My Odyssey

[Treeshepherd]

The goal was to travel on foot from my parents' home in Ben Lomond to to my house in Eureka, without cheating (ie. hitchhiking or using public transit). Partly, I suppose, I am inspired by the early 19th Century trailblazers like Jedediah Smith and Mountain Joe Walker. They trekked across and through and over unimaginable obstacles. They covered vast distances, much of that on foot. They made discoveries around every corner. They established routes that others would later use to their own benefit.

Jed Smith had brass balls, but got 29 of his 33 men killed (while two deserted) over the course of 3 years. Jed himself had his scalp ripped off by a bear, and was later killed by Mohave Indians. Mountain Joe Walker was a wilderness mystic, and had intuition, and lived to be an old man who retired in what is now called Walnut Creek, California. Obviously, the goal for my trip was to emulate Mountain Joe.

We had our fantasy football draft party on August 30 of 2014, with lots of people and festivities. I didn’t stay up too late partying on the deck, but I didn’t sleep that well either. The walk to commence in mere hours weighed on my thoughts.

I got out in the morning sometime after 7, with Mom stuffing a little roll of duct tape in my pack, insisting that I might need it. A couple weeks later, the tape would prove itself most valuable.

I don’t believe I had ever walked from Ben Lomond to Boulder Creek before, despite growing up in the San Lorenzo Valley. This trip would be full of firsts, surprisingly, for a native Californian.

Along hwy 9 I passed many houses where I once had friends and many places that evoked memories from my teen years. I turned up Hwy 236 to Big Basin, with the grade becoming steeper. I passed a monk outside the monastery and imagined him saying that the journey of 400+ miles begins with a few thousand footsteps.

Big Basin was packed with Sunday tourists and I found myself weaving thru traffic on the trail. As the miles passed, the tourists waned, but so did any chance to find water, which is why I really had to push hard to get all the way to Waterman Gap trail camp. I did 23 miles that day on fresh legs, but my legs would pay for it in the morning.

At Waterman Trail Camp I was the only patron. So, I took the best spot, hanging my hammock in a circle of redwoods. The water there was some of the best I've tasted.

 

[Moonglow]

Sounds delightful.....

 

[Mr. H.]

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

-Oku no Hosomichi

 

[Luddly Neddite]

You just made me remember how good the stream water in the Colorado mountains tasted when I was a kid. Cold and sweet.

At a camp, there was a sign that said not to drink the water. To persuade people to heed the sign, a ranger took us into a cave to show us where the water was coming from.

It was literally being filtered through several feet of old bat guano.

Your trip does sound wonderful.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I concentrated on my posture, breathing, length of stride and pace. This was partly an effort to distract myself from a slightly strained knee, blistered toes, and the inevitable shoulder pain that results from wearing a heavy pack on the first days of any backpacking trip. I had five miles left of trail to reach Saratoga Gap. I was leaving the valley, climbing out of it, slowly but surely acquiring Skyline Ridge. Looking back from the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River, I could see clearly to the Monterey Bay.

Along Skyline Ridge there are numerous Open Space Preserves (O.S.P.s) which have recently benefitted from a ballot measure to fund their expansion and development. These include Saratoga Gap OSP, Long Ridge, Russian Ridge, Coal Creek, and Windy Hill Open Space Preserves, all of which offer trail alternatives for hikers and mountain bikers. The one issue for the thru-hiker is that none of these preserves allow camping. It’s all strictly sunrise to sunset. The reality of it was that my trip would have been impossible to accomplish legally. I wasn’t going to sleep in a hotel. I sought a total immersion experience. On most nights, I guerrilla camped.


I’ve gone feral these last two years, though I retain the ability to observe the trained/conditioned customs of civilization. For this trip I certainly saw myself as a sort of hybrid animal, seeking first any available wildlife corridors. I was not observing the wildlife. I was wildlife. I saw a rattlesnake on the trail as I approached Saratoga Gap. I brushed it aside with a heavy wooden staff that a bard had crafted for me. Walk softly, but carry a big stick. The snake reminded me to pay attention, and not drift off into daydreaming.


On that second night I slept by Alpine Lake, behind a druid’s rock outcropping surrounded by slender oaks. The great benefit of not being attached to a vehicle with a license plate number is that a wildman can stealth-camp in any park without being detected (until the rangers are replaced with bio-signature sensing drones, of course). The one possible flaw with that logic is that I went to bed each night very early, and people tell me that I snore like a chainsaw in dire need of a tune-up, which could have alerted a passerby to my location. As it happened, my extra-legal campsites were never detected over the course of more than 3 weeks and I left behind no trace of my ever having been there.

to be continued...

 

[Treeshepherd]

I quit drinking coffee in mid-August, just to acclimate myself to a java-free existence. I brought no stove to boil water in the morning, one less thing to carry and hassle with.

I did bring some chocolate-covered acai berries, and I ate some of those in the morning, along with some jerky, dried mango, a handful of mixed nuts, and two tablets of Peruvian maca (Lepidium meyenii). I guzzled water, topping off my tank before refilling the Klean Kanteen at the faucet by the visitor's center.

My pack is a $10 yard sale purchase. My sleeping bag is a down mummy heirloom, nearly 50 years old, purchased during the 1960's at the original REI in Berkeley. It has duct tape patches to keep the feathers from escaping. I brought my beater iPhone 4 with a cracked screen, and a solar charged Powermonkey Explorer battery. I had a camo tarp, and a rain pancho, shorts, pants, a few shirts, and 6 pairs of socks. I used Vaseline to prevent chaffing, and had a better time of it wearing boxers than briefs.

The Platypus gravity water filtration system fits into a little sack and weighs virtually nothing. The Eagles' Nest Outfitters backpacking hammock stuffs into its own sack as well, compacting down into the shape of a super-burrito. I wore my Pliny the Elder hat to identify myself to other cult members who worship at the altar of Russian River Brewery. There, in the corner of the picture, you can see part of my enchanted heavy wooden staff, crafted by a high level bard.

The classic leather Adidas survived the entire journey.

Leaving Alpine lake, I was questioned in the parking lot by an OSP ranger. She was curious as to why I was carrying so much stuff. I just told her that I was headed for Skylonda, and I wouldn't be camping along the way, which was not a lie. Later, along the trail, I was questioned by another type of ranger, not a 'ranger' in the official county employee sense, but a 'ranger' in the fashion of a Dungeon and Dragons character class. I crossed paths with him along the mountain trail, where he was riding his mountain bike for the day. His appearance was much like my own, but more handsome. He looked Nordic, like myself, but was slightly taller, with better hair, and better teeth. I explained to him the nature of my quest, and he asked me if I'd ever done anything of the sort before. Not really. I've been on 10 day backpacks in the Sierra, and in the Trinity Alps, and the Marble Mountains Wilderness. This was different.

I power-walked along HWY 35 for 5 miles, heading to the little store at Skylonda. I listened to the cravings of my body. They told me to buy the fried chicken sandwich and a pint of tortellini from the deli, and six cans of Coors tallboys. The beer had to be in a can, and Coors was the best of my limited options. In the outdoor seating area, I consumed a rich meal of complex carbohydrates.

That afternoon, I descended through Huddart County Park, down down down eastward into Silicon Valley. I found a park bathroom with hot water, and washed myself with a cloth. I finished my chicken sandwich and found a secluded redwood grove to string my hammock. The beers provided relief for my aching feet. The wind in the treetops rocked me to sleep.

 

[boedicca]

What a great thread! Thank you for posting your adventures.

 

[Treeshepherd]

People have asked me if I became lonely on my trek, or bored by the monotony of walking all day long, day after day. I refer them to Emerson’s essay on the Oversoul;



“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.”


It is an aspect of the Human Condition, especially with us moderns, to feel as exiles, to suffer from alienation, like castaways marooned far from home… survival without purpose. It is the simplest of prayers, to plead, “Take me in, take me back.” It is the first prayer of the druid, and when offered with contrition, and when coupled with practice, is invariably granted. A druid experiences the transmigration of soul, flowing in the four directions, from earth to the heavens, from the fern and tree, snake and mountain lion, rock and river, mountain and sea. To feel lonely, or to be bored, these are impossibilities.


I awoke to the sounds of crazy birds. It was raining madrone leaves and redwood needles. Just after dawn, I passed by two coyotes with healthy coats of the same red-brown color as the forest floor. The coyotes were departing for the hinterlands before the park became open to the public. The air was humid and the sky was heavy with clouds.


The skies had turned blue by the time I reached Pulgas Water Temple, erected in 1934 by the San Francisco Water Department to commemorate the completion of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. There at the terminus of the aqueduct, water from the distant peaks of the Sierra enters Crystal Springs Reservoir.

From a circle of stairs I beckoned the arrival of mountain spirits and listened for their answer in the sound of many waters. I lit a stick of Nag Champa incense, and the last third of a spliff of ganja that a medicine man had given me at our annual fantasy football draft party. My prayers rode out on chariots of herbal smoke.


Just as I was leaving, I made a closer examination of the temple. Inscribed in the concrete, both around the base and upper facing, there is a verse of scripture from the Book of Isaiah. It is a statement and a promise and the reassurance of the Lord of Hosts claiming us for his own; “I make waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, as drink for my people”.


As I hiked on I repeated those words aloud, over and over. The words sank in, along with the strength of the herbal medicine. I was so moved by that verse that I became a little paranoid that I might alarm the passing cyclists and joggers. I took the verse to heart and carried it with me throughout the entire trip.


Despite the drought, from that day onward, I found water just as soon as it was needed. Additionally, my thoughts never lacked for refreshment. And a current of soul never ceased to accompany me northward.


To be expertly grafted to a place, some small corner of the earth, and to so deeply belong there as to become native… to become indigenous, as it were… to possess a Homeland and to be possessed by it…
nothing is more sacred to the druid.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I’d picked up a lot of encouragement at the water temple, and I leaned heavily upon that, because I can remember shortly thereafter being closed out in terms of wildman corridors. I remember at one point running as fast as I could for 1.5 miles underneath my backpack, along the left margin of a California freeway (280) and over a high freeway overpass, hoping that a CHP wouldn’t see me and write me a ticket (or worse, send me back south), and then sprinting up an embankment and scaling a barbed wire fence, accidentally slicing a gash in my Thermarest.

I rested under conifers, in a cushioned bed of pine needles, peeling a tangerine. The freeway no longer threatened me. I ate the usual other trail food, besides the orange. I was out of weed, but along the freeway I had found a crumpled pack of American Spirits with 7 untainted cigarettes left in the pack. If there was ever a time for a smoke, it was then.

After climbing over another barbed wire fence, I skidded down to the multi-use trail that parallels the reservoir. I dusted myself off and joined joggers and cyclists on the paved path. I was walking on the spine of the rift zone created by the San Andreas Fault.

I kept stumbling north along the fault, toward my birthplace in San Francisco.

 

[XPostFacto]

Great story. Never stop hiking. It is good for the soul. Your greatest sacrifice was giving up coffee. Now, I only drink one cup a day since I am retired, but I couldn't think of starting any day without at least one cup of Joe.

 

[Treeshepherd]

By some demon or angel, I was coerced into North Pacifica where I asked for water at a Subway sandwich joint. The amiable associate told me to press the Minute Maid pink lemonade tab, and water would come out. I held my canteen underneath, and filled it with pink liquid. They must have not told the cashier that lemonade was back online. I thanked the guy and headed for the beach.

From Longview Beach to Fort Funston I walked along the shore, past ethnic fisherman angling for perch. The wooden staff proved its worth, effectively distributing my weight between 3 points of contact on the sand. I climbed a brutal series of stairs and caught an inspirational view all the way across town to the Golden Gate Bridge towers. I pounded the rest of my lemonade and walked along trails to the Great Highway.

San Francisco is one of the most congested cities in the US, but also has an extraordinary number of parks. Therefore, it is a city of cyclists and walkers and runners. It is also a city of homeless men who mumble to themselves, so I very much looked the part.

I pounded my staff along the sidewalk, summoning the ghosts of my ancestors who had lived and died in that city since the late 19th century. I stopped at Java Beach Cafe and ordered a roast beef sandwich with a salad, and a pint of Lagunitas IPA. I drank a couple more pints before the sandwich was eaten.

I plugged in my phone, and called family to let them know where I was at. Then, I called a sage who I had seen at the fantasy football draft that weekend prior.

I walked through Golden Gate park and buzzed the doorbell of the sage. The gate opened. He was home alone, with his wife visiting family in Marin. We retired to his library, where he reads books about the Crusades, and the Revolution, and the Civil War, and the World Wars of the 20th century. The sage is old now, past 70, and spends his days reading in pajamas.

The sage had a water pipe, and some weed, and I had picked up a sixer of Ranier Ale, and we talked history and watched the first NFL game of 2014 between the Seahawks and Packers, eating BBQ flavored potato chips.

I took a shower and used the washer and drier. I passed out in the guest room. I slept without dreaming in the city where I was born.

 

[Treeshepherd]

Miwok Trail in foreground and distance;

Priorities must be set when packing a backpack. Choices must be made in terms of taking certain items along, and leaving others behind. These choices are integral to framing the character of the journey. I carried no book for this trip, and no music, and no tent, and no bug repellent. I left my Peninsula trail map with the sage for him to give to his grandson who loves to hike.

The backpack can serve as an analogy. The symbolism is helpful. In both a mental and spiritual sense, what are we choosing to pack along the way? Mentally, what are we packing with us to work, school or personal engagement? We take mental provisions, protections, and creative tools. Equally important, what do we choose to leave behind? As Lao Tzu remarked, “If you want knowledge, add something every day. If you want wisdom, remove something every day."

I’ve lost 23 pounds since mid-summer. My face looks thinner. I’m fitting into pairs of pants that I haven’t been able to wear in 2 years. But I ask myself, what mental and spiritual baggage did I toss over the side of Golden Gate Bridge on my way into Marin County? Wouldn’t that be the more significant and lasting addition-by-subtraction?

Crossing the bridge, I looked back toward the City by the Bay. I looked down over the side, and held onto my hat. I pressed forward on that foggy day, past a light sprinkling of tourists and a dedicated population of bicycle commuters, walking the pedestrian/cycle path along the span. The fog I welcomed, as I have pale skin and don't wear sunscreen. Massive cargo ships passed beneath. It’s a surprisingly long walk the other side (1.7 miles).

What exactly was it that began to melt away as I climbed into the Marin Headlands? Initially, I missed the trail I had planned to take, but simply took another. I missed the distant views of the bridge towers, but instead enjoyed a walk through a green valley. I picked up the Miwok Trail near its origin, rather than up on the ridge as I had planned. Spontaneously, I turned onto the Old Springs Trail and rejoined the Miwok in Tennessee Valley.

How different everything appeared from what my mind had conceived from maps. How varied my experiences as I moved through golden hills to redwood valleys to eucalyptus forest filled with butterflies. All along the way, there was ever Mt Tamalpais to the north.

I saw two coyotes, just as I had seen a pair in Huddart County Park. That time they had been on the move at dawn, near a picnic area. This time they rested in the afternoon sun on a canyon side, beyond the reach of even a wildman.

Always in the sky above me, every single day, the turkey vultures circled. They are scavengers of carcasses. But, my knee issue had cleared up, and my feet were becoming calloused, and my legs were growing stronger. I was back off the road, and back on the trail where I could not fall prey to being hit by a delivery truck as the vultures would have preferred.

 

[Roadrunner]

Any

I concentrated on my posture, breathing, length of stride and pace. This was partly an effort to distract myself from a slightly strained knee, blistered toes, and the inevitable shoulder pain that results from wearing a heavy pack on the first days of any backpacking trip. I had five miles left of trail to reach Saratoga Gap. I was leaving the valley, climbing out of it, slowly but surely acquiring Skyline Ridge. Looking back from the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River, I could see clearly to the Monterey Bay.

Along Skyline Ridge there are numerous Open Space Preserves (O.S.P.s) which have recently benefitted from a ballot measure to fund their expansion and development. These include Saratoga Gap OSP, Long Ridge, Russian Ridge, Coal Creek, and Windy Hill Open Space Preserves, all of which offer trail alternatives for hikers and mountain bikers. The one issue for the thru-hiker is that none of these preserves allow camping. It’s all strictly sunrise to sunset. The reality of it was that my trip would have been impossible to accomplish legally. I wasn’t going to sleep in a hotel. I sought a total immersion experience. On most nights, I guerrilla camped.


I’ve gone feral these last two years, though I retain the ability to observe the trained/conditioned customs of civilization. For this trip I certainly saw myself as a sort of hybrid animal, seeking first any available wildlife corridors. I was not observing the wildlife. I was wildlife. I saw a rattlesnake on the trail as I approached Saratoga Gap. I brushed it aside with a heavy wooden staff that a bard had crafted for me. Walk softly, but carry a big stick. The snake reminded me to pay attention, and not drift off into daydreaming.


On that second night I slept by Alpine Lake, behind a druid’s rock outcropping surrounded by slender oaks. The great benefit of not being attached to a vehicle with a license plate number is that a wildman can stealth-camp in any park without being detected (until the rangers are replaced with bio-signature sensing drones, of course). The one possible flaw with that logic is that I went to bed each night very early, and people tell me that I snore like a chainsaw in dire need of a tune-up, which could have alerted a passerby to my location. As it happened, my extra-legal campsites were never detected over the course of more than 3 weeks and I left behind no trace of my ever having been there.

to be continued...

Anyone who drinks living waters today is batshit crazy.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I came up Redwood Creek to Muir Woods National Monument, looking and smelling like an animal. The weekend crowd was thick, with tourists visiting from all corners of the world, many of them couples, chatting and having a wonderful outing, pushing strollers, wearing Italian designer jeans or summer dresses from Main Street boutiques.
I walked up the Bootjack Trail, beyond the range of day hikers, until I came to a meadow above the canyon. Among great firs, and redwoods, and stone temples, I stretched my hammock between a madrone and an oak. It was a place all too familiar to a person from Northern California.

I ate, and then elevated my feet in the hammock, waiting for the sun to set and the waxing moon to rise. A river of fog poured over a western pass, but never reached me. My tarp and rain gear would remain buried in my pack for many days to come.
My aching feet kept me awake, long enough to hear an owl hooting for over an hour before his answer came. The owl had found his mate, and there were two sets of hootings, and then there was silence. My food bag hung from a half-halfheartedly strung ‘bear’ hang, effective enough to discourage a raccoon.

If there are any bears in Marin County, they are a rare anomaly. Food-jacking bears would become a modest concern in Mendocino County, and a prime concern in Southern Humboldt, lands that remained far to the north, seemingly as distant at the crisp constellations shining in the sky. The sky overhead was so clear that the Milky Way appeared as white grains behind the nearer stars.

I slept, waking a few times to note the migration of the stars, and to feel the spinning of the planet. At an elemental level, at a cellular level, at a molecular level, I could sense the spinning dance of covalent relationships.

 

[Mr. H.]

I'm enjoying these.

 

[Treeshepherd]

It was a tale told by the Miwok people that an evil witch dwelled upon the summit of Mt Tamalpais. Perhaps this was true. It is possible that an extremely dangerous, powerful and magical hag lived up there in a primitive hut, concocting potions and evil brews and ever looking down upon the low landers, casting curses and irrevocable blights upon any who might dare to approach the summit. It might also have been the case that the Miwok simply wanted to discourage outsiders from settling near there, sort of like an Old Man Jenkins trick from the Scooby Doo cartoons. The Miwok viewed themselves as ancestors of Coyote, and they were indeed master tricksters.

As it were, the colonizers built a railroad track all the way up to the summit of Mt Tam. By the year 1910, only 670 Miwok remained in what is now known as Marin County, surviving upon alms and paltry rations.
miwok.jpg image

I dared not to attempt to reach the summit. I had a schedule to maintain, and daily mileage goals, and also I preferred to avoid the witch. But I climbed pretty darned far up that damned mountain, pausing regularly to catch my breath.

It was the coldest night of my entire journey. For the first time, I zipped myself inside my bag rather than merely draping it over. In the morning, the air was chilly, and I felt lazy. Eventually though, I had to pee. I unzipped my bag and leaned just a little too far to the side in my hammock. Perhaps it my mistake, or perhaps it was the curse of the Tamalpais Witch, but I fell out of the hammock into my own puddle of urine. The squirrels and Stellar's jays heckled me. Embarrassed, I abruptly went down to the creek to rinse off, and then packed up and headed toward Cataract Creek.

 

[Treeshepherd]

A boisterous women’s hiking group (about 30 strong) gathered at the head of the Cataract Creek Trail. They were an even mixture of Baby Boomers and Gen X’s. I shifted into a higher gear and got out ahead of the mob. Just about a mile or two down the creek I stopped to filter some water. I double checked my trail map as the water trickled through the filter into my canteen.



I love to study maps, and I love it when I discover that the real country is never as I imagined it from studying the map. From the map, it appeared that I would be high and dry after leaving this spot, perhaps not to reach water again until late afternoon. Due to the drought and the season, Cataract Creek certainly didn’t have any cataracts, but was little more than a series of puddles.



I drank as much as I could and secured my full canteen to my pack just as the voices of the women approached. They would be continuing down the trail. I turned and crossed the Ray Murphy Bridge, and walked back up out of that watershed. I climbed from a cool forest strewn with acorns to an open ridge of dry grass and connected with the waning tail of the Coastal Trail. Dry and slick on the grass and gravel, and little more than an animal track, it ran along a contour just below the top of the ridge. I looked down to Stinson Beach (with 'trail' shown on the shoulder);

Almost suddenly, I entered a lush forest dominated by Old Growth firs. Water oozed from the ground, as if squeezed out by pressure inside the mountain, and many delicate plants lived there on the surface. I stepped over mud pockets to keep my Adidas dry.

I bounded along the remainder of the Coastal Trail through more lush forest, until I reached the Bolinas Ridge Trail, which runs 11 miles on almost a perfect South to North axis. This is a trail that has been used since humans first came to California. This was the ancient route from Marin to Sonoma. The Bolinas Ridge Trail began with some steep hot chaparral, but I soon re-entered the shade. I chewed on some turkey tail mushrooms that I found on rotting logs as I walked through ferns in a redwood forest. I walked on and on for many miles, taking a right turn down from the mountain until I reached Lagunitas Creek, and a salmon viewing area. Loud urbanites threw rocks into the water, and there wouldn’t be any fish viewing at that spot. I crossed the road and entered Samuel Taylor State Park, where I found a hiking and biking campground for $7 a night.

I met a bike traveler at the camp holding a book with a bearded philosopher on the cover. Upon my inquiry, he revealed that he was reading the complete works of Henry David Thoreau. We talked for a while, and shared a common passion for the American Transcendentalists. I used my staff to help me arise from a seat on the ground beside a redwood tree, and I bid my fellow a good day, but not before quothing him my favorite quote from Thoreau… “In wildness is the preservation of the world”.

Looking around, the camp seemed overcrowded. Car campers were cheating and hauling in stuff from the parking lot. As I was leaving the bike traveler asked, “So, this is your Walden?” I agreed, and walked away. I changed my mind a bit further down the trail. I have had many Waldens during former chapters of my life. I have had an Iliad or two. This was to be my Odyssey. I found a private spot by the creek on the edge of park property. At twilight I watched the fish jumping in Lagunitas Creek.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I left Samuel Taylor State Park heading west alongside Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. I found the first ripe blackberries of the summer growing along the fences. I’ll eat one if it’s still a bit firm and touched with red. The extra shot of Vitamin-C was welcomed, and the fresh fruit included a tiny amount of insect protein as a bonus. I walked over rolling hills with the sun rising behind me and many cows greeted me warmly, perhaps of the opinion that I had come walking down the road to feed them. My road fed me into the valley and Highway 1, separated from Drake’s Cove by the hills of Point Reyes peninsula.

As the summer solstice approached in the year 1579, Francis Drake parked the Golden Hind on a beach in Drake’s Cove. His scouting parties found the inland territory to be fair and bounteous and generous of provision. But the weather right along the coast during their layover never ceased to be oppressively foggy. Foul weather during winter is to be expected, but the summer fog along the North Coast of California can take a severe toll on the human psyche.

Drake’s expedition had abandoned two of its supply ships in South America. Storms parted the Pelican and the Elizabeth near the Strait of Magellan, and the Marigold went down to the deeps with its captain and all hands. The Elizabeth, having become separated and terrorized by the Cape Horn sailed back to England. Drake changed the name of his mother ship to The Golden Hind following its watery baptism in the Strait. With 70 men under the firm command of Francis Drake, they pillaged gold, silver, goods and supplies from Spanish ships and towns all the way up the Pacific Coast. And then they rolled the Golden Hind up onto its side on the beach at Drake’s Cove and worked to patch its battle wounds.

The men hunted and traded with the Coast Miwok. The natives had come down dancing and singing and presented Francis, the Pirate King, with a crown of bone and feathers. Drake left the native people with many boxes of porcelain plates that he had pilfered from the Spaniards. The Miwok provided the English with food and a basket of a particularly stoney type of tobacco. Incidentally, Drake was the first Englishman to set up an English tobacco trade with the Americas, and he personally got Sir Walter Raleigh addicted to the herb.

The Drake party reported that a constant breeze blows down the coast from north to south. This is normally true, but heading north for 23 days I never faced a headwind. The wind remained at my back the entire way. I should have set up a kayak taxi to ferry me from Tomales Bay to Lawson’s Landing, which would have made it practical to walk the entire length of Point Reyes National Seashore. Instead, I kicked off what would end up as a week long march up Highway 1. But that first day along the road the traffic was very light, with maybe two cars passing per minute. It was Sunday, which is a popular day for cyclists. The roadies whooshed past me in herds, and I caught five second snippets of their conversations.

Along Tomales Bay;

In Tomales I found a general store, but no tamales and no place to camp. I ate a burrito with four packets of hot sauce and drank a few beers and then walked another two or three miles. I scaled over a flimsy (those are the most technical) barbed wire fence and hung my hammock in a patch of willows which grew out from a spring like the tentacles of an octopus. I was nine days into my expedition with 14 days to go, but not nearly so far as to go as Drake had when he left California. With that one last ship filled with provisions and a basket of Miwok tobacco, Drake would set sail through the South Pacific and ultimately succeed in his quest to circumnavigate the globe.

 

[Treeshepherd]

Sidebar: I can't edit my posts anymore. Must be a bug in the system. There are some misspellings and clunky sentences that I would change if I could. And I miscounted the days on my last post. That would have been the 8th day, with 15 days to go.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I was downing a quart of Red Stripe at the oyster bar in Marshall, talking briefly to a fisherman. Most of my conversations were brief along the way as I happen to be a slow walker and couldn’t afford to remain idle for long. I set a minimum goal of 20 miles per day along the roadways, an all day affair at my pace. I took no days off to rest. Slow and steady wins the race, as the tortoise says.

I must have looked a little bit haggard, slumped over my chowder and over-priced beer at the oyster bar. The fisherman explained to me that the word ‘happiness’ is derived from the root ‘hap’, which is from an ancient Viking language, and that is where we get the word ‘happenstance’. In other words, happiness depends upon circumstance.

Joy is a moveable feast. Joy moves unblemished through all circumstances. That was the message that was delivered to me on the eighth day.

The ninth day began peacefully. I was happy. Often along the trip I couldn’t help but smile. I couldn’t help but feel privileged. I wore a semi-permanent grin. On this particular morning I was walking along a country side road as an alternative to Hwy 1. It was foggy, but not cold or windy. The blackberries were ripe and plentiful. The fragrance in the air alternated between eucalyptus and barnyard. A few ranchers drove past in trucks and ATVs to tend their cattle and sheep in the morning.

But returning to Highway 1 and walking from Valley Ford to Bodega Bay, I was not happy. I was unhappy. I had a decent bicycle lane to walk in, but the trucks and the cars made a constant noise. Motor homes and trucks and cars fed me a steady diet of exhaust fumes. That section is a main thoroughfare from both Petaluma and Santa Rosa to the coast. At one low point, I came to the conclusion that all drivers of internal combustion machines are terrorists. Perhaps worst among the terrorists were the Baby Boomer motorcyclists blaring the most cliché and obvious tunes from dashboard speakers, like Bruce Springsteen and ZZ Top, as if they had selected a rebel personality out of a catalogue.

I was out on the road, with my staff secured to the side of my pack. I found some red stretchy tape and tied it like a flag to the top of the staff. I found a long slap-strap, and it was an upgrade from my other hammock straps, and it was green and more camouflaged than the other straps I had been using. I had a good lunch in Bodega Bay which lifted my mood out of the gutter.

Late in the day, I found water at Wright’s Beach campground. Filling my canteen, a couple of campers asked where I was headed and offered some good words of encouragement. I happened upon the head of the Kortum Trail, and looked at the signboard map, and was pleased to discover that I could walk trails almost all the way to the banks of the Russian River. Through beach grass and stunted shrubs and over wooden footbridges, the trail winded north along the quiet bluffs. A badger crossed the path just ahead of me with beautiful face and tail markings. I hadn’t even been aware that badgers live in California- you learn something new every day.

There were no trees, but I fashioned hammock anchors in the crevices of a garden of stone so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground. My Thermarest had been slashed on a fence and could no longer be used as an air cushion, and I preferred not to wake up to the sensation of the badger biting my face. So I spent the energy to rig the hammock and then wandered over to Sunset Boulders. Two decades prior I had visited that place as one of the stops on a rock climbing and surfing trip. Young climbers were sussing out the same technical problems that I had worked on so many years ago. The climbers departed with the setting of the sun, and I vanished into darkness amidst the boulders.

web photo of Sunset Boulders;