On January 5th, I set off on another adventure on the San Diego Trans-County Trail. This time I did the hike solo, and tried to squeeze it in between a couple of storms. It was an amazing experience, and a wonderful opportunity for me to reflect on a challenging year now behind me.
Foreword
Within the last couple of months, my last post about the San Diego Trans-County Trail has been posted by people I don’t even actually know on social media, Reddit, etc. In that, it got a lot more traffic than I anticipated.
That last blog post was written more for my own cathartic release than anything. It certainly wasn’t written thinking it would get the traffic and notice it has (which is by no means “famous”, but I get a hit on that page almost every day now, with large days–around 50–from time to time). I have no problem with the world seeing and reading that post. It was honest. It was me. And I shared myself publicly. It’s fair.
It turns out that I’m going to do something similar here. The intended audience is truly myself. Whether they have a vested interest in me, or get value out of living vicariously through me, or whatever anyone gets from reading my blog, I love that sharing my experience can bring something positive to other people’s lives. Some of you are going to read this, and I welcome you. I think we can all benefit from being a little more open with each other, at least some times. Nonetheless, if I’m being honest, this is more for me.
As such, don’t expect great tips or even a half-assed walkthrough of this trail. I include some pictures and major points. A lot of this is my experience on the trail. You may find that helpful in some way. I welcome you to join me in my self-exploration of my experience. But I have no intention of providing any actual help on doing this trail in this post. There are resources, including GPX tracks and a community of hikers who have done it. We’re out there for the adventurous. I pass all responsibility to those who seek for their own adventures. 😉
For other times that I did this hike:
January 2018
The Hike
Having my Mountainsmith Day lumbar pack pretty well dialed in at this point, I added in an extra battery pack to recharge my phone, and shoved 10 days worth of food into the 15L stuff sack I strap to the outside. 5 Liters of water, and I headed out to the desert.
The hike starts at an “End” sign. At the end of a road at the Salton Sea. Usually, this place smells like the rotting corpses of fish that line its shores. The water itself seems to smell even more putrid of death and terribleness than the corpses actually visible. Thankfully not this day. With clouds covering the sky and a light sprinkle coming steadily down, the scent held low. I put on my poncho, changed into my hiking clothes, said goodbye to my dad who drove me to this spot, and set off.
Last year, the weather was a lot better out here. The ground a lot drier. And I was with a group of strangers. This year was alone. And the weather sucked. It seemed appropriate. The year before had been tough. Isolating in many ways. Even the holidays this year were oddly quiet. If I was out here for a little catharsis, as I often am, of course it was going to start out with this kind of shit.
I hiked through washes in the desert until I reached a passing under a highway bridge, where I stopped and ate some lunch. The first day is always tough, with the heaviest pack, and being the most out of shape. Thankfully, it’s all basically flat, making for a decent warm-up on what I would make to be a pretty tough hike. After a short break, I was off again, following the same washes into the night.
Immediately after my hike last year, I wrote my blog post about it, which included writing about quite a lot of things. Importantly, for myself, was deciding to do the whole “coming out” thing on there. This included using that as an outlet with family that didn’t know and all of that fun stuff. The whole thing was kind of a big deal, even though I never treat it like it is.
Coming out is freakishly isolating. No one really knows how to deal with it. I have never regretted it with any bit of me. I’ve long been familiar with the fears of it. Predictably, many are just as ridiculous as any rationality would suggest. Others are more founded than I would have even thought. Though worth it, I would find myself having to come to terms with many of the dark sides of the actions, namely just how freakishly isolating it can be.
Several miles of hiking through washes by headlamp, looking down at my map to ensure that I was following the path correctly, and I finally arrived at the same campsite I stayed at the year before. The spot was clear and open, up above the washes, so I pulled out my tarp and setup a tent of sorts.
The night before, I had driven out into the desert and left 4 gallons of water and a six pack of beer spread out across multiple points on the trail. Of course, the first one I would reach was further down than where I decided to camp for the night, but I had plenty of water.
The night sucked. With the rain continuing throughout the night, I felt cramped under the tarp and too anxious to sleep. I turned on a comedy on my phone and spent some time walking around camp, thinking, before I was finally able to get to sleep for the night. It wasn’t much.
***
It was an awful night of sleep. Between the discomfort of the cramped, wet space, the ongoing rain, and my brain running a thousand miles a minute all night, I barely seemed to sleep at all. But sunrise came, and I eventually convinced myself to get up and set on down the trail.
It was still early in the year when the Product Manager I worked with at work was laid off. Shortly after that, I was moved over to a new boss, myself. There was a lot of confusion. As the lead software developer, and effectively product owner for a whole line of products that suddenly didn’t have a product manager, I fought with great frustration for my products, but everything was just a mess. Responses to my complaints and begging for more help seemed to be heard but never acted upon in any way.
In a funny way, life has a way of doing the “when it rains, it pours,” thing.
Except maybe in the desert. Hiking on, I reached my first cache of water and 2 cans of IPA early in the morning. Although the rain continued, it was light and easily manageable. I even saw a rainbow early in the day.
I drank one beer and continued on down the washes, eventually stopping to drink the second with lunch and make my way on to Inspiration Point. Along the way, wildflowers bloomed out of the desert, and the occasional offroader drove by. Upon arriving, I took a break, and set on down the badlands.
All of the confusion at work was frustrating, but I tried to figure it out. As I reached out for help, I got a continual cold shoulder, although my boss began taking an increasingly micro-managing, controlling tone with me, asking me to specifically design how I do my job around him. It was odd, but I attempted to appease him to make for a better workplace in the midst of ongoing frustration and difficulty.
Hiking through the badlands before and after Inspiration Point is probably one of my favorite parts of this hike. The weather cleared up as I hiked into them, and stayed so as the night came and I made my way into the sand dunes, down by the landfill, and on to what I’m pretty sure is the worst road walk of the whole hike–into Borrego Springs.
But in Borrego Springs, I stopped into Carlee’s, where I ordered a burger, a couple of beers, and relaxed. I was exhausted. But the food was so good. I ate and went out to the desert to set up camp and sleep the night off.
***
It was a cold, humid night. My quilt and tarp were covered in dew. Thankfully, I needed to charge my phone and battery pack anyway, so I went to Christmas Circle, charged my batteries, and dried out my gear in the rising sun. Before long, I packed up and headed out to the desert, where I would spend the majority of the day doing the largest climb of the whole hike, up above Culp Valley Camp and near Ranchita, via the California Riding and Hiking Trail.
For several months this year, I spent time traveling North through California, while also struggling to figure out the situation at my job. Every time I turned around, there seemed to be some unreasonable expectation I was suddenly under. I watched as my boss began to openly call himself “Product Owner” on my own products, despite my ongoing complaints. My boss even began to question my remote lifestyle–something I had been doing for over 3 years before he came along. I continued doing my job, nonetheless.
The climb up to Ranchita is a horrible, constant climb. That day, I hardly saw anyone else out on the trail at all. At one point, a pair of State Park workers walked out to a viewpoint as I continued out on to the trail. I could see some campers below in Culp Valley as I climbed above them. The trail, itself, remained nearly empty as I peaked and cross over Montezuma Valley Road to my second water and beer cache.
During my travels, the vocalist to one of my favorite bands, Frightened Rabbit, committed suicide. Scott Hutchison. It shocked me. I had never felt so much pain about the death of someone I didn’t even actually know. I found myself coming to terms with the fact that I had, and still do have, a special relationship with the music that this man created. Often, when I’m down or just need something that gives me a feeling of safety, Frightened Rabbit’s music never fails. As fucked up as it may be, if you know the song, his song Floating in the Forth is one of my favorite songs of all time due to the way I can personally connect to the lyrics and the kind of place that might come from. My relationship with his music continues. I mourn the loss. I also had numerous friends who felt something similar with Anthony Bourdain this year. The way these people touch our lives and then leave us is as amazing as it is sad, perhaps even moreso (I certainly think moreso).
Last year, I had stopped into Ranchita, but I decided to use my cache here and try to see as much of the following stretch with some semblance of daylight still. It’s a stunningly gorgeous area of high desert. I enjoyed seeing it, and would even like to aim towards seeing it in full daylight at some future hike.
Another interesting thing happened while I was traveling in Central California this year. I was contacted by a French reporter who wanted to interview me concerning a documentary episode they were doing on people who lived out of their vehicles in the US. I ended up spending an afternoon hanging out with one of their reporters, who included some footage of me in the episode. (Yup, it’s all French.)
Ultimately, through all of the hiking, I made it just past Angelina Spring, to the same wonderful campsite I made it to last year, and decided I had made it enough. I had another cache a bit further down the trail that I was aiming for, but I was tired. I setup camp, using my tarp to form a small windbreak, and went to sleep for the night.
***
Last year, from Angelina Spring, I hiked to Stagecoach in Shelter Valley and spent a few nights to ride out a storm. Throughout this hike, I had been following an incoming storm and thinking I may be repeating the same. However, by this time, the storm had been pushed back into the weekend, and I decided that my best bet was to hike as far as I could–perhaps up to Cuyamaca already!
In June, I suddenly decided to go to Portland Pride. I had never been to Pride before at all, and having come out and been dealing with all that comes with that, I felt that it would be an appropriate thing for me to do this year. So I got a nice suite in a nearby hotel–within walking distance–and went to Pride. It was magical.
Hiking out of Grapevine Canyon, I crossed highway 78 and grabbed my third water and beer cache before heading up Plum Canyon. For one of the first times, I actually saw a group of day hikers out on this trail, hiking to the wonderful viewpoint that I had decided to stop for lunch at. They joked about leaving me alone when they passed on, but I actually enjoyed the company as I took a break to eat lunch.
From here, it was a long slog across Shelter Valley, on to Blair Valley, down Box Canyon, and on to Oriflamme Canyon. This would take all afternoon, taking several miles, just to reach the end of Box Canyon, where I had my fourth and final cache of water and beer. The sun continued to hit all day, but the hike remained simple enough and largely uneventful.
There is a strange thing about having gone through therapy for PTSD and being in that “no longer have PTSD” category of people: any bit of it rearing its head is surprising, not for it coming again, but for the realization that something so damn awful was once so totally normal for me. Today, I can have a mini-relapse of sorts with the PTSD–not even enough to diagnose me again–and it’s always enlightening about the progress I have made and continue to make.
While at Pride, I found myself face to face with a symptom I’d gladly left behind.
It was such a part of my life, I was sure in high school that I would be dead before I graduated. It didn’t make sense, but it was a thing. And I had such regular thoughts of suicide, I was sure that was gonna be it, too. Of course, that never happened. The thoughts continued and continued. The thoughts of suicide. When I went and saw a therapist, trying to explain that I thought about it all day, every day, basically, but was pretty positive I wasn’t ever gonna act on it was actually a fear that I had. When my therapist told me he didn’t think I had PTSD any more, it was one of the first things I thought to check. It was a long time before I forgot to check if I was having such thoughts again, but their absence is like bathing in warm, soothing light.
When suddenly I was standing, looking down at a river, and the thought hit my mind, it was jarring. I had been in such wonderful community and such wonderful freedom to be myself among other people just being themselves. It was beautiful and amazing and magic… and then this thought. And with an intensity I had really only experienced with the PTSD before. Like a dagger being slowly pushed into my mind and twisted.
I’m stopping to reflect on this moment especially long, because it is important to me, and I think it’s fair to be open about it. Saying something like this probably scares other people more than me. For me, it was just jarring. For those not me… maybe it should be a much more traumatic thing. I knew what it was for me, though: this was something I’d been trying to avoid. Multiple things, from the isolation of coming out, to the stresses and being controlled and manipulated the way I was at work, and several other items… there was actually a lot this year triggering my PTSD in really unexpected ways. I already knew it, and was trying to deal with it in ways that weren’t ultimately working well for me. This was just a loud, “Okay, the PTSD is something I need to deal with, in and of itself, right now.”
I have a lot of tools learned from going to therapy, going to school for substance abuse counseling, and just continued learning myself. I want to strongly advise anyone to get help when they need it. I would not be able to even have the insights I have today about my own mental health without getting the help that I definitely needed. Here again, I did what I needed to do, used my tools, started going backpacking a whole bunch, and took every opportunity for self-care I could get.
I feel obligated to share these here (I’m sorry that these are just for the US, as far as I know):
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
Online Chat: https://www.imalive.org/
After hanging out at the water cache I left for myself at the end of Box Canyon for a bit, I began the climb up Oriflamme Canyon. I began just before sunset, meaning the trail quickly turned dark. Dark, damp, and cold. I made the climb towards Cuyamaca by headlamp, occasionally shining my light around the hills to check for wildlife in the strange noises around me and making it all the way to yet another campsite I stayed at the year before.
***
It was a cold night, but I was able to find a spot with a solid windbreak that ultimately formed a small microclimate that was slightly warmer than the surrounding environment. I still got covered in dew overnight, and getting up and into the cold was shriveling. Nonetheless, I packed up and continued on through the Cuyamaca area.
A strange fog seemed to be hovering over my mind. The hiking was fine, though everything seemed to take more effort. Nonetheless, I carried on.
This time, I followed the La Cima trail until it ran into Stonewall Mine, basically, and then followed more trails that took me along the lake and almost straight to the local convenience store and restaurant. I stopped in, got some french toast and Black and Blue Julian Hard Cider, and rested.
Over the summer, I ended up doing a slew of amazing backpacking trips. Beginning with the Three Sisters loop in Central Oregon for July 4, I immediately jumped up and did the Timberline around Mt Hood, and then the Loowit around Mt St Helens. In many ways, this was a huge completion of the whole point of why I wanted to get into this rubbertramp lifestyle–I wanted to get out to these places and backpack into the wilderness more (among other reasons, of course).
After a late brunch at Cuyamaca, I hung out, charging my devices and filling up on water, before continuing on down the trail. Unfortunately, the trail up and over Cuyamaca, itself, doesn’t exist, so I opted to take the Engineers Road alternate again. I followed trails until they ended, and then continued on the road until the USFS fire station and intersection with Boulder Creek Road.
A cop stopped me along the way on Engineers Road and questioned me about what I was doing. He apparently thought it odd, because I guess he had never seen anyone hiking there before. Also, I was a scruffy looking dude in a kilt that he wanted to get pictures of “in case I burglared someone’s home”–so he could show his buddies, probably. Whatever. Haha. I just let him have his fun, used it as a rest for myself, and carried on down the trail. The joys of being even more of a white dude when in my kilt.
The kilt being a masculine symbol probably helps. Which amuses me.
I originally got the kilt as another way to explore my queerness. I just wasn’t comfortable traveling across the country, into some pretty ridiculously conservative areas, wearing a skirt and other ridiculous things like that. My PTSD doesn’t need that, frankly. So, I got a kilt. Because a man in a kilt is a man and a half, and every man secretly wishes they had the masculinity to pull off a kilt. Somehow, it feels like once again hiding my femininity behind more masculinity, to be totally honest, but I get to prance around on the trails like a glorious queer angel regardless of what anyone else sees. That’s enough for me. For now. Give me time and I’ll be in a tutu or something. It would have to be a pretty amazing tutu to convince me, but damn would that be an amazing tutu!
PS There’s a reason why I tried to steer people away from shoehorning me into their thought of what my being queer is. There’s a lot in that last paragraph about my queerness that is probably abnormal for some of my people to read. I’m going to keep challenging you. That’s a noble goal. 😉
As sunset set in for the night, I began the hike on down Boulder Creek Road. This would typically go all the way to Three Sister Falls, and I had the intention again. However, much like last year, I pulled off under one of the wonderfully beautiful oak trees and setup camp again.
***
It was another difficult night. Seemingly overnight, the strange fog over my mind turned into pretty intense nasal congestion. The nasal congestion added to some throat soreness and slight chest congestion… I was developing a cold. And the sleep was thus shit. I tried through the night, but alas, as the sun set, I gave up and woke to hit the day.
I quickly hiked down to Three Sister Falls Trailhead and continued on some back routes through to the San Diego River area and Cedar Creek Falls. There were hikers going to see Three Sister Falls, despite the government closure in effect by this time, but otherwise I only saw a mountain biker pass through nearly the same route as me as I dropped down to the San Diego River.
In August, I was suddenly joined by HR on my one-on-one with my boss, and given a Performance Improvement Plan. Apparently, in my ongoing attempts to fight for the products that were my job, I was failing to do a completely different job that I was supposed to be doing without ever being told.
This happening on a Friday, I went and hiked in Eagle Cap Wilderness before coming back and speaking to HR alone the following week. Attempting to describe my position, I was told that I should just leave the company. After nearly 9 years at the job, however, I wasn’t quite ready. So I stuck around and tried to figure something out.
As I climbed up to the Cedar Creek Trailhead, I was seriously contemplating spending the night at the trailhead and maybe even calling the hike there. My cold had been increasingly worse, making hiking miserable. And the next stretch was to be bushwhacking and a hell of a hard time.
I hoped and prayed that a volunteer might still be camped at the trailhead. Nope. Noone was there, and the power was shut off. I hung out for a minute, filled my water bottles, and contemplated. Ultimately, I decided to say fuck it and carry on the trail.
For Labor day, I attempted a hike in the Sawtooths but ended up bailing because of throwing up on the trail and becoming far too anxious to stay on trail and figure it out. I’m not sure if I threw up because I was legitimately sick, or because of the amount of stress and anxiety that was building over everything going on around me. It didn’t really matter then, and doesn’t now. Either way, I became ill enough on trail to bail.
Following a fire road on towards the Four Corners community, I ran into a group of younger men hiking along with a video camera. They stopped to briefly interview me. I have no idea what for. Maybe just for fun. I gave them my trail name, Wet Beard. It was hilarious, in some respect. I have no idea what they were thinking, but I just played some weird trail trash part and went on my way.
I then continued on, bushwhacking through a fire break and on to the back of El Cajon mountain as the sun set. Stopping to rest and pop in some fresh batteries in my headlamp, I set up the final bushwhack up El Cajon in the dark. This included pushing through chaparral reaching overhead along massive boulders, navigating entirely by map and compass. It was a total pain in the ass. Over the course of 2 hours, I made it less than 1.5 miles before finally reaching the summit.
After failing a hike in the Sawtooths, I tried to take some time to relax and just calmly begin traveling South. This ultimately turned out being somewhat quicker, and I eventually ended up in San Diego, taking some time with family and even getting a new car as I tried to relax and prepare for hopefully better futures.
Unfortunately, at the top of El Cajon, I was totally exhausted. I hiked a short while down before deciding to try setting up camp for a while. Within a couple of hours after falling asleep however, I woke up covered in dew and struggling with the building head cold. Frustrated, I packed up and hiked all of the way down the mountain to a better campsite, covered and dry. Waking up and hiking at like 2am sucks, but it proved ultimately worth the while.
***
Waking on Friday with the forecast showing potential thunderstorms in the night, I decided to carry on as far as I could. I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed on out. Passing through Oak Oasis park, I crossed into Lakeside before climbing up the ridges of Sycamore Canyon Open Space Preserve for some wonderful views.
By the time company reviews came along, I tried to be diplomatic, and even seemed to get a somewhat mixed review from my boss, as I kind of expected with his ongoing failure of communication with me. Despite it all, I was still shocked to hear that he was withholding the entirety of my bonus for the fiscal year. I went to my HR rep, who ultimately helped me arrive at the conclusion that I had absolutely no choice but to leave the company on the spot in order to escape the increasingly toxic situation building with my boss. So I quit. After nine years with the job, I became… without a job.
While hiking through Sycamore Canyon, I decided that it was no longer smart to continue hiking. With the congestion I was feeling just getting worse and worse, and a thunderstorm coming, it just seemed stupid. So, I sent my dad a message asking if he could pick me up at the Costco later on down the trail.
It’s a little scary since quitting my job. Knowing that the toxicity of the situation was giving me, quite literally, a little mini-PTSD, I decided to just take some time off and work on my own things. Getting a new car, I spent some time building out a bed platform and hanging out with family for the holidays.
Finally arriving at Costco, I grabbed a slice of pizza, a smoothie, and a churro. My dad came by, picked me up, and I called it the trail. In reality, I completed all of the true wilderness portions of this trail. While the remaining goes through its own nature of sorts, it feels far less wilderness than what precedes it.
Overall, I ended up hiking some 140 miles over 7 days. About 20 miles remain on the SDTCT that I did not do this year. I decided not to bother with those miles this year; I finished them last year and will probably do them again in the future. I’m actually quite satisfied with this hike.
In many ways, I set out on this hike for some cathartic release of all the stress and tension. On the trail, it is easy for me to meditate and find my internal happiness and peace. While spending all day climbing up a miserable mountain, or pushing through absolutely miserable, sketchy as hell chaparral by headlamp. Finding it within myself to laugh out of pure happy joy in the middle of it is a release I find hard to find elsewhere sometimes. As such, I ended up laughing more on this hike than I feel like I have in nearly half a year.
It was wonderfully healing.
As I write this, I don’t have a new job lined up yet. I’m still working all of that out. I’m walking into this next year with a lot of fear for what’s going to happen, but I’m holding my head high and I’m going to see what happens.
Through every adversity, I find more and more meaning to the tattoo on my back.
I am a Survivor
I came through this
I am Stronger and Better because of it
It’s a message of strength for me. To be a survivor is to acknowledge and even embrace the difficulties and the fears I face. Even the worst of them. Shit happens. Sometimes by my own stupidity. Sometimes despite my best efforts to avoid it. But being a survivor is also knowing that I can and will grow above them all. It is an attitude towards life and a declaration of myself.
Viktor E. Frankl said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
It’s kind of fun writing this in the middle of a “I have no fucking clue” moment, to be totally honest. But I’ve come a long way, come through a lot, and grown even more over this last year. I had to remind myself of who I am and how strong I am this year, but now I’m walking into the next year knowing I’m stronger than ever. Better than ever. Choosing my survivor attitude. Ready to kick some ass and see new adventures!
Pictures
Read every word. Wishing you the best in 2019, and many laughing trails!
Thank you! I hope you have a wonderful 2019 as well!