On the morning of that the third day in my long and harrowing journey through the untamed wilderness, on which I was annoyed by creatures both great and small and my human scout Erin too, I awoke to a pleasant sunny silence that cannot be found in the noisy, frantic city from whence I came. Could it be that I was growing accustomed to this outdoors life, becoming comfortable in the stillness of nature? Or was I merely becoming less of a refined human and more of a primitive savage myself? Would I soon be running wild in the woods, eating grubs out of logs and wearing nothing but the skin of a deer as a loincloth, exposing my rippled abs and glistening, tanned, acne-free skin to all of nature, killing for pleasure and ripping the meat of my prey off its bones? Perhaps, but not this morning- we had oatmeal for breakfast.
The mosquitoes were out again so we packed up quickly thereafter and set about moving forth at our usual slow and wretched pace toward our destination. We followed our path only a short way before we came upon another camp, which had been recently occupied by some lost civilization. It was called Sunrise Camp, and most of its inhabitants had already awoken for the morning and left it. It looked like a nice place and I made a mental note to come back. However, we could no more sit there and enjoy the ambience than we could move a mastodon with our pinky fingers, for those most pesterous mosquitoes were on us again like baby vampires treating my epidermis like a teat spouting blood instead of mother's milk.
We took the trail through several flat and grassy meadows and back into the woods again. This day's hike was not eventful, for we were not much taunted by monsters nor savages nor the need to poop in a hole in the ground, as we took care of those needs in the bathroom at Sunrise Camp.
We soon arrived at another beautiful lake where we thought at first to make our resting spot for the evening, despite the fact that it was nary 2PM. We found though that this lake, named Cathedral Lake, was surrounded by a thick, marshy, bug infested, smelly bog that one had to traverse in order to get close to the water. The only spot available for camping was on the edge of this swamp and more solidly swarmed with air vermin than in any other spot we'd yet passed.
Must every step we take bring us closer to hell? Must every inch of our journey be steeped in agony? Must we never know the joys of the outdoors about which I'd read so often, holed up in my urban domicile all the years of my young life? Were we merely being toyed with by some greater power who had no more use for us than his amusement like children melting bugs with a magnifying glass?
Both my manservant and I were near the point of fatalism, giving up and laying down naked before the elements to let the sun burn us and the mosquitoes eat us, but something, perhaps that which makes us human- the will to live and to persevere and to take improbable journeys and reach for impossible goals and to dress in Lacoste- something drove us onward. We turned from the lake and found a new spot on a hill half a mile up the road.
There, to our great relief, it was flat and free of pests and there was a fire pit already built at the spot. The evening passed as some evenings do, but not so much as our evenings had thus far in our journey done, which is to say peacefully. In the morning, we found that we had set up camp in a deer migration path, for we saw dozens of them come by, stop and turn to stare at us in as curious a gaze as we had for them, before wandering off further. Also that morning, we heard the cries of a pack of wolves or coyotes. We were tankful that they were far from us and that it was not the dark of night, for their haunting howls were bone chilling indeed. While out taking care of a duty I care not to describe here, I in fact saw a white wolf pass with mine own eyes. Nature had brought her splendor to our door.
That next day we were not more than a few hours on our journey, feeling now used to the weight of our heavy packs but also to the lightness of our souls due to the harmony with nature we had so recently achieved, when before us stood a sign that pointed toward the end of the trail to Toulumne Meadows. At last, our wanderings were through and our great trek across the wilderness complete! Finally we had arrived back into relatively civilized society, a place where we could meet other humans and eat off of plates, a destination where we could take showers for two dollars between one and three PM at the Toulumne Lodge!
But yet, as we walked down the remaining trail as it turned into the asphalt of society's cradle, I began to reflect back upon my time spent in the woods, alone with only my thoughts, my gear, my manservant Erin, and so much raw natural open space, and found that I was a little bit nostalgic for that time past even before it drew to a close at the present moment, waxing sentimentally on the freedom I'd had from work, from clubs, from rules of society and proper hygiene. I found that I had learned a great deal from my time there- most notably about the bear pooping- and found the strength in myself to go on when all of the universe seemed aimed to set my fate as being doomed. I had become a better and smarter person for my time adrift in the forest, but man, those mosquitoes were a bitch.
