By Robert Wolf
Decorah, IA, USA

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(Background: In the summer of 1963 I took off from Connecticut on a cross-country journey, hitchhiking to Phoenix. In Phoenix I hopped a freight to Los Angeles with a Mexican migrant worker.)

Around nightfall we were in the outskirts of L.A., moving slowly through freight yards with scores of tracks and redbrick warehouses with trucks parked alongside. The freight moved slowly past crowds of bums with huge parcels and belongings wrapped in canvas. One came running toward us, pounding his heavy thighs and feet onto the dirt and patches of grass, grunting and huffing loudly. He came alongside our car and the Mexican kid took the bundle from his outstretched hands. The bum threw himself upwards as he pushed with his hands off the floor, flung up a leg and landed in the car.

He was red-faced and lay down on the plank floor to recover. Later when he sat up, he pulled a pint of sherry from his jacket pocket and took long swigs. He offered us some. I told him no and the young Mexican shook his head. The bum did not say much, but sat near one end of the car, his back against the wall, talking to himself. Sometimes he looked at us and spoke, but I never understood him. Was he speaking to us? Or was he telling himself what he would do to us?

Around midnight we deadheaded in the L.A. yards, the first leg of my journey was over.

The bum was heading north too. He knew his way around the yards. He warned us to stay in the boxcar and away from cops while he found a train. The young Mexican and I hung around the car until the bum returned furtively and told us to follow him. We crossed between cars over couplings, across rows of cars. Trains were everywhere. The yards were an amazing maze and tangle. At one point we came across a shack where the bum told us about a legendary hobo he called, "King of the Bums." At the shack we met another bo. Our bum asked him if he had seen Billy the Red, the legendary bum. He spoke of Billy the Red with awe, his words a faint gasp. This was hard to believe, because at other times our bum was a mad bull who would have thrown us off the rails if one of us had been alone in the car with him.

It was a freezing cold bitch of a night: old teeth of steel and iron slivers cut through our clothes. The bum told us to scrounge for cardboard or we would freeze to death. He grabbed whatever was close by for himself. The young Mexican told me to wait in the car and he would get some. He disappeared into the night while I remained alert for cops, ready to dodge and run, while this mad bum slugged sherry. The Mexican returned with large sheets of cardboard.

Inside the car I slid into my sleeping bag and got on one edge of a cardboard sheet and rolled myself inside it, a cold security in a friendless jungle of cops, bo's and steel. But even so I went to sleep before the train pulled out. Hours later, it seemed, we were awakened by drunken bums wandering the yards. These were real gleam-eyed, knife carrying bums. They climbed into our car and sat between the doors, looking at us. Their leader, older than the others, was talking to our bum. I was too tired to realize our danger and was only barely conscious. Like me, the young Mexican said nothing. Our bum squared it with them and they left.

I remember us pulling out but then nothing until the next morning when we were in green hill country. We had left the city far behind us and were pulling over hills, winding slowly around them because of the drag of the open cars and the train's length. When we entered a tunnel I looked back and saw the train curling lazily around the side of the hill, and then, once out of the tunnel when I could look back, I saw from a high point the rest of the train on the other side of the hill crawling through.

By the time we were close to Bakersfield the bum was slugging from another bottle and getting nutty. Standing against a side of the car and facing the wall, he sometimes told me and sometimes the Mexican, "Come here, I've something to show you." His back was almost completely turned toward us. We stayed away from him.

When we arrived in Bakersfield, the young Mexican and I jumped off. I bid him farewell and headed for a road that crossed the tracks and entered Bakersfield. With no food for a day and a half, I was hungry. I went inside a drug store and had two hamburgers with malt. Then I walked through downtown past white gas stations with pennants waving. At the outskirts I stuck my thumb out.

A man in a black Chevy stopped. We drove all the way to a big crossroads at the entrance to the park. The hilly land was covered with juniper and piñon and sparse clumps of grass. The driver was an old-timer who had lived in the woods with two friends mining silver, and when he heard that I planned camping for a month said, "If you can make it, great! It's hard going." He then gave me a recipe for biscuits and told me how to cook them. He let me off at a general store in a town that once was probably a lumber camp. The store window was filled with leather goods and fishing gear.
"Do you have a shovel?" he asked.
"No."
"Better get one. They won't let you in the park without one."
He had an air about him I greatly respected. He, like the town, was in transition, somewhere between the old-time west of mining camps and the new efficient America.

***

I walked across the street and up the road to the ranger station—a log building—for a pass.
"How long you staying in?" a young ranger asked.
"A month. Got all my food right in here," I said, pointing to my pack on the floor.
"Wow!" he said.
He filled out my pass and gave me a grid map that would help me locate myself in the forest whenever I came upon a similar map printed on metal and nailed to a tree. Each map nailed to a tree had a mark to indicate its location.

From the ranger station I got a ride from a middle-aged couple. We passed over a wide, fast flowing river glinting with sunlight. Fishermen dotted its banks. Once we crossed the bridge we entered the big woods. Tall pines with great girths succeeded the dwarf trees of the hills; a deep, soft gloom hung below their limbs. The couple was headed for Road's End, the last building on the road high in the mountains, a log cabin store, which once could be found on oil company maps of California.

At Road's End I got a ride from a lumberman and his son. The man named the trees that grew there, which ones were logged out and which were left. We drove with open windows, and now in the big timber the smell of the trees saturated the air.

Further up the road, where they left me off, I strode into the forest. My head was clear and I was happy. I took the first trail I saw, not caring where it led so long as I found solitude. It led me upward on a steep slope, through pinewoods mixed with birch and elm. Suddenly the trail widened, scraped flat. A bulldozer and other heavy equipment sat nearby. Huge uprooted pines with dirt clumped to their roots lay next to smaller downed trees.

Other paths appeared, verging off. I picked one at random, following it until it disappeared into an undergrowth of grass, leaves and twigs. Despite that, I rushed on. My pack was heavy and my back was sweating. The sun burned my neck; I pulled my collar up. I hiked on, pushing aside branches and moving through mosquito swarms, finally emerging above the timberline where large granite rocks thrust their heads through the earth. I was tired; the small of my back hurt.

I sat on the ground with my pack beside me. Tiny wild flowers with petals smaller than a thumbnail—blue, white and violet—grew there. I picked some that lay between my feet, undid the pack, took out a copy Le Morte d'Arthur and pressed a few between its pages.

By the time I was ready to move on, the small of my back no longer hurt and I hiked to the peak. Nearby, pine covered mountain slopes with rock outcroppings plunged. The valley below lay hidden. Away to my right, far away I saw a giant peak—Mt. Washington. I headed north, down the slope, towards it.

Coming off the mountain was easy. I found a smooth swinging stride, letting my legs take the shock each time one of my boots jammed into the earth. The shock went all the way up my spine to my head. I began singing at the top of my voice whatever song came into my head, crashing down the slope between pines.

I found a path that led to a stream. I was hungry. I unpacked my pots and packets of dehydrated foods and hurriedly gathered twigs and branches and built a fire. I filled my pot with water and dumped in a packet of shrimp Creole, and while the water heated, I made myself a glass of instant powdered milk. The water boiled but I was too hungry to wait and test the shrimp. I just took the pot off the fire and spooned the shrimp and sauce into a bowl. The shrimp were hard.

With a few hours of daylight left, I repacked and plunged on, up through more pines with birds flitting between them and sunlight speckling the path. Suddenly I lost the path, but with my compass continued heading north. In the distance I heard rushing water, and by the hollowness of the sound I knew this was no mere stream but a wild rushing current smashing over boulders. It took me hours to get to it. When I did, I was drenched in sweat and my back ached from the pack. My continual attempts to adjust it by shifting the weight had made no difference, nor did the handkerchiefs I slid under the straps keep them from digging into my shoulders.

The stream was a cataract of water that plunged down the slope, fuming over huge rocks, sparkling in the sun between cool banks of giant pines. Close by, the cataract was partially diverted into a pool. Hot and sweating, I stripped off my clothes and waded in. The water was ice-cold. After hesitating I sat—up to my chest in water. I dunked my head, then quickly jumped out and changed into clean clothes.

Why did I not stay there? I wanted solitude and there I had it. But I wanted to climb Mt. Washington. Solitude was here, but also there. I re-shouldered my pack and walked carefully from rock to rock across the river. Far down the mountain the river raged.

I climbed the steep, opposite bank, holding onto roots and trunks. I got tenuous footings against them and grabbed other roots and pulled myself up. At the top of the ridge I headed west, following the river, hoping to find a path with a map.

Soon I was again hungry. I dropped the pack and took out my pots and dried food. I scrambled down the bank to the stream, filled my small pot with water and returned with it half full. I built my fire in a clearing atop the bank. Because I was very hungry, I again did not let the food cook long enough. By the time I cleaned my cooking gear light was disappearing. I realized I had better make a shelter.

Nearby lay a fallen pine, propped about five feet off the ground by its branches. I found four long, thick limbs with branches and needles and leaned them against the fallen pine. I cut pine boughs for a soft flooring for my lean-to and spread out my sleeping bag and stuffed it with dry clothes.

That night I was jarred awake by a thundering that came crashing down the bank past my camp; something huge was thrashing madly across the ground. I grabbed my pathetic penknife I had laid beside me, open for just an occasion and yelled, hoping to scare it. It paid no attention, but continued its end of the world path down the slope. I waited in silence, afraid to lie down, listening for its return. Much later I lay down and slept. Later, I do not know how long, the same noise awoke me. This time I was more frightened. The sound was coming right at me, even louder and more horrible. Again I bolted upright, grabbed my knife and yelled. This time the noise ceased abruptly. JESUS CHRIST! I thought. Sweat was pouring down me. I yelled again to get it the hell away and it worked. The lumbering beast bolted off into the brush.

Morning came chill but sweet. I realized how comfortable I felt lying in my sleeping bag on soft pine bedding. From the end of my lean-to I could see the top of the hill where I had cooked the night before. Blue smoke drifted skyward. I looked at it, probably still smiling, when I realized with a shock that the smoke came from last night's fire. I scrambled out of my sleeping bag, put on shoes and ran to the top. I had cooked my meal on a bank of peat moss. This nice cleared spot had once been a log that had rotted into such fine particles that at dusk it looked like earth.

I ran for my pot, slid down the bank to the pounding stream, filled the pot and struggled back up and dumped the water on the smoldering peat. I scrambled down for more water and repeated the process again and again. I dug a circle around the peat to keep it from spreading. I realized that the fire could smolder under it. I dug deeper and mixed in sand. The peat was very warm. CHRIST! More water! More sand! I worked for an hour, digging in all directions away from it, churning up the peat, digging ever deeper and continuing to pour water on it, then more sand. Finally, when I could not feel any more heat, I packed and left.

I followed the bank downhill. I found the path I had taken yesterday, and I felt easy again. When another path split off and headed north, I followed it.

The air warmed and I began sweating; I had visions of outdoor suburban house parties with long tables of food. I saw cold watermelons sliced in quarters and cantaloupes cut into slivers. I saw piles of cherries and grapes. I imagined eating big rare steaks and corn on the cob slathered with melted butter. I envisioned plates of spaghetti with thick rich meat and tomato sauces that my aunts in Brooklyn had cooked for me. Just as badly, I wanted to dive into a pool of cool water.

Whenever I came to a stream I took big gulps until my stomach swelled painfully. The grass on the bank of one stream was worn down by campers. Cement block fireplaces sat nearby. Further on, at another stream that was shielded on both sides by tall reeds and cooled by the shade of pines, I lay on my stomach on the damp earth, this time sipping the water. Nearby were a narrow bridge and a sign for a boys' camp. I saw horse tracks.

From this path I followed a wider path where bags of food hung suspended from tree trunks. I knew I was heading back to people. I wanted to go back, back to people and comfort.

The path climbed steeply. My legs burned as I strained to pump up the hill with the pack. The path began twisting, and as I neared the top of one turn I heard motorbikes coming towards me. I became angry, wishing I had a bike and could zoom out of there. I had ruined my tramp by my ceaseless movement. If I had relaxed beside a path, leaning my back against a pine and read in the shade I could have lasted many more days. But no, I had to see Mt. Washington.

Not only did motorbikes go rushing past but casual strollers in shorts walked by too. I came to the campground where the lumberman had left me off the day before. It was filled with trailers. Families from L.A., Frisco and elsewhere were thronged at this campsite, each of them yelling. Mothers were shouting at kids who were playing tag and ball, ordering them to come eat. Since they brought the city with them, I wondered why they came. I did not think that my own failure was like theirs.

I picked out a camp spot and cooked my dinner near a large hollow log. After I ate, I cut pine boughs and put them inside the log. I put my bag inside, the feet side facing out. Later, when I crawled in, I had my best sleep in days.

The next morning when I crawled out, people were cooking breakfast. The wood smoke from their campfires smelled good. I cooked a final meal of pancakes and cocoa, then packed everything up, except the food. I went over to an older couple and asked if they could use it. They accepted it thankfully.

I began hiking to Bakersfield on a brand new paved road, having failed at something that I wanted very much to do, and not realizing why.

Links:

Robert Wolf
Free River Press
American Mosaic with Robert Wolf

 

All opinions expressed by Robert Wolf are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of Stay Thirsty Media, Inc.