Deep Creek
By popular request, I have been asked to revive this oldie but goodie about a research trip I took at the very beginning of my dissertation project. Enjoy!
If you had asked me a week before whether I would be alone, perched precariously on a tiny rock outcrop halfway up a mountain in the middle of the high desert while frantically shitting my guts out, I would have ordered whatever you were having. But here I was, taking the short break to rethink the many life decisions that had led me to this point. Foremost among these was whether other historians find themselves doing their jobs like this or if it is just me. I also wished I had eaten less dried chili mango. Not only had this undoubtedly contributed to my current predicament, but the shit was now a particularly disconcerting shade of Cheeto-orange. Sometimes I would take a break from regretting my past to regret my future. If I couldn’t make it back to my car before nightfall, would I have to sleep out here? What if a fucking mountain lion ate me? Ugh.
The idea for this excursion started out innocently enough. It was my first day in the LA area for my summer archival trip, and I’d stopped in the San Bernardino Mountains, in Big Bear, for a couple of nights. Some of my scientists had places in nearby Lake Arrowhead where they would take their friends for LSD experiments and I wanted to see the area so I could write about it better. At any rate, when the proprietor of the place I was staying heard what I was working on, he suggested that I should hike down to some natural hot springs at the base of the mountains where a bunch of old timer hippies hung out. “Hell, as far as I know they practically live there,” Sarge told me. He wasn’t sure exactly how to get there, but it was called Deep Creek, and he said I’d have to hike in for two or three miles to get to it. But if I was looking for old hippies to tell me stories about the old days and wanted someone to offer me acid, that was the place to do it. “Oh, I almost forgot. I think they mostly hang out down there naked, so if that bugs you, heads up.” This was like a cherry on top of what already sounded like an awesome research adventure. For science, of course. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
But work does what work does, and I went the next two months without making it down to Deep Creek. And before I knew it there was only a week left before I had to start heading back. So I sucked it up and decided to go. Now, let me just say that as much as I would like to fancy myself capable of becoming a hardy outdoor soul, I have done very little in practice to make that a reality. So the first shit decision I was confronted with was how to get there. I found three possible treks in. One, a fairly easy and short route coming in from the north, but poorly marked. The second, a well-marked and not particularly difficult hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from the west, but weighing in at 6 miles one way. The third, from the south, a fairly short 2 mile hike, well marked, but with an especially steep section where the trail drops 800 feet in a quarter of a mile as you come down a mountain. I crossed one off the list right away. Having wandered off trails in the past, I didn’t trust myself not to get lost, especially since I’d decided to go on a Monday when I wouldn’t have to contend with the weekend crowd. Despite the fact that they would be beer guzzling teenagers looking to party, they would have at least afforded a knowledgeable lead. In the end, I picked route three. The weather had been hot and I wasn’t terribly in the mood to walk two to three hours in each direction. So I slammed a gallon of water, a map, and food into my bag along with some sunscreen and set off for Deep Creek.
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The day started off promising. For the entire two hour drive to the mountain the sky was gloomy and kept the weather cool. But by the time I pulled off the road at the trailhead, the clouds had just parted and the sky was clear as could be. I was a little unsettled that there was only one other car, but I slathered the sunscreen on and set off.
I’d say I made it about halfway before I started to get a little concerned. It was hot and I hadn’t realized that this route would be quite so much…desert. There was not a lot of shade on the trail. I was walking across what was basically open desert for two miles in full sun. By the time I finally got to the steep descent I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. This section was loose sand. How the hell was I going to get down without breaking an ankle, much less back up? I hadn't seen a single person. But I’m an asshole and I wasn’t about to turn around now that I was this close. So I slid down the mountain on my ass for the next quarter of a mile, not entirely able to use my hands because the sand was too hot to touch for more than a few seconds at a time.
Once the path leveled out it was only a few minutes until I got to the springs. I stuck my hand in one of the pools. Hell. No. The water was about 110 degrees. I wandered a little further to where the creek itself was, knowing that it would be cooler. I passed a few families with children, a couple of parties of young hippies, a handful of backpackers from the PCT. I set up at a little spot and sat down, defeated. There were no old timers anywhere to be seen. Fuck my life.
I couldn’t very well turn around and head back, knowing the uphill climb I’d have and given that it was now full on, middle of the day, sunny ass desert hot. So I had some lunch and water, and eventually just decided fuck it. I took my clothes off and went for a swim. It was the best swim I ever had. After an hour I came back to shore and laid down on my clothes (having not had the foresight to bring a towel) and napped on and off for the next several hours. Occasionally naked people wandered past. Sometimes weed smoke. A half wolf who was with the young hippies. I spent the next 5 hours swinging wildly between being pissed off at myself, dreading the trip back, and enjoying what was, honestly, a pretty magical spot hidden down in this desert valley.
Whatever dread I had about going back, though, I knew I couldn’t stay past 530 if I wanted to make it back to my car before nightfall. I waited till the last possible minute and headed back, promptly making a wrong turn as the trail came up out of the valley and into the steep portion of the climb. This, it turned out, was a fortuitous error. It took me about 20 minutes to realize I’d done it, when I was confronted with a series of rocks and boulders to climb over that I hadn’t climbed down. Rather than climbing up along the spine of the mountain I’d come down, I was following a wash along its eastern slope. The wash explained the boulders. I didn’t have to think about it for more than a minute before deciding to keep going this way. If nothing else, the fact that it was on the eastern side of the mountain as the sun set meant that I was in the shade, which more than made up for having to boulder over rocks for the next hour. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to deal with that sandy ascent, so this was a stroke of dumb luck.
Still. I was exhausted. I was starting to get a little shaky and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about making it out before the sun went down. Not to mention that, now that I was off any sort of marked trail, I’d be pretty fucked if anything went amiss. So I pushed myself as fast as I could without burning myself out, which meant that every five minutes I'd stop for a five minute break. And it was working, too, up until I got about 100 feet from the top, where I expected I'd come over the ridge to meet the trail I’d come in on. The rocks on the slope, which at this point was stupid steep, were too small to hold my weight, so I’d been pulling myself up using some deep rooted desert grass. I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. Was it just the exhaustion? The fact that I was on a steep cliff even though I am petrified of heights? The fact that my feet kept slipping? And it hit me in that moment that, no, it wasn’t fear, and I wasn’t going to throw up. I had to take a shit. Now. This instant. I managed to make it to the one solid looking rock on the entire mountainside, somehow get my pants down (I still have no idea how I managed this part), and hang my ass over the side just in time. Bye, mango. Bye, cashews. Bye, jerky.
I will say that now, having lightened the load, the rest of the hike was a lot easier. I crested the mountain onto the original trail. I made it back to the car about fifteen minutes after sunset, with nothing more eventful than a skunk sighting. No, it did not spray me. Eff you.
I did not meet any hippies. I did not get any ethnographic research done. I did not get to try acid. I did get to skinny dip. I did learn that I am a moron. I still wonder if it is just me. And I still owe my friend Andy a drink for teaching me that one always takes toilet paper on a hike.
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