[pct-l] Greetings from Markleeville: A Tale of Near-Trail Misadventure

[blisterfree at isp01.net (Brett)]

Here's a personal account, nearly 5 years old now.



Greetings from Markleeville

My personal twilight zone. An uncomfortable place between 
illumination and darkness, where the colors aren't always 
pastel, and the horizon seems hopelessly beyond reach.

I had bailed off the Pacific Crest Trail at CA Highway 4 
north of Yosemite, accepting a grueling hitch 17 miles down 
the east slope to a small town not far from Lake Tahoe. A 
desperate plan. But one born of necessity while fording the 
straits of a stomach illness, which I had been navigating 
for some time. Wrongheaded from the beginning: Markleeville 
had one motel, a shabby affair running $50 a night, and I'd 
had my fill of the place after the first night. However, the 
second day and evening brought only mild physical 
improvement, so when another hiker called Woody, himself 
here on the mend, suggested a stealth camping area about a 
mile outside town with which he was acquainted, I gladly let 
him lead the way.

When we arrived under the light of a full moon, I sensed 
that the site didn't meet my definition of a stealth camp. 
It seemed to be more of an impromptu car camping area, in 
this case by a dirt road under BLM jurisdiction, up on a low 
rise with a nice moonlit view of the surrounding valley 
through which snaked a good sized river. Cow country down 
there for sure.

The two of us bushwhacked through low juniper scrub over to 
where Woody had left some of his belongings the night 
before. Sure enough, there they still were: sleeping bag, 
thermarest, a few socks. This put me at greater ease, since 
I'd had poor experiences at car camping sites in the past. 
Cars, drunks, noise. The usual. This spot seemed safe 
enough, and certainly quiet. We each selected a protective 
juniper, attended to our bedrolls and evening chores, and I 
had a quick bite to eat from a bag of tortilla chips. During 
this time I spied a better, flatter, more accommodating site 
all of 15 feet away, and so rearranged my belongings over 
that way. Not long thereafter I crawled into my bag, without 
rigging the tarp, inserted ear plugs, per usual, and under 
the full glory of the moon off I swooned.

Several times during a typical night in the woods I arise to 
answer nature's call. The urge is apparent upon waking, the 
act itself occurs in dreamy stupor, and then I'm out again. 
But tonight would be no typical night, and when I awoke long 
after midnight I felt no urge to pee but only a mild feeling 
of disquiet.

There was some sort of low sound moiling through the ether, 
rather muffled from my perspective due to the earplugs, and 
my first thought was of surprise that something so 
apparently innocuous would wake me. Then again it seems I've 
always been a light sleeper when it comes to noises. I 
removed my earplugs and the sound grew louder, a peculiar 
sound, unidentifiable as yet but with an almost human 
quality about it. Like an inebriated hiker with a baritone 
voice, chuckling to himself over a private joke.

My mind raced in search of an answer.

"Cows," I reckoned tentatively, but as I sat now frozen in 
my sleeping bag I glanced over at a setting moon in time to 
watch strange shapes lumber before its glowing cyclops eye, 
their profiles unsuggestive of bovine. This "animal eclipse" 
was eerie and unsettling. Suddenly a dark, ragged image 
raced to the forefront of my mind. "Hey bear!" I tried, 
praying I'd hear a shy, lilting "moo" in reply. But the 
response came swift and certain, and from only a few yards 
away I felt the acoustic blast of an angry creature's growl 
and saw its vague but powerful outline coil, then spring 
suddenly into a charge, stop, and mightily sideswipe the 
dirt with a fearsome paw while hissing indignantly. And then 
I heard more of that laughing intoxicated voice, from 
elsewhere. Nearby.

Two of them.

"NO! Hey bear. Oh shit. Good bear."

Blissfully awash in dreamland just moments prior, my resting 
heart pumped blood at a worry-free 40 some odd beats per 
minute. But now, an instant later, I counted the full-body 
thud of 3 every second, and the adrenaline surged from the 
floodgates as I rose on instinct from my bag.

"Hey bear, stay back. Good bear."

I backed away from the bear shapes, more felt than seen, and 
called again to my newfound comrade, but to no avail. And so 
in my evening slippers, a pair of lightweight fleece numbers 
I sometimes wore to bed on the cooler evenings, I now found 
myself moving in reverse, without thought, over to my 
campside juniper and then up into its welcoming arms. The 
bears weren't budging, and although they could easily paw me 
down from the heights of any low-slung juniper, still this 
felt safer. In my shocked stupor I called out once more, 
loudly this time. By degrees I began to feel sheepish.

Woody won't respond... He's only 20 or 30 feet away... Woody 
must be dead... Mauled, digested, and a satisfying appetizer 
at that. I changed my call to that of a generic plea for 
assistance, hoping that a fellow car camper, real or 
imagined, might attend to the situation.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Hey there, who's that?" I replied.

"It's me, Woody. Where are you?"

"I'm up in the tree. I thought you must have been dead. 
Didn't you hear me yelling?"

"I heard someone yelling 'Help' and I jumped up thinking, 
'Oh, someone must be in trouble.' They trained us on 'help' 
in the Marines, you know. What are you doing up there?"

"We've got at least two bears in camp, not too far away from 
you in fact. One of them bluff charged me. Do you see them?"

A odd moment of quiet pierced the electric air.

"Oh yeah... 'Hey bear!' I can see his eyes. He's just 
sitting there staring at me. I don't see the other one."

I made flailing inroads toward disengagement from the tree 
as Woody gathered a few rocks and flung them tentatively in 
the bear's direction. Cringing at the thought of inciting 
them, I nevertheless suggested that he remain by my camp to 
offer his flashlight while I returned to terra firma in 
search of mine. I downclimbed from my perch, explaining with 
weak authority how tree climbing is proper protocol during 
certain types of bear encounters, and then fumbled for my 
headlamp and a few stuff sacks.

Woody headed back to his own camp amid suspicions of a sneak 
attack. Sure enough, I soon heard the chaos of 
disappointment and anger as Woody chased away what I 
reckoned to be a gear-mugging accomplice. Mine was 
apparently still plotting, waiting for his moment of 
opportunity, skulking nearby with rapt glowing eyes. Packing 
my belongings to go, I theorized that these were veteran 
Yosemite bears, trained as a team, shot and tagged as a 
pair, and sent away to plunder greener pastures. They were 
bold, mean, and well choreographed. And we were just leaving 
the show, or so we had hoped.

I packed up in record time and was back on the smooth, paved 
road, headed toward downtown Markleeville with Woody 
trailing behind. My watch read 4 AM. We considered our 
options, soon concurring that the only good option involved 
more sleep, somewhere else. I suggested a spot just outside 
of town that I had investigated the day before, off the main 
road and steeply uphill. Twenty minutes later we found 
ourselves climbing over 'No Trespassing' signs and laboring 
for breath under the weight of our illnesses. Then suddenly 
there we were, in the company of a lousy campsite by any 
appraisal but, still, under the circumstances a mighty good 
place for sleeping, or at least recovery.

Suddenly I heard something moving about in the brush nearby. 
Woody heard it too.

Deer? Skunk? Possibly opossum?

Whatever it was, it didn't seem to mind having us around, 
and this disturbed us deeply. We yelled out in unison, heard 
the brittle summer grasses rustle indifferently, and soon 
proceeded without fanfare back down to the highway.

Around this time I began to see that we were not in control 
of the evening's events, but rather had become two hapless 
actors in a destiny play. Prayed upon by microscopic giardia 
within, and large omnivores without, our fate was now to 
wander in Homeric fashion upon the hostile world, deprived 
of solace, until at last proving our worth to the dawning 
sun. Nothing, now, would come as a surprise. Almost.

At 4:30 we staggered up main street Markleeville in full 
hiking attire and a bit early for Trail Days judging by the 
mood around town. Whispering under the oppressive din of 
humming streetlamps and the refrigerant inside a blood red 
Coke machine, we determined to part ways for the evening, 
with Woody heading for the eastern outskirts and another 
"stealth camp," and me tip-toeing on over to the public 
library in town. The previous afternoon I had enjoyed an 
idyllic rest under some shade trees by the lawn adjacent the 
building, and now this seemed the natural place to while 
away a few remaining minutes of darkness unheard and unseen. 
I slipped around back of the place and over toward my 
favored spot. But something was off. My little corner of 
grassy real estate seemed somehow altered, crowded, already 
under occupation. And, of course, it surely was! And whoever 
was sleeping there, half obscured in shadow, was doing a 
commendable impersonation of me, back in the good old days, 
on a ground sheet, in a sleeping bag, and dreaming 
obliviously.

Strung out and over tired, I began to imagine that this 
person was, in fact, me. And now here I was looking down at 
myself from within the previous afternoon's daydream still 
ongoing. Considering such a possibility, I felt reluctant to 
wake the sleeping figure, or even to set down nearby. After 
all, going the way of a bad dream cannot be good, and so I 
left in search of my trail kinsman once more, who was still 
making tracks toward his own private Markleeville.

Woody was sympathetic when I explained my problem with 
sleeping at the library, how I just couldn't do that to 
myself. Like old pros past prime, we climbed away from the 
road, tore through brush, and landed here and there in 
tattered heaps beside a pair of non-juniper trees. There, on 
cue, we slept the befitting sleep of the dead, and then 
immediately a July sun charged over the horizon and shone 
down furiously. Away in the distance, not too far, heard but 
unseen a congregation of cows began to moo. A bovine 
orchestra, really, with each cow dilligently practicing its 
unique key, flat and dissonant, tempo largo. Beneath the 
harsh rays of morning's sun we soon noticed a nearby cabin, 
apparently someone's home, and fancied ourselves uninvited 
backyard guests.

"I preferred the bears to these damn cows," Woody sagely 
confessed before moving to a more concealing position behind 
a tree.

"Cheers, mate."



The following afternoon I returned against my better 
judgment to the initial crime scene. In the fracas, Woody 
had lost a stuff sack and I couldn't seem to find a jacket 
of mine. The sun now cast short shadows, illuminating the 
camp with sober detachment. Perhaps I had dreamed all of it. 
No creature could slink through here under the scrutiny of 
this sky, and I found no sign of our recent troubles. No 
stuff sack. Only an empty, peaceful camp with junipers 
shimmering heat against a telltale breeze. Life had shrunk 
back to its normal proportions. My health seemed to be 
improving, too.

I happened to turn toward the west and there, not more than 
feet away was my jacket lying against a rock, undisturbed. I 
had unknowingly left it there the night before when I spied 
a better campsite and set aside my tortilla chip snack to 
make that move. The bag of chips had been missing as well, 
and after a brief search I turned up not even a crumb and 
then made my way back down to the road.

The bears had wanted food, not clothing. I had created a 
temptation they could not resist, and by the time I awoke 
they had been feeding for some moments. I had startled two 
hungry and possessive animals who perceived me as an 
intruding rival. Last night I had slept in the bed I'd made. 
Or so I theorized as I walked the highway with thumb 
outstretched, eager to return to the steady, familiar world 
of the PCT, high above the twilight shadow of Markleeville.

---------------------------

The most persistent of bears is the one who stalks your camp 
for hours, moving ever closer, creeping obliquely among the 
pines, head askant, nose to the wind, large mean hungry eyes 
afire in the beam of your headlamp, silent but for the crack 
of deadfall - like bones - on the forest floor as he tracks 
his meal. Your racing heart, 200 beats per minute, breaks 
for this
animal who hunts you, who loves you despises you maybe 
enough to eat you. The smell of danger brings him closer, 
now forces you from the frail feathers of a sleeping bag, to 
tiptoe painful hours it seems, toward the one-sided cover of 
some invisible tree in the night. The omnicient omnipotent 
beast is everywhere, anywhere, no escape, no stealth for 
your fear in the presence of his stealth. And now he has 
you!

The deer is a doe. No points. Mule deer. An adolescent. She 
pauses at the foot of your sleeping bag, pawing at the soft 
warm wetness of the pine duff. Her mouth nuzzles the earth, 
tongue in quest of salt, that rarest of wilderness spices. 
Those big doe eyes show kindness, alertness, fear 
temporarily squelched by the instincts of survival. The ears 
are straight up, pointed toward every direction, waiting, 
forever waiting... for whatever sound may come.

Half a mile away, a belding ground squirrel emerges 
cautiously from his chambers to sound his first whistle of 
the new day. Light comes to the canyon, one charged particle 
at a time. Morning pushes back the night and returns a sense 
of normalcy. The deer, like the bear, is gone. Like a 
nightmare. Like a dream.

- blisterfree

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Simblissity Ultralight :: One-of-a-Kind Designs for the 
Great Outdoors
www.simblissity.net