember her letter in my jacket pocket and carefully remove it from the envelope. It’s the kindest letter I’ve ever received, enough cause for hesitation. I have to go, I tell myself. It's done. The engine turns then catches with a low purrr. Ten minutes later I'm crossing the Bay Bridge watching the foggy city shrink then disappear in the rear view, six years evaporating into a grey mist.
8:45am: Overcast skies along Highway 5 toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. Mid-day traffic. Fast food exits and flat, desolate fields. Memories haunt me. I check the gas - still full. I check the straps to my surfboard - still tight. I bite my nails as I look into passing car windows, wondering where their passengers are going; wondering if they can sense where I'm going, or it they'd even care.
11am: The mountains have begun to line up beside highway 5 like bumpers. Trucks replace cars. Farms. Fields. Silos. Confederate flags. Bald heads and anti-Obama stickers. More fast food exits. I stop at a Wendy's / Truck Stop combo and order the number seven.
Four police officers stand around a man seated four tables over. He's bald and thick chested and tattoos weave around his pale forearms like vines growing from the sleeves of his oversized white t-shirt. A young boy sits across from him. The man asks the boy questions and the boy smiles and mumbles answers. The man smiles back and doesn't look away from the boy. The boy tucks his chin against his chest and doesn't look away from his food. The man tells the boy jokes, tells him he's got his heart, tells him he won't end up like him. The young boy nods into his chest. "Yeah," he mumbles, picking at his french fries.
1pm: Off the main highway now. Infrequent cars. Small wooden houses on large plots of land. Trucks in driveways. The road dips then rises then curves through hilly tunnels of trees. In the distance, mountain peaks rise above the landscape like castles.
3pm: No phone service. Google maps has taken me to a rough dirt road that winds up the mountains and into the trees. A dust cloud drags behind. No signs. No cars. No people. Nothing but trees. I re-check Google maps: Thirty miles to the destination, a red pin in the middle of green.
My Subaru careens over rocks, through trees, around turns and more turns and another fucking turn and trees and larger trees and trees that lean precariously over me, conspiring – the gradual psychological progression from uncertain to lost. Anxious and irrational possibilities pile up, teetering dangerously on the brink of panic. I consider camping in a secluded pullout to cut my losses. Not here, I resolve, I'm not settling on the first night.
Twenty minutes later my Subaru pulls back onto the main road. A dust cloud spins then disappears over the asphalt like an apparition.
Five miles and zero cars later I pull into an empty dirt parking lot. At its head is a small cabin attached to a gas station, a wooden porch out front. Behind the cabin's screen door a woman sits alone behind the counter reading an auto-body magazine.
"Excuse me,” I ask as I enter. “Do you know where the ranger station is?"
The magazine lowers like a drawbridge.
"Two roads up. Take a right and just keep going to the end. Can't miss it."
"Thanks."
The drawbridge rises.
At the second right I turn down a long road, paved this time, that passes old wooden buildings and a trailer surrounded by bright flowers. The buildings stop when the road reaches the tree-line. A hundred yards later the trees open and the road dead ends at a quarter-mile clearing occupied by two wooden buildings erected behind a large, freshly paved parking lot. At the far corner of the lot is it’s only occupant: a thick, shiny blue pickup truck. Four men in tan ranger uniforms stand beside it tossing a Nerf football. As I cross the lot toward them, they collectively turn and stare.
"Is this where I get a backcountry permit?" I ask as I pull beside them. The youngest of the four looks to the others then leans down to my window.
"For what?" He asks. He has broad shoulders and short hair and every move he makes seems to hint at an inherent condescension.
"For backpacking."
"You don't need a permit. Just sign in at the trailhead. Any idea where you're camping?"
"Not sure yet. Going to figure it out as I go."
A searching glance. Behind him the Nerf football begins to lazily arc from one ranger to the next.
"Know any good recommendations?"
"Hey, Freddie." He calls over his shoulder. "This fella wants to know if we got any good camping recommendations."
Freddie, a bald, serious-looking man with a handlebar mustache, turns from the game and looks down at me from behind orange-tinted sunglasses.
"Plenty of options along the highway. Don't matter which one you choose." He turns to receive the football before I can ask specifics. The young ranger smirks and returns to me.
"You planning on having a fire?"
"Not sure. I've got a fire permit though." He nods with approval. I thank him and pull away. Before crossing the tree-line I look back once more: The rangers are huddled together now, talking. I wonder if it’s about me.
Returning to the highway I notice a sign I’d overlooked: Lassen National Forest Ranger Station. My destination is Lassen Volcanic National Park. I’m at the wrong place.
5pm: I'm standing beside my car in the Summit Lake North trailhead parking lot ten miles inside Lassen Volcanic National Park, a trail I’d chosen after receiving a map from the friendly ranger at the park’s entrance. Mine is the only vehicle in the lot.
I pack and unpack my backpack. I add more clothes and pull out clothes and forget things on the hood or on the ground or in the back of the car. I feel embarrassed and uncertain. Chipmunks peer out from behind fallen branches, giggling.
Trailhead sign: Cluster Lakes – 6 miles. Three minutes later the parking lot disappears in the wake of the trail and the worries begin to stack up. I try walking quicker to outpace them. It’s no use – their legs are too fresh.
The trail unfolds beneath jagged pines then rises over hillsides and falls into small valleys, past lakes, through expansive landscapes. More of the same. No people. Only trees and greens and chipmunks and birds. I stop for pictures – worry clouds focus.
7pm: The sun is dropping now. I’m walking along a path cut into the hillside of one of the Cluster Lakes, its surface reflecting a distorted upside-down portrait of the adjacent bank’s tree-line. Long shadows stretch over the trail and into the water. More mind tricks. More worries.
I need to find a campsite. I try to climb the hillside beside me but its too steep; the soil too loose. fallen trees. Too much loose soil. Too difficult a climb. A quarter mile farther I discover a faint path that seems scalable. I drop my pack and run or claw toward the summit. When I reach the top the trees part to reveal a clearing a hundred yards long and twenty-five yards wide. It’s flat and grassy with views of the two lakes hundreds of feet below on either side – views for miles. Palpable joy. Palpable relief.
Stars slowly flickering into view. I hum and stumble down the hillside to retrieve my pack then return and pitch my tent and set a fire, howling once into the sky for good measure. Ramen for dinner – chicken flavored. As the sky darkens into deeper shades of black, the red and orange of the flames expand against the shadows with an escalating vividity.
9pm: The moon is rising above the hillside now, full, like a giant wheel of cheese. Indeed.