Six Days and a Mule — What I Learned in the High Sierras
In July of 2018 I took a trip around California, which included a six day trail ride in the largest roadless wilderness in the United States. (The trip also included, perhaps inevitably, fires, mudslides and hail storms. Because California).
This kind of trip isn’t for everyone, but is an incredible experience if you’re fit, reasonably healthy, and not afraid to be completely without most modern conveniences for a few days. (Note, one person on the trip used a CPAP. He had a solar charger for it).
But as for things I learned?
We Have a Narrow Definition of Road
One of the trails we took, the trail over Momo Pass, is an ancient pass used by indigenous people to take trade goods over the mountains.
It’s a road.
By “roadless wilderness” we mean “no roads you can take a car on.”
This was a road that was suited to mules and horses and men and women on foot.
I’ve never been to south America, but this is what the Inca roads were like.
I got a whole new understanding of why they didn’t use wheels! The most efficient means of transportation was the one I was sitting on (his name, by the way, is Punch).