Glen Camp

Glen Camp
4.9 Miles
2.75 Hours
Start: Five Brooks Trailhead
End: Glen Camp
Includes: Five Brooks Trailhead, Stewart Trail, Greenpicker Trail, Glen Camp Loop Trail, Glen Camp

Hike 47
November 17, 2013
Eight of Pentacles Production

I started this hike on a Sunday morning. I was packed-up and ready for a three-night camping trip to various camp sites around the Point Reyes peninsula. My first stop would be Glen Camp. I was nearing the end of my year and needed to get to some of the trails deepest in the park. The best way to do it was to camp.

I was pretty excited to have pulled it off. I got a lot of help from my friend Piro who was a backpack instructor in the past. She gave me great advice and loaned me some of her gear. I was headed out alone. This was my Vision Quest of sorts, being so close to completion of my project.

Optimism for the days ahead floated on puffy white clouds in the blue sky. I started from Five Brooks Trailhead toward Stewart Trail.

Nature laid out a visual feast on Greenpicker Trail. I grazed along stopping to savor and record elements of the bounty.

Mushrooms poked like tips of the mycelial iceberg spreading beneath the surface of the forest floor.

I continued on Greenpicker Trail over Fir Top enjoying the graceful draping of mossy oaks.

I turned on the Glen Camp Loop Trail, which is really a road which runs right down into Glen Camp. I must say, I found Glen Camp a little funky. It rests at the bottom of a bowl. The campsites appeared to be nearly on top of each other, clustered around the bathrooms.

I was looking for number 7. I discovered it, after some exploring, on the second tier of sites, radiating from a trail running behind the main camp area. I was happy to drop my pack on the picnic bench and stretch for a moment before erecting my new tent!

It became a Shangri-la once I inflated the Thermarest and rolled out the billowy, down bag.

I was the only camper. It was cold in the bottom of the bowl. I boiled water on my tiny backpackers stove, used it to reconstitute some dehydrated meaty chili, ate, cleaned up and took a stroll around the camp.

At dusk I gladly entered my tent for a long night of meditative silence. Settling into my bag, a hair-raising scream about fifty yards to the left put me on alert; I froze like spotted prey. Then, another scream! This time a little closer. Seconds later I heard a gentle, "boop" right outside my tent followed by a point-blank scream hitting my head, entering my right ear and resonating to my core. How exhilarating! I felt I was in danger! My body was in high alert! What the hell was that? I couldn't see through the rain fly.

I waited, holding my breath, visions of a mountain lion pouncing on my tent, shredding it to bits. As my mind played this out, I realized it was silly. A mountain lion goes after live prey, something running through the field, not packaged food.

I lie down silently, eyes to the ceiling. Eventually my breathing returned to normal and I relaxed. The animal did return a few more times to scream around the camp, but never again so close. In the silence of my solitude, I became aware of the planes flying overhead, their waves of sonic pressure scattering the peace of the forest from top to bottom.

I thought about all the tussle over a lovely little oyster farm existing in this wilderness. What about the planes? Really, it is a disgrace we haven't insisted they reroute on their way to SFO. We are shaking our beloved wilderness to the core on regularly scheduled intervals. Talk about an elephant in the room.

The eight of pentacles shows a guy hard at work making money. He is in the flow of his work. This is a card of production. It is a wonderful experience to be in the flow. It means we have mastered our craft and it is just challenging enough to keep us engaged.

When humans produce, they do so on a human scale. We are able to respond to the feedback loop which tells us when what we have produced will fulfill our need. With machines, there is no feedback loop. A human switches on the machine and walks away. The machine is left to produce, without a fail-safe mechanism which signals it to shut down because it is producing beyond the needs of the initiator. If the human running the machine does not perceive when the production of the machine fulfills his or her need, the system becomes destructive.

When we put the vague idea of "making money" as a need, we overproduce. To overproduce is to destroy. To streamline production, we must identify the need we have, determine what will fulfill it and proceed in a means which adheres to our values. We must be sure that what we produce is fulfilling our needs beyond the vague notion of making money. Every action we take has consequences. The more we take responsibility for the consequences, the more powerful we become as conscious creators of the world.