Upper Upper Bidwell, part IV

Upper Upper Bidwell, part IV

So I found myself continuing up the road. Now things were getting strange, because I really had no idea why I was walking forward, and I was increasingly worried about my energy levels, foot endurance, not to mention mental health. Being goal-oriented, I decided that I was looking for some place to sleep, and then stay there until the morning. Easier said than done. The complicating factors? 1. getting too close to the thick bushes made me worried about wildlife. I knew that probably no predator would attack a human if he is upright and not running away like prey, but laying down and within easy claw reach? I was not about to sleep anywhere near the brush. 2. The wind was bone-chilling and gusting. As long as I kept walking and generating body heat it was no problem, but I knew that in 10-15 minutes of inaction that body heat would be gone, and that kind of exposure would probably be more dangerous than any animal in the forest. 3. I couldn't get the picture out of my mind of the hypothetical person who had been sleeping on that blanket in the abandoned building. He sees a light coming and ducks into the forest, then he watches as some kid walks around and pokes through "his house." The kid then shows signs of nervousness, and continues to walk down the road. The man decides to follow, and see what this invader is up to, and why the kid is in "his forest." And if the kid finally goes to sleep...

There you have it. I couldn't sleep out in the open, I'd freeze. And I couldn't be too close to cover, I'd be eaten. And I couldn't be near the road, I'd be found. But I couldn't go off-road, I'd get lost, and then frozen, and then eaten. You know, I'm naturally an optimist, really.

So I kept walking, I guess hoping to magically find some place where I could sleep that met all these criteria. I think you can see that my logic was starting to break down a little. After another hour and a half, and after thinking I'd found the end of the road three different times, only to realize that it continued, I finally found a place to rest. It was a large slopping clearing, filled with layers of large flat rocks. Well, the clearing itself provided a buffer against the forest, I felt far away enough from the house and any inhabitants, and the final ingredient was finding a small "wall" of rock about two feet high that I could lay behind. After walking for about 11 hours, I was ready to rest.

I huddled down against the rock and tried to relax. I admired the stars for a while, which were beautiful. I was slowly getting more drowsy, but figured I should eat something first. It took about 20 minutes to convince myself to make the effort to open up my bag. You know, at the end of the day, I'm a pretty lazy person. If it weren't for my suicidal sense of adventure I doubt I'd ever bother to get out of bed. Well, when I finally did decide to eat instead of just sitting there falling asleep, I realized that I am also pretty stupid. I'd forgotten that I had brought a nice big beef stick along with me... It wasn't hard to imagine myself sound asleep, the sweet smell of meat drifting through the forest and into the nostrils of lions, bears, and coyotes from miles around... I nearly smacked myself for almost falling asleep like that.

So I decided that I would either start walking back immediately, or if it seemed like I could sleep then at least I would put my bag somewhere on the other side of the clearing. Well, then I tried to decide by seeing if it would be possible to sleep. I could feel the icy wind coming over the rock behind me and blowing over my head, but I felt pretty sheltered. I even started to feel comfortable and drowsy again, but suddenly the wind changed directions. It was gusting, sometimes blowing from behind, sometimes directly at me, sometimes just brushing past me. It's really hard to understand the frustration and torture of this if you're never spent a night out in the open. The wind finds any opening in your clothing, any exposed skin, and hits it with everything it's got. So you turn around to protect that area, and the wind finds another place. You know those nights when you just can't get comfortable? Now imagine that 99% of the comfortable positions you DO find are also impossible to sleep in. Having had a few experiences with this kind of environment, I'm absolutely in awe of the homeless people around the world. I understand why they look the way they do, since I don't think I would even survive many weeks of that kind of life.

When I felt my feet going cold, I knew I had a problem. No amount of positioning would help that problem, and I knew my feet would only get colder and colder until after I had been walking for at least 15 minutes. Before long they would start getting painful, and if I still ignored them the pain would go away, but that wouldn't be a good thing. There was really no question of sleeping at this point.

But still I didn't get up. It wasn't that I was lazy, or too tired to get up. It wasn't that I was thinking about the long trip back, or the perceived dangers along the way. I certainly wasn't enjoying myself lying there on the rocks. So why didn't I want to get up?

The answer came to me suddenly, and it was the most important moment of this whole trip. I've already said that I started trip this because I needed to clear my mind, and this was certainly a moment of clarity. I simply didn't want to go back. I was nearly miserable here, and home sounded so comfortable, but I still didn't want to leave this place.

I had spent the last month of winter vacation doing basically whatever I felt like doing, which pretty much meant sleeping, TV, a few family trips, and that's about it. I half convinced myself that I deserved a break between semesters, and that I "shouldn't push myself too much". The more I lived like that, the more disgusted with myself I became. I knew that every day was one I would never see again, and I started to hate going to bed each night, thinking of how much nothing I'd done that day, knowing that I'd be too lazy to wake up until the afternoon, and then it would start again. I was so focused on making life pleasant and comfortable that I was shutting out anything challenging or real. I just wanted to be happy with life, but I was sacrificing everything that made me happy with myself.

And now here I was, in the middle the the night, miles into the wilderness, in the freezing wind, on a rock bed, and I still didn't want to leave and return to that artificial life of distractions from that which is real. At least here I was alive, and knew it. Here I was not letting a speck of energy go unused. Here I was not unreasonably and uncontrollably frustrated when the Internet connection is too slow, or when my favorite TV program isn't on. I was living in the moment, and living it to the fullest extent of my abilities. There was even enough danger to make me think about survival, and nothing strips all superficiality from your mind like the whisper of death. In one moment I realized that a large part of me would rather stay and freeze in the dark than return to that useless world I'd created for my own pleasure. I almost laughed out loud at the irony.

Well, this was a realization worth the trip. I felt a new motivation to discipline and focus myself. I knew that if I couldn't monitor and balance the vast luxuries our society offers, then soon I'd be out on a freezing rock somewhere again, and I really didn't want that. Okay, I was ready to try again.

So I stood up, and prepared to start the long walk back. At this point it was about 9:30. I figured I'd been walking over 11 hours, so by starting back now I should get home around 6 am. A little early for me, but I'd had enough of the cold, and I was ready to go home.

The way back was pretty stressful, but for many hours nothing interesting actually happened. I was worried about my flashlight battery dying. I was worried about lions. Every time I heard a noise in the bushes I flashed my light at it to discourage any attack. Several times I disturbed birds sleeping in the bushes as I pushed past them, and they would burst into flight with loud screeches. That always made me nearly wet my pants.

Besides that there was always the interesting experience of seeing the lights of Chico whenever the trail curved towards the ridge and out of the trees. It was strange, seeing so many lights of so many people, so close and still it all looked very far away when I thought about walking there. Hey Matt and Daniel, you remember our trip to Ishi Wilderness? It was kind of like that. It was a different kind of lost, because I knew the direction, I could even see where I was going, but I really had no idea where I was.

I kept walking, sometimes making plans about how to avoid letting my life get so distracted in the future, sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other. At one point my dad called on the cell phone. He said that there were weather alerts on the news about the cold, and they advised everyone to stay inside. The police were driving around to make sure no one was staying outside too long. Needless to say my parents were worried about me, and wanted me to call them as soon as I was near the Upper Bidwell road so they could come and pick me up. They sounded like they were more convinced that I was crazy, which I'd already discovered was pretty much true, so I didn't argue.

Thus it went for about five hours, and then it started getting interesting again. See, up in the higher hills the thick brush made it very clear where the road was, but as I came down into the lower hills the terrain was more flat and open, which made me more comfortable, but also made the road much more difficult to follow. Usually it was nothing more than an area where the ground was a little clearer than other areas, and in the dark that's a distinction easy to miss. I constantly caught myself walking off the trail in the wrong direction before I realized my mistake. I wasn't too worried about loosing the direction (the lights of Chico were impossible to miss), but I was worried about getting caught in the bushes, and also about finding the gate to take me from the reserve into Upper Bidwell. Every half hour or so I would notice a landmark that reassured me that I was on the right road, but then the landmarks stopped. I was still on the road, but I was more and more certain that I hadn't come this way. It seemed like I should have reached the gate already. I was also aware that I didn't have a lot of time to waste, because I was starting to feel the effects of asking my feet to go from relative inactivity to walking all day and night. Blisters were growing, and it was slowly making it more difficult to walk on the rocky ground. But I had little choice, and the road was in the right direction, so I kept going with growing unease, wondering how far away the gate was.

It's amazing how something like this can captivate your whole mind for hours, even if it's useless to think about it. For two hours I kept thinking that the gate would be just around the next bend, that maybe I'd gotten turned around, maybe I'd just forgotten how long it was, etc. Then finally I saw a gate ahead of me. The rush of relief in my heart lasted a moment until I got closer and realized that this was not the gate I'd crossed 15 hours ago. And I could see a clear dirt road on the other side, traveling down a gently slopping grassy hill. That certainly wasn't the rough and rocky land of Upper Bidwell! I had no idea where I was, but I decided to just keep the right direction and continue on. I climbed over the fence and tried to take stock of my surroundings. I didn't recognize anything, and I had absolutely no idea where I was in relation to the park. But one thing I did know, I was out of the reserve. Also the terrain was much more pleasant, and judging from the tall barbed-wire fence I'd just left, there wouldn't be much wildlife in here. That was a wonderful relief by itself!

As the road headed down the hill I felt strangely relaxed and calm. I could see clearly all around me, there was no close brush, only widely spaced trees and low grass. I felt like I'd left the dark part of the adventure and was moving slowly towards the sun. The valley floor was laid out below me, twinkling with lights. I could even see cars moving on the road, looking like little pinpricks of light. Even though the road was very rocky at times, and that was becoming more and more of a factor to my blistered feet and weakening ankles, this was finally starting to feel like a night hike should; quiet, peaceful, and picturesque. I even started enjoying myself.

After about an hour of thinking through what I knew about my position, I got a pretty good idea of where I was. Those of you who are familiar with Upper Bidwell know that as you drive up the road into the park on the left is a wide area of property used as a cow ranch. I was now pretty sure that I had stumbled onto that land. Apparently it reaches as far back into the hills as Upper Bidwell itself, but is much gentler and grassy. Knowing this (or being pretty sure that I knew it), I became a little more conscious about my light shinning out over half the valley from the hillside, and a little more concerned with bumping into anyone. But by this time it was after 3:00 am, and I wasn't too worried about anyone being up and about.

That all changed very quickly when I came around a bend and heard sounds in the grass in the shadows on my far left. I froze, crouched down, and waited, my eyes wide. The distinct sound of something large slowly moving through the grass continued for a moment, getting closer, and then stopped. I stayed as still as I could, and then decided that it couldn't be a man, and if it was an animal I would just have to face it . After all, if a mountain lion had somehow gotten down this far and was watching me, then sitting still on the ground radiating nervousness was probably the worst thing I could do. So gathering up my courage, I jumped up and waved my hands around wildly. About 10 feet to my left, a very large something leaped back, making loud animal sounds. At that moment large figures all around me jumped off the ground and started running fast in all directions. I almost yelling in fright before I realized that they were cows. You probably figured that out already, but somehow it hadn't entered my mind. And I've never seen cows move or sound like this! I guess they only do that when you sneak into the middle of their group when they're sleeping in the middle of the night and suddenly jump out at them like a madman. By the way, if any of you know the rancher who owns these cows, and he mentions that all his cows suddenly stopped giving any milk, please forget that you read this story, okay? Thanks.

Anyway, I stood there breathing hard and giggling to myself for a few minutes before continuing on. It was about this time that the moon finally came out. It wasn't much of a moon, but it was enough to walk without my flashlight, and that made me feel a lot better. Walking by moon light is a great feeling, especially on land like this. I even thought about laying down under one of the trees and calling it a night, especially since I was now limping along and really concerned about twisting my ankle in the dark. But I was more worried about the rancher being up and about by the time the sun rose, and now the darkness was my friend if I hoped to get out of here without being noticed. So I kept going.

I walked for about two hours over the hills, crossed several small creeks, found ways around little valleys, and eventually found myself on the flat grasslands level with the still distant lights of the city. Then came my last little adventure on this journey. I looked ahead and saw a gate. It was a big gate, taller than me, and on the opposite right side was a large fenced farm-yard. It looked like the area where the cattle were loaded into trucks for transport. Everything was as quiet as a graveyard, and I wanted it to stay that way. There was always a small chance that the rancher lived here in one of those buildings.

I approached the gate and considered the best way to get over it. It wouldn't be difficult to climb, the challenge would be in keeping silent. The middle of the gate was locked with a padlock and a lot of chain, and the hinges looked very rusty and squeaky. I started up one side, and was moving pretty stealthily until I reached the top and swung one leg over. And then, well, you know that thing that sometimes happens when you're climbing over a fence and you stop at the top and the fence starts shaking, and you shake with it to try to keep it balanced, but really only make it worse, and the movement keeps getting greater, until you end up making a noise like a small marching band for several minutes? Okay, maybe some of you haven't experienced that personally, but it happens, and that's what happened to me at this moment.

So there I was, tottering back and forth at the top of a 6 foot gate, making a noise to wake the gods of thunder, and then over in the farmyard I heard dogs barking. Bad news, that. So I forgot about getting stabilized before climbing down, and instead half fell half scrambled like a frightened squirrel down the other side of the gate, and I started walking, fast! If it had been an option I would have been running, but it hurt enough just walking fast, so running was completely out of the question. I think that even if a crazed farmer with a shotgun had charged out of the farmhouse with both barrels blazing I still could not have managed to move faster than a one-legged kangaroo. I'm not sure where that image came from, but work with me on that one.

So I tripped along, very aware that my footsteps sounded very loud on the loose gravel. The dogs kept barking, but the sound slowly faded into the distance as I walked to safety. I still didn't feel completely safe, and I kept looking over my shoulders looking for headlights that would be the sign of a wild-eyed rancher coming after me, and I was ready to through myself into the ditch on the side of the road at any moment. It's unflattering to think how much time I spent on this trip looking over my shoulder. But anyway no lights came, and the countryside grew quiet again.

From there it was a matter of finding my way out. I eventually recognized the Upper Bidwell road on the other side of the fence, and after about half an hour I found a place to climb over the barbed wire. By the way, that particular fence is one of the best I've encountered of the barbed-wire variety. The bottom wire leaves no room or flexibility to climb under, it's too high to think about jumping over, and the posts are just wobbly enough to make climbing over very very precarious. If you're considering getting into that land, I suggest you go about 10 minutes past where I stumbled over the barbed-wire and go over the nice iron gate at the end of the road.

Anyway, it felt strange to be back on public land after about 18 hours of worry about getting caught trespassing. It was like the feeling after you get into bed and put your feet between the freezing sheets, and then you feel them slowly warm up to a cozy, comfortably temperature. Still I was in pretty bad shape, and quite glad that my father had "ordered" me to call for a pick-up, instead of having to try to walk across town to get home. I don't know what would have happened if I'd tried to walk another few miles.

After a few minutes I arrived at the playground at the beginning of the upper park. I checked my watch and saw that it was 5:50. Right on time. I sat on one of the playground platforms and caught my breath, drank the rest of my water, and then called my dad. When his sleepy voice came on I told him where I was, and asked if he was sure he wanted to come and get me, because I could still walk home if he'd rather stay in bed. He said he'd come and get me. Even though I kind of wanted the satisfaction of making it all the way back to my front door, I was relieved that my walking was over for the day.

At home I peeled my socks off (found that I had actually burst two blisters by walking on them, which I didn't think was possible), took a long shower (no ticks, amazingly!), tended to my poor feet (which was difficult because my feet refused to speak to me and tell me where it hurt. Only now are they beginning to trust me again), and headed to bed. I had been out for almost exactly 20 hours, and at least 18 of that was walking. I figure I walked at least 25 miles round-trip, although all my efforts to figure out exactly where I went have failed. That's no Marine's hike, but I was pleased with myself. In the 24 hour period after that trip I probably slept about 15, but I didn't feel guilty at all! It wasn't very difficult to justify that!

All in all, I felt it was a successful trip, whatever that means. I'm sure each of you reading has a slightly different evaluation of the experience, but I'll leave that for you to decide. I also had the adventure-urge beaten out of me for another several months at least, so for now I have to make my peace with the "real world," or whatever it is that we've decided to call real, and try to find a balance without staging a prison break and running into the hills. But knowing me, I'm sure that sooner or later I'll find myself out on a freezing rock bed, wondering how I could be crazy enough to be out there, and what it will take for me to be "normal." For the record, if anyone out there is wondering, I don't plan on ever being normal. Besides, if I was then I'd have nothing to write about!

-The End

I have few last thoughts from this little story. Although it was only one day, it was a significant day for me. I realized how quickly and how radically the wrong life philosophy can turn my heart sour. And although I didn't meet anyone but myself in the whole journey, it does involve a number of other people. It may not seem like it, but I put a lot of time into writing this story over the last month. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have finished it without knowing that many people were reading it and encouraging me to "get on with it!" :-) Thanks to everyone who kept asking me what would happen next. I'm sorry I dragged it on so long, this last chapter especially, but I hope you enjoyed it and got something to think about from it. Also, this story is only one small example of how much my parents have learned by having three sons. :-) I am grateful for their understanding and support in all the craziness behind and ahead of me. Last of all, I thank my God for making it clear that He will always be my "Real World" whenever I'm willing to step away from the counterfeits I've built up around me. Take care everyone, and live well, this is not a rehearsal!

Upper Upper Bidwell, part III

There, in the middle of nowhere, no sign of human civilization for miles around except for an overgrown dirt road and an isolated chimney, I walked through the night, nothing visible except what was illuminated by my flashlight. I expected the road to suddenly end, or see it slowly close up with bushes and trees, but suddenly the brush opened to the left, and I looked, my light falling on the most surprising thing I can imagine. I think a mountain lion, or a man, or a vehicle would have surprised me less (though frightened me more!). This is what I saw:

I want you to look carefully at this picture for a moment. Go ahead, take a minute, and imagine yourself in my shoes. Can you feel it? Until every hair on your body is standing on end, you don’t understand what was going on inside of me at this moment. Let me emphasize again that there was NOTHING around this building, nothing but barely-visible trees that my light couldn‘t penetrate. I’d been walking for 9 hours, and seen absolutely nothing to prepare me for this. In that first moment or two of shock, the brain races like a gray-hound, filled with ideas and theories and explanations and plans and reactions and feeling and maybe even a little bit of panic. A little. Oh my God, what now?

Of course I saw it only for a split second before I snapped my light off. After all, I had passed through three different layers of “no trespassing” areas, and my worry of getting “caught” was ever-present. So I got a quick flash of a three-storied, glass-fronted, balconied, ominously dark house in the middle of the forest, and then I was in the dark. Oh no, I had shined my light directly on the front windows, anyone inside probably saw me! Do I run? Do I hide? What do you hear? Do I ask casual? Who would be living here?!?

That last question, though frightening, brought a little of that logic and reason that has saved me from many potential panic attacks. Who WOULD be living in this God-forsaken place, and on a freezing night like this? I wasn’t sure if I’d seen a vehicle parked anywhere, but probably not… and then the real key: even though it was completely dark already, it was only 7:00 PM. If there was anyone inside, would they have all the lights out and be sleeping already? Not likely. The possibilities that this was an somehow an empty building increased steadily. Of course there’s always the chance that people inside heard me coming noisily up the hill and had turned off the lights. After all, hadn’t I seen something like electrical lights in the distance an hour ago? But I should have passed that a long time back. Or maybe they WERE already sleeping, because they had no electricity… but it wasn’t likely, and I knew I had to go with the odds. After all, you never get a 100% shot of anything in life, do you?

I counted off two minutes, listening intently for any sign of movement. When there was none, I switched my light back on, and examined the house better. It was definitely a house, a very impressive house, the kind you would find up in the snowy mountains where rich people have their winter ski-lodges. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing here. I mean, a little rough cabin maybe, but this was ridiculous! I couldn’t imagine any vehicle making it up the road here. Where did the material come from? Why?!

Then came the question. You know which question I mean: to explore, or not to explore, THAT is the question! And it was a tough one. But obviously there wasn’t much choice. I mean, here I went to all this trouble and stupidity with the hope and faith that I would find an adventure somewhere along the way, and here it was. Could I just turn around and run away scared and ever be able to look myself in the mirror again? I’d trapped myself in a situation where the disgrace of defeat was worse than the fear of the unknown. Okay, now I just needed to get the job done.

I needed help to take the first step, so I did what any courage-needing boy-in-the-dark would do, I pulled out my gun. FAKE gun, remember, but here I figured it might actually be useful. I figured out a way to hold it in combination with my flashlight so that anyone in front of me would see the outline of the gun behind the light, but not the fact that it was made of clear plastic. Hopefully. I figured at this point that if I did encounter anyone, they probably were not the legal residents of the establishment, and that could be any sort of person up here. Having the outline of a gun in my hand might give me just the advantage I needed to control any situation I encountered. But mostly, as is obvious to all of us, it was psychological support. Thus fully armed with a toy gun and a flashlight, I moved slowly towards the front of the house. Then came another surprise that stopped me in my tracks.

Now relax, the real heart-stopping surprise for me is still coming. No, I simply looked to my right as I was getting closer, and realized that there was something behind some trees on that end of the clearing. No, several somethings. It was more buildings. None of them were as grand as the one directly in front of me, all single-storied but of pretty good size. I planned to take a closer look as soon as I’d figured out what was going on with the main building. Not wanting to worry about being watched from the other buildings, I moved to the opposite side of the house (the left side of the picture). I tried to keep my light as veiled as possible, just in case someone was inside. I moved very very carefully along the concrete wall, holding my pistol in front of me. I had some vague notion that if I saw anyone I would yell “Federal Agent, get on the ground now!” I wondered if I’d be able to pull it off without my voice breaking. I was also aware that there’s probably some sort of repercussions to impersonating a federal agent, but I didn’t anticipate meeting the type of person who would call me up on that.

I noticed that ahead of me the wall had a shadowy indent. Probably a doorway, I thought. Okay, this is it. I turned off my light, just in case, and moved silently to the edge of the doorway, my pistol pointing at the ground (just like in the movies!), my back hugging the wall. I was worried that the door might be open, and more worried that someone would be watching for me. I planned to quickly move away from the wall, turn towards the door, raise my gun into position, and shine my light at the door, all in one quick, fluid movement. Actually, this part when very well, and I almost had 1/100 of a second to be pleased, until I followed my light to the doorway… there was no door.

This alone made my heart stop for a second, maybe two. I almost dropped everything in my hands. Then my brain registered that I was seeing the light shine through where the door should be, into the building, onto a rough, uneven dirt floor, scattered with bits of overturned furniture, garbage, tools, debris. It was so unexpected that I almost fell over.

I stood there for a long time, wavering. The impulse to just cut and run was very strong. I held my light in the same direction, hoping that anyone else who saw it from inside wouldn’t notice that it was quivering. Finally, I knew I needed to approach the door. This was why I came, right? ….. Right?!? HELLO?

I tried to not make a single sound on the dirt as I moved closer and closer. I wanted to make sure that I used the pistol to full psychological advantage against anyone inside, meaning that they see it before trying anything. But do you look into the right side of the door first, or the left? And you just know that whatever side you chose, the man is going to be on the other side waiting for you to expose yourself. The only tip is that if a person has free choice, they’ll automatically chose the side that they’re dominant in. A right-handed person will chose to stand on the right side of the doorway. Also, the rest of the house stretched back on that side of the doorway. And finally, being left-handed, I can better approach what would be the right side from inside. So, I moved in from towards the left. I got up to the door, trying to watch both sides, and at the last moment I leaned in and pointed my light and pistol around the corner.
Suddenly everything happened at once. Out the corner of my eye, I saw movement to my right. I looked, saw the outline of a person standing there. Before I had time to react he reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, just kidding about that part. There was actually no one inside the door. Sorry, I just HAD to do it! What there WAS was more dirt floor, various objects scattered around, and two doorless doorways leading off to other rooms on the left. It was too dark to see into them.

At this point, even without a hand reaching out of the shadows, my imagination was beginning to win the internal war, and for good reason! It had more and more basis in reality. Even if I didn’t encounter anything living in here, it was just the absolute perfect example of those scenes you see in CSI or Law and Order in the beginning of the episode: some kid messing around in an out-of-the-way place, he stumbles over some boards, revealing a dead body grinning up at him. Well, I KNEW it was exactly that kind of place, and I didn‘t want to meet that dark secret hidden here and then have to run screaming 15 miles though the dark with lions hot on my tail and every deer and squirrel in the forest wondering if Armageddon had arrived. That image firmly in mind (if you‘re wondering what happened to my reason-based imagination, just put a sock in it!), I didn’t actually step into the building. I stood in the doorway for a few moments, waiting to see if the courage to step in would arrive, and then moved away.

I walked around the front of the house (giving it a wide berth and keeping two eyes on the windows) towards the other buildings. Two of them were actually more shacks, what I’d actually expect up here. One of them was filled with firewood. An interesting clue, that. But the third building was large, one-storied, with a cement floor, all one room. Actually, it was a lot like a garage except that there was no large garage door in the walls, just a large window and door in front. As I got closer to the open door I noticed that there was almost nothing on the floor. Almost.

I stopped quickly when my light fell on something laying in the middle of the floor. It was a blanket, spread out like it was waiting for a picnic. Or like a bed. It didn’t look like a blanket that had been sitting there for months, it looked dry and disheveled, maybe even slept on, recently. I decided that I was liking the place less and less, so I moved back towards the road.

The most pressing theory about the blanket in my mind was that someone was sleeping on it, maybe VERY recently, and had seen my arrival. Probably that person had no more right to be there than me, so perhaps they slipped into the woods when they saw the light. That certainly wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

Still, I knew I was in control of the area for the moment, so I quickly opened my bag and took the picture you saw of the house. I photographed the other buildings also, but I was too far away for the flash to reveal anything. I didn’t feel like getting closer.

Then I found myself back on the road, wondering. The irony is that if I was looking for a place to sleep or rest for a while, I would never find better shelter from any natural elements then this. But you know, when faced with an unknown natural element (rain, freezing wind, lions, rabid squirrels, falling giant pinecones), it’s never as frightening as an unknown human element. There was no way I was staying here. I didn’t even feel a compulsion to make myself go inside. So what now?

The logical thing was to accept this adventure/discovery as the conclusion to my trip, and start back. But here’s where things started to get internally strange, and even a little surreal. I wasn’t ready to head back. I wanted to keep going. I really couldn’t figure out why, and the strangest thing is that that side of me just stopped talking with me. I mean, usually my reasonable side and adventurous side argue and work things out, but I’d never had one side just quit talking and insist on something without giving reasons. The larger part of me wanted to go on, no explanation. I interpreted it as wanting to know where the road ended. I hadn’t reached the end of my rope yet. So, after arguing silently with myself in the shadow of a shadowy house in the middle of a shadowy forest, I turned up the road, and continued walking, checking behind my shoulder every few minutes, of course.

I really didn’t want to do this, but it‘s getting late, so:
To Be Continued….

Upper Upper Bidwell, Part II:

At this point the title of this story is quite inaccurate, because I was no longer in Upper Bidwell at all! I was outside the boundaries of the park, in an area I knew nothings about, and anything might happen! Who know what’s up there in those endless hills and forest?! There must be something, right? This brings up the unique aspect of this particular adventure, I had no goal except to find something interesting. In the past I’ve always had a goal, like surviving a freezing day outside in Stockholm, or walking from Bratislava to Vienna, or getting to the top of whatever rock I found myself climbing, there was always a goal, a clear end. But what about this time? I had no idea what was in front of me, and I was just planning to keep walking? How would I know when I was finished? And another problem was timing. If I wanted to get back home before dark the next day, then the half-way time would be about 4:00 in the morning. So was I just going to walk through the dark forest until 4, and then just decide to turn around and come back? I really had no answer to this question.
But the truth is that all these details weren’t important, that wasn’t the point of the trip. I needed to get away from what we ironically call “real life” and clear my head a little. You see, this was during my 5th week of holidays from school. I know that sounds nice, but it really does get old fast, especially when you’re completely undisciplined. I had such a nice list of things I wanted to do during the break, important things, useful things, fun things! And instead I mostly slept, watched TV, and… well, that is about it. And I couldn’t make myself do anything! I was scattered in my social, mental, and spiritual life, and didn’t feel strong enough to do anything about it. That can make a person like me go crazy….Hmmm, crazy enough to out into the mountains in freezing weather with no plan, you ask? Exactly.
There are times a person needs to step back and look at life, really get away from everything else and just think. It’s so ridiculously easy for us to get distracted from the only things that matter. It’s almost like a conspiracy! Try to list everything you’ve spent effort and time and thought on in the last month. Now, what percentage of those things will be important to you when your life is finished? There’s so much to fill our lives with, and so little that’s really valuable. The only thing to do is to get away from the distractions once in a while. And for me, “I need an adventure” is code for “I need to feel like my life is real.” You know, I want to worry about things that matter! I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I would rather be worrying about my survival than about finishing chapter 7 in my agriculture textbook, or wondering how I’m going to get food tomorrow rather than what item in the fridge will require the least amount of effort to prepare. It just seems more real, more natural, more full. Does that make sense to anyone else?
So stop stalling and get on with the story, right? Well, the truth is that most of the trip was hours and hours of quiet walking, and most of the story was these thoughts in my head. Now wait a minute, don’t go anywhere! I didn’t say nothing exciting happened externally! In case you want to know, there IS an adventure in this story, a very unexpected and mysterious and slightly frightening adventure, but not yet…
You’ll remember that I jumped the fence onto government land, and now I was a little worried about being seen. I was pretty sure that no one else was going to be there, but who knows? There was a road going from the gate up the hill, so I tried to avoid that as much as possible. Instead I walked along the ridge of the mountain (it was more interesting there anyway, see picture #1). Here it was also a little sheltered from the wind. Wind is nice for a while, but it can easily be too much. Trust me, when you’re out in nature, nothing can exhaust you as quickly as wind. In my opinion not even rain is so dangerous, if you’re prepared for it. But you can’t really be prepared for wind. It will push you and pull you and drain your warmth no matter what you do. So it was nice to get away from it for a while. But there were still signs of the temperature around me. There was ice on the ground. But strangely, there were also signs of spring (see picture #2).
Well, after about an hour it was clear that I couldn’t continue off-trail anymore. I had been making a way through the bushes, but at one point I realized I was trapped, and I had to return about 10 minutes back (see picture #3a,3b). So, I decided that if I really wanted to get deep into the hills then I should follow the road. It’s quite a nice road, usually fit for a jeep or something like that (though later on it is too out of repair for anything with wheels). It cuts through the forest and over the hills in a pretty straight direction; away from the valley. That’s all I wanted.

My experience with the bushes off the road should have warned me about something. If this road seemed to me like an easy way to travel away from the city, then it would seem that way to other things also. I saw a lot of deer tracks, and small animals and bird tracks in the mud. These didn’t worry me at all, I really didn’t even think about it. Until I saw something completely different. I looked down and saw tracks larger and different than anything I’ve ever seen before (see picture #5). It is about the size of my hand, but much thicker. My first thought was actually that someone was wearing ski gloves and fell in the mud. But then I started seeing the same tracks along the trail, in a line. Unless someone was willing to get very muddy for a bad joke in an area with no people, this was no human track. My best guess (both then and after looking online)? Bear. I can’t be sure that it was, of course, and I never expected to find bear so close to the city (less than 10 miles), but I can’t find anything else that makes sense.
Well, I’m actually not too frightened of bear. After all, they can be cute! Okay, seriously, they’re also quite afraid of people, and will most likely run away before I even know they’re close. However, a bear wouldn’t come so far out of the mountains unless it was desperate for food, and I did have a backpack full of cheese and sausage and bread…. But I’m just trying to be dramatic, I didn’t think about this at all then. Moving on!
Shortly after these tracks, I came to the end of the government preserve. I’d walked through it in about two hours. Now there was another gate, leading to “Musty Buck Reserve: No trespassing.” I hopped over and continued on. Behind my left shoulder I was getting some excellent views of the valley far below. I also noticed that the sun was getting pretty low. It was around 3:30 by this time, and it looked like the sun would set in about an hour and a half. Then we would see how I react under pressure.

Have I mentioned that I’m really not comfortable with darkness? Especially when alone, my imagination just goes wild. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to control that. I mean, even when I go into my backyard at night, I’m not afraid anymore, but I still imagine someone hiding behind the trees or a shadowy thing standing behind the door. It’s just how my mind works, I’ve just learned to not take it seriously…in my backyard, that is. Out in the forest miles from anyone, well that’s something different. As I now thought about going through the dark forest alone, my heart started beating a little bit faster, and I really started to wonder what I was doing. But, I’d already been walking 6 hours, and even if I turned around now I would be walking a long way in the dark, so that wouldn’t help. This was the “fun” part anyway, right?
Around 4:45 I finally came to the end of Musty Buck, I think. There was another gate, but no signs on it. And it looked like no one had opened it in years. Well, I didn’t need to open it! Hop to!
I started thinking about how rough the road was here, and how no car could come up here, even if the gates would open. Just a few minutes later I came around a corner, and all the brush and trees to my right opened up suddenly into a large clearing. And there, in the middle of nowhere, was a chimney (see picture #6). It looked so strange and out-of-place, I really can’t explain it. I just stopped and stared at it for a while. Seeing nothing but trees and dirt road all day did not prepare me to see this. All around it there were piles of burnt tin cans, glass bottles, and rusted scrap metal. There was also the signs of building, but it doesn’t look like anything was ever built up more than a foot. What was it for, and why was it here? I have absolutely no idea, and I probably never will.
The clearing did give a nice view of the sunset, though, and so I watched my source of light and heat sink behind the earth’s edge (see picture #7). It’s pretty amazing how much the temperature is instantly effected when the last sliver of sun disappears. Even though I was wearing 4 layers by that time, I started to feel the cold a little. But a more pressing concern was the growing darkness. In the clearing it was still okay, but as soon as I went back into the forest, I could see that it was going to get interesting. About this time I saw a sign on the side of the road: “Property of Sierra Pacific Industries: No Trespassing.” Hmmm, better pretend I didn’t see that.
I stopped at the side of the road to prepare myself for night. I put on the rest of my cloths: five layers on the torso, three on the legs, extra socks, hat, put away camera, prepare flashlight and… ahem… pistol. Okay, now wait, it wasn’t real. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but it was an air-soft pistol that shoots little pellets. Shoots them quite hard, actually, enough to really hurt, but not to cause any real damage. I just thought that if I met a dangerous animal, and it wasn’t going away I could… you know… shoot it a little… or something. Okay fine, it just made me feel better to have something that could shoot something. And in the end, it’s the psychological part that really matters, right? Unless you really meet a dangerous animal… But anyway!
So, I was ready for anything! There was still enough light to see my feet for about half an hour. The last time I came out of the forest along the edge of the valley I got another surprise. I looked down on the road, and could barely see something new. Tracks (see picture #8). These were different than the tracks before. They are definitely lighter, not so thick, more pointed. As I looked at them, I tried to tell myself that they were dog tracks. And that’s possible. But really, they don’t look like dog tracks. The size of the back pad, the way the “fingers” are pointed… They look more like a cat… a big cat… a very big cat…a mountain lion, even. I knew that’s probably what they were, that it was a very real possibility. I was now at least 10 miles past the limits of Upper Bidwell, and in an area that was basically wild. I’ve looked at a track guide online, and I’m pretty sure about this guess. Now this gave me more to think about than the bear tracks. After all, I’m not afraid of bear, I am afraid of mountain lions. I’ve seen them in zoos, and even in captivity they’re just one massive, powerful muscle. And their eyes, so cold and deep and unfeeling, they can see fear like a physical thing, and they fear nothing. Meeting one on a trail in daylight might be okay, but I was going into the night, where he can see and I can’t, and my cute little toy gun would only make him mad. What was I doing here?
So I wanted to worry about something “real,” eh? This is it, and I hadn’t found a reason to turn around yet, so I kept going. You know, don’t tell anyone, but I think a small part of me wanted to see a lion. A very small part.
Well, when I looked up from the tracks, I could see something deep in the forest. It was a light, a man-made light. I thought it was deep in the forest, but it’s so hard to tell. In situations like this, it can look like a UFO is landing on the next mountaintop, until you realize there’s a glow-bug landing on your nose. But I was sure that it was electrical. People, here? I wondered what kind of people would be in such wilderness on a night like this, and if I wanted them to see me. After all, I was through three layers of private land… Anyway, you can think about the possibilities, and whoever they were I was pretty sure I didn’t want to met them, but also sure that I wanted to see them. It’s always nice to have a goal, after all.
So I started trying to walk quieter, and to use my flashlight as little as possible. It’s really cool how the fear leaves you when you feel like the hunter, and this helped me continue through the forest for 10,15, 25 minutes, but there was still no sign of life. I decided I hadn’t seen anything after all. I was back to having no goal. Also, the road had changed a little. Before it was wide, and very clear. Now it got narrow, and the bushes and trees pressed in close on both sides. I kept expecting to look up and see the road just end in a wall of bushes. There were also a lot of rocks and branches on the road, so I needed to focus on my feet. That can be difficult when you start thinking about something jumping out of the bushes onto your back. Then the road started going uphill, sharply. Nowhere else to go but up.
I continued up that hill for a long time, questioning myself more and more. Okay, we’re here in the pressure now, no escape. So what now, Caleb? What are you going to do? Do you want to lay down here and freeze to death or wake up to a lion looking down at you? Or are you going to keep walking into empty forest for another 13 hours until sunrise? What’s going to be enough for you? There’s nothing there but more forest and empty road.
No, the road must be here for a reason, and I’m not ready to give up yet. Nothing has happened, and you know, part of me is enjoying this.
So I kept walking for another half hour. It was now close to 7:00, completely dark, completely silent. I could only see where I pointed my flashlight, and whenever I tried to walk without a light (a much better way to walk if there’s a little bit of natural light), I kept hitting my toes on rocks and tripping over branches. There was no moon, and all this talk about walking by starlight is pretty useless under trees. So I kept my light on, feeling like I was calling every living thing from miles around, and not being very comfortable about it.
Still I started to feel a little better, for a moment. Just a moment. I reached the top of the hill, so the road leveled out. I was pleased by this, and stepped forward. I then realized that all the bushes on my left were gone, they had opened into a clearing. I automatically moved my light in that direction, and straight onto the last thing I expected to see, but the very thing I was looking for. I’d found an adventure.
I quickly turned off the flashlight, and felt myself breathing faster. “It’s not possible,” I whispered. What should I do now?…

To be continued…

Upper Upper Bidwell Part 1

I was planning an adventure for a long time.
I needed to get out and challenge myself a little. For several months I’d had the idea to discover what’s on the other side of Upper Bidwell Park. For those of you not from Chico, Bidwell is a huge “park” that starts in the city, and reaches way, way outside the city into the hills. Most of it is pretty wild, and after a few miles there are many places were almost no one goes. It’s filled with (okay, I mean it’s possible to find) caves where Indians lived, old stone walls, snakes, deer, and even mountain lions (probably not in Bidwell park, but certainly up in the hills). Well, I’d been many miles into it, and explored a lot of the park over the years, but I never found any official end of it, though I knew that sooner or later there had to be a fence or end to the park. And what’s after that, I wondered? How wild does it get? This seemed like the perfect opportunity for adventure. So for months I thought about a trip into the hills, over at least one night, to see what I could see.
When school was in session I couldn’t find the time, and when winter vacation came my work schedule made it difficult to get away for a few days. There was really only one weekend when I could do it. I planned to leave Friday morning, walk on the park road to the end, and then climb up to the top of the valley and walk along the ridge for as long as possible. It seemed like a good plan. But as this weekend started getting closer, there were weather reports about record cold weather coming. On Thursday, the weather report said that Friday and Saturday night would be in the teens (-8 C) with a strong wind. So basically, it wasn’t idea weather to be miles into the hills at night. It reminded me of one of the Christmas hikes from Karlstejn, when all the news said to stay inside because of snow storms, and we were planning to walk 25K through the countryside at night for fun… turned out to be absolutely beautiful weather, though.
So I wasn’t going to let the weather stop me! That’s right, I’m that crazy (or that desperate, perhaps. I needed a little excitement that badly!)! I also had some experience walking in cold weather, and I knew that if I kept walking I wouldn’t get cold… at least, wouldn‘t freeze. So my new plan was to walk into the hills, keep walking until night, see if I could find a place to sleep, and if I couldn’t then just keep walking until sunrise. I’ve done this before, and knew it would be hard but possible.
So Saturday night I packed (as lightly as possible!!), and tried to get up early Friday morning, planning to walk to the park from my house. But my parents caught me. Needless to say, they weren’t thrilled about the idea of me wandering into Upper Bidwell on a night of record cold. This might also be the time to say that it’s illegal to camp overnight in the park, that the land after Upper Bidwell is government or private land with no trespassing allowed, and that mountain lions sometimes attack people in California. My parents and I both knew all this, so it’s a testament to how cool my parents are that they didn’t argue too much, just insisted that I take a cell phone, emergency equipment, and my mom drove me to the end of the Upper Bidwell road. Great parents, huh?
Well, I was off in nature by 9:00, and started walking along the side of the valley. I couldn’t find a good trail, so it was a little slow. And of course I had to focus on avoiding poison oak, which is harder to see in the winter. I continued on in this way for two hours, waiting for something exciting to happen… It didn’t. I saw some deer, enjoyed the scenery, climbed a rock or two, but nothing too interesting.
I finally came to the top of the valley near a very large rock formation, which had a face on the side of it (see right). I explored the “eye-caves” on the rock, and from the top saw that I’d reached the end of Bidwell park. Ahead of me on the ridge was a fence, and on the fence was a sign. When I got closer to the sign I read: “Boundary: Ecological Reserve. Entry permit required. Property of California State University, Chico.” Well, this was it, I’d found what comes after the park, and I still had a full day left. If I was serious about finding adventure, it was clear what had to be done. I quickly jumped over the fence, and started walking on. Now I was on government land, and I had no idea what I would find there. That definitely promised to make things more interesting. With the wind blowing powerfully into me, I moved forward to discover… something.
To be continued….