Dances With Marmots

CHAPTER TWO

Rattlers, Strange heartbeats, and Warner Springs.

My journey was to take two days short of five calendar months.
At times I’d hike for a few days in the company of others I met along the way - Ziggy from Seattle, Tim “The Gimp” from New Orleans, and Vern “Mountain Goat” Anderson from Michegan were good companions at different stages through California, though I hiked through the states of Oregon and Washington without company.
I saw less people on the trail than I had expected and the longest I went without sighting anyone was ten days. Even then, sightings were more often at a distance and went by without contact being made.

The sheer unspoilt vastness of America’s wilderness areas were quite awesome, and provided a refreshing aspect to the US after a diet of American TV Big City cop shows and ‘in your face’ sitcoms.
People would later ask me if I ever got lonely.
The answer was, “No”.
I may have been alone, but each day was completely filled with the goals of survival, taking in the environment and wildlife...and making sure I didn’t step on anything that wriggled.
I found that I was far lonelier wandering around crowded cities after my walk had finished!
With the exception of nine separate layover days, I hiked every single day for the five months, and over the entire period, including the layover days, I was to average 28km a day.

My first target (and supply point) after leaving the border was Warner Springs.
The small community beckoned like an island, 180km away through a sea of arid hills and the barren scrubby lands of the San Felipe Valley, Anza Borrega desert and fringes of the Colorado Desert.
The supply points I’d chosen, were small settlements in areas where a road would intersect or approach the trail, and on average they’d be about 160km apart. These distances were ideal for fooling my brain, as I could relate to that sort of mileage and knew that if need be, then these settlements were pull-out points. They also usually had a diner and as any long distance hiker will tell you, diners are the meccas of the foot slogger’s world.

I knew that snakes and I would be neighbours for most of my pending journey, and not being of the same calibre as Steve Erwin the crocman from Oz, I looked forward to introducing myself to them with an eclectic mix of enthusiasm and thinly veiled terror.
I had purchased a snake-bite kit especially for the occasion, and it was strategically housed within grabbing distance in my pack. The kit consisted of a sharp blade, two rubber suction cups of differing size and a string tourniquet.
The theory was, that after being monstered by the snake, you open up the bite wound with the sharp blade, locate the appropriate sized suction cup over the wound, fit the tourniquet above the wound and then I suspected, lay down and waited to die from either shock or venom. I had the feeling, that if I ever had to perform this First Aid on myself, I’d probably pass out at the first incision of the blade and bleed to death anyway.
I also spent quite some time pondering over the question of where you would fit the tourniquet if you were bitten on the bum - the blurb that came with the kit didn’t seem to cover that eventuality, which was a bit slack I thought.
Knowing my luck, if I ever got bitten it would probably be on such an uncool spot - "Yeah, poor guy got bitten by a rattler - had to amputate his butt."
My faith in the kit was further shaken, when I read an article expounding the theory that opening up the wound with a blade only helped spread the venom more quickly into your system - I didn’t need this, and wondered why the hell important advice on snakes, bears and the meaning of life, always contradicted itself!
None the less, I plodded along mentally practicing my snake-bite kit quickdraw, till I was probably the fastest in the west.
Faced down by Billy the Kid, I could probably have outdrawn and slapped a suction cup and tourniquet on him before he’d even cleared leather.
I’d never heard a rattlesnake before, and I’d wondered if I would recognise the sound when I did eventually hear one. Let me assure you, when those critters rattle, you immediately know what they are! (Listen)
I’d been travelling for about five hours through the scrubby, rocky ground, when the attention getting spine tingling dry rattle stopped me in my tracks.
He’d spotted me first, and was reared up from the rocks in about four feet of don’t-stuff-with-me attitude.
All previous ideas of cool snakeskin belt trophies and hat bands exited rapidly stage right along with their owner, as I put in some serious distance between me and an agitated serpent who wasn’t interested in promoting apples.
Clint Eastwood would have stood his ground, eyed him down and blown him away with a lightning draw.
Yeah, good one Clint, but you didn’t have a 60lb pack on your back and nothing but a swiss army knife in your holster.
No doubt that old and innovative TV adventurer McGyver could have found a way of transforming the bit that gets stones out of horses hoofs into a Colt 45 - but I’m far less inventive, and concentrated mainly on preventing hyperventilation whilst setting a record for the 100 metre backpack sprint .
I’d read that rattlers can sense subtle changes in temperature and use this skill for detecting prey at night. They are also very sensitive to vibrations and can pick up footfalls at distances of over 15 metres away.
Don’t worry too much about it, I’d been told, they’ll likely hear you coming and slope off before you get there.
Wrong!
Either this one was vibrationally deaf, or he was feeling bored and thought, “Hey man, think I’ll jus’ hang around an’ see how far this greenhorn dude can jump!”
One expert told me that you can tell the age in years of a rattlesnake, by the number of “buttons” or segments on its rattle at the end of its tail.
This is probably true, but I never did get good enough at counting and jumping at the same time to be able to actually date one.
The snake slithered out of sight and I carried on my way with an adrenalin boost equivalent to a fifty megaton caffeine hit, plus a new and intense interest in the ground around me.
I had the definite feeling that this journey was going to be a lot different to a wander around the Hunua Ranges spotting fantails.

Hauser canyon hove slowly into sight, and I made my first camp on the trail alongside a depressingly waterless Hauser creek.
I’d been hoping to find water there, as I was just about out, but it wasn’t to be and I was lucky to squeeze just enough out of my bottle to reconstitute my tucker into a slightly moist powdery lump that peered unappetisingly up at me from the bottom of the pot. I wasn’t too concerned though, as I knew that next morning after a 1000ft climb via Morena Butte, I’d reach Morena County Park and some reliable water.
After a thirsty fitful night, the climb was made early in the morning before the sun pressed in, and after filling my water bottles and myself I carried on to Boulder Oaks.
Genetically I’m half English, half Scottish.
Now that means that even though I enjoy a good adventure, half of me doesn’t want to spend too much money doing it, and any cost saving gives me a feeling that’s almost as fuzzy as crossing borders. To this end , I was quite proud of my water bottles.
Most other hikers I was to come across had a variety of expensive and gimmicky containers that were either too heavy, too bulky, or too leaky.
My containers were old 2 litre plastic soft drink bottles. They were practically weightless and could be flattened out to make more pack room when empty, and on top of that they were almost indestructible. (Fill one up and then jump up and down on it to see what I mean!)
I say almost indestructible, because later on in the journey one succumbed to puncture by bear attack, but hey, who wouldn’t?

Boulder Oaks held a camp ground and small store. It also has a road, so that meant easy vehicle access to the area. Because of this, I think it had become the favourite gathering place for the gun totting population of America - I climbed upwards towards the Laguna Mountains heading for Burnt Rancheria to the soundtrack of World War Three.
Somewhere down below me some serious firepower was being demonstrated. Automatic fire was punctuated by the boom and crack of large calibre single shots.
I cast about uncomfortably, trying to locate their source, eternally grateful that at least I wasn’t wearing my fur coat and Antler Hat.
Further on, tracking along the rim on the eastern side of the mountains, I could see a vehicle and several figures down in the distant valley.
The boom-crack of their shots reverberated along the valley below me. I couldn’t see what they were firing at, but hoping that it wasn’t me, I thought small and scurried along the trail making use of what cover there was until I was gratefully out of sight.
I figured that if I could see them, then if they looked up they were going to see me - and for all I knew they could have been the local branch of the Happy Psycho Club out on their annual picnic.

Burnt Rancheria was a pleasant camp spot...water, store, and shady pine trees.
In the later 1800’s, cattlemen had moved in on the Laguna Mountains, as the area was a good spot to fatten up their herds.
Unfortunately, the local Dieguenos Indians didn’t think much of the idea and demonstrated their displeasure by burning down a ranch house that the cattlemen had built.
Hence the name Burnt Rancheria.
I dumped my pack and lay back in the shade of the pines, replacing a few calories and enjoying the local woodpecker percussion band.
The volume put out by their assault on the tree trunks as they drilled for bugs was amazing. I’d never heard anything like it before.
How they don’t fall out of the sky with brain damage after spending all day methodically head-butting trees has got me beat.
It was here that I met up with two other long distance hikers heading for Canada.
Paul “Ziggy” and Tim “The Gimp” were two different personalities - a kind of Yin and Yang of the trail.(Click for pic)
The bespectacled Paul from Seattle, was more of the thoughtful academic type, a BA studying for his MA. His skinny frame which got progressively skinnier as he headed north, belied his stamina and endurance and he, along with “The Gimp”, made it all the way to Canada.
The exuberant Gimp, was an “In Your Face” Louisiana extrovert. If you wanted peace and contemplation you didn’t walk with Tim!
But he had a crazy sense of humour that really appealed to me, and I enjoyed the company of Ziggy and The Gimp on several days through California.
Ziggy had originally left the border in the company of a friend from Seattle. His intrepid friend had pulled out on only the second day, after getting a bit of a rev-up from one of the local rattlesnakes.
“Jeez! They got snakes an’ stuff out here! See ya later dude I’m outta here!”
That amused me, as I thought that all Americans would be a bit blase about their native fauna, after all, the kiwi doesn’t bother me!
The Gimp had introduced himself at full smiling volume. He stood there shimmering in the scrubby dusty heat of southern California looking rather incongruous with snowshoes and ice axe strapped to his pack and clutching what I thought were two ski poles.
I eyed the snow equipment suspiciously, and secretly got a bit worried - maybe he knew something I didn’t know.
Surely it was too hot down here for snow and ice. Maybe the heat was a trick?
I had an ice axe and crampons, but they were still in the custody of Trail Foods, to be forwarded to me on request when I got a bit closer to the mountains.
We discussed our gear, and I was relieved to find that he’d realised that he wasn’t going to be needing the snow gear in southern California and that it was going to be a “pain in the butt” lugging the items for hundreds of miles across snowless terrain. He mailed them away at the first opportunity.
“What’s that guy carrying snow shoes for?”
“They ain’t snow shoes, they’re an old Inuit charm to keep snow away.”
“But there ain’t never no snow in these parts!”
“See, they work!”
Tim told me that he had got his nickname from his days on the Appalachian trail on the eastern coast.
He always hiked with a couple of poles he told me - which turned out to be things called leki sticks which are aids to support, and have nothing to do with skiing or eastern block citizens, hence apparently his crippled or “gimp-like” appearance.
Ziggy and The Gimp more or less teamed up, and they tracked most of the way up to the Canadian border together

Having farewelled the duo, I left Burnt Ranchera, and not long afterwards coming down out of the Laguna Hills, I learnt my first important lesson.
This particular stretch was reputedly very hot and waterless, and I was reluctantly carrying just over 9 litres of water - the next chance of water was in Chariot canyon about 40kms away.
Nine litres of water weighs in at 9kg (20 pounds), which is bloody heavy when you pile it on top of all the other crud you’re carrying. (Why can’t they find a way of dehydrating the stuff)
Ironically, and for the only time in my three months through California, it began raining heavily, accompanied by strong cold winds.
A tent loomed up out of the heavy rain, pitched right on the trail. I stopped briefly as its occupant called out.
The guy’s name was Chuck, the atrocious weather had prompted him to stop in his tracks and get under cover. Wise move. It seemed ironic given the present weather conditions, but he’d run out of water and at his request I jettisoned a bottleful his way, glad to be relieved of the weight.
I then made the mistake of pushing on to gain mileage, and at about 1500hrs suddenly realised that bits of me were going numb, and if I didn’t get under cover quickly, hypothermia was going to become another one of my new experiences.
I was fairly aware of the phenomena of hypothermia, and knew that the recommended treatment was to administer warm drinks to the victim, strip him of wet clothing, and then stuff him into a sleeping bag that was full of one but preferably two dry or naked members of the party to raise his body temperature.
This meant that if you were hiking with the Spice Girls, had a large sleeping bag and a crateful of warm lager, then it would be virtually impossible to die from hypothermia, even if you were endowed with only the vaguest interest in the meaning of life!
Unfortunately, this scenario was more than a gnat’s whisker away from being impossible for the average bloke, and so regrettably I had to take steps to prevent myself from progressing to the treatment stage.
The immediate terrain was totally unsuitable for a campsite, but too bad, shelter was the priority.
The moment I stopped moving the effects of the cold wind and rain increased. I couldn’t get my hands or fingers to work!
Foolishly, I’d stowed my gloves deep inside my pack where they were doing a good job of keeping my spare underpants warm.
I kicked down some scrub on the rocky steeply sloping ground to make space for my tent, and then using my teeth and hands as best I could, managed to get the tent up and dive inside.
My tent was too small to cook in without transforming myself into a fireball, so dinner that night was a few slices of cheese and some biscuits - not bad if you're a rodent, but not much of a reward for a 28km day with about 30kg on your back.
That early experience was a good lesson, and I never made the mistake again of pushing on for too long through adverse weather - or the mistake of stowing important gear where I couldn’t immediately access it.
I can remember that day well, because as I lay there thawing out, I realised that my heart had started beating out of time. 4 beats miss, 6 beats miss, 10 beats miss, 2 beats miss!
Every time it missed, I could feel it jump in my chest. I’d never struck that before.
Strewth, maybe this was the build up to a main engine failure.
It had me worried.
I’d been taking painkillers regularly for my knee since leaving the Mexican border and figured that maybe they were having a side affect on me.
I stopped taking them regularly from then on, but the problem more or less stuck with me for the remainder of my journey.
Depressing thoughts of a skeleton found in a mouldering tent accompanied my drift into sleep.
In retrospect, the condition had probably been brought on by the unaccustomed stresses and pathetic diet that I was subjecting my body to.
The following day the weather was back to it’s usual temperate self, and progressing jauntily along to the rhumba rhythm in my ribcage I took in some panoramic views of the Vallecito Valley.

The valley was once the sight of a Butterfield Overland Mail Stage station that lasted from 1858-61, the stagecoaches following an old Spanish trail from Fort Yuma.
I consulted my trail book that also informed me that the first Europeans to pass this way were Spanish forces led by a Lieutenant Pedro Fages, marching through this neck of the Colorado Desert in 1772 looking for deserters...I amused myself with ridiculous scenarios...
“Hey Pedro! Where you theenk we find theese deserters?”
“In a desert I theenk.”

Descending into arid Chariot Canyon, I passed by several gold mines. Some abandoned, some apparently still in operation.
It would have been a buzz to check out one of the mines, but the only two miners I met seemed a bit suspicious and not very hospitable.
My friendly greeting was met with silence and a sullen stare, so just in case I was being processed in their heads as an “ornery claim jumper”, I immediately moved on, exuding what I hoped looked like a total indifference to their boring old mine. I noted that they watched me until finally dropping from sight.
I eventually reached the small settlement of Banner. I’d actually deviated from the Crest trail to end up here, but the sight of Chariot Canyon on my map, with it’s scattered goldmines marked by images of tiny crossed picks, had proved to be too much for me.
Who could resist a canyon sprinkled with mines with names like Lucky Strike, Cold Beef, Golden Chariot, Golden Ella and Ready Relief?
I was Humphrey Bogart in Treasure Of The Sierra Madres!
After a brief stop to re-fill my water bottles at the small store, I headed on for the San Felipe valley, overtaking another backpacker along the way. Eric was from Texas, and was doing some of the trail with his dog. What amused me was that they were both carrying backpacks.
“Hell yes”, said Eric, “He can carry his own biscuits and water!”
The poor old mutt was looking a bit dishevelled in the heat, and Eric was concerned that the pads on his dogs feet were wearing off. It had never occurred to me that this could happen. I just sort of assumed that dogs were designed to wander around all day without shoes or socks on.
Apparently he was right though. Seems that they’re only designed for short bursts, and not the marathon “walkies” that Eric had taken his pooch on.
His other worry was that every time his dog spotted a snake, the pooch would go ballistic and try and deal to it. As yet no fangs had found their mark, but Eric had a feeling that the odds might be running out for poor old Fido.
Their pace was a bit slower than mine, so I wished them well and headed on.
The mutt watched me dejectedly as I left, with a look that said he would much rather be checking out a lampost at the end of his street than hot-dogging it through the Californian scrub with a sack of crummy dog biscuits on his back.

The heat in the valley was totally oppressive, and the following day I was glad to spot a lone dwelling with a log cabin built alongside it, a tree sprouting oddly from it’s roof.
The cabin turned out to be a bar, and prising my tongue off the roof of my mouth, I staggered thankfully inside and dumped my pack against a wall.
An old timer sat alone in the cool darkness of the bar drinking a Michaelob beer from the bottle.
It turned out that he’d once stopped off in Auckland en route to the islands during WW2.
Seemed he’d been impressed by the physical size and pugilistic capabilities of the New Zealand Maori, which was not all that surprising really, as during his stay, his nose had been re-arranged by one of them.
Anyhow, he obviously bore no grudge against Kiwis, for he shouted me a beer and opened another one for himself, punctuating the operation with a spectacular and resounding fart, that by all the laws of physical science should have left his trousers in flapping smouldering shreds.
I was a stranger in a strange land, what should one do in such a situation!?
Did I politely ignore the explosion, or should I make some sort of comment?
A social quandary.
It was such a commendable example of pressure release that I decided on the latter.
“Jeez”, I said, “I’m impressed!”
He looked up, “I ain’t rude son, just damn fine beer!”

On October 6th, 1858, the first west bound stagecoach bounced up this valley on it’s way from Tipton Missouri to San Francisco - a journey that covered 4345km in under 24 days.
It ran for two and a half years, encouraged by the words of their boss John Butterfield, “Remember boys, nothing on God’s earth must stop the US Mail!”
The equivalent distance was to take me five months, encouraged by the words of my Uncle George, “I give you two goddam weeks and you’ll pack it in!”

Half a day away from Warner Springs I became tactically misplaced for the first time. “Tactically Misplaced”, is a soothing way of telling a pathetically insecure brain that I was lost, and the phrase was specifically designed to lull it into a false sense of security and stop me from panicking and running around in ever decreasing hysterical circles until I collapsed from dehydration.
I’d got smart and figured that according to my map, if I took off across the hills on a certain compass bearing, I’d cut out a lot of messing around and short-cut to Warner Springs.
I can’t really blame my compass or map nor claim that it was an unseen tidal current that took me off course, so I guess it was the dismal standard of my navigation. Anyhow, I ended up wondering just where the hell Warner Springs was exactly.
I eventually sighted a drilling rig a few miles off, so I swallowed my pride and headed for it.
The lone “Hard Hat” at the rig looked at me as if I shouldn’t have been let out on my own, spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dust, and drawled, “You headed wrong. Warner’s back thataways. You gotta cross over that ridge, lest you wanna cross Los Coyotes Reservation. Injuns shouldn’t bother yuh.”
Shouldn’t bother me? - SHOULDN’T?!!!
Thwack! An arrow hit me right in the side of the imagination!
Okay men! Get those wagons in a circle - women and children in the middle!
(I’d spent my childhood wandering around in a Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit courtesy of my Uncle George, so I knew the drill.)
Hang on a minute George, there’s only you, and your pack doesn’t even have wheels!
Oh yeah, okay, plan B then - Smile a lot and let the sun reflect off your bald spot. (Not much worth scalping there!)
As it happened, I wasn’t bothered by “Injuns”, and finally bushwhacked down into Warner Springs, in full possession of my remaining hair and hot and thirsty.

The first leg of my journey was over. My knee had held out, and more importantly I found that my spirit was holding out.
I’d learnt to appreciate water, (ground temperatures in the San Felipe Valley had been right off my thermometer scale) become accustomed to the howling of coyotes every night, and met up with my first rattlesnakes.
The rattlers proved to be less of a problem than I had thought. Just as long as you were aware of where you were stepping or putting your hands (or other bits) they wouldn’t bother you.
In fact they are, as I’ve heard them described, the gentlemen of snakes, giving a fair old solo on the maracas to warn you of their presence.
This was a big plus for someone coming from a country where there are no snakes and the most poisonous thing around is an uncommon spider that you have to practically stick your bits into it’s mouth before it’ll bite you.
Having said that, there was one small catch.
There are a minority of rattlers that don’t rattle at you before striking. This problem was increased by a 1960’s rattlesnake elimination programme that eliminated the conspicuous noisy ones, leaving the silent ones to breed and increase their population!
I eventually met up with one such reticent character, who immediately slithered off in sulky silence. He seemed rather put out by the fact that he couldn’t rattle and I felt a bit sorry for him.
Humming birds had been another new experience for me.
I’d seen them on television documentaries of course, but to see them “in the feather” as it were, left me with a feeling of wonderment. These minute flashes of colour, looked more like a large colourful insect than a bird, and struck me as the Harrier Jump Jets of the bird world.
I was intrigued by their aerial antics. They can hover, fly up, down, sideways and backwards, their little wings beating at around 70 beats a second! They’re not slow on courage either, and will see off much larger birds such as crows or hawks who invade their territory.
I’d also heard that they’d also have a go at humans as well, but none of the ones I met seemed to be very interested in me - perhaps I was considered a kindred spirit.
I hadn’t washed for a while, maybe I was starting to “hum”.
The biggest wildlife problem of the journey was to be bears, but they were as yet, a thousand miles away.
I’d also by now discovered a new use for my false teeth. (Two teeth on a partial plate).
I was carrying a walkman radio and found that lying in my tent at night, whenever I was able to pick up a station, the reception was improved by holding an aerial wire above my head.
This got a bit tiring on the arm but by hooking my false teeth through the mosquito netting above me, I could tie the aerial to these and lie back in comfort. - A smiling reception!

Warner Springs boasts a natural hot spring that was used for centuries by the Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians.It has now become an attraction for tourists, though thankfully it didn’t seem to be attracting too many while I was there.
The springs bubble up from deep below the surface, escaping along the Aguanga Fault which lies close to the small community.

The settlement took its name from John Warner, an adventurer who at age 23 had initially ventured west on a trading expedition along with mountain man Jeddiah Smith. The six-foot-three Warner became known as 'Juan Largo' (tall John) by the Mexicans, and after becoming a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1844, had been granted 48,000 acres of land that contained the springs, whereupon he had set up a ranch and trading post there. It must have been a fairly lucrative enterprise, as it was the only inhabited stopping place for wagon trains and stagecoaches between New Mexico and Los Angeles.
In 1846, thirty seven year old frontiersman Kit Carson had taken time out from Indian fighting, trapping and soldiering to take off his buckskins and enjoy a spa there.
Some time later in 1851, John Warner and two adopted indian boys held out on an attack against the ranch by a hundred Cahuilla indians. They escaped with their lives, but the attackers stole all the livestock and set fire to the house and trading post.
This ruined Warner and he left the area never to return to his ranch.

This bit of history was interesting but at the time what interested me the most, was that Warner had a restaurant and a Post Office, and after eating my way through two breakfasts I picked up my supply parcel and squatted down outside the mail office to begin sorting out my pack.
It had taken me seven days of mainly hot thirsty walking to get here and it dawned on me that that was why communities were so insular before the advent of mechanised transport.
Hop in a car, hit a highway and I could cover the same distance in less than two hours with nothing more than the few callisthenics required to operate an accelerator and a brake!
Mr. Ford had made life easier, but I suspect that when he pulled up with his Model T in October 1908, he was towing a whole new trailer-load of unseen problems behind him.
The more I thought about this transport business, the more I realised that easy mobility has probably been responsible for helping to open up a whole new bag of social as well as environmental problems. Communities where everyone is known are rare, and human nature being what it is, the anonymity made possible by rapid travel is ideal for performing a bit of mayhem.
Walking seven days to get somewhere, tends to make you too knackered to cause trouble and too slow for a quick gettaway. I wouldn’t like to be the only kid on the block without a car, but if no one else had one then I don’t think it would bother me too much.
“Howdy”
My righteous contemplations on the evils of sensible and comfortable travel vanished and I looked up to see Chuck, whom I’d given the water to, collapse next to me in a sweating heap.
“G’day mate, see you made it okay.”
I went on to tell him how I was royally pissed off at having lost a pack cover on the trail.
I’d fitted it over my pack during the downpour three days ago and was dismayed to find later that it had fallen off somewhere along the way. Oregon and Washington were bound to have a lot more rain and I would have been glad of it there.
He looked at me expressionlessly, then dived into his pack, pulling out my pack cover that he’d found on the trail and thrusting it towards me. Good on you Chuck!
Ziggy and The Gimp rolled in. For the next section, about 160kms, we’d hike on and off in each others company.

After eating, resting, eating and then eating before eating again, we moved out...slowly belching our way up into the hills and releasing various gases that had nothing to do with the Aguanga Fault.
Chuck had stayed behind.
“Did ya see the way that motherfucker looked at me?” The Gimp was referring to Chuck.
The Gimp had a way with words.
“I think I upset him or somethin’.”
The Gimp could do that, to anyone who didn’t know him, his full on exhuberance could be an acquired taste. I think he’d struck a nerve when he’d made some derogatory comment on the state of Chuck’s gear, which was mainly military surplus and dating from the American Civil War.
The next few miles were spent inventing hilarious scenarios in which an upset and demented Chuck crept up on an unsuspecting camp to “take out” The Gimp.
Chuck’s plan had been to reach Canada, but I heard later that he’d pulled out not long after leaving Warner. I was sorry to hear that, I liked Chuck, he didn’t say much, but he had found my pack cover.

The next stages would take me through more desert-like areas and into the beautiful mountains of the San Jacinto Wilderness and the San Gabriel range. The gnarled Limber pines near the summit of Baden Powell mountain are over 2000 years old and still alive - just.
It was something to stir the thoughts, knowing that I was sitting against a tree that was already sprouting when J.C. was a lad! But before then, just after Warner, I came across a notable example of arboreal life that was hard to miss.
It was a conifer that produced massive cones. I picked one up and looked incredulously at it.
The thing had to be a genetic mutant - maybe it’s roots were tapping a radioactive subterranean stream.
It occurred to me that I’d probably wandered into the Weird Zone That Nobody Talks About.
The US Government probably denies that this area even exists!
I furtively looked around for more mutants, maybe a giant spider, or maybe even a sabre-toothed toad or two. Having satisfied myself that I wasn’t about to be disembowelled by creatures from the Gamma Zone, I consulted my trail book. It looked like what I’d found must have been the species, “Big Cone Spruce”. If it wasn’t, then it should have been, and if it was, then an even better name would have been.....
“ The Bloody Humungus Big Cone Spruce.”
It wasn’t a particularly large tree, but it’s cones were about the size of my head!
I’m not exactly a pin-head, having a fairly adequate cranium that complies with British Standard size seven, so I think I was justified in being impressed with their size.
it would have made an excellent conversation piece, “Oh that little thing? They actually grow the really big ones in Texas. They just plant the tree then wait for the cones to fall off and strike oil, don’t you know.”... As the old saying goes, “You wouldn’t want one on the end of your nose for a wart.”

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