This morning feels like luxury hiking. There’s an outhouse, picnic bench and/or water source nearly every other mile. So many sits and civilized bathroom stops! Also, the residue of the Gatorade I bought in Wrightwood has tinged all my water with a subtle hint of cucumber and makes it taste like a day spa.
I mostly hike alone through the pine needle beds of the Angeles Forest but break with DirtyBowl who’s always just a few minutes ahead.
I’m walking and thinking about little more than walking when barks and screams shatter the quiet forest calm. DirtyBowl?! I run around the corner and suddenly there are seven dogs running towards me. These aren’t feral dogs. The look loved and well groomed but also hyped out of their tiny minds. One nips my leg. Ah! A man comes bounding up the trail, apologizing and wrangling them all one by one.
His name is Anthony and he runs with dogs for a living. You heard me right. Apparently these pups are from Venice Beach, and he takes them out to the wilderness everyday. Ten dogs — Dobermans, Golden Retrievers, Giant Schnauzers, etc. — dig holes and wrestle with each other and sniff my hiker smells. DirtyBowl and I are endlessly entertained. I ask him if he feels like he has the best job in the world. He says yes. If Anthony isn’t living the dream with his hiking with dogs for a living, I don’t know who is. He lines up the dogs like an elementary class so we can take a photo with them (Thanks Anthony!). After we say goodbye, the husky named Bowie follows me, and I want to keep him.
But the barking grows faint behind me and yucca and shrubs replace tall pines as the trail steers down to lower elevations. When I get to Sulphur Spring, there are billions of tiny black tad poles shimmering beneath the surface. I fill my water bottles carefully, trying to catch as few as possible.
The wind picks up in the evening, as do my run-ins with the dreaded Poodle Dog Bush. DirtyBowl and I are banking on a campsite listed on the map, but when we arrive we decide it’s too exposed to the wind. So we forge ahead to the next campsite. But there is no campsite. Just narrow trail traversing steep hillsides until the fire station four miles ahead.
As we hike on past sunset, we daydream that there’s a fireman chef slaving over a giant steaming pot of vegetarian chili for us, and that they’ll give us blankets and take us on a ride along.
There is no chili or blankets or ride along, just a gusty campground by a highway. I set up my tent for the first time in over a week and pray the stakes to hold.
The Importance of Elsewhere 