The Boy's Fault

The Boy’s Fault

Noel Laflin

9-22-15

We were lost. 

And just to prove it, we stumbled about the damn mountain for three hours trying in vain to find the right trail that would take us to the tram, which would bring us to my truck, and eventually home.

  

We finally did find that elusive trail, albeit the hard way, so there is a happy ending here.  I thought I should tell you that right off, just in case you are prone to anxiety.   But let me tell you how we nearly spent the evening of July 4th, 1998, atop Mt. San Jacinto.

 

It was the fault of El Nino – The Boy.

The relentless rains of 1998, brought about by El Nino, had also brought unprecedented amounts of snow to the Southland that year.  It was so thick in local mountains that it had the audacity to actually stick around well into the summer months.

Case in point: Even after my good friend, Larry, and I left the scorching heat of Palm Springs at a sweltering 115 degrees, and rode the aerial tram up to the kickoff point at Long Valley, and trudged another six miles up the mountain, what was to greet us way up there near the peak?

Well, snow of course – even on the Fourth of July.

So there we were, dressed in tee-shirts and shorts and crunching thru shaded paths covered in white, while two miles below, the Coachella Valley shimmered and radiated in triple digits.

 

Despite this unexpected development we made our way to the peak, and took in the magnificent view some 10,834 feet below.

 

There were few others up there that day, which may also help explain how we ended up lost just a short time later.  You see, getting to the rocky peak was fairly easy as it was visible from the trail.  Looking back down, however, much of that trail was hidden by tall ponderosas or covered in a cool, blinding whiteness that seemed in no great hurry to melt.  So, when it was time to head back, we could make neither heads nor tails as to where the trail was exactly.

Then we saw a young fellow leapfrogging down the rocks, striding confidently into the woods.  There’s our ticket out of here, we thought.  We followed the boy.

It turns out that this kid was heading elsewhere.  By the time we realized our error, once he’d disappeared around a bend a short time later, we were off the trail and disoriented altogether.

Thus we had yet another boy, and a real one at that, to blame for our own damn foolishness.

Now, I had done this hike four times over the years and felt confident that if we just backtracked a bit, we’d be all right.  But that did little good as everything looked pretty much the same – there were tall trees, giant rocks, and icy berms in every direction.  We could not even spot our own recent tracks.

But with the help of Larry’s compass and a fortunate spotting of the Mt. Palomar Observatory glinting in the late day sun some forty miles away, we had a pretty good idea as to which way our peak lay, even hidden as it was to us from our present location.

 

And so we trudged on for the next three hours - scaling icy berm after berm, wading through thorny buck brush - all the while gaining in elevation.
 

We eventually found and climbed San Jacinto’s peak once again – from the opposite side this time - and took in the magnificent view in déjà vu fashion.  I never thought that climbing the summit from that direction was even possible.  Well, I am here to tell you, it is.

Hearing voices carrying on not far below us, we made a beeline for civilization via the crowd and the right trail this time.

We made it to the tram station by seven and to my truck a half hour later.

We drove westward bloodied, bruised and mighty hungry.  Fireworks across three counties lit the pathway home.  We made a drive thru stop at a McDonalds close to the house.  By the time we parked in the driveway and opened the doors to the truck we found that our legs had cramped considerably.  The two of us had taken on the appearance of senior citizens having a bad arthritic day as we limped into the garage clutching our burgers and fries.  

I have not attempted the hike in seventeen years.  Every time I thought about it, Larry would send me an article about some guy or couple who got lost upon that mountain and stayed lost for a considerable amount of time - some permanently.

But with the prospect of a record breaking new El Nino on its way for this winter, I suddenly have the urge to tempt fate once again.

But if I do, I’m first investing in a GPS device.

And I’ll be damn careful if I follow any kid down an unknown trail again.