Race to a Beer

Day 119-August 10th
Destination: Olallie Lake
Miles: 26.5 (Plus 0.2 off trail miles)
Cumulative Miles: 1727.5

We planned on getting to Olallie Lake today, a mere 26.5 miles away. We did get there, but it took longer than expected, and we were fearful we would not make it before the store closed.

Our hike started with finishing the suggested detour and returning to the PCT official route. At the bottom of our descent, we reached a beautiful creek. The valley floor was pretty flat, as such the creek spread out and meandered; a different course every season, for sure.

After climbing back to the PCT, we made our way to Jefferson Park. Along the way we met three older women who wore more weight in perfume than in clothing. They told us the mosquitoes were nothing shy of furiously abundant, and that we needed to cover every inch of our skin to preserve our sanity. Their perfume was so thick, they might as well be wearing flashing neon signs that said "Free Blood."

The mosquitoes turned out to be small and pesky, and were really only bothersome because they kept trying to fly into food while we ate. After lunch we climbed out of the beautiful flat and flowered pastures of Jefferson Park, up to a high point Psycho recalls as being one of the most scenic on the trail. Unfortunately clouds were covering much of the land, and we had limited obscured views of Mt. Jefferson because of it.

After our somewhat snowy descent down the hill, we checked our time and mileage to the Olallie Lake General Store. There was little to no chance of us making it by 8pm, yet there was the potential that the store may be open later, and we could grab a bite to eat or a beer. We put our motor boots on and charged ahead at a lightening pace.

As we walk/ran up to the store, we saw the lights were off, put the sign said "Open." We found the door locked, and almost walked away disheartened. Then the store owner walked out of her neighboring cabin and asked if we needed anything.

Success! A 26.5 mile walk with fantastic views, and tasty cookies at the end to accompany our Coors Light. "The Silver Bullet never tasted so good."

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As it was said, a second mosquito poem would be presented. Hopefully our faithful readers are submitting their own mosquito poems.

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The Mosquito

by D.H. Lawrence

 

When did you start your tricks,

Monsieur?

 

What do you stand on such high legs for?

Why this length of shredded shank,

You exaltation?

Listen Here

{mosgoogle}

Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwards

And weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,

Stand upon me weightless, you phantom?

 

I heard a woman call you the Winged Victory

In sluggish Venice.

You turn your head towards your tail, and smile.

 

How can you put so much devilry

Into that translucent phantom shred

Of a frail corpus?

 

Queer, with your thin wings and your streaming legs

How you sail like a heron, or a dull clot of air,

A nothingness.

 

Yet what an aura surrounds you;

Your evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness on my mind.

 

That is your trick, your bit of filthy magic:

Invisibility, and the anæsthetic power

To deaden my attention in your direction.

But I know your game now, streaky sorcerer.

 

Queer, how you stalk and prowl the air

In circles and evasions, enveloping me,

Ghoul on wings

Winged Victory.

 

Settle, and stand on long thin shanks

Eyeing me sideways, and cunningly conscious that I am aware,

You speck.

 

I hate the way you lurch off sideways into air

Having read my thoughts against you.

 

Come then, let us play at unawares,

And see who wins in this sly game of bluff,

Man or mosquito.

 

You don't know that I exist, and I don't know that you exist.

Now then!

 

It is your trump,

It is your hateful little trump,

You pointed fiend,

Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you :

It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.

 

Why do you do it?

Surely it is bad policy.

 

They say you can't help it.

 

If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.

But it sounds so amazingly like a slogan,

A yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.

 

Blood, red blood

Super-magical

Forbidden liquor.

 

I behold you stand

For a second enspasmed in oblivion,

Obscenely estasied

Sucking live blood,

My blood.

 

Such silence, such suspended transport,

Such gorging,

Such obscenity of trespass.

 

You stagger

As well as you may.

Only your accursed hairy frailty,

Your own imponderable weightlessness

Saves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.

 

Away with a pæan of derision,

You winged blood-drop.

 

Can I not overtake you?

Are you one too many for me,

Winged Victory?

Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?

 

Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makes

Beside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!

Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!

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