Thoughts on Seclusion, Sneering Yuppies, and "The Scraper"

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Seclusion in the High Sierras             One of the most beautiful things about backpacking in the High Sierras is not the terrain, the life that runs through it, or the beautiful variety of weather. Though each of those elements are beautiful, the true value of Sierra travel is what is brought out from deep within you by these natural elements. Many who enter the wilderness do so to break their toxic links with our massive urban society, seeking something more substantial in nature than our contemporary values offer in our massive urban centers. You are looking in the right place.

The reason for this is simple: In your transition from a modern man-made environment to a naturally crafted environment, your physical and psychological reality, the very circumstances your mind and body are engaged in by your environment radically changes.

This change radically reduces your human social contacts while simultanously replacing man's artificial environment with a naturally constructed environment. These radical alterations in your social and physical environments will turn within you, to push your physical and mental perspectives outside of their normal socially defined interpretations, if you let them. This can be a painful or a pleasurable process, depending on how you approach it.

From either approach this will ultimately be a wonderful process of refreshing, if not resetting your mind, your soul, and your body to a much older standard than our contemporary urban environment and its resulting urban consciousness has presently adopted.  Thus many pick up the backpack seeking isolation from their flatlander citiodiot existence to restore their spirit from the damages their fellow urban dwellers have inflicted on them and on our environment.

But some people can even screw that up. In any case, despite the remote locations you may cross, you will never really be alone. Nor have we ever been, since the beginning of humanity's domination of Nature. Man has always traveled with his fellows, from the early beginnings of humanity, until just recently.

In recent years the toxicity of our urban environment has seriously degraded our sociability, and has degraded our appreciation of each other. This rise of selfish, unsociable behavior has run parallel with the massive swelling of our urban centers in recent decades. This urban expansion  has also pushed the natural environment so far out of most people's lives that experiencing nature has become a foreign experience to the vast majority of our urban population.

In their haste to flee our urban hell-holes for the healing effects of nature, many backcountry travelers have thrown the baby of socialbility out with the bathwater of our toxic urban existence. This is a big mistake, and misses much of what nature can teach you about yourself, and the true benefits that a balanced human society can provide to each of its members.

Nature will show you the true value of sociability. In our interactions with each other within nature we can perceive the almost lost capacity within ourselves to generate mutually beneficial relations between people and with nature.

I spent a lot of time in the High Sierras this last year. In June of 2009 I did a five day snow trip South from Lake Tahoe to Round Top, in mid-July I headed South from  the South Upper Truckee trailhead to Mount Whitney, and in mid-September I departed Meeks Bay for Tuolumne Meadows. But I was rarely ever alone for long.

Despite this extended stay in the wilderness, seclusion is not really possible in the High Sierras. It is simple: we have packed so many people into our country that you can no longer be alone in the most remote locations within the Continental United States. And Summer, my friends, is the High Season in the High Sierras, and if you expect to be secluded on the main High Sierra trails in Summertime, you are deluding yourself and setting yourself up with false expectations. But you can make some adjustments to increase or decrease your isolation, depending on what you are looking for.

Departing earlier, say in June, puts you deeper into the heart of the mosquito season at low elevation, puts you into deeper snow at the higher elevations. And depending on the progress of the snowmelt, likely assures that the Southbound Solo Backpacker will run headlong into the massive traffic of Pacific Crest Trail hopefuls who are rushing North through the Sierras at breakneck speed, as soon as the thaw unlocks the high altitude trails enough to let them through.

 By mid-July all the main High Sierra trails have regular backpacker traffic, with generally no more than two or three hours between Northbound backpackers. But off the main trails you can still find some seclusion.  In July of 2009, I saw nobody for two full days (in mid-Summer!) on the Tahoe to Yosemite Trail between 4th of July Lake to half-way up the Northern flank of Mount Reba. I had another two days of isolation between Lake Alpine and Highland Lakes. Between Iva Bell Hot Springs and the Graveyard Lakes trail junction on the way down to Vermilion Valley Resort, I saw one person from a distance, during the span of one night and two full days. This demonstrates that a small degree of seclusion can be found even during mid-Summer, if your route puts you onto the long-distance side trails through the High Sierra.    That's one reason why these side-trails and parallel routes off of the main Pacific Crest and John Muir trails compose elements of my personal "standard route" between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney. I know when I head South from Lake Tahoe, especially during Fall backpacking trips, that I am going to have a lot of miles and a lot of days with few backpacker encounters.   So I always try to enjoy the higher density backpacker areas, and the backpackers I meet on the trail. Here's how I see it: One in a hundred people in the city is civil, let alone social. One in a hundred backpackers is not civil, if not downright social, even during the high season in the High Sierras. Interestingly, the one in a hundred rude people are almost always of one type.  Sneering Yuppies searching for Meaning If you want seclusion in the High Sierras, take the remote side trails. Too many people, generally composed of sneering citidiot yuppies, dislike meeting people on the trail. They act the same in the mountains as they do in the cities: They stare blankly, down their raised noses, without recognition or acknowledgment of their fellow backpackers. When engaged in conversation, they act as if having another person on the trail is a violation of their rights. 

Let me set you Sneering Yuppies straight: The Pacific Crest Trail between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney is THE SUPERHIGHWAY OF TRAILS. It is full of backpackers from the Spring thaw to the first Fall snows. Sneering Yuppies along the main High Sierra trails are projecting their own unreasonable expectations on nature and man, just as they do in their massive cities, and should reassess their perspective. Hell, I'm tired of them sneering at me in the nasty cities they created, let alone in the mountains they are so uncomfortable in.     I do not come to the mountains to get away from people, only the millions and millions of sneering citiodiot yuppies, flatland fools, and mindless "consumers" that we have created to populate the nasty massive urban centers (urban deathtraps) that have spread like a cancer across California during the last few decades.

I treasure my encounters with all of the fine people that hike the High Sierra trails. Some of my most memorable encounters were with citiodiots who were "seeing the light," the meaning of life, for the first time in their lives as they walked the long trail. So all of you sneering yuppies, flatland fools, and nasty "consumers" need to either mellow out, travel the remote side trails, or stay out of the mountains. But I have hope for your lame asses. THE SCRAPER

The mountains can cure or kill any bad or misguided spirits. I am hopeful that the mountains will "scrape" you sneering yuppies, flatland fools, and nasty citidiot consumers clean of your spiritual filth, and your false expectations and values, if you let them. If not, if you refuse to open yourself up, then please don't splash any of your spiritual filth on me. The physical pollution from your massive cities is already too much for man or nature to handle, and both are moving to resolve the error. For all backpackers this can be summed up neatly: Be Cool.      For you sneering yuppies with backpacks: this works out to simply pulling the stick out of your ass and using it to beat the false expectations of having a natural experience that will validate your worthless city existence to justify your failed social perspectives out of you. That's not going to happen even if  you can maintain your city facade for the duration of your trip.

Strangely, the Sierra Club is one of the fountains of sneering yuppies into the High Sierras. John Muir would be rolling in his grave, if he saw them.

The key for sneering yuppies, and all of us, is to reset our attitudes and values to reflect the nature of, and patterns of life in the mountains. This is done by abandoning your sense of privilege, your sense of personal superiority, and the nasty parts of your ego that you brought to the mountains. It is totally abandoning your socially mediated expectations.

The mountains will be your guide. Your sense of Luxury must be abandoned, or the rain, the heat, and the hard work will be too much, not for your body, but for the weight of the expectations of your mind. Either these false expectations will be scraped away, or you will suffer from your expectations.

Getting your body and mind worked by nature is the scraper. Nature's scraper will cause you to rebalance that mind and body relationship within the basic requirements of travel through nature, on nature's own terms. These terms are very old, and much of what we are was created in compliance with these standards. Our ability to walk, observe, analyze, and communicate are the most basic of Nature's gifts that we possess. It is your choice on how to employ these gifts, and that choice will determine the nature of your backpacking trip, and the meaning of your life.

Natural standards makes humans work together, and well demonstrate that the fundamental nature of sociability was once the source of joy, resources, and information that held people together on our mutual path we share through life.

We have screwed that one up, along with the natural environment that dictated these simple terms. This is, again, your choice. Nature still runs by the same standards it always has. Modern Man has twisted these natural standards into a reflection of our own desires, which has screwed up both man and nature.

So you have a choice of which navigation point predominately guides your voyages through nature: The Voice of Nature or the Values of Man.

If you are successful at carrying  Man's personal flaws into, and back out of, the High Sierras intact, I consider you and your backpacking trip an abject failure, no matter how rich you are, nor how vast your ego.

You missed it.