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Over the top

An odd coincidence on a Labor Day hiking trip last year left me wondering just what the universe was up to.

Just before we started the first day of the hike, Christina, Chris, Lon and I huddled together for a group picture.
There we were, captured on film in a pristine state not to be seen for the next 50 miles and six days. A nice mountain dude took our picture. He had a brown beard down to his chest, a khaki shirt with frayed sleeves and well-worn shorts. Judging from his appearance, he'd spent some hard days on the trail.
"So how long was your hike?" one of us asked him.
"Oh, I'm just getting started," he said.
It was a little like asking a woman who just had her baby when it's due.
We carried on with our hiking plan and he with his.
But it wouldn't be the last we'd see of him.
By day three or so, we were headed toward Forester Pass. I was in the groove of hiking, no longer fearing the stretches of aloneness or whether I could hack it.
Then came the Forester Pass experience.
Again, the switchbacks seemed to go on indefinitely. Again, I cursed my foolhardiness in embarking on such a crazy undertaking as this dang hiking trip.
But this time, the inside commentary was more like a low hum than a defeaning squeal of fear.
I told myself I was pretty tough just to make as far as I had.
When I finally got up to the pass, I felt a joyful lift of spirits as my trailmates congratulated me.
Then I noticed a guy standing at the top with very little gear -- no tent, not much in his backpack -- a fuzzy brown beard down to his chest, a shirt with frayed sleeves and well-worn khaki shorts.
We greeted each other, and the mountain dude described his route. It sounded something like a pinball's path except around the High Sierras. Then he described his road home. It sounded like some sort of super hiker's agenda. I couldn't believe he was going so far in one day. He said he had to get home in time to go to work the next morning.
"Yeah, I'll be hiking in the dark," he said nonchalantly.
Hiking in the dark? This idea had never occurred to me. Was that even possible?
What kind of crazy, suicidal person hikes in the dark over treacherous switchbacks at 12,000 feet altitude?
But before the trip was over, I was going to find out all about hiking in the dark.
The best part of my conversation with the mountain dude -- he was a biologist -- was his disclosure that snakes were rare to nonexistent at that altitude.
And no rattlesnakes.

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