the drag on my boots and pebbles falling off each time I lifted my foot, leaving deeper footprints in the sand. A half-mile past the rock tanks, I reached a familiar change in the landscape, yellow grass hills no more than fifty feet tall. The trail continued uphill on a looping dirt track weaving through a series of narrow canyons all inhabited by brittle scraggly weeds. Occasional Joshua trees lined the dunes. The hot sun hung in front of me but disappeared inside the relief of each canyon. The rock trail disappeared at times, when my footsteps led directly into one of the grassy hills, but I knew from past trips to continue circling through the maze in the general direction of the sun. After a half mile of circling through the maze, I reached a fork in the road with signs to Warren Vista and Warren View.
The air was stale and hot with a small breeze. The heat was excessive, though the lid on my hat kept the glare from my face. As always, I chose the sign to the right towards Warren View. The trail steepened a bit and continued up for a hundred yards then ramped up a green hillside, where the grass hunched close to the ground, woven into sparse patches alongside large white boulders, fir trees, and junipers. The trip up the steep, wooded hill took twenty minutes. At the top, I arrived at a plateau under a large sky with a row of trees at its extreme edge. My heart raced. It felt so good to be closing in on my cherished view of San Jacinto. But I also felt some time pressure. I rushed along what was left of the trail, an indistinct footpath twirling through the foot-high, windblown grasses of the plateau.
A gray cone of stones and dirt appeared. At about one-hundred-feet tall, it was the dominant feature of the landscape before me, and it would make the perfect point from which to view San Jacinto. I stepped through the indistinct grass path without paying much attention until I saw a sign I’d never seen before. A hundred yards beyond the cone, in that row of trees at the far edge of the plateau, the sign read “West Trail.” I walked ahead to the high, conical pile, but when I got there, I was still confused by the sign. I walked past the cone and craned my neck left to search for the West Trail sign on the line of trees but saw nothing. I gave up the search for the black and white letters, walked back to the cone-shaped pile, and took my first steps up.
I had never mounted this cone to see Warren View, and having never seen this formation before, the steep angle of incline surprised me. Loose stones and dirt rolled out from under the pressure of my boots. Then my cell phone rang. A co-worker. I watched my step and let the call go to voicemail. Treading with care on the unstable ground, I reached a spot where two grey rocks stuck from the hillside, making a chair. The last few steps made me feel the mid-day heat more than the previous two miles. I took the pack from my back and squeezed my hips into the one-foot-wide “chair,” caught my breath, and sat to admire the Palm Desert expanse, snow-capped San Jacinto Peak, and the jade-green Coachella Valley._
I pulled my lunch out from the outer pocket of my pack. I sat down in the crevice with relief. I sprinkled salt on the fresh red and yellow tomato and sunk my jaws in. The peanut butter on fresh baked bread was next. I licked the excess off the crusts and savored each bite of the sandwich. I took a long sip, nearly emptying the camelback.
A rock tumbled down the cone. My seat was precariously high on a peak under the cerulean sky, across from the white crown of San Jacinto. Ending my reverie, awake to the heat, I stood up and shuffled around, settling the orange pack on my back as pebbles slipped from under my feet. After establishing my balance, I placed each step carefully, feeling for loose rocks under my boots, and threaded my way down the cone to the level plane of short grasses.
Safely off the rocky cone, I walked to the sandy hint of trail that I had taken across the plateau. I followed it through yellowed clumps of grass on a gradual downhill curve, expecting to reach the forest of pines and large boulders below. But after a hundred yards or so, I found myself amidst multiple short paths circling the grass, but I couldn’t see a clear trail weaving through. I scanned the ground for a trail, but found nothing. I needed a marker in the landscape. My throat was itchy; the air had heated up. The sweatband on my hat was damp and dripped on my forehead. I needed to find the shade of the woods and then down and out of Black Rock Canyon, but there were no footprints of any kind, not even my own.
As I searched for prints, I remembered the last circuit I had made to Warren View. My anxiety level increased as I recalled I had followed a bunch of locals all the way, after one had stuck his head out from the water tanks at the beginning of the hike and offered to take me on a route to the local view of Warren Peak. I remembered that hike with the mismatched group of eight, some in shorts and sneakers, others in hiking gear. The recollection brought my eyes to the boulders rising from the yellow grass a few hundred yards away, where they had led me. I hoped to find footprints at their outlook. I crossed the plateau to the circle of rocks where I had sat with that raucous bunch.
Searching the sands in front of the boulders for footprints, I recalled the young military vet in a camouflage jacket yelling, “Hey, you faggots, can’t you find the trail? You guys are locals, right?” I remembered us on vague grass paths, him calling out repeatedly, “No, not over there, that goes nowhere.” Or, “Come on, I don’t want to tell your mamma I left you at Warren View.” With his words echoing in my mind, I searched the rock circle for prints, hoping some locals like those guys had just been there. I would then follow the tracks through the woods to the yellow hills, the dried riverbed, and my car.
There was not a single mark on the dry ground. It was hotter than it had been when I started at noon. I had no more water. I paced back and forth, searching the ground for footprints in a fifty-yard arc between the spot where I lost the trail and the rock circle of the locals. Nothing!
I thought that if I found the “West Trail” sign, it might be a reckoning point. From there, I would retrace my steps to the water bottles in my trunk, and head to the motel, but between the rocky conical hill and inside the row of green firs that lined the edge of the plateau, there was no sign. The sun continued to burn. Grasses, prickly pear cactus, and creosote bushes, nothing else. My mouth itched, and I was now desperate to find my way back.
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