Claire Henley: Adventures West (So Much All At Once)

(Editor's Note: Chattanoogan Claire Henley started an adventure of a lifetime on the remote Pacific Crest Trail in April. Along the way, she had many adventures and found herself a husband named Big Spoon).

“We were very tired, we were very merry—/ We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.”

-Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Recuerdo”

We had come through very much. So much, in fact, it’s hard to know where to start. But I’ll do my best to give you the rundown. By mile 879, Big Spoon and I met a man on Edison Lake who went by the name of Squirrel. Squirrel was thin as wire, had shriveled limbs like raisins, and a little face whittled with pockmarks. He ferried us in his green John boat across the nearly dried up lake to Vermilion Valley Resort. The wind on the water was sharp, and wolf tracks led from the bank to the resort that was really just a campground with an overpriced restaurant. To let you know just how overpriced, the waitress with hairy armpits charged Big Spoon and me $42 for two burgers, fries, and a pitiful piece of apple pie that we split. And that didn’t include the tip.

At Red’s Meadow Campground a few days later, a mischievous black bear sniffed his way into camp and rummaged through our neighbors’ open coolers across the path. It was dusk, and Big Spoon and I were walking from the showers to our tent when we spotted the big, round, hungry bear.

“Hey, Buddy! A bear is stealing your food,” Big Spoon yelled to the man slouching in a folding chair in front of his RV.

“A what?” The man called back.

“A bear! Quick, behind you at your red and blue coolers!”

The man shot up out of his chair, grabbed the closest weapon to him–a cast iron skillet–and bolted for the bear that was neck deep in an icy box of fish. The daughter, who had been hula hooping by the creek, ran beneath the awning of the RV and into her mother’s trembling arms. The father held the skillet high, cursed and shouted at the bear to get. The commotion startled the bear, and, to his beastly chagrin at having failed to sufficiently partake in the people-food left out in the open, he backed away and ran into the trees, his head hanging low from being caught.

The next day, in the ski town of Mammoth Lakes, Big Spoon and I attempted to go to church on the far side of town. We took the open air trolley to the end of the line, got off, then stepped inside the white shingled church. It smelled like formaldehyde, a compound which very well could have been sprayed to preserve the ancient congregation I could count on one hand. Big Spoon and I took a seat in the carpeted pew closest to the door. After patting the hunched backs of the timeworn members, the preacher sauntered our way. He held a mason jar at his hip filled with a gray liquid.

Poison, I thought, as he shook my and Big Spoon’s hand. His complexion was rough and dull, and his fingers were cold to the touch.

“I’ve got a new grill I’m wanting to test out. Would you youngsters like to come over to my house after the service for supper? I’m grilling lamb. Lamb. What hungry hiker doesn’t like lamb?” The preacher said after we told him we were on the PCT.

I looked at Big Spoon, and he looked at me. We deliberated with our eyes over the invitation.

“Thank you very much,” I said to the preacher after Big Spoon and I reached a silent agreement, “but we have several errands to run today before we get back on the trail.”

“But I’m having lamb. Lamb,” the preacher persisted. “And I can drive you to my home myself if that makes things easier for you. I’ve never met a hiker who didn’t love lamb.” The preacher kept saying the word “lamb” in such a way that Big Spoon and I got to feeling like we were the little lambs he was hoping to grill. Thus, when he finally dropped the topic and took to the pulpit where he bowed his silver head to say the opening prayer, Big Spoon and I slowly stood up, then we ran for our little lives.

Back on the trail, the sky thundered and threw lightning in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. Rain pelted into the Thousand Island Lake, and as we trekked up the dark slippery rock, I wondered if we should keep going. I didn’t voice this inquiry, however, because at the end of the day, rain or shine, that was all you could really do, keep on going. Even with the tormenting mosquitoes. They ate us alive, those bloodthirsty devils. I deemed them the Devil’s spawn: vicious and incessant; out in the world, only, to bring you down. Most every hiker we passed in the Sierra wore pants, long sleeves, and black nets over their heads–the hiker’s hazmat suit–to fend against the inflaming injection of the dive-bombing mosquito.

“I pity the soul who doesn’t have a mosquito net,” Big Spoon said each time we encountered someone slapping his or her uncovered head while performing a twitchy dance, like one demon possessed, in attempt to ward the swarm of evil away.

As previously stated, we had come through very much. By the time we reached Tuolumne Meadows–the gateway to Yosemite–at mile 942, Big Spoon and I were ready for a vacation. And before I continue, I’d like to make something clear. Even though Big Spoon and I had quit our jobs and set aside five months to hike the PCT, the PCT was not a vacation. The PCT was work, fulfilling work, sure; rewarding work, yes; but it was work all the same; hard labor that demanded our blood, sweat, and tears; our new nine to five in the great outdoors.

Therefore, because Big Spoon had family in Oakland, the plan was to get off the trail in Tuolumne Meadows to spend the Fourth of July in the greater San Francisco area. It was a bulletproof plan, too. Or so we thought. But when we hiked into Tuolumne and found that the bus we were relying on to take us two-hundred miles west didn’t run during the weekdays, we were stuck. It was four in the afternoon, and Big Spoon and I had been sitting at the fly infested picnic tables in front of the General Store for at least an hour trying to think of what to do. The green tea I bought to sip on was nearly empty, and now a storm was rolling in.

“Either we try and hitch to San Francisco, or we forget the whole thing and continue on the trail,” Big Spoon said while looking up at the navy clouds overhead.

Neither Big Spoon nor I had the desire to forget about vacation, so the unanimous decision became to hitch. Within the next few minutes we were standing on the side of Highway 120, packs on our tired backs, thumbs straight up as the Yosemite National Park tourists wheeled by. There was a key strategy to hitchhiking that Big Spoon and I were well aware of by now: the girl should always stand up front. That way, the car sees the female first, and because female hitchhikers are perceived as less threatening than male hitchhikers, they stand a better chance at being picked up. I stood in front of Big Spoon with my sweaty hat off and greasy hair down. I wasn’t ashamed that I was, for lack of a better phrase, working what my mama gave me to get a free ride. After all, it worked every time.

About thirty cars zipped by before a bulky RV stopped in the middle of the road. The Hispanic driver rolled down the passenger’s side window. “Where to?” He asked.

“San Fransisco,” Big Spoon and I replied.

Cars piled up behind the RV as the driver thought this over. “I can only take you so far. Just beyond Yosemite. Hop in if you can find a seat. It is a full ride,” The driver said in broken English. Then he called something in Spanish, and a woman with zebra printed pants and dangling earrings opened the RV door. Big Spoon and I climbed in and were instantly welcomed by a large, wide-eyed family who eagerly helped us situate our packs on the floor, then scooted into each other to make room for us on the long leather couch. The driver got going, and one of the three mothers reached into the cooler at her feet and handed Big Spoon and me a cold, dripping coke. Except for the two children in their teens, the family spoke little English. However, they could communicate enough to continually offer Big Spoon and me food and drink. Even when we politely declined, the grandmother whipped out some bread and a homemade cheese spread that smelled five star, and in her grandmotherly way coerced us to eat what she called her most special sandwiches of all.

Two hours later, after a slow mountainside drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic, the driver stopped for the evening at Becks Meadow Campground. “God bless!” The woman in zebra pants wished us as Big Spoon and I hopped off the RV. Her name was Daisy, I found out during the ride. And though I’m not sure if she understood a word we said, she acted fascinated by my and Big Spoon’s journey. She gave us a mighty hug then waved goodbye as we walked over to the highway.

We were now one hundred and fifty miles east of San Fransisco, and the sun was starting to set.

“Time for round two,” Big Spoon said; I got in ready position. For several minutes no cars passed by. It was hotter in the valley. The storm had cleared and it was humid out. Beads of sweat rolled off my chin. My thumb started to sag as the first car we saw came closer. It was a white Toyota Corolla, and to our great relief the driver pulled off for us to get in. His name was Shiv, an Indian from India who had lived in America the last eight years, working in Boston for a financial firm, but now traveling about because he had grown numbingly complacent from such work. As Big Spoon and I grabbed our gear, Shiv told us that he had been hiking in Yosemite earlier that day and needed a hitch himself. An elderly couple drove him back to his car, so when Shiv saw Big Spoon and me on the side of the road, he thought to himself, “Now my turn to build karma.” Thus he stopped to help us out.

We loaded our packs in the trunk of Shiv’s car where A Brave New World lay bookmarked in the shadows. Big Spoon took the front seat, and as we strapped in, Shiv said, “It’s dangerous to pick up strangers, I know that. But this life is dangerous. And if you don’t get in on the danger, then you’re not really living. Just don’t slit my throat,” he laughed. “Now, where are you two going?”

We told him San Fransisco, to which Shiv replied he was only driving ten miles up the road to Groveland to stay the night in a motel.

“But tomorrow morning I drive to SF. And if you split gas with me, I’ll drive you there also.” Shiv’s accent was as thick as his black beard, and he spoke as fast as he drove. We were in Groveland in no time, the ride being just long enough to seal the deal with Shiv for him to drive us to San Fransisco in the morning.

***

In Oakland, we stayed with Big Spoon’s cousin, Jenny. Jenny was a high school guidance counselor married to an accountant named Ana. The couple had two-year-old twins, a girl and boy named Cecelia and Joaquin. The house they lived in was painted ocean green. Tall pink roses draped over the fence in the front yard, and a lemon tree shaded the back. Their neighborhood was made up of many styles of houses and people of diverse ethnicities, and all the children played at the park down the street.

***

Jenny had short dark hair and light brown eyes. Her eyes were full of light, and she was full of life. Because she worked in the school system, she had summers off and so was working as a full time mother to her twins, as well as a full time daughter to her dad, Big Spoon’s Great Uncle Greg. Greg’s wife, Rosalee, passed away six months before, and because Jenny was the only child, and because her father had been having heart complications, by the time Big Spoon and I arrived, Jenny was juggling watching her twins with taking her father to and from the cardiologist.

She did all of this in stride and with a spirit of understanding and joy. I was afraid Big Spoon and I might serve as an added distraction while visiting, but it turned out we came in handy. On our first full day in town, we babysat the twins while Jenny helped her dad. Jenny and Ana only spoke to Cecilia and Joaquin in Spanish in order for them to eventually be bilingual, so there was a language barrier between us and the toddlers, but we made due with the simple phrases Jenny scratched on a sheet of computer paper before she left that morning. When the twins woke up, I scrambled them some eggs; then Big Spoon and I walked with them on our shoulders to the park. Cecelia was more outgoing than Joaquin. She ran all over the playground and slid down every slide while Joaquin sat in the corner and made castles in the sand. The little twins were as bright and sweet as the azalea-filled day. It was a nice change of pace to live our passing hours through the eyes of an enchanted child.

Ana was off work the next day and let Big Spoon and I borrow her car. In the heavy fog of the early morning, Big Spoon and I traveled to the Golden Gate Bridge then down Highway 1 to Santa Cruz. Big Spoon drove and I sat beside him with the window down to let in the ocean breeze. The air smelled like salt and fruit stands lined the highway. On the way to Santa Cruz we stopped in the village of Half Moon Bay. You could see the Pacific Ocean from the main square. The day was overcast and hot. I bought fresh plump strawberries from the corner market that Big Spoon and I ate as we walked to the beach. The gritty sand massaged our calloused feet. The deep blue ocean went on forever, and powerful waves slapped every few seconds upon the rocky shore.

The Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest skyscraper in San Fransisco and known as the city’s iconic building like the Empire State Building in New York. It just so happened that my friend, Jill, who I had met several years before while studying abroad in France, had moved to the city in June and just gotten a job as an executive assistant on the 44th floor of the Transamerica. Jill had 24-7 access to the building, so when I told her Big Spoon and I would be in town for the Fourth, she invited us to watch fireworks over the bay from her very high place of business.

On the evening of Independence Day, Big Spoon and I met Jill and her roommate, Mary Lynn, at their studio apartment in Berkeley. It had been years since Jill and I last saw each other, but because we had stayed in touch, when we reunited on the sparkler swept sidewalk, it felt as if no time had passed since our last encounter. Jill’s silky black hair trailed to the small of her back, and she wore a long bohemian skirt and blue blouse that was knotted in the front. She and her roommate ushered Big Spoon and me inside, sat Big Spoon comfortably on the couch, then showed me a colorful array of summer dresses and shoes for me to pick from. I dressed in the bathroom in a blue floral dress of Jill’s that fell just above my knees. Mary Lynn let me wear a pair of her black sandals, and for the first time in over two months I put on a little perfume and mascara.

Big Spoon’s eyes widened when I stepped out of the bathroom. He had never seen me in a dress, and it looked like he wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come out.

“Good work, ladies,” I said to Jill and Mary Lynn as I checked my reflection in the mirror.

We took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (aka BART) into the city. At each stop, a mass of people crammed into the subway. Everyone touched everyone. We stood like sheep in a cramped, hot pen. Then everyone dispersed like ants on fire once the subway reached San Fran. The four of us strolled through the flashing lights of downtown until reaching the Transamerica–the tower that touched the sky. A security guard checked our I.D.s before allowing us entrance into the elevator. We were the only ones on the 44th floor. A conference room with a long black table looked out on the city and bay below. The only problem was fog smothered the sky, so when the fireworks began, we couldn’t see them, but could only hear their thundering pops and make out the rippling reflections of red, blue, and gold in the water.

Though Jill was disappointed, it didn’t matter that we couldn’t see the fireworks. Where we were was fireworks enough–the 44th of 48 floors of San Fansisco’s most prized building. Not to mention, Jill and Mary Lynn had hidden sparkling wine and chocolate cookies in their purses as a surprise for Big Spoon and me once we got inside. We sipped the wine and snacked on the cookies while listening to the loud and invisible firework show.

“But that’s not the real surprise,” Jill said as she poured everyone a second glass.

“What do you mean?” I asked Jill, to which she responded that, after hearing about my and Big Spoon’s wedding on the trail, she did some research, emailed six resorts along the PCT telling them our story, and heard back from one–Squaw Creek at Lake Tahoe–with the affirmative to Jill’s request to give Big Spoon and me a free night’s stay in the honeymoon suit.

“But it’s time sensitive,” Jill said while I stared at her with my mouth half open. “July eighteen is the night the resort can accommodate you two, and by my calculations, you’re a little over one-hundred miles away by trail.”

With the utmost gratitude, Big Spoon and I assured Jill that, one way or the the other, we would make our reservation at the resort.

***

We left San Fransisco via Amtrak train the next day. The train ride was our wedding gift from Jenny, Ana, and Greg. That morning before departing, Jenny drove us and the twins in her minivan to her father’s condo in Castro Valley. Great Uncle Greg was sitting at the dining room table sipping soup when we arrived. He held the newspaper in his lap and a twinkle in his eye. Big Spoon and I sat at the table with him as Jenny played with the twins in the living room.

“How are my Travelers this morning?” Uncle Greg asked, putting down his spoon. We told him we were well and asked about him. As if slipping back into the good ole days, he said with a dreamy look in his eyes, “I’m well, Travelers, I’m well. Seeing you young people together takes me back to when I was a missionary in Peru. I used to be a priest, you know. And my Rosalee, she was a nun. We met and got married. Then we had our Jenny. Jenny and Ana have their love story. Rosalee and I have ours. And Caleb, now you and Claire have yours. Isn’t life wonderful?” Great Uncle Greg said with his hand to his heart.

Jenny listened from the living room, and I saw a layer of tears glisten from her eyes. Great Uncle Greg was an extraordinary man. And that’s all there was to that.

“We’ll see you come May, Uncle Greg,” I said while hugging him goodbye. I was referring to the formal wedding Big Spoon and I planned to have in Tennessee next spring.

“Yes, my Travelers, yes. We shall meet again come May.”

Jenny and the twins waved farewell to Big Spoon and me as we boarded the train in Jack London Square. Per Uncle Greg’s recommendation, we sat on the top floor of the double decker train, next to a window on the west side in order to see the bay. Back to Yosemite we roamed as the views of the water turned gradually into high mountain domes. I fell asleep on the train once we passed all the water. Our vacation was over, and so much had happened, it seemed, all at once. Now back to the trail we roamed.

* * *

Claire's first book on her adventures while living in Colorado can be ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/51-Weeks-The-Unfinished-Journey-ebook/dp/B00IWYDLBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394801373&sr=8-1&keywords=51+Weeks