Deep Creek

By popular request, I have been asked to revive this oldie but goodie about a research trip I took at the very beginning of my dissertation project. Enjoy!

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If you had asked me a week before whether I would be alone, perched precariously on a tiny rock outcrop halfway up a mountain in the middle of the high desert while frantically shitting my guts out, I would have ordered whatever you were having. But here I was, taking the short break to rethink the many life decisions that had led me to this point. Foremost among these was whether other historians find themselves doing their jobs like this or if it is just me. I also wished I had eaten less dried chili mango. Not only had this undoubtedly contributed to my current predicament, but the shit was now a particularly disconcerting shade of Cheeto-orange. Sometimes I would take a break from regretting my past to regret my future. If I couldn’t make it back to my car before nightfall, would I have to sleep out here? What if a fucking mountain lion ate me? Ugh. 

The idea for this excursion started out innocently enough. It was my first day in the LA area for my summer archival trip, and I’d stopped in the San Bernardino Mountains, in Big Bear, for a couple of nights. Some of my scientists had places in nearby Lake Arrowhead where they would take their friends for LSD experiments and I wanted to see the area so I could write about it better. At any rate, when the proprietor of the place I was staying heard what I was working on, he suggested that I should hike down to some natural hot springs at the base of the mountains where a bunch of old timer hippies hung out. “Hell, as far as I know they practically live there,” Sarge told me. He wasn’t sure exactly how to get there, but it was called Deep Creek, and he said I’d have to hike in for two or three miles to get to it. But if I was looking for old hippies to tell me stories about the old days and wanted someone to offer me acid, that was the place to do it. “Oh, I almost forgot. I think they mostly hang out down there naked, so if that bugs you, heads up.” This was like a cherry on top of what already sounded like an awesome research adventure. For science, of course. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But work does what work does, and I went the next two months without making it down to Deep Creek. And before I knew it there was only a week left before I had to start heading back. So I sucked it up and decided to go. Now, let me just say that as much as I would like to fancy myself capable of becoming a hardy outdoor soul, I have done very little in practice to make that a reality. So the first shit decision I was confronted with was how to get there. I found three possible treks in. One, a fairly easy and short route coming in from the north, but poorly marked. The second, a well-marked and not particularly difficult hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from the west, but weighing in at 6 miles one way. The third, from the south, a fairly short 2 mile hike, well marked, but with an especially steep section where the trail drops 800 feet in a quarter of a mile as you come down a mountain. I crossed one off the list right away. Having wandered off trails in the past, I didn’t trust myself not to get lost, especially since I’d decided to go on a Monday when I wouldn’t have to contend with the weekend crowd. Despite the fact that they would be beer guzzling teenagers looking to party, they would have at least afforded a knowledgeable lead. In the end, I picked route three. The weather had been hot and I wasn’t terribly in the mood to walk two to three hours in each direction. So I slammed a gallon of water, a map, and food into my bag along with some sunscreen and set off for Deep Creek.