A Hike

Sometimes, when your world goes upside down for whatever reason, the best thing to do is just go out and walk. Sometimes, when the pressures are such that you feel you'll burst, when you're anxious and unsettled, you need to release some of that adrenaline.

Certainly, you might have your favorite walk or hike; I have mine as well. A major railroad route runs through my small mountain town and over Donner Pass. When I want to escape, I don my boots and walk alongside these historic tracks.

I did so just the other day, taking a camera with me. It was between storms, and the day was cloudy, the wind rough and brisk. I don't walk on the tracks but adjacent them a number of feet away, camera ready. It's tough walking, the rock is loose and the tracks abut ragged cliffs -- sometimes straight down and straight up.

Above, the daily eastbound Amtrak California Zephyr pulls uphill towards me. The engineer hit a friendly "shave and a haircut" on the horn for me a few times as he passed, then waved from his open window (click on each photo for a full expansion with detail).

The photo below was taken at a place railroaders call Rocky Point. Here, a Union Pacific freight labors uphill. I am standing, literally, on Rocky Point whilst taking the photograph. In the 1860s, after the Central Pacific completed this portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, CP trains would stop here so the passengers could exit the cars and look west down the canyon. At night, you can stand here and see the lights of Sacramento, the capital of Fornicalia, using the canyon like a rifle sight.

As I took the photograph below, my back was roughly five feet from the edge of the above canyon. That is the north fork of the American River, approximately 1,500 feet below. Taking photos here was challenging and exhilarating.

I walked on farther. I hiked for another two hours over loose rock, through pools of water, past small falls running down the sides of hills, past railroad signal stands, dragging equipment detectors, flange greasers. I saw the prints of animals with hooves. I saw evidence of small animal scat. I am always watching for scat. Big scat means big animals. I have seen bear prints in the snow and mud. Years ago, an SP engineer hit his horn numerous times and slowed his entire train to a crawl, just to warn me he'd just seen a huge brown bear near the tracks. He said I was walking right towards it. As you might expect, I am customarily quite well armed when I hike the tracks in the mountains, with either extra magazines or speedloaders. Wrong or not, I almost always hike by myself.

I love the walking; I love the hikes along the tracks. I've learned to read the tracks, to understand the signals. I can tell when a train is coming and on which block it's running. I can tell by listening precisely which crossing it's approaching. I know on which portion of the railroad the trains run right, and where the trains run left absent track work.

The sun was beginning to recede just as I was nearing my car. In the background I could hear another approaching Union Pacific freight train. I clambered down some loose rock to reach the tracks below and caught this locomotive laboring up towards Rocky Point. The engineer already had his window open. He leaned his head out, smiled and waved.

It was a great hike. It cleared my lungs and cleansed my soul. For a few hours I was just able to put my face forward into the wind, watch the firs bend, listen to the hawks and the crows. I passed a low point filled with water and could hear frogs.

It refreshed me; it scoured me clean.

It reminded me: Life is a blessing.

BZ