Brett Tucker

A Pacific Crest Tale of Misadventure
Greetings from Markleeville

My personal twilight zone. An uncomfortable place between illumination and darkness, where the colors are seldom pastel, and the horizon seems hopelessly beyond reach.

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

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

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

Several times during a typical night in the woods I arise to answer nature's call. The urge is apparent upon waking, the act itself occurs in dreamy stupor, and then I'm out again. But tonight would be no typical night, and when I awoke long after midnight I felt no urge to pee but only a mild feeling of disquiet. There was some sort of low sound moiling through the ether, rather muffled from my perspective due to the earplugs, and my first thought was of surprise that something so apparently innocuous would wake me. Then again it seems I've always been a light sleeper when it comes to noises. I removed my earplugs and the sound grew louder, a peculiar sound, unidentifiable as yet but with an almost human quality about it. Like an inebriated hiker with a baritone voice, chuckling to himself over a private joke.

My mind raced in search of an answer.

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

Two of them.

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

Awash in dreamland just moments prior, my resting heart pumped blood at a blissful forty five beats per minute. But now, in an instant, I counted the full-body drum of 3 beats each second, marching in step with a parade of adrenaline - the hormone that wants us to live.

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

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

"Hey, what's going on?"

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

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

"Up in the tree here. Oh man, I thought they killed you. Didn't you hear me yelling?"

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

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

An oppressive moment of quiet pierced the electric air.

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

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

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

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

Suddenly something moved through the brush nearby. Woody heard it too.

Deer? Skunk? Possibly opossum?

Whatever it was, it didn't seem to fear our presence in any way, and this disturbed us deeply. We yelled out in perfect unrehearsed unison, heard the brittle summer grasses rustle forebodingly in reply, and soon proceeded without fanfare back down to the highway.

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

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

Strung out and over tired, I began to imagine that this person was, in fact, me. And now here I was looking down at myself from within the previous afternoon's daydream still ongoing. Considering such a possibility, I felt reluctant to wake the sleeping figure, or even to set down nearby. After all, going the way of a bad dream cannot be good, and so I left in search of my trail kinsman once more, who was still making tracks toward his own private Markleeville. Woody was sympathetic when I explained my problem with sleeping at the library, how I just couldn't do that to myself. Like old pros now somewhat past our prime, we climbed away from the road, tore through brush, and landed here and there in tattered heaps beside a pair of non-juniper trees. There, on cue, we slept the befitting sleep of the dead, and then immediately a July sun charged over the horizon and shone down furiously.

Away in the distance, not too far, heard but unseen a congregation of cows began to moo. A bovine orchestra, with each cow dilligently practicing its unique key, flat and dissonant, tempo largo. Now in the harsh revealing beam of morning's sunlight we spotted a cabin nearby, apparently someone's home, and fancied ourselves uninvited backyard guests.

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

"Cheers, mate." I reinserted my earplugs and eventually fell back to sleep.

The following afternoon I returned against my better judgment to the initial crime scene. In the fracas, Woody had lost a stuff sack and I couldn't seem to find a jacket of mine. The sun now cast short shadows, illuminating the camp with sober detachment. Perhaps I had dreamed all of it. No creature could slink through here under the scrutiny of this sky, and I found no sign of our recent troubles. No stuff sack. Only an empty, peaceful camp with junipers shimmering heat against a telltale breeze. Life had shrunk back to its normal proportions. My health seemed to be improving, too. I happened to turn toward the west and there, not more than feet away was my jacket lying against a rock, undisturbed. I had unknowingly left it there the night before when I spied a better campsite and set aside my bag of chips to make that move. The chips had gone missing as well, and a cursory search of the area turned up not even a crumb.

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

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

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

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