The first morning we got going just as the sun was coming up, making our way up to the junction that went up to Bull Creek Pass. I realized there was another route we could take that would connect back to the main one. It looked to be a bit longer but it would be easier than going up the steep switchbacks.
Our first couple of days together was majority of road walking which was the perfect way to get to know each other. I remembered all of the spots I had walked through, it felt much easier this time through since it was overcast and the temperature had dropped greatly. Although October, it only now started to feel as if fall was approaching. The leaves were beginning to turn, the yellow pairing nicely with the red sand and the nights slowly starting to get chillier.
“It’s going to be a gradual day until we get to the switchbacks,” I said.
“I feel as if we have been going up in elevation since we started,” he said.
“Oh we have been. This is still the easy part but it leads up to the hardest section I had to traverse yet.”
“Yeah, you left out some minor details when you told me to fly out here such as, ‘Hey, fuck it, let’s hit the hardest part of the Hayduke with our full packs.’”
I’m glad he was making light of the situation but could also keep up with pushing big miles. The first night we stopped just before Pennellen Pass, finding a perfect site to camp at—under the pine trees on soft ground.
The next morning we started at dark and got a full day of road walking in before we had to dart off into the canyons. We filled up water at a cow trough that had a murky green consistency with floating feathers and chunks of fur from a dead animal in it. I was actually excited to experience icky water again as it brought back a feeling of home. We both immediately recalled memories of the CDT and considered it a great source in comparison to some shit we’ve seen.
We continued on, observing the clouds in the sky that looked like UFOs.
“I’m just waiting for the intergalactic nymphomaniacs to come down,” Pneumonia said.
I was trying to keep our time playful and light, finding little things that brought me joy such as pinecones and round shaped bushes. I expressed gratitude for the dirt roads that felt easy to walk on that I knew would soon be leaving our feet. I was aware of what was coming, knowing I hadn’t even been to the difficult section of the Hayduke. Pneumonia didn’t have the awareness of the terrain and difficulty of the route yet, having been spoiled with roads that gained in elevation lightly.
We made a hard left leaving the dirt road behind and going straight into bushwhacking as we entered Tarantula Mesa. As usual, everything started off great, wide open scenes and pretty easy for the most part as we figured out where we were headed.
Then came the first drop off and descending into Muley Creek.
“Goddamn,” Pneumonia said as he looked down, unable to see the bottom. “I mean I knew it was a route and not a trail but I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
“I’m so happy you’re here,” I said, feeling relieved but still scared.
He put his hands on some boulders for support as he tried to figure out a way to make it down some feet. “Goddamn billy goats don’t fucking climb this shit.”
We had our first obstacle that I expressed some fear around. I sat on top of a boulder and had to figure out a way to maneuver down it. There was a large gap in between that would be easy to get stuck in if I didn’t make the correct step. He told me to face the rock as I stretched my leg out as far as I could, eventually having to hop down the rest of the way.
Shortly after, Pneumonia started puking his guts out from heart burn while I managed to step on a cactus.
“Fucking Christ!” I yelled.
“Fuckin’ Hayduke,” he said with bloodshot eyes.
He still managed to descend himself off of the boulders right after me. After some further rock scrambling, we came to the biggest cliff I’d seen yet. We threw our trekking poles down since they were useless and we needed the use of both hands. I now understood why people lowered and lifted their packs with ropes. It was way easier to work with, especially with a bulky pack. I could also see how group effort would make this route ten times easier. One person could be at the bottom while another scoped out the route while someone else dropped the packs and unclipped them. I gave massive props to anyone who did this route alone.
Pneumonia was just the guy I needed to help get me through this trail. He was very experienced with ropes and knots, instinctually knowing how to lower both of our packs simultaneously. His confidence let me know this wasn’t his first rodeo.
We were committed to going through the section after our first obstacle as we both agreed we could not climb back up where we had come out of. When I looked up I nearly felt the cliffs were inverted from how they towered over us. Altogether it was only around .1-.2. of difficult rock scrambling, it took us nearly an hour to lower our packs and get down to the creek. My pack ended up rolling down numerous times with water bottles flying out of the side pockets. His did, too.
He reminded me to use three points of contact as I scrambled down. I was grateful that he was teaching me and guiding me around things I didn’t quite understand yet, such as which rocks were best to grab and how to hold my weight to stay centered.
At one point, we missed the main route so we had to traverse up and over an extremely sketchy ledge that would most definitely kill us if we fell. That was when I expressed I did not feel safe nor did I feel it was safe for him to go. He reassured me it was fine so I asked if he could check it out before I followed him. Without hesitation he scampered up the cliff. I quickly changed my mind when the rocks started slipping from underneath him, flew over the cliff and disappeared from our sight.
“I can’t look,” I said as I turned around and put my hands over my eyes.
He barely had made it to the top and told me to follow him to which I said, “No fucking way. This is stupid.” I shook my head fearfully and continued, “We’re being really stupid. I can’t do it.”
“Well what do you spect us to do?” he asked.
I turned around to look back at where we had come from. I didn’t want to go back. If I knew that I could make it over to the top of the cliff and it would flatten out then I had more confidence to follow, but as for right then, my feet were stuck in place. It was the sketchiest spot I had been yet and there was only a few feet above us before it dropped several hundred feet down a sheer cliff. My legs started shaking again as I repeated that I really could not do it. My shoes barely had any treading left. If my pack leaned back even slightly, I would be screwed and there would be no surviving.
Man, I really trusted this person I barely knew and he really trusted me. Anything I didn’t feel comfortable with, he always found a way to help me through it. I let him know when I needed his guidance and wasn’t afraid to ask for it. He managed to come back down to me then had me take my pack off. He grabbed the rope and tied it around my waist using a simple knot.
“How is this even sturdy?” I asked.
He ignored my worry and ran back up the cliff.
“I’ll hold you to keep you from falling,” he said.
“There’s no way,” I argued. “My heavy pack combined with my weight would just pull both of us down!”
He chuckled. “I got you, don’t you worry.”
I started to wonder if this guy was secretly suicidal as he had zero fear when it came to navigating through this bullshit. As if on command, it started raining right at the moment I had to climb up the steep grade. The rocks were becoming slippery so I had to think fast. I was a few seconds away from crying.
He pulled me up as I took baby steps and whimpered, “I’m so scared.” I took another step with the help of him pulling me. “My mother’s gonna kill me.”
I looked behind me and saw a big bright rainbow forming in front of the dark gray clouds.
“At least that’s the last thing I will see before I die.”
The thing is, I was absolutely petrified and it was hands down the scariest shit I’ve ever done, but I wanted to go through with it and I wanted someone like Pneumonia to help push me through.
“This is the first trail that I actually questioned what the fuck I was doing out here,” I said. “It’s not enough to make me quit but it is one step away from that.”
I would’ve been stubborn enough to come all the way back to these parts by myself even if Pneumonia hadn’t shown up to help me through. I knew I would try what I could but even just the first descent was truly beyond my limit. Knowing what we had just traversed I knew it would have been a road walk all the way back and a hitch to the nearest town—there was absolutely no denying that.
So, after he hoisted me up, there was one more section we had to rock scramble over. This time he had to really pull me up with each step I took because it was steeper than the last.
“You know,” he said, “I’d hike the AT for a third time before I did this motherfucking ‘route’.”
We got lost god knows how many times and had to backtrack. The section after we left the road felt as if we had hiked another 10-15 miles. In the end, it was somewhere around 3 miles. He puked some more when we made it down to water. I realized we weren’t going to make it where I initially wanted us to be, so we settled at a campsite next to some cow shit close to a trickling water source.
He grabbed a cow bone and hammered his tent stakes in. “I wonder how many people pushed the SOS button here,” he pondered.
“Probably a lot. I would’ve been one of them.”
By the end of the day we were beat. I knew I barely had it in me to continue on despite trying hard to push myself. I drank less than a liter of water all day and carried 4. I barely ate, probably because my adrenaline was quite high. We waited until the last second to get water from the creek then made some ramen.
Tonight, I was simply happy we didn’t die. I was even more grateful that Pneumonia basically saved my ass and had the balls to do this with me. I loved that he wasn’t scared, or at least he didn’t show it. At the same time, he wasn’t a dumbass and knew how to scope out the best ways to traverse through sketchy ledges. He knew how to stay calm even when I was on the verge of a panic attack the majority of the day.