The Continental Divide Trail: Does it rain in the Great Basin?

Rain and Aristotle’s Entertainment

«It is characteristic of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.»
– Aristotle

Kansas is flatter than a pancake. The next time you see a pancake, look closely and you will see that it has a slightly domed shape. Now, you can’t go to IHOP and order a Kansas to compare it, but luckily in 2003 the Annals of improbable investigations published the test.

We had heard that Basin was flat and I expected it to be similar to my childhood home, where the only thing breaking a skyline full of millet and corn is the humble Wichita skyline. But there were hills there, all brown and dull green, with their shadows of bushes and sage at five in the afternoon. We climbed one of those hills and found a lone wagon. It was shaped with romance and nostalgia, like a gypsy or pilgrim cart made of modern metals and rubber tires. Gas cans and tarps were outside the small cabin on wheels, and in the distance we heard the rumble of a four-wheeler. Probably the resident wagon patrolling his flock, a sheep herder like the men of Brokeback Mountain, with or without a love story. I was expecting a love story, but with a much happier ending.

As we rounded the bend we came across the sheep and some guard dogs that were barking incessantly. We had read about these dogs on FarOut, where dog-wary hikers had warned about them. One look and I knew these dogs were harmless as long as I didn’t mess with their pack, but not everyone knows non-human body language. It’s a rare talent that I’m proud of and can’t take any credit for; I don’t remember learning it. I can just take a look at an animal and get the vibe. Maybe I’m an empath like Banana Runts, and in a few decades I’ll be able to have full conversations with cougars. Cross your fingers for me.

Between the short hills the terrain was flat, but always, near or far, the outlines of hills were visible, some large and steep enough to be called small mountains.

We hiked, we camped, we woke up. The sky was on fire. Clouds that writhe with color and texture as if painted by Monet himself. I was enjoying it horizontally, still curled up in my quilt.

«Zen, come out and see.» He could see the blurry outline of Ice Cream through the thin dyneema. It was spinning slowly, as if the Gods of Heaven were spinning it like a street skewer.

I stayed in my bag, but stuck my head out the door like a shy caterpillar. In fact, the fire from heaven was everywhere. «Beautiful.»

«I think this is one of my favorite things so far,» Ice Cream said, still turning around. «There’s nothing. No houses, no barns. Just a fence, the road and the sky.»

I went out and spun with her, seeing what she was seeing, feeling what she was feeling. Satisfied solitude, nostalgia for a place we had never been and a time that had not yet arrived, open spaces surrounded by hills and covered in ever-changing clouds.

Now, in the west, the light was changing and the fire was weakening to the soft blue glow of dawn. I started packing my bags. Ice Cream joined shortly after and soon we were moving. We passed some of the Black Angus beef cows that seem to dominate the sides of the trails from southern Arizona to northern Montana. «Hello babies!» Ice Cream I would call them. «You are so beautiful.» The cows stared back, their tiny clusters of brain cells tuned to a potential threat. Then, once we were a few meters away, they would finally run, turn around and look again, flapping their ears.

The day became grayer. Thunder rumbled and here and there on the horizon we saw lightning strike. The rain began to fall. We put on our rain ponchos and took out our umbrellas. Then it started to hail. The size of a pea or a dime, as the Wichita meteorologist would have said. We would consider it big enough to hurt and small enough not to hurt. Most of the hail bounced off our umbrellas, but for a minute or two the wind picked up and sent the stones flying into our legs. We crouched down, pointed our umbrellas at the wind, and waited for it to die down. Just as we were getting up Animal Cracker appeared.

«Hey guys! I was wondering where you were.» She handed him a purple hat that said vegas along the front.

«Hey, my hat!» The ice cream lit up. «I didn’t even know I lost it!» Animal Cracker handed him the hat and Ice Cream squeezed it before stuffing it under his poncho. We had gotten married in Las Vegas and the hat was a bit symbolic. The rain continued to fall and small rivers ran over the clay soil of the path, sometimes over our shoes.

Animal Cracker also had an umbrella, and we all huddled against a shield wall and shouted to talk under the hail. We just caught up amicably until the hail stopped as suddenly as it started.

We walked together for a while and Animal Cracker gave us some Trail vitamins before he accelerated to his usual speed and moved ahead of us. I saved the vitamins for the right day, a day without rain or mud or possible lightning or other stressors.

It rained intermittently for the next few days. We would take our lunch breaks between shifting rain showers and pitch our tent when the skies cleared. One day, in a particularly mountainous section, it rained very hard and the mud started. Ice Cream and I had flashbacks to the Death Mud at the AZT, but this mud wasn’t that bad. It stuck to our shoes in cakes, but came off before it weighed ten pounds. Even so, we slipped with every step and had to lift our clod-laden feet high to walk.

As a reward for our suffering, the rain stopped before sunset and after cresting a hill we found a place full of gravel and mud to camp. We settled in for the night and watched the storms roll through the valleys below. Rainbows sprouted like mushrooms from the sky. In one direction, a typical rainbow band, but in another, something I had never seen before. The rainbow formed a speck on the horizon, like a frozen, multicolored northern lights. Again the low sun burned the sky, this time in the west, and dyed the valleys, previously dull and brown, pink, or covered them with the shadow of the mountains. In the distance, in the distance, smoke billowed from the chimney of an otherwise motionless farmhouse in the middle of a group of buildings.

When we woke up, we saw a hiker coming from far behind. They were Ya’ll, who had left us at a water source days ago. Somehow we had gotten over it. We spent the morning together. We tried to speed up for him and he slowed down for us. Both big podcast listeners, he and Ice Cream spoke with Joe Rogan and Duncan Trussell, while he and I talked about broader socio-political issues.

Everyone and I fell into deep waters: the kind of conversation two people have when they realize they can think out loud without being categorized and dismissed. We talked about the modern bond: how discourse has become binary: ally or enemy, right or wrong, no middle ground allowed. The irony struck us both: in an age that celebrates complexity and rejects simple categories, moral thinking has somehow become more rigid, more binary, than ever. We talk about trying to act with love while thinking critically, about being kind to people while questioning ideas, about the exhaustion of walking a tightrope where one misstep means you’re the bad guy.

It was a relief. Not because we solved anything, but because we were not alone in it.

Then again lighter topics. Trail talk. Everyone was like, «Hey guys, I think I’m going to try a twenty-four hour challenge. Try to finish on Rawlins at the end.»

«Have you ever made one?» Ice Cream asked.

He shook his head, «No. This is my triple crown and I’ve never had it. I want to try it and find out that this is the place.» He gestured toward the relatively flat and easy path, or dirt road, as it was now.

He laid out his plan and we nodded in support. When we got to the water source where I wanted to stop and sleep until 7 pm, we opted to fill their water with our own. The pond was absolute shit and the water was low. We were going to keep moving and the next water was just ten miles ahead. Ice Cream and I are water snobs and would rather carry five or six liters than carry light and allow watery cow shit to pass through our filters or our guts. They’ll say, «Thanks guys! Are you sure? I don’t want to drink your water if you need it. I can drink the water from this pond.»

“I know you can,” I said. «But you don’t want to and I don’t want you to. Consider this our magic trail for your 24 hour challenge. Like Ice Cream said, the next good water will be here soon and we’ll still have enough to get there.»

We wish them luck, bump fists, and move on. The rest of the day was practically clear until evening. Just after throwing the sage, the wind picked up and it started to rain again. The tent shook and fluttered, and the rain began to fall hard.

I said, «God, I’m glad this started after we were established.»

Ice Cream nodded. «Yes. I hope everyone is okay. He said he would start at seven.»

I looked at my watch. It was around seven thirty.

The storm raged. Everyone was out there, starting their twenty-four hour effort. We will find out tomorrow if he succeeded or if the Basin had other plans.

Unless I am given express permission to use them, all names and path names in my articles have been changed. Any resemblance to real people is a coincidence. If you like my writing, feel free to subscribe or buy me a coffee using the Suggest the Author button below.