Another glimpse into my memoir, Force of Nature: Three Women Tackle the John Muir Trail. JMTers and PCTers we met on the trail would pass along snippets of advice or warnings about obstacles and challenges ahead. Sometimes the story was complete and helpful, sometimes it was more a scary mystery than informative advice. Cappy and I began to call the warning tales Trail Legends. This is the story of one of those Trail Legends.
I tossed my backpack up onto my back with one easy motion.
That’s right.
TOSSED. BACKPACK. EASY.
My pack had become an integral part of me, rather than an ungainly piece of luggage strapped awkwardly to my back and shoulders. Like a camel has her hump, like a crow has her caw, like a shark has her fin, I had my pack… and we were one. Not only had its shape become my shape, its weight become my weight, and I knew exactly where, in its myriad of inner and outer pouches, each an every one of my possessions was hidden. Packing, unpacking, accessing, and carrying had all become second nature, instinctive.
It was satisfying knowledge that gave me growing confidence. And confidence I would need, as this was the day we would face and ford Silver Creek—Trail Legend Number Two.
We’d been hearing rumors about the treacherous Silver Creek water-crossing for two days. It seemed every person on the JMT had something to say on the subject of the Silver Creek Waterfall. Those headed north, mostly long distance PCT hikers, mumbled warnings as they strode swiftly past, disappearing before one could even ask a question. Fellow SOBOs, gathered at trail-side rest stops, compared what they’d heard, and attempted to assemble bits and pieces of information into a cohesive story.
The gist of Trail Legend Number Two was that the sweet little meandering Silver Creek would grow into the powerful Silver Creek Waterfall… which just so happened to land directly on top of the trail, pounding downwards to sweep travelers off their feet and down the face of the mountain. The story left us with a dozen questions and no answers. The day before, I’d written in my journal about the Trail Legend.
The river is full and fast, they said.
You have to pass under a waterfall, they said.
It’s dangerous, they said.
It might be impassable, they said.
So it was with this odd combination of confidence and trepidation that we set out that beautiful morning. The morning’s hike was mostly downhill, first through lovely green meadows, then through pine and fir forests, always following the Silver. Twice, we crossed the creek in thigh-high water.
We stopped everyone we met to ask about Silver Creek and its waterfall crossing. The NOBOs, muscled and tested as they were from nearly four months on the trail from Mexico, all seemed to confirm what we already knew, but offered little advice about how to approach the crossing beyond, “Be careful,” before rushing off.
“Obviously, all these people survived the crossing, so could it really be that bad?” I asked Cappy, my mind working on the problem.
“They’re all so much bigger and stronger than we are. Remember yesterday, at the lunch stop, that bearded guy said people had gotten knocked down the hillside and hurt?” Cappy worried out loud.
“If it was just one group with the story, I’d think they were pulling our legs,” I said. “But everyone seems to be telling the same story.”
“I know,” Cappy agreed. “That’s what makes me worry.”
We’d had this conversation a half dozen times just between the two of us, trying to wrap our brains around the obstacle and come up with some sort of a solution. I told myself to not think about the waterfall anymore, to just wait and see, but that was like telling myself to not think about pink elephants. It was all I could think about.
The gentle trail ahead turned into switchbacks that would take us steeply downhill alongside the plunging Silver Creek. Before descending, we stepped off the trail to stand on a granite hump right at the point where the cascading creek first leapt off the edge. I looked over the side to watch the water falling and bouncing for hundreds of feet. Cool air rushed up from below amplifying the roar into a cacophony.
“Somewhere down there, we have to cross under all this water,” Cappy shouted above the din. Looking down the mountain for some indication of where the trail and the creek would meet again, I couldn’t see past the tumbling water and its cloud of spray.
I raised my open hands to signal that I shared her disbelief.
It was well after our morning break when the trail stopped dropping, leveled out, and became a nearly flat path, a shelf, cut across the face of the granite canyon wall. Trickles of water from snowmelt higher up made their way haphazardly downward, darkening the bronze-colored stone. Trees stood tall between us and the sun, and vegetation lined the path on either side, carpeting the ground with green moisture-loving ferns and shrubs.
According to Cappy’s map, we were just steps away from a face-to-face meeting with Trail Legend Number Two. The same creek we’d admired two hours earlier as it leapt into thin air was about to make a reappearance as its alter ego, the crashing end of the waterfall.
Walking, I searched ahead, trying to bend my vision around each next curve of the trail, in order to catch a first glimpse of the watery obstacle. Emerging round one of those curves, striding directly towards us, was a figure straight from the pages of Outlander. Had we been transported to the Scottish Highlands? Or had he walked through a time warp into the Sierra?
He stood well over six feet, with broad shoulders that made his backpack look like a child’s toy. His hair and beard were a thicker, longer version of the curly ginger fur that covered his muscled arms and legs.
“Hey, Ladies!” his deep voice greeted us from a dozen feet ahead. A broad smile spread across his warm and friendly face as he approached from the south. “I’m Bear!” His PCT trail name was an apt moniker; he did resemble a great big cinnamon bear, rippling with muscles.
“Hey,” we both responded. This was our last chance to learn something helpful about the fast approaching crossing.
“Why
sure, Little Lady,” he beamed, his gold-green eyes twinkling under bushy brows.
“What is it you want to know?”
A floodgate of questions burst from us both.
First Cappy, “How far is it? How high is it?”
Then me, “Does it really fall on the trail? Is there any way around it?”
“Whoa there. It’s not so difficult or scary as all that. If you do exactly what I tell you to do, you’ll be safe,” he assured us, putting one paw-like hand on Cappy’s shoulder and the other on mine in a calming, reassuring gesture.
Bear remained there in the center of the trail with us for a full five minutes, while he gave us step-by-step directions for approaching and passing safely through the infamous waterfall ford. He gestured with his hands and used his body to demonstrate proper stance and movement, like a sensei in his martial arts dojo instructing his students in The Way. And we were good students, scrutinizing every movement and hanging onto every word.
It all boiled down to three things: First—Pass through one at a time, enter slowly, then get through quickly, so you’re not inside too long. Second—Stay way over to the left, with your shoulder right up next to the canyon wall, so you’re behind most of the water. Third—Unbuckle your pack, so if it goes over the edge, you don’t go with it.
"Oh, Bear! Thank you so much!" Cappy and I talked over the top of one another showing him how grateful we were.
Relief and a smidgen of confidence began to return. We can do this, I thought.
We waved farewell to Bear, our Trail Angel Sensei, whose appearance was so perfectly timed it felt like Trail Magic, and watched him disappear around the corner headed north.
Less than a-quarter-of-a-mile down the trail, we put his advice to the test.
The
siren’s call of the water reached out to us, drawing us in, long before she was
visible. Cappy and I walked side-by-side, slowing our pace, stretching our
vision to find the first sign of what had taken on the personality of a
water-breathing dragon. The trail curved slightly to the left hugging the curving canyon
wall.
I saw a flash of white and reached out to clutch Cappy’s arm.
“Is that it?” I whispered.
We took a few more steps, my hand still on her arm.
“Yessss,” Cappy said, breathing out what had become obvious.
We stopped in our tracks to watch the living thing as she danced atop the rocky ground shining wet from the mist that hovered like a cloud. The roar at the top of the cliff, two hours earlier, had been loud. At the bottom, where the water pounded on the stone, she was deafening, yet beautiful, in the way live dance music is floor-poundingly beautiful, even when it makes your ears ring.
The fire hose of water fell straight down the cliff from above. It bounced once, right on the footpath, and fell again. The trail disappeared into the bouncing froth. Shards flew. Foam boiled. The gush roared. Twenty feet ahead, the footpath reappeared. This was it. The Trail Legend was true after all. We really did have to walk through a waterfall.
“Stay left,” Bear had said. “Lean into the cliff, then walk straight.”
I stood on wet rock, watching the water. Calculating, I prepared myself.
“Okay,” I said. “On the count of three,” I breathed deeply, sucking in courage.
“One…
"Two…
"Three!”
I plunged forward, head and shoulders down. My feet found solid footing on wet granite. The torrent flew over my head and past my right shoulder. The backspray of frigid water engulfed me, more airy foam than water. I gasped. I shrieked in shock… then in delight!
It wasn’t difficult after all, like wading through thick bubbles. It was exhilarating, thrilling, wonderful! I slowed down to savor the last steps of my stroll through a waterfall.
Cappy waited behind, watching from the other side. I found her eyes and waved across the white dragon’s back. “Come on!” I yelled, raising both arms in the air in triumph.
She waved and hollered in return, her voice swallowed by the roar of the falling water between us, her meaning making its way across without it. She celebrated my triumph with me.
“It’s fun!” I hollered, knowing she couldn’t hear my voice. I took out my disposable cardboard camera, with its last remaining shot, and carefully took aim at Cappy completely engulfed in a halo of foam and against a backdrop of bronze-hued rock.
After she emerged, we stood, wet and ecstatic,
looking back at conquered Legend Number Two and laughed. We clinked poles in a
metallic high-five and stood for a long time admiring the mighty and graceful
falls.
Where minutes earlier I had seen only her power
and the danger, felt only my fear, I saw sublime beauty—turquoise and white
cascading downward over glistening
rock, polished to marble and carved over eons by
torrents and trickles into sensuous curves.
[First and last photos are mine. Second and third photos were taken by Caroline Hickson.]
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