Coffee to Go

Caffeine consumption while backpacking presents special challenges. Traditionally, I have used the individual packets of Taster's Choice Instant Coffee. I simply pour the grounds into my mouth then chase it with several gulps of ice cold water. It can cause coffee breath, however, and you may smell like Mrs. Campos, my fifth grade teacher, the one who wore a wig. More recently I use the Power Bar Gels, the ones that say "2XCAFFEINE" on the packet. That way I know I'm getting at least two times the caffeine my body requires for optimal performance.

My sister, Kay, solidly endorses "Via," the coffee pictured above. It is Starbuck's answer to instant coffee. She recently used it while canoe camping with her husband, Pierre, in Canada. Canoe camping in Canada is exactly like Sierran backpacking, except for the differences noted here:

Canoe Camping in Canada:

Store gear in canoe
Paddle canoe on water
You are in Canada


Backpacking in Sierras:

Store gear in backpack on your back
Hike on trail
You are in the Sierras (not in Canada)


My brother, Jay, uses a more elaborate set-up for his caffeine needs when he backpacks. He carries a miniature, light-weight brew and drip system made from a nuclear teflon alloy which is collapsible and weighs as much as a postage stamp. It was developed by Nasa working in conjunction with the Juan Valdez Institute. It can be purchased at REI for the equivalent of several mortgage payments.

All this coffee talk makes me recall an anectdote about my sister, Celerina. Actually, I don't know how she solves the caffeine dilemma while backpacking. I do know, however, that while attending college, she and her roommates would use paper towels or napkins when they ran out of toilet paper. On one occasion, perhaps during finals week, they had no toilet paper. Regrettably, they also lacked paper towels and napkins, so apparently, in a span of three days, they resorted to coffee filters. My most delicate hiney cringes!

Years later (last October), Celerina's son declared that he wanted to be a mummy for the Halloween parade at school. This was moments before leaving the house for school. Alas, however, there was no toilet paper in the house with which to mummify her son. Celerina resorted, therefore, to coffee filters; she pasted them onto her son like doilies. She told her son that if he walked around like a mummy then perhaps his classmates would believe he was a mummy. That day his teacher gave him the prize for best costume. "In all my years of teaching," the teacher said, "I've never had a child come dressed for Halloween as an octopus tentacle!"

The One(s) that Got Away

Cinder Col
On the Perch of Brewer Basin
Kings Canyon National Park
09/06/04

Call me Jerome. Let me tell you a story about Jay and Sven. And I swear on my favorite Nalgene bottle this story is true. Only the names of those involved, some of the expletives, most of the verbs and all of the punctuation have been altered to protect the innocent and prevent the authorities from intervening.

Jay and Sven, both in their young 20s, decided to go backpacking together. They were mired in that neither here nor there time in life when you started counting your college credits, and you realized you could write a paper about Herman Melville's use of symbolism and alliteration in *Moby Dick, but you didn't have a stinking (or nice smelling) clue about what to do with your life.

*(Translated from the Spanish classic, Moby Ricardo).

So, during a free week between their Summer jobs and their semesters resuming, Jay and Sven ventured into Kings Canyon National Park to hike the Rae Lakes Loop. This 46 mile loop boasts stunning scenery, stark granite, raucous rivers and lakes which reflect the surrounding cliffs and your own wide-eyed face with astonishing clarity.

Years ago I caught an 11 inch trout in one of those lakes, a spotted, slippery Brooke Trout which harbored a whitish scar along its dorsal fin. I released it back into the water. Moments later I caught the exact same fish. I recognized the trout's big lips (and the scar). As I removed the hook I gazed into the trout's doleful eyes, and it stopped struggling. Something seemed to pass between us, between that trout and me. It's difficult to articulate, but after I told the trout to be careful next time, the trout seemed to say, "I love you." It then slipped out of my hands and fell into the water, gone forever. I washed the slime off my hands. "I love you, too," I whispered, "I love you, too." Peculiar things happen when you backpack alone.

Anyway, Jay and Sven decided to do the loop as a tough haul in three days. On day one they headed up Bubbs Creek to Junction Meadows. On day two they pushed themselves over Glen Pass then descended past Rae Lakes, Arrowhead Lake and Dollar Lake down to the Woods Creek Crossing. They had completed 29 miles at altitude with full packs, fueling themselves with handfuls of almonds and raisins and Top Ramen. They were deservedly exhausted, dehydrated and demoralized. That afternoon they set up camp while sipping water, popping Motrin and leaning against a fallen tree. Nightfall was a few hours distant. They were alone and about 50 feet off the trail.

Sven complained of a relentless ache in his right trapezius, that pesky hunk of muscle between the shoulder and neck which knots up if you study too hard or watch a movie in the front row. He rubbed the ropey muscle with his hands and groaned.

"It's no use," he told Jay, "It feels like an anchor has set in my upper back."

Jay sat quietly and read his book and glanced at Sven with a hint of irritation. He ached as well and chose to suffer in silence, meditatively, like a monk wearing a hair shirt.

Sven persisted, however, and began pacing about the campsite. He rubbed his upper back against a Lodgepole Pine and a slab of granite. He twirled his neck around in circles and tried to perform chiropractic maneuvers on himself. He jumped up and grabbed a branch and dangled above the ground. None of these interventions alleviated his evolving discomfort.

Finally, Sven looked at Jay and gently implored, "Tell you what, Jay. If you give me a backrub I'll give you a backrub. Ok? My back really hurts."

Jay stopped reading his book in the middle of a crucial paragraph. He closed the book and set it aside. He looked at Sven with disbelief. It was as if Sven had said, "I think a tapeworm is coming out of my butt. Would you kindly pull it out for me?"

Moments passed. Jay finally answered, "Massage your back? No way! Not in a million years. Not in two million years. Not here, not back home. Not now, not later! Not on that log, not in the tent! I will not give you a massage! You're crazy! (Sven-I-am!)"

Well, sometimes peculiar things happen when you backpack with another person as well, and this is where the gap in the story intercedes. Details become sketchy. But let it be known that later, before the sun set, Jay and Sven were sitting on the log, and Jay had his hands positioned on Sven's upper back. He massaged Sven's back with all the enthusiasm and gusto of someone fishing their cell phone out of the toilet. Jay's expression spoke volumes; it was as if he just learned his hot girlfriend was actually his long lost sister.

"That feels so much better, Jay!" Sven sighed. "Ahhhhh! That's nice! Would you like me to rub your back, now? Jay? Jay?!" Jay's hands were still placed on Sven's upper back, but he had stopped massaging.

Sven whirled around. Jay was staring up at the trail. Now Sven stared too. There, on the trail, no further than the distance you could cast your lure, stood four women backpackers. They stood silently with bemused expressions, like the Goddess, Venus, coming out of the clamshell on the seashore in Botticelli's painting, The Birth of Venus. Had the women been watching for seconds? Or minutes? They seemed slightly out of breath. Was that because of the altitude? Their wispy hair cascaded down their torsos and fluttered subtly in the breeze. They wore spandex shorts and tight tank tops. Their skin was bronze and smooth and supple, like the skin of a peach on the kitchen counter on a hot Summer afternoon. They were athletic and limber and all bosomy, like the women in the REI catalogues, but more real, like real princesses who could finish a triathlon then make you a hamburger with all the fixings. And they were all 23 years old, that much was obvious.

Their scent wafted over to Jay and Sven. They smelled like shampoo (was it Pantene?) and a hint of Noxzema. It was intoxicating. Jay removed his hands from Sven's back and sheepishly waved. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed paralyzed, and he could only produce a barely audible squeak.

"So that's the way it is!" one of the women said. The other women giggled as they turned and continued their hike down the trail. Their lilting laughter faded and finally disappeared as it mingled with the sound of the water tumbling past in the nearby creek.

They were gone. Gone forever. But Jay stood defiantly and declared (more to the trees than to Sven), "Gosh darn it! With God as my witness, someday I will find those women. Even if I must search every corner of the earth, the tops of mountains, the depths of the oceans, I will find them! And when I do, well, you'll see! Everyone will see!"

He then looked at Sven and continued, "Now, I'm going somewhere away from this spot." He looked around the campsite then pointed at the tent. "I'm going over there, into the tent!."

"Good night!" he said.

Manna

There are three Young Lakes. I arrive at the third, the Upper, well behind my three sons. I doddle and walk in slow motion through the spongy meadows, my boots pressing into the mud and leaving their indelible prints, my hands swatting helplessly like windshield wipers at the mosquitos pelting my face and kamakazing into my nose and windpipe, my eyes squinting behind my sunglasses as the light reflecting off the granite and the greenness of the grass pries open my soul, gently, inconspicuously, like the first gust of wind in late morning.

The Indian Paintbrush flourishes. The blossoms are stiff, like pipecleaners, and blood orange, like the innards of a ruby grapefruit, with yellow highlights, as if the florist stuck in miniature bananas. They carpet the grass, and if I kneel I can run my fingertips over the blossoms. If I stoop further and sniff them I notice only the absence of fragrance, the dry Sierran air which is pure like wind, and pure like that snowbank down which my boys are currently tumbling and cheese-gratering, and pure like the water dripping off my forearm after I remove it from the icy water.

I am neither thirsty nor hungry and all the worldy vexations and ridiculousness of work are no more noticeable than the chapstick in my pocket, so I am happy to embrace the scene and let it enter me like breath. I decide to sit right here, until the next Ice Age. But the mosquitos thicken. One bites my lip. Another bites my eyelid (I have congenital DEET deficiency). I swell up like a tomato. I peer into the water at my reflection. I look like Rocky Balboa after he fights the Russian guy in Rocky 17. My boys run past. They are heading downhill in rapid fashion. Dad! they say, the mosquitos will eat you for lunch! We're getting out of here!

I follow.

O Sole Mio, etc.

Cammino. Penso. Respiro. Canto al sole ed alle stelle. Le roccie e l'acqua sono i miei amici. La trota dice ciao mentre passo vicino. Ed amo la pizza. Ha molte calorie e sale. Uso “Boboli" con il formaggio della stringa e le merguez e la salsa di pomodori. È squisito. Lo soddisfa. Trovo la comodità in pizza. È come l'abbraccio della mia moglie, la comodità del mio sacchetto di sonno, la prossimità dei miei capretti o un buon libro o un carciofo perfetto.

40 Days

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

John Muir

Life According to Chopin

Somewhere, in the depths of my childhood, I recall sitting in the kitchen while eating toast and drinking powdered milk. Yes, it's true, my mom bought powdered milk! And she made us drink it. It was all part of her rickets prevention strategy. So there I was drinking powdered milk while watching a black and white movie on a tiny television. The movie depicted a piano composer. The characters in the movie called the composer "Frederic." Frederic looked sullen and generally unwell, as if he never drank milk. But man, could he play the piano! His hands could pound the keys with bravado and purpose. His hands could also float over the keys as if they were smoothing sheets. The music flitted between major and minor keys like a sparrow in a tree; it was lyrical and compelling. It made me feel both happy and sad.

My mom entered the kitchen. She looked at the television while sipping her Folgers Instant Coffee. Her demeanor changed abruptly.

"Oh...oh!" she said, "I know this movie! I know this movie! This is the movie about Chopin. Watch, he's going to start coughing up blood onto the piano keys, because he's dying of tuberculosis. I love this movie!"

I swallowed some toast and sipped some milk and looked at my mom. She was transfixed.

Sure enough, the actor playing Frederic Chopin started coughing up blood, and you could see the dark, bloody drops falling onto the white piano keys like splattered paint as he played his mournful arpeggios.

At that moment I decided never to get tuberculosis. I also decided to learn some Chopin pieces on the piano. That week I asked my piano teacher, Doctor Mr. Robert Ruppeman (that's what everyone called him!) if I could learn Chopin's Polonaise in A flat, Opus 53, The Heroique. The Doctor Mr. looked at me for a full minute without saying a word. Then he removed his wire rim glasses and started cleaning them with his handkerchief. He chuckled. Then he started laughing. It escalated. In a moment tears were pouring down his face as the laughter continued with all the unbridaled whimsy of a Chopin Mazurka. I had never seen the Doctor Mr. even crack a smile. Finally he composed himself.

"The Heroique!?" he stammered with sudden gravity. "The Heroique!? That old war horse! Why, not even Vladimir Horowitz himself could master that piece until he was 20 years old. Your hands are too small. You don't practice enough. It's too much! It will destroy you!" He went back to cleaning his glasses.

"I'm not afraid! I want to learn the piece!" I pleaded.

Doctor Mr.'s eyes went wide and dark as he grabbed my shoulders. His voice went all Yoda and spooky: "You will be afraid," he said. "You...will...be!"

As my adolescence progressed, I dabbled in simpler Chopin tunes like Etudes and Nocturnes. I lost myself in the compositions and their moodiness. They inspired me to approach girls. Girls, especially the artsy ones, loved Chopin. Once, during algebra, I told a girl that playing Chopin was like floating alone in a boat on a lake. She told me I was dark and mysterious, like a cave, and she wanted to go spelunking in my soul. I said, "That's nice," excused myself, then ran all the way home.

Some years later I went cross-country skiing near Bear Valley. As I skied through the forest I listened to Chopin ballads on my Walkman. The music serenaded me as clumps of dense snow fell from the branches onto the trail. I turned the music louder and pushed myself harder. It was just me sweating and breathing along with Chopin out there in the Sierras. That was until the snowmobile driver pulled along side me and interrupted my enchanted reverie. I took off the earphones and looked at the brawny, bearded, heavily-bellied man wearing the wool hat with ear flaps. Steam rose from his nostrils.

"Are you deaf? Move to the side you idiot!" he bellowed.

At age 22, the height of my adolescence, I travelled alone to Europe. In Paris, I made a special trip to Pere Lachaise Cemetary, the burial place of Chopin (and incidentally, the burial place of Jim Morrison of the Doors). Apparently Chopin's heart was removed, with his consent, of course, and carted off to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw where it is now kept reverently in what looks like a big mayonnaise jar (after the mayonnaise had been removed). Anyway, I sat before the monument at the grave, and I simply said, "Thanks, Fred. You're the best."

The years passed. I outgrew Chopin. Bach, Beethoven and Mozart now seemed more optimistic, more relevant and less ghastly than Chopin. Recently, our family travelled to Italy. We toured La Scala (the famed opera house) in Milan. One of the display cases showed a cast of Chopin's hand:

You can see that it is his left hand. It's not his real hand. His real left hand is in a pickle jar at a church in Bolivia. Ha ha! Just kidding. Anyway, the tour guide explained how this cast of Chopin's hand was taken immediately after his death. Everyone gazed curiously into the display case. I stood nearby and held up my own hand. It looked remarkably similar to Chopin's hand.

The tour guide said, "Note Chopin's hand. It is so dramatic, so capable of expressing Chopin's profound emotion." I held up my own hand and felt proud. I knew I could have played The Heroique! I even raised my hand so other's in the tour group would notice it.

The tour guide continued, "Note, also, how feminine and lady-like Chopin's hand was."

I recoiled and thrust my hand into my back pocket, slowly moved away and hid behind an exhibit showcasing opera glasses from the 1800s. I felt naked. And it wasn't the good kind of naked.

Like I said, though, I could have played The Heroique.

But then again, maybe not.

And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah

Above Trail Camp

After Climbing Mt. Whitney

Trail Camp, set at 12,000 feet, is a tent city. It is the final resting point for hikers climbing Mt. Whitney, as well as the recovery point for those who have summited. The camp, a rocky amphitheatre, is high, relentlessly stark and devoid of all warmth and greenery. The sunlight seems filtered and ineffective, like broth. The tents are set up like houses on a Monopoly board while hordes of famished, filthy backpackers glower at their neighbors and fiddle with temperamental stoves. Wisps of toilet paper protrude from underneath rocks and flutter in the incessant wind.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete, my trusty hiking buddy, described it well as we stumbled into Trail Camp one August evening after climbing Mt. Whitney: "This place is absolute turdsville." We had no other options, however, and we reluctantly claimed a tent site.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete lit the stove and started dinner. Using his dirty hands, he rolled our falafel mix into little falafel balls. He dropped them into a frying pan filled with hot oil. The oil spurted and hissed like it does back home when you make farm bacon on a Sunday morning. The falafel balls immediately disintegrated and turned a pasty, grey color. Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I said nothing. We simply stared into the frying pan as our dinner congealed. Then, in quick desperation, Turkey Tetrazzini Pete tried spooning the falafel back into shape as he stammered, "No! No! No! Oh, God, no!" as if he were describing the Hindenburg disaster. It was a total loss (just like the Hindenburg disaster).

"I have no appetite," I finally told Turkey Tetrazzini Pete. "Who's stupid idea was it to bring falafel on a backpacking trip anyway?"

He smiled sheephishly (because it was his stupid idea to bring falafel on a backpacking trip) and reached into a bear canister and pulled out the last of our food, some pita bread. The pita bread was stale and crunched like tortilla chips when you bit into it. It smelled like chicken fertilizer and tasted sharp, like bleu cheese. I tossed it aside. It appeared to be moldy. Some toilet paper blew into camp and wrapped itself around my leg. I refused to touch it and simply gazed up at Mt. Whitney and let the wind gust in and out of my ears.

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I looked at each other. There was a single, silent, still moment which may have been about a second. Perhaps 30 seconds. The wind stopped. The hot oil's complaining hesitated. Emotions snapped like our hiking boot coming down hard on the fallen branch of an Aspen.

The laughter came slowly at first. And in a Sierran second it was beyond our control, or anyone's control, like the start of a really long pee, or the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, or your kids getting older. Great guttural, diaphragmatic laughter full of gasps and whoops and spells of breath-holding followed as tears poured down our cheeks and our legs went weak. In the end we were flat on our backs staring at the sky, too exhausted and wonderfully deflated to accomplish any task except breathing.

Other backpackers came to investigate. One woman asked if we needed assistance. She looked like Jane Goodall. "Are you ok?" she asked. We ignored her. Pete reached into a bear canister and pulled out the very last of our food, some Jiffy Pop popcorn. He held it aloft, shaking it like a maraca while dancing around like a gorilla.

We took turns holding the Jiffy Pop over the stove as the domed, foil center slowly unwound and formed a twisty, silver sphere. It looked like a planet. It was beautiful. I took my pocket knife and cut open the foil, thereby venting the steam. It smelled buttery and like a Saturday afternoon matinee. Most of the popcorn fell onto the ground. We ate it all. Somehow the popcorn on the ground tasted best. It was delicious, the most delicious dinner ever.

We spent the evening eating the uncooked kernels and picking the remnants out of our teeth. We talked about mountains and stars and goofy people from college, like that guy who always dropped his tray in the dining commons.

"Didn't we name him The Dropper?" I asked Turkey Tetrazzini Pete.

"Yes," he answered, "We called him The Dropper."