Saturday, March 29, 2008

so this post is a little late, but i've been too lazy to blog about the amazing experience that is backpacking in big sur, which i know will be a long entry. but i do want to preserve the wonderful memories, so here goes...

firstly, background information: the backpacking trip is part of SPOT (Stanford Pre-Orientation Trips) leader training class, the aim of which is to train people to become SPOT leaders who lead groups of freshmen on 5-day backpacking trips right before school starts in fall. i hope to become a SPOT leader sometime next year. the way the trip worked was that pairs of us took turns leading each day of the four-day trip, with our two leader trainers, Margot and Sarah, simulating some possible freshman behavior that the leaders had to watch out for and resolve.

day one started with meeting at 7am at Tresidder, and a breakfast of cold bagels with strawberry-flavored cream cheese, cold bananas (which are really quite delicious) and apple juice. then we set off on the three-hour drive to big sur, a national park somewhere south of Stanford. i napped on the ride there and woke up when the road started getting bumpy and curvy as we neared the park and eventually drove on trail. we arrived at China camp, which was our starting point.

day one's leaders were Alex and KC, who did a really great job considering how the first day was the second toughest day of our hike, reason being the 400m elevation, 5.3 mile hike and the fact that packs are the heaviest on the first day before all the food gets eaten. it helped that both Alex and KC are naturally cheery and optimistic types. i remember KC giving us the route description and ending it with a casual, "so that should be easy-peasy." i also remember lots of slogging uphill in really dense overgrowth. the trail clearly had not seen a trail-upkeeping crew in ages.

my first fall of the trip was when we were going downhill and i tripped. i ended up with long scratches down the inside of my left forearm, because my pack was so heavy that my hands were not enough to break my fall, causing my arm to slip into the thorns up to the elbow. i applied some antiseptic cream and we continued onward.

lunch was a glorious affair at a clearing that gave us a great view of the mountains. we had bagels and tortillas with cheese, peanut butter, honey, strawberry jam, and oranges, after which our leader trainers, Margot and Sarah, debriefed the first simulation, which was Margot deliberately falling behind on the trail. we discussed how to deal with different hiker abilities in the group.

we arrived at camp (i forget the name now) really early on day one, early enough for about 3h of daylight left. i don't know the exact time since only the co-leaders had watches, because part of the point of backpacking in nature is to forget about time and enjoy yourself. i helped set up the bear-bagging ropes for bear-bagging our food and other items which are likely to attract wildlife, ie anything that has a scent, such as toothpaste, sunscreen, food waste. it's a pulley system of ropes and caribeanas looped over a high tree branch and secured to a tree trunk. it suspends your bags 12 feet above ground, out of reach of bears and other wildlife. ideally, bear bags and cooking sites are situated at least 200 feet away from tents to keep wildlife as far away as possible from yourself.

dinner that first night was chili, which means a slightly spicy soup with corn, chicken, capsicum, onion and cheese in it. that tasted really good, especially since it was a warm dinner and the weather had turned cold at night. after was hot cocoa, and debriefing for the first day where we commented on how the co-leaders performed. i slept surprisingly well that night.

day two's co-leaders were Yuxin and Alan. breakfast was instant oatmeal - again, delicious. Sarah taught us that the paper packets that the oatmeal came in was lined with wax and therefore waterproof, so one could pour hot water directly into the packet and save oneself a bowl-cleaning after that. i was too chicken to try this on the first day, but by days two, three and four, had become an expert eater of oatmeal literally straight from the packet.

after breakfast, i taught the group my lesson on water treatment (we each had a wilderness-related technical skill lesson to teach). so, since you obviously can't carry 4 days' worth of water supply with you, you have to drink from the streams, but not before treating the water. this you do by dropping some liquid iodine or iodine tablets into your water bottle. boiling is the ideal way of treating water, but takes up too much liquid fuel and is far too troublesome.

we had a bit of a late start on day two, i'm guessing because Yuxin and Alan banked on an easy day ahead. the route description, after all, said 3.9 miles and a net downhill elevation. but there were some steep ups and downs to be conquered, and we reached camp just before sunset. along the way, especially tricky and distasteful were the downhills where the trail fell away to a steep slope, and was itself sloping so that my feet were not on level ground. i hated those and held the group back by some because i was slow during those parts. right before Hidden Camp, our campsite for the day, was a wide stream that we had to cross. this was the first major stream crossing we had, so we did the entire elaborate thing of changing into old shoes or sandals, hiking up our pants and crossing one at a time.

dinner was couscous, again delicious. dessert was a tuxedo (cheaper version of Oreos) pudding made by Sarah, who mixed the crushed cookies with water and gelatin powder to form a kind of delicious sticky pudding that we ate with whole tuxedos. it was supposed to be my birthday dessert, which was a really sweet gesture. the group had earlier sung me "happy birthday" on the trail when we arranged ourselves by order of birthday and they realized that it was actually my birthday.

since there were only six of us potential SPOT leaders in the group, day three's co-leaders were, surprise, Michael and I. we sang the group awake at 9am on day three, to the tune of the Barney song (partly because Michael and I listened to different music and thus did not really know any songs in common): "We love you, you love us, won't you wake up just for us? With a hearty breakfast and a warm-up game, we don't care that this song's lame." so day three got off to a wonderful melodious start, and we made it out of camp in two hours fifteen minutes, compared to day two's three hours.

less than 100 feet from camp, we encountered our first stream crossing of the day, which was really the same stream that we crossed on day two right before hitting camp. Mike and I scouted for the best place to cross for a rather long time. we considered sliding on our butts across a fallen tree trunk that conveniently reached from our side to the opposite bank, but Sarah stopped us because it would have been really easy to lose balance and fall with our heavy packs on. because of the lengthy decision making and shoe-changing, it took us 45 minutes to cross that first stream. we hit another two streams after that, before we crossed paths with another SPOT leader training group that was hiking along the same trail, except in the opposite direction. they were all in socks and sandals, and gave us awful news of the route ahead: there would be approximately another 20 stream crossings, and a part where a rock-slide had eroded the trail so that it was sandy and slippery and required a rope to safely pass.

thereafter, we decided to keep our socks and hiking boots on during stream crossings for efficiency's sake. Sarah and Margot emphasized the importance of efficiency to Mike and I, given the long route ahead. so we worked out a system - Mike, by far the more experienced backpacker between the both of us, would lead the group in front and assess the streams. if mellow enough, we were going to cross as a group, with approx 5 feet of space b/w each hiker in the stream - a precaution against one hiker knocking another one over were he/she to slip and fall in the stream. one is always easier to rescue than two. if the stream looked slightly more evil, I would move to the front of the line and we would confer about the safest way across, before one of us test-crossed it without our pack and decided if one leader had to stand in the swiftest and deepest part of the stream to guide the others across. this system worked well - i think we cut our stream crossing time from 45 min at the first one to approx 5 min for mellow streams, and not more than 15 for challenging ones. we all felt really badass when we came across other backpackers going in the opposite direction, changing their shoes for stream crossings. we informed them that there were lots more crossings to come, and advised them to do it in their boots.

apart from the insane number of stream crossings, we also had to deal with the abundant poison oak that grew along the trails. poison oak is a plant with clusters of three leaves, the defining characteristic of which is an extremely oily-looking surface. it gives you a rash wherever it comes into contact with your skin. we all put on long sleeves and tried our darnedest to avoid it, but that was an impossible task given the extent of the poison oak. there was also the eroded trail, at which Sarah went first and set up a rope system. it was seriously scary crossing that part, since it was a steep slope. Sarah is a truly amazing person - she told us afterward that she had never set up a rope system like this one before.

as feared, we did not make it to Carmel River Camp, which was our intended campsite for the day, but instead had to settle for Sulphur Springs, a site overgrown with poison oak. everyone agreed that they would rather brave poison oak than cross streams at night, which Mike and I absolutely refused to do anyway. bear-bagging at Sulphur Springs, which I was in charge of, proved a problem. there was poison oak everywhere and most of the trees grew on a steep slope that we did not want to be climbing in near-darkness. in the end, we bear-bagged at a tree with poison oak growing underneath it. the tree was also right next to the trail, which is a violation of bear-bagging guidelines, but it was the best candidate.

dinner that night was the best meal ever - pita pizzas. we sautéed onions and capsicums in cooking oil, then assembled our pizzas. you spread pizza sauce on your pita bread, then sprinkle the veg, cheese and pepperoni slices on top. we took turns frying the pizza in the saucepan with veg oil to melt the cheese and crisp the pita at the bottom. all of us had more than one, it was so good.

day four's leaders were determined by Sarah and Margot after they took a poll of people's willingness to lead again, among other mysterious factors. so me, Yuxin and Alex became day four's leaders. Yuxin and I woke everyone up at 7am on day four (we anticipated a long hike ahead due to the need to make up for day three's itinerary) with another Barney song: "We love you, you love us, won't you wake up just for us? It's the last day and we want to go home, so get up and let's get out!" we, however, did not get out of camp until three hours later, due to a lengthy debrief of day three that Sarah and Margot chose to perform on the morning of day four because people were falling asleep on the night of day three.

day four was relatively easy compared to day three. my goal of the day was to be a more assertive and authoritative leader, compared to the supportive role that i played while leading with Mike. i think we made pretty good time as a group and managed to get to the end of the trail by 4pm, which was two hours ahead of our initial estimate. we had our last stove-cooked dinner of burritos right by the gate which marked the entrance into Big Sur. Tortillas stuffed with chicken, sauteed onion and capsicum, cheese and pizza sauce are almost as good as pita pizzas. we also had pita bread with hummus.

after everyone had eaten, we started a monster debrief of the entire trip. my favorite part was "filling my cup" - we went around the circle, focussing on one person at a time - everyone else said what they liked about that person's leadership style and qualities. it was an extremely affirming experience, mostly because the comments were honest, forthright and genuine. i learnt, to my very pleasant surprise, that my team mates liked my sense of humor, thought that i was a gregarious person (that one really stumped me) and a versatile leader who could either support my co-leader or take charge, and was a leader from whom my co-leader would very likely be able to learn something new from. they also respected the way i braved my injuries with no complaint (i made the most use of the first-aid kit and the blister kit), taking into account the fact that this was my first backpacking trip. also, i found out that Margot and Sarah paired me with Mike because they thought we were both strong leaders and they wanted us to challenge each other.

finally, as the sun started setting, we began the ride back to campus. again, i slept most of the way back. we arrived on campus at 10pm and unpacked so that we could return all the borrowed gear to SPOT. we also finished up the two remaining Spotlights (throughout the trip, we took turns to talk for 15min about ourselves, after which everyone in the group asked questions. it was an honest bonding experience, undertaken with the understanding that whatever was said remains within the group). i felt genuinely sad when i parted company with my amazing group mates at 1am.