May11

329-351

5am wake up to make sure we can escape our shower stall hotel room undetected. Our morning walk is a meandering ridge hike that quickly becomes hot as we descend down to 3,000 feet.

We were being drawn forward by the pull of a McDonald’s on the trail.

I read a book once that described hell as a featureless cave where everyone fights and competes for limited resources. Food is randomly distributed along tunnels of the cave, and you must spend eternity hunting for the food to survive. Everyone is anonymous, light is limited, and it is a constant competition against the rest of the unwashed masses to fulfill your most basic needs. This McDonald’s feels remarkably similar to the hell described in this book. It is located right off a major highway, and is absolutely packed. You can only order via touchscreen. No employees are visible. Food is delivered through a small window, similar to a bank teller window. I put my order in and notice an order screen that displays upcoming orders above the bank teller window. The numbers are seemingly random and do not correspond to any active order. Every customer is miserable. The few employees we see are miserable.

It takes 40 minutes to get our food. In a vacuum that does not sound long, but when you order McDonald’s you have to temporarily suspend your better judgement. This feeling is numbed when the wait is short. When the wait is long you have to sit with what you have done. By the time you get your order you feel a deep sense of dread and regret.

We also see a man selling fruit out front. Amber is able to talk to him in Spanish. He has been selling fruit here for 12 years. I remember seeing him in 2013. It was wonderful to have fresh fruit to contrast with the McDonalds gut bomb.

The climb from the highway is notoriously hot and difficult. You climb from 2900 feet up to 8500 feet, and it is completely exposed until you get up to treeline at around 7500 feet. There are no water sources until you hit snow at the top of the climb. We elect to do the first portion of this climb in the evening, to conserve water and our sanity.

We hike until 10pm, spending a few hours hiking in the dark. As we climb we are able to see the glowing lights of the highway as it heads into San Bernardino.

Along the trail we see a huge, fat, toad sitting in the middle of the trail. We try to gently usher him off the trail, for his safety, but he stubbornly resists. I feel a lot of kinship with this toad. In a way Amber and I are also night toads, clinging to the trail against all our better judgement.