The Middle of Somewhere(12)

Despite the elevation gain, the temperature climbed into the eighties. She mopped sweat from her face with her sleeve and drank a liter and a half of water over the course of five miles. Remembering she could no longer simply filter and drink, she stopped to fill the empty bottle. The tablet would work its magic, and the water would be clean by the time she needed it. It would taste metallic and sour, but those were the breaks.

Switchbacks led her from one side of the mountain to the other and back again, winding through pines standing close, like soldiers amassed for battle. Finally, the trail straightened and the trees thinned. She emerged onto an open slope of low, smooth rock, punctuated by small clusters of trees. A few were snapped off at head height, perhaps by an avalanche. Others had been struck by lightning, charred trunks roughly broken, leaving black fingers pointing at the sky. At nearly ten thousand feet, exposure was a fact of life.

And with it came views. She stopped and gazed across the valley through which she had walked. The canyon floor seemed impossibly far away, and so changed from a few hours before. The mountains had seemed larger when she (and, for a length of it, Dante) had traced their base. Now they were mere hills, the true mountains arising from behind, soon to overshadow the lower ridges as the sun fell. The river was no longer a gently flowing body of water, varied in color and course, but a uniform ribbonlike trace, as an idle child might make in a meadow that could have been sand.

Perspective, she thought, requires distance. And she continued up the trail, which, that day, only went higher.

She arrived at Donahue Lake at four o’clock. She checked the map and considered continuing on to the tiny unnamed lake above this one, but she was too tired and footsore. The emotional and physical exertion of the day had finally caught up to her. Besides, the small, scattered clouds from earlier had coalesced above the mountains. Too risky to climb nearer to them, especially because the higher lake might not afford a protected campsite.

A handful of hikers were already encamped at the lake, including the older couple she and Dante had seen near Tuolumne Meadows early that morning. Liz figured the couple must have passed unnoticed while she and Dante were arguing. She gave them a self-conscious wave as she skirted their site. They were talking and drinking, and lifted metal cups to her in salute. She heard them share a laugh as she proceeded to the east end of the lake. There she found a site with a solid windbreak, and a view of the lake and of the glacier on the north slope of Donahue Peak.

Crouching behind a large boulder, she changed into shorts, then hurried barefoot to the lake edge to wash before the sun lost its strength. The spot appeared to be private, but there might have been occupied sites she hadn’t noticed, so she stripped down only to her sports bra. She stifled a scream as she stepped into the nearly frozen water and rubbed the dirt off her legs. She already had a sock tan even though she applied SPF 70 sunscreen several times a day, and her hands bore red patches from the pole straps. As she washed, her feet became numb—a wonderful sensation after a punishing day inside boots. She splashed water under her arms and onto her face and neck, no longer shocked by the cold, but invigorated. It amazed her she could feel so hot and exhausted and burdened one minute, and so refreshed the next. Carrying a backpack up a mountainside was similar to beating your head against a wall.

She was hammering a tent stake in place with a rock when she heard footsteps.

“Hey, Liz.” It was the younger Root brother, Rodell. He wore a hunting jacket over a red wool shirt, and his knitted watch cap met his eyebrows. No Patagonia for him. He carried a dish out in front of him like a collection plate.

“Hi.” She set the rock down and stood.

“I brought you some fish.”

“Fish?”

“Yeah. We had all sorts of luck down in that creek. Too much for just us.” He patted his stomach with his free hand.

She remembered Payton’s misdirection and strange looks. Not the sort of people she wanted to be indebted to. But she saw no reason to be rude.

She smelled the trout as she came around the tent, and her mouth filled with saliva. In the dish lay two small orange-fleshed fish, already boned. What had she eaten today? Oatmeal, nuts, a granola bar.

“It smells amazing, but I’ve got plenty to eat.”

“Dante told us you like trout.”

Her antennae twitched. “You saw him today?”

“Yeah, down in the valley. He told us about his feet.”

She waited for him to elaborate on the conversation.

“This is getting cold.”