Juan – Page 4 – Ñandú

Death Valley

Ever since I visited Death Valley some sixteen years ago I’ve felt called to come back. It’s such a brutal, rugged and extreme place that it completely mesmerizes my soul. As a friend put it beautifully when she saw some of my pictures, “it looks exactly how I would imagine a different planet”. This time we came with the specific goal of taking pictures of the dunes under a full moon, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge.

The day before full moon there was a massive dust storm that forced us to hunker down inside the van instead of executing our plan of scouting the dunes for good vantage points and experimenting with pictures under an almost full moon. Then, on D-day the storm had apparently subsided, so we got everything ready to spend the evening and a good part of the night on the dunes: we drove half an hour from our campsite, packed photo gear, jackets and blankets, food and water… and as I was ready to open the van’s door, it was dust hell all over again in an instant.

We killed time playing games and eating our food. After sunset, even though it was still very windy, the visibility improved drastically, so to the sand dunes we went.

The moon provided enough light to guide us through the dunes, but not enough to see a thing through my camera’s electronic viewfinder. So, after setting up the camera on top of the tripod I had to point it more or less towards the scene I thought wanted to capture, switch to manual focus and trust that my distance estimations were right, take a 2-second, low quality shot at very high ISO, inspect the resulting picture in the monitor to figure out how I wanted to change the framing (zoom in or out, point the camera more up or down, to the left or to the right), try again — making sure there was no shrubbery in the foreground, because the wind would render it totally blurred — and repeat the cycle several times. Only after getting the scene framed more or less as I wanted I’d take a higher quality 20- or 30-second long exposure, which could be ruined by a gust of wind that would move the tripod or produce a river of sand in front of my subject. At that rate it was about three or four mostly lousy compositions per hour.

In essence, it turned out to be a lot more difficult than anticipated, and the results were only moderately successful, but it was fun and the trip overall was just glorious. And we did get back to the sand dunes on our last day to enjoy a beautiful sunset on a windless day.

Note: with all my tech savviness (and after countless hours) I haven’t been able to get this WordPress blogging tinghy to not lower the image quality. It’s so frustrating! So, click here if you want to see these pics presented at higher quality (don’t bother if you’re on a phone, though).

The Groan Girls (and the wannabe hero boy)

It took them more than a year of preparation. First, Diane had the idea of doing something big for her birthday this year, something as big as hiking the entire length of Oregon. Yeah, big. We didn’t know Diane at the time, but she invited her good friend Rose, who then invited her good friend Kathy, who then invited her good friend Mariella. (The same Mariella of 14 days at sea fame, the second—and last—mate aboard Ñandú in that adventure.) And the all-women gang came to be.

Across four cities spanning 82.5 degrees of latitude, they had video after video meeting to develop a meticulous plan to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) 430 miles (almost 700 km) along the length of Oregon, from the California border to the Washington side of the Columbia River, which would take them about a month. The plan required food to be delivered to them every few days at strategic points, so their first order of business was to find someone generous and handsome, with lots of free time and a large red vehicle that could become their mobile pantry carrying spare shoes and clothing, fuel, and roughly 500 rations of dehydrated food. Ladies, meet your hero Juan. Little did I know that the coveted role of women’s hero was going to be stolen from right under my nose by some guy who goes by the name of Bob.

The preparation was almost as intense as the execution. Kathy took it so seriously that she injured her knee during an 8-mile training hike. On her birthday, no less. Perhaps she forgot she was one year older. As a result, she had to add physical therapy with various forms of silly walks to her list, which already included lots of research and the preparation of 100 dehydrated meals. She wasn’t settling for those terrible commercial meals that most through-hikers rely on. Her high standards only allowed for delicious and healthy home-cooked meals. She offered to cook for Mariella too, and said she’d leave a few rations for me as well. As someone who avoids cooking as if it was the plague, I was elated at the prospect of just needing to boil water to have exquisite meals on the road. So, off she went, bought a dehydrator, a vacuum sealer, and a truckload of ingredients, and started cooking. And continued cooking. And cooked some more… but at some point she figured the whole process of cooking, dehydrating and sealing was so labor-intensive that she scaled back her goal to 50 meals, and said to me: “you have a decent amount of cooking space and paraphernalia in the van, you are capable and resourceful, so you are on your own”. Ouch. I guess I was wrong thinking I was due some pampering as the logistics paladin.

The big day came, and by the end of it their thorough plan was already derailed. A few days prior Mariella flew from Chile. The morning of D-Day Diane’s son drove her plus Kathy and Mariella to mile zero in the Oregon border. At the same time, the aforementioned Bob drove Rose from their home in Washington State to drop her off at the starting point. We were all going to rendezvous 8 days (and 130 miles of PCT) later, including Bob, who would transfer all of Rose’s provisions to me, and I would then officially start my intrepid duties. However, the wildfires said “nope”: the winds had pushed the smoke from the huge Bootleg and Dixie fires to Southwest Oregon, and the air quality was downright unhealthy across the first half of their intended route . The gang decided to start much further north, do the last quarter of Oregon’s PCT, and then decide whether to continue to (fully unresearched) Washington or come back to Southern Oregon.

So it was the unelected hero Bob who drove the entirety of the Groan Girls Gang to the new starting point (all in all, he drove 850 miles—almost 1400 km—in two days). And off they went. And, as Rose wrote later: “On our first day hiking, we were christened The Groan Girls by Mariella. An appropriate group name for an obvious reason.” Nine days and about 100 miles later, they emerged from the wilderness at the Columbia River. And who do you think was there waiting for them in big style, with a ton of warm pizza and fresh fruit? Who? Yup, surrogate hero Bob! He got all the credit and brownie points! Deservedly, yeah for sure, but that wasn’t the plan! And where was the official but non-acting stupendous hero? Driving 12 hours straight, from California to Bob and Rose’s house.

But then plans changed again, more radically: a family emergency, horrible blisters and a bad knee took down 75% of the team. Kathy’s knee was holding fine, and she was the only one willing and able to continue. So she planned to do one week of Washington’s PCT, but even that plan had to be cut short because of a storm. In the end she did four days by herself, and then we took a slow and fun road trip back home.

The aftermath

The Groan Girls Gang are already discussing what big and crazy thing to do next. For my part, I felt that I missed on all that solo time I was supposed to have in the Oregon wilderness between rendezvouses with the GGG. I ended up spending merely three nights alone, and even then I saw Kathy during the day, meeting her at different points of her hike. I was owed the fundamental human right to miss one’s spouse.

My verdict: Ñu is plenty comfy and spacious for one person; not so much for two 😉.

Well, I figured, since I’m a grown man, I can exercise that right, so a few weeks later I just hopped aboard Ñu, pointed her bow north and sheeted in. The best part? I have a big stash of leftover home-made dehydrated meals at my disposal! I just have to boil water! That kind of cooking I do enjoy. As I write this, I’m relishing the nourishing peacefulness of Breitenbush Hot Springs. The words of our very-young-and-at-the-same-time-very-mature solo sailor friend we met in Panama come to mind: “solitude is overrated”. Sorry Mike, but it isn’t. At least not in small quantities.

Meet Ñu (an abbreviated version of Ñandú)

In accordance with the tradition of naming our exploration vessels after cute-but-not-particularly-graceful flightless animals that inhabit the southern hemisphere and whose Spanish name start with Ñ, we have chosen the name Ñu to christen our new adventure facilitator. For those of you who do not speak the Cervantes language, ñu is wildebeest or gnu in English. Here’s the first chapter of her life: a mostly graphic essay about the long trip back to California after picking her up in Montana.

She likes it hot too

Things started the usual way: with a mechanical breakdown. Yup, the cooling system. Déjà vu all over again: the piece that holds the pulley that drives the radiator fan broke. Mercedes’ legendary reliability just didn’t stand up to my cooling system bracket karma. I’d like to know what sins I committed in previous lives that led to being flogged with such a specific punishment. On a second thought… nah, I don’t want to know. [If you are new to this blog, write “bracket” in the search box to the right.]

Luckily, the warranty covers towing no matter where we are. We just had to call Mercedes’ roadside assistance. Well, not so easy folks! Apparently the so-called roadside assistance does not understand the ‘roadside’ part and assumes you are calling from home… Because “the system wants an address; you have to give me an address”. Lady, I don’t know the address and I barely have one bar of cell signal and no internet. I don’t know the address, but I am 5 miles south of the north entrance to Yellowstone, the most popular national park in the U.S. [okay, second most popular]. That’s surely enough to find me. Nope, need an address. How about, Mammoth Hot Springs Campground—a Google search in the beautiful computer you have in front of you will easily tell you where that is. Nope, the system wants an address. How about my lat-long GPS coordinates? That’s exactly, precisely, unequivocally, unambiguously where we are, with a 10-meter precision. Nope, this 21st-century program does not understand such a medieval system of coordinates. I need an address. And don’t forget the zip code. Lady, I don’t even know what state I’m in, and you want a zip code? [No I’m not that clueless, but in this particular situation I wasn’t really sure we were in Montana or Wyoming, as the park straddles the state line].

At some point she finally realized that I had no way of coming up with an address, and somehow figured out how to move on. But then it was time to face the towing truck bureaucracy. After all the different ways I told the road assistance lady exactly where we were, the truck driver called to ask… you guessed, where the fuck we were. Not only that, he also wanted a picture of the van. I inquired why. He said he needed to know how tall it was in order to decide what truck to bring. I told him the van was exactly 9 feet and 4 inches high. “That’s very useful information”, he said. “But I still need a picture.”

And then came the pearl that showed that roadside assistance does not understand the ‘assistance’ part either. They offered to take only one of us in the truck cabin with the driver, while the other could get an Uber. Dude, even if there was a way to call an Uber when you have no internet, there’s no way we’re going to spend 90 minutes with strangers in an enclosed environment in the middle of a pandemic; I don’t care what the regulations say—we’re going inside the van, period. We actually had a blast riding at an even higher vantage point than usual to the repair shop.

Montana and Wyoming

It was cold. The thermostat became my best friend when we had 5 days in a row with the daily high not getting above 35°F (2°C).

Utah

Still cold for a tropics lover, but way better than Montana.

Canyonlands National Park — Island in the Sky

To our surprise, it was high season in Southeast Utah—winter is too cold and summer too hot.

Arches National Park

It’s called arches for a reason.

Canyonlands National Park — The Needles

Going South

Arizona

Grand Canyon

Our first day in Grand Canyon National Park was somewhat disappointing: it was hazy, and as we got closer to Grand Canyon Village it got more and more crowded, and less and less of a zen-like experience. We pondered leaving for good, but when we checked that the forecast called for a snowy night we decided to camp right outside the park, set the alarm for 5:15am, and get some sleep before driving back to the park. At first light, as the weather started to clear, breakfast in the heated van with a spectacular view and no-one around was a spectacular reward.

Sedona Area

Every page about Sedona on the web seems to have this description: “Sedona is an Arizona desert town near Flagstaff that’s surrounded by red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls and pine forests. It’s noted for its mild climate and vibrant arts community.” So there you go. I can be a master of copy-pasting too. On our way west we unintentionally discovered Jerome, a very interesting, funky, and “wickedest town in the west”. The last picture below, Burro Creek is not really near Sedona, but I couldn’t fit it in any other section.

California

Mojave Desert

The Mojave was… profound. There’s some mysterious magic in that tough landscape that touches your soul and makes you travel inwards. But more personally, the Mojave was the place where Kathy undertook a vision quest a few years ago, fastening in solitary for four days. It was a transformational experience for her, and marked an inflection point in our relationship as well. For me, it was the first time there, and I am immensely grateful that she let me into her space with an open heart full of joy and desire to share.

Sequoia National Park

Kings Canyon National Park

Wintertime blues

Well, not really blues, just pictures, but the title sounds a lot more poetic than “wintertime pics”. I feel I need to offload these images of nearby places to mark the start of spring and, with it, the start of a new chapter in our adventures. Stay tuned.