the one less traveled

Granny Hat woke in a panic this morning from dreams of scorpions, poodle dogs, snow drifts and windmills.  Then she remembered what day it is, May 8! A year since Mission signed in at the Southern Terminus of the PCT.  Granny had a sudden urge to check in with SPOT and google his coordinates. She still has a stomach ache, maybe on account of the PTSD from having a son on a 3 month solo trek or maybe because a whole year raced by just like that, how dare time fly so quickly! It marches on just like a thru hiker on a mission.  Granny’s friend, the candy monster Broken Arrow, is busy taking the one less traveled this year and if ignorance is bliss, then knowledge is bound to bring a little worry .  Go Broken Arrow, please be safe!  And Go Mission, conquer those college finals! They are probably scarier than poodle dog bush.

GRANNY HAT & DAD TAKE ONE LESS TRAVELED 

Picture this: Granny Hat and Dad are on a road trip.  Granny loves being the navigator so with map in hand and Siri in the other, she cheerfully shouts out directional commands to Dad who 9 times out of 10 smoothly ignores her and with a whiplash turn to the left, guns down a pothole path, and careens right past the “not a through road” sign, which really should read “not a road”.   But there, right at the dead end, a forsaken cottage, smothered in honeysuckle vines catches Granny’s eye.  Dad has to stop for Granny to take a peek through the cracked windows and snap a picture.  Plus they need to turn around anyway. They would surely have missed it, sailed right past on the highway.  The back roads of America take time but yield rewards.  That road not taken was once humming with carriages and bicycles, hay wagons and fishing poles.  Granny Hat can close her eyes and imagine the life on that used – to – be road.

Granny loves the idea of the road less traveled but then she also likes to play it safe.  Recently Dad took her to Pinnacles National Park for a super bloom spring hike.  They were enjoying the drive down a country highway dressed in glocca morra green, bedazzled with lupine and poppies. Suddenly their view was obscured by two tour buses jammed packed with tourists hoping for a quick view of some California Condors (recently brought back from extinction and released at the Pinnacles thanks to the San Diego Zoo).  The buses were painfully slow but Dad managed to pass and beat them to the park gates, counting on the visitor center with the small bathrooms to swallow the tourists up. Granny Hat was spoiled by the days when Pinnacles was a lowly National Monument, sporadically visited by local Boy Scout troops and serious moonlight hikers.  Now its National Park status has raised awareness and that awareness has systematically stomped the trails through the caves and over the hills into wide, dusty thoroughfares.  Dad knew about the Wilderness Trail though, the one less traveled because it is long and lonely.  The little knot of noisy bus people at the trail head made up his mind.

“I don’t know, Jimmy, my shoes will never make 10 miles. Let’s take the Bear Gulch one with the caves, much shorter.”

“And anyway, this trail doesn’t look maintained, what if there’s snakes?”

Sometimes we make decisions based on other people’s views.  Dad does this during election season, if this or that organization likes a certain candidate then that settles it, he doesn’t.  So, if the noisy fancy shoe bus people were taking Bear Gulch, Granny and Dad were taking the overgrown Wilderness Trail.

Granny took a momentary pause, WOULD the trail less traveled be crawling with snakes?  Or mountain lions? Granny never ever wants to meet one of those which is why she double strides to keep up with Dad on the trail.  Tempted to play it safe but lured by that tiny path lined with fields of wild flowers, Granny Hat marveled at the transformation one season of life-giving rain can bring.  Sometimes it was hard to keep from trampling dainty buttercups and purple stars that were blooming right on the trail.  Wild ducks, mallards, quail and wild turkeys flew out of thickets as we crossed actual bubbling creeks.  Anyone familiar with Pinnacles will know that the words GREEN GRASS and BUBBLING CREEKS aren’t usually associated with the park.

“not all who wander are lost”  or  “most who are lost wandered” ???

Anyone taking the one less traveled learns to rely on trail markers.  They are  reassuring, especially around creek crossings. It has been said that “not all who wander are lost”, but Granny has noticed that “most who are lost wandered”. The path may twist and turn, be covered in flowered vines or bubbling spring creeks but that little pile of stones beckons the wanderer back.

The poet states that taking the one less traveled “has made all the difference” but he doesn’t say what kind of difference, a tragic one? a glorious one? memorable? difficult, perhaps?  But who wants to stay safe and same?  Isn’t different interesting?  Granny Hat thinks so, but she would like to be safe and different, thank you very much.

Nojoqui Falls, CA and Joke or No Jokey, Dad took the kids to the falls anyway.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both,

And be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

 

Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

 

And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

 

the one less traveled is a small world!

Both Broken Arrow and Mission got to meet Heather Anderson “Anish”, the PCT unassisted record holder who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 60 days in 2013.  Mission met her at a book signing for her new book THIRST; 2600 MILES TO HOME. Broken Arrow met her on the PCT a couple of days ago where she was coaching another thru hiker.