Chapter One
Five weeks into hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and I was completely alone in the scorching deserts of California. In late May no less.
It hadn’t even been my idea to start the trip so late. I would have preferred to begin in March when the weather would have been cooler, if not a bit wet. At least that way we’d have finished the famously hot and dry section before summer heat had really peaked.
But no. We instead started the trek in late April. I was outvoted by a team that ultimately packed up and packed out only fifteen days into the five-month endeavor. I really should have known when Brie pulled out a skin care routine. Ounces of precious weight in her pack, all dedicated to the possibility of out-smarting the summer sun that would be bearing down on us for the majority of our trek. Anyone concerned about sunspots and crow’s-feet probably shouldn’t hike through the Mojave.
Aspen had been a surprise, though. As a wilderness therapy guide, I had expected her to have a better understanding of what was in store for us. But just one ill-advised blow-up mattress popping on the desert rocks was enough to send her high-tailing it back to civilization.
I often glared at her over the campfire as she huffed exhausted breaths into the thing. It wasn’t a terrible purchase, afterall it folded up nicely and was about the size of a pool toy once inflated. Unfortunately, it was about the same level of durability.
And besides. It hadn’t really been the sleeping pad. At the end of the day, I knew Aspen was missing her boyfriend back in San Diego. The loss of luxury had probably just given her a reason to throw in the towel. Or perhaps a bad omen of the difficulties to come. In the end, the moment one of the two girls had mentioned the possibility of heading home, I knew it was over. I’m not even sure which of them said it first, but once the words had entered the thin desert air, they attached to both of them like cactus thorns, digging deeper into the skin with each labored step.
The ultimate luxury was that Aspen and Brie had a choice. They wanted to hike the PCT. Whether for adventure, accomplishment, or bragging rights, both had thrown themselves into the planning stage with passion and insatiable appetites for information.
In contrast, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to hike the PCT. I had to. My planning felt less like a vacation and more like a strategy for survival. Maybe that was why the blisters from both sun and socks hadn’t phased me like they did the others.
Quitting felt like yet another luxury I didn’t have. The thought of returning to my empty apartment in the city genuinely sounded like hell. Sometimes as I walked, I’d consider how even a trip to the grocery store felt like a draining battle. I hated every part of it, from fighting through crowds of people, to waiting in endless lines, to the the way I always felt the customer behind me breathing down my neck no matter how quickly I extracted my card to pay. Or how the attendant would ring up the other person’s items and send them crashing into my bags before I had a chance to extract them. Even the way I felt obligated to mumble a “thank you” to them after they’d thrown my overpriced groceries aside. I hated the awkward walk through the parking lot as cars whipped in and out of spaces to beat out their competition, all to park mere feet closer to the crowded grocery store. And finally- I hated the way my shoulders scrunched up, nearly to my ears, each time I made the hectic commute back to the dark studio apartment in the basement. It was a tension that never seemed to really leave my body, but was exacerbated by every attempt at leaving my small, depressing home.
Every task, every chore- it was all horrendous, and it took up every minute of my existence. Going back sounded much worse than a five-month trek crossing the three westernmost states.
You might wonder what happened for me to feel so disillusioned with my life, but the truth is, nothing happened. And nothing kept happening. Until a life I had once worked so hard to cultivate lost all color and weighed heavily on my body like the fine sand that had nestled its way into my shoes.
Even if the desert had little to offer, very little, it was still new. It still held intrigue and mystery even when I could see for miles in every direction. And space. So much delicious space for my mind to roam and dance and sometimes sulk. Even in the moments when I felt frustrated or lonely, each step seemed to hold the promise of new possibilities. After all, it wasn’t like things could get much worse than being alone in a desert. I had already submitted to the difficulties of the trail when we started, so the way my hair was matted with dust and the ever-present taste of dry clay didn’t bother me.
So there I was. Blistered, sunburnt, and teetering on dangerous levels of exhaustion. But alive. And for the first time in a long time, proud.
In a strange way, I was having a wonderful time.
While I often spent the hours of time alone ruminating on the horrors of my life, I sometimes found a comfortable quiet in which my brain would completely turn off. There would be entire blissful hours of little more than the crunch of my feet and the steady feeling of trudging onward. Other times, I'd repeat my name.
"I'm Lea, I'm Lea, I'm Lea, I'm Lea," I mumbled in rhythm with my steps.
I'm not exactly sure when I started doing this, or why. But I was locked into this flow when movement brought my focus back to my surroundings, causing me to stop and scan the scattered rocks and sand where I had seen movement. A horny toad ran another few feet away from me, stopping to see what I would do.
“Hiiiiii buddyyyy,” I cooed while crouching down, as though attempting to woo a domesticated housecat into approaching me.
The reptile eyed me warily, but didn’t run off even when I noisily unbuckled all the supports on my bag and extricated my sore shoulders from the heavy straps. I approached it cautiously, and though it ran a few inches, found that it was rather lackadaisical about escaping me. In a few seconds I had gently scooped the creature into my palm, cupping the other over him to make him feel secure in his freshly captured state… At least he looked like a him, but I wouldn’t even know where to start in sexing a lizard. So “him” it was.
Carefully, I threaded my hands through the straps of my pack and placed the lizard (I quickly named him Gary) on the front of my shirt. At first I thought for sure he’d run, but was delighted when, upon standing, he simply crawled slightly higher up my shirt near my shoulder.
I marveled at the joy it brought me to see him sunning himself comfortably as we hiked, sometimes closing his eyes as though my trudging motion rocked him to sleep. When was the last time I’d had a pet? Not since high school at least, before our family cat, a ragdoll named Lucille, passed away. I wondered why I never took the time to adopt one after going out on my own. Too busy trying to make it in the big bad world I guess.
Eventually Gary did tire of his ride, something he alerted me to by leaping off my shoulder as though escaping a burning building.
“Oh shi- are you ok?” I called after him, but within moments he had found refuge in a scraggly looking shrub. And I was back on my own for the rest of the day, feeling a strange sense of loss that seemed to weigh more heavily than the place on my chest where he’d been.
***
That night, after a simple meal of dehydrated potatoes topped with the last crumbly remnants of a bag of beef jerky, I went about making my bed. I laid out a small tarp, folding foam mat, sleeping bag, and that was that. Done. I used an extra sweater as a pillow and tried to get as comfortable as I could on the thin pad. It had definitely been the most portable option, but each night brought me closer to understanding why Aspen had tried so hard to make her cumbersome air mattress work.
Having nestled into the mummy bag, I pulled my scarf over my mouth and nose to keep out both dust and chilly night air. The contrast between daytime sweltering temperatures and nighttime chills was surprising, but I had prepared for just about every type of weather I might encounter. Like an oven, the bag warmed to my body heat, and fifteen minutes later I was snug as a bug inside it.
As I had every night since starting the trek, I stared into the wide expanse of brilliant stars, all clearly visible thanks to the lack of cloud cover and the absence of city light pollution. I watched for shooting stars, something I’d been spoiled enough to see each night before sleep took me. Sometimes they were too fast or too small to tell if I’d really seen one, but I was sure they were there.
The skittering noise of a small animal sounded nearby, but I’d grown used to the desert sounds and didn’t even turn my head. I kept my eyes trained straight ahead, determined to keep up my little star-streak. It was hard– my body tugged at me, begging for sleep, pulling at my heavy eyelids incessantly.
Just one, I thought, pleading with my aching body to wait just a few minutes longer.
I pulled the scarf down, hoping the brisk wind might help me stay awake. A low hum rose from the wind, trying to lull me toward sleep, as though the desert itself was conspiring against me. The soothing sound built, and I started to wonder if a large gust was nearing.
I hid beneath the scarf again, wondering if I should duck my eyes beneath it as well when the sound grew nearer.
Is that a plane? The sound felt so close but could have been far away. I tilted my head to see more of the open sky, searching for the blinking lights that might give away its position, but the sky was empty.
The sound grew louder and my body tensed. This was strange. Should I run for cover? There wasn’t any, so… I wasn’t going to do that. As the hum neared me, I froze like an animal in headlights, terrified of the unknown approaching in the dark.
The snugness of the sleeping bag suddenly felt like a straightjacket, and I was about to leap from its grip when a light flashed in my periphery. I stayed frozen, eyes wide, as large circular lights flew straight overhead- a dark black mass momentarily blotting out the navy sky behind it.
When it passed, the loud hum slowly faded. Only when it had nearly disappeared altogether did I dare move. I turned my head in its direction just in time to see the faint glow of the aircraft before the lights went out.
Did that thing just land?
Nerves fired through my body in a shivering quake, and I shuddered inside the sleeping bag. What exactly had I just seen? I thought back to the object, trying to recall any detail I could. It had definitely been triangular, like a specialized Air Force jet. The strangest part was the sound- had it been a jet, I was sure the boom would have hurt my ears, but the steady hum had been soft, almost gentle. Frighteningly gentle. And the three round lights, each the size of a beach ball, glowing warm gold. One near the front, two toward the back, each one near a corner of the elongated triangle.
I continued to stare into the black void of the now-empty desert, my eyes straining to see where it had gone. Could it have been an experimental Air Force craft? Elon Musk’s latest experiment? Aliens?
The last thought seemed the least likely, but my body shuddered again regardless.
Of course, if you’re reading this, you already know what I did. And I didn’t want to hear anything about how stupid it was. I realized it wasn’t a good idea no matter which possibility was true– but you weren’t there. You couldn’t know the way it pulled me toward it. Something beyond curiosity. Adventure maybe? A need to feel something? Or the opposite– a need to eliminate uncertainty, along with the bone-chilling fear its appearance had deposited in the fifteen seconds it took to disrupt my peaceful night.
Suddenly my sleeping bag felt suffocatingly tight as panic shot through me. I struggled to free myself with all the desperation of a newborn animal escaping the womb and stumbled onto the dusty earth with similar grace. I knew it was far too distant for anyone who might have exited the craft to hear me, but I still cringed when the nylon rustled loudly. Once extracted from my cocoon, I quickly tied my boots and grabbed a can of bear spray and a small flashlight. I didn’t intend to use either — odds were the thing had already gone stealth-mode and left me alone in the miles of dusty nothingness. But just in case someone was there, I didn’t want the flashlight giving me away. And just in case someone was there and angry they’d been spotted, I didn’t want to be completely unarmed.
With only a half-moon overhead, the night was barely light enough to illuminate the loose rocks and sagebrush that studded the flat expanse. I moved slowly, trudging carefully, soft crunches beneath my boots as I walked toward the dark mystery.
