What We Won’t Know
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There was a man on the top of Hope Pass. I presumed he belonged to the only other car at the trailhead parking lot.
My hiking partner and I had reached this pass after willing ourselves up and up a steep dirt trail and we saw three things: a cairn marking the top, astonishing views of the rocky peaks both behind and in front, and this guy wandering down from one of those peaks to the saddle where we stood.
He was unremarkable in all ways except being at the end of three miles of hard uphill hiking. The kind of trail where your calves wonder why they’re being called to duty so thoroughly. Where a step up onto a rock is a welcome relief from the sharply angled ground.
My hiking partner and I put on our layers because wind came from both directions to chill the heavy sweat on our skin and clothes. We took a few photos. At first, neither of us spoke to the man. There’s always a minute of hesitation as a woman on the trail, a wondering about which type of man he will be. But then he came over and asked if one of us would take his picture, remarking about being tired of selfies. This tripped my curious nerve, the one that wanted to know all the things about him. Solo guy on a less frequented trail on the summer solstice on Thursday who had taken too many selfies.
“All of us went up that hard trail, saw the world from an alpine bowl that held marmots and pikas and strawberry snow. We didn’t ask each other’s stories nor did we tell our own. ”
We saw him one more time on the way down. Exchanged “have a good day’s” as if I hadn’t held his phone in my hand. As if I hadn’t pressed my thumb where he pressed his hundreds of times before; to take those selfies, to look something up, to excitedly show a picture of something he had seen, to input a new contact number, or maybe as an escape from his surroundings.
We didn’t see him after that, only his car in the gravel lot bearing plates of the state we were standing in. I wondered what brought him there. Wondered if he wondered the same about me. All of us went up that hard trail, saw the world from an alpine bowl that held marmots and pikas and strawberry snow. We didn’t ask each other’s stories nor did we tell our own.
Our footprints met and matched and then were dissolved by the wind and rain and the soles of the feet of those who came after us. We won’t ever know anything of each other, other than the taking of a photo and the passing of bodies on a high mountain trail.
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