Going down the back side

Got up this morning knowing we had a job to do, as Meri and I prepared to head off the mountain for a few days. We were going to drive to her folk's house for the weekend. Use her mom's washer, go to the market there for food supplies, sit around and chat some, a trip we've made every month or so. Right here, an hour away down the mountain we have our regular stores and a laundry. But every month or so we make the longer drive to Los Angeles. Sometime to pick up mechanical parts I might need, or just run our usual errands and to visit with her folks, Tom and Lulu. There is a parts store down there in L.A. with any mechanical part ever made; that's Los Angeles for you.

First we'll had our morning coffee, talked over the plans. We won't leave until that afternoon. For getting ready Meri did the inside work: food, lists and straightening up, packing our clothes. She knows that stuff well. I cleaned up outside and made sure all the tools were locked away. Tools have to be stored or hung in their places. I checked the barn again, locked it up, brought in firewood to keep the pile stacked so we'll have it ready for the cook stove when we get back.

While I worked that morning it occurred to me someone talked about the back way off the mountain, but no one goes that way. I thought of trying that way a couple of times. Al said the mountain road out front, the one we come up on, goes over and down the back side of the mountain. You can go to L.A. that way. I could try that way down. Al is the one I need to talk to.

I drove five minutes over to his cabin. Al has been on the mountain longer than anyone. He knows his way around. I found him out front of his cabin by his small cook fire.

"Well, Jackson ... look what the cat dragged in...or over." He chuckled.

We greeted each other, did the usual small talk, Jerry Atkins was there picking up some fire wood to help Al out, and when Al asked what brought me over this morning I told him I thought about going down the back way, and asked what he thought about that. That got him talking.

"It's possible, but no one goes that way," Al said.

"Why not? Is it safe? Is the road in good condition?" I broke a twig and threw it in his half of a metal barrel where he had his fire.

"It's passable...the road is fine that way, the rangers are required to keep it open, but you're right, no one goes that way." I squinted and got ready to ask, and then he told me. "Because it takes longer that way, about forty minutes longer.  It isn't much, but it is longer. That's why we don't think about that road. It is an emergency road in case of fire on the mountain. Why waste your time?" He pulled out his matches to light his pipe.

 "Forty minutes?"

"Oh, I imagine, forty minutes or so, not much more." and he paused to look up at the waving pine in the cloudless blue sky. "forty minutes or so...not that bad." He lit his pipe and stared me down, waiting for my reaction.

"That's not too much to add on the trip down," I said. "An hour an fifteen minutes...not terrible."

"The road winds around some, it does that. If you're not in a hurry, that'll be just fine. Slower, that's all...you're not in a hurry now, Jackson...are you? Just scouting around over there?"

"Just to see what it looks like over there..on that side...thought I'd like to see it."

I shook my head yes when he offered m  coffee, he poured us each a coffee and we went through the talk bout the back road again. Yes, it's safe. That back way could be forty-five minutes longer, enough to keep people from going that way, up or down. I watched him puff his pipe, then asked him,"You've taken that way?"

"Oh, yeah...now it's been years ago." He said. "The road swings around a while on that side, but after it climbs over the peak it comes down the backside into Jawbone Canyon just as pretty as you please."

"I can get going toward Los Angeles without a problem?"

"Sure, you take it through Jawbone to Mojave like usual, Nobody wants to take the extra time getting down. or there's a way before Jawbone that goes straight, that might be a little quicker. I don't rightly remember...I don't know why you'd want to go down that way...unless it is curiosity." He smiled with his mischievous little kid smile.

"Well, I think I'll take it to see what that side looks like. Now, my truck would make it?"

"sure," he laughed, "It's a good road, not like that Hershey mine road, too steep. But it's a half hour more to go that way, that's why no one takes it. I don't know why you'd want to go that way, except to see it. Fewer trees. That side is dryer."

"Well, an hour longer isn't bad, and there is different country to see." I said.

"Well, that there would. Of course it's dryer over there...the sunny side."

"The south side."

He nodded, sucked on his pipe and then looked at his pipe and shook it. "It's longer," he laughed, "but it'll get you down the other side."


"How high is it? I heard it is about ten thousand feet." I was giving him the questions. He could give the answers that no one else could. "I don't want to get my truck in trouble..."

"I couldn't say how high ... it's doable. Nine or ten ... not that high. Nine thousand maybe. A little higher than here. That's not a problem. The road is in good shape, just longer." He screwed his face up. "Why would anybody want to go that way when it's longer?" he asked.

"Just to take a look."

He chuckled and shook his head. He understood that logic. None of us would be on this mountain if we didn't have curiosity about what's over that next hill. He took the coffee pot off the stove so it wouldn't burn up. There is so little traffic on the mountain we often go a week without anyone driving by. There is one road up the mountain. The road I want to take down on the other side obviously goes both ways, but it isn't marked down below. I've never seen it. It starts some where in the valley on the south side.

Al didn't know the elevation for that pass, but settled on a guess of eighty-five hundred feet. We were at sixty-four hundred now. two thousand more isn't significant and we had no snow this time of year. Al didn't think there would be a problem taking my truck over if I didn't mind taking the extra time to go over and down. I'd never been to the back side of the mountain, never heard anyone say they had, only Al. He said the road is longer but wasn't dangerous. Everyone always takes the Paiute mountain road, the same one, up and down. If you break down, someone would be along to help. The back road is unknown. There wouldn't be anyone on it to help if we had a problem. But Al saying I could make it was good enough for me.

I might have briefly wondered about the back road, or maybe I just came up with the idea the last couple days. That's the way down I decided to try. I wasn't in any hurry. Going down to do the wash and some shopping. We had a well and drew water up by the bucket, but had to go to town to use a washing machine.

I drove back to see how Meri was getting ready, she was set to go. I told her abougt talking to Al and said Meri we'd try going down the back way tonight. She liked the thought of adventure and said she wanted to see that side of the mountain. It was late afternoon and began to get dark when we started out. We decided not to delay our departure another day.  We were ready. For an evening meal Meri made sandwiches and packed another for each of us for later. So we had one to go for each of us along with the last two apples and a peach in case we needed more. She didn't do cooking and leave with the wood stove hot; that was fine. We had our dirty clothes bagged up, some simple repair tools.  I had a road kit...electrical tape, masking tape, and water. I carried a gallon in the back for the truck and a plastic bottle next to us up front to drink along the way. I started the truck,  turned left going out of the drive this time...that felt a little strange.

We still had at least an hour's light before it got dark, so we could see the surrounding area as I climbed, slowly at first. The first few miles I knew, I'd driven before. I knew the road a mile or so beyond our cabin. Soon I was beyond familiar road and the sun was going down.

Squatters were people who built or occupied cabins on National Forest land. Now the Forest Service began cracking down. I passed one of the squatter cabins that the rangers had taken action against. After giving warning and got the people out, they went in with chain saws and got rid of the cabin. I saw an old beauty someone had restored, I'd seen it before. Now the rangers had been there with their chain saws and cut the cabin in two. A beauty of a cabin, in better shape and construction that anything we'd seen on the mountain. The rangers used chain saws and literally cut the cabin in two - horizontally, then pushed it in on itself. The nicest cabin I'd ever seen, now destroyed. It hurt me to see it now. Somebody did a lot of work building a cabin back in the woods where no one could find it, then time passed, other people moved in, fixed it up and neglected to get the legal documents. The Forestry Service found them living there, chased the out and tore the cacin down. Too bad the rangers couldn't have used the cabin for themselves.

As we drove along I drove the turning roads up the forest covered hills through so many trees I didn't have a clear look at the sky. Al was right, the road was good. I got nearly full dark before I had sky enough to see the first star. As I wound up the final hill thinking about whether it was a planet or a star. Venus is blue, Mars red. It sure looked bright. I thought it must be a planet and tried to use the color and position to figure if it was Venus or Mars. I hadn't studied my stars for a while, I used to know what was out there by the time of the year. I continued driving through the forest and up as it got darker, the lone star still ahead of me. It was the only one out that I saw. I wound through the trees and couldn't tell my direction well. Generally we were headed South.

Continuing the climb, and with trees farther apart allowing for more room to see the sky, a few other stars came into view. Stars for sure, smaller than the first one I saw, that must be a planet. About then I broke out of the trees and crossed a longer flat area, the top of the mountain. At the same time the planet I'd been watching for a half hour began to move. No doubt. It began to move.

I slowed the car. It wasn't an illusion, the bright planet was moving to the left, heading east. It got us both excited. I'd been keeping an eye on it for twenty minutes, maybe a half hour as I drove, and now it began to move. Meri saw it too. It wasn't an illusion, it was moving. I stopped the car for a better look.

"I got to see this," I said out loud as I stopped and got out of the truck. An unsettling idea, as now the planet moved in a large triangle formation: first left, then up, down right, left, then up again. I was calling out the position changes, "left, up, right" ... about a full second for each new position. "This is crazy." How did this come about? It's moving. "Do you see it?"

"Of course I do. Sure...it's moving."

It repeated triangular movements several times, maybe three or six rotations of the cycle. I stood outside, one hand on the truck, watching the starlight as it made these moves, repeating the same triangular motion, left, up, down right, left and up again. I didn't imagine this.

I stood by the truck mouth open. Shaking my head, following the star, watching the light moving. The bright star definitely making triangles in the sky. Holding my arm out, the triangle seemed about as large as my hand at arms length, but the light seemed way up in the sky where a star should be.

Then that bright star light snapped out. I was out of breath from excitement, out of words. I waited a few seconds, stood there, watching. Before disappointment could settle in the light snapped back on, bright and still. There wasn't a sound in the forest. There were other stars scattered around, they looked smaller. The bright star couldn't go away like that. After maybe three seconds the bright star came on again in the same place, right where it was. Now it began moving to the left, easterly. Slowly at first for a second or two, about the distance of the bottom of the triangle.

Then suddenly picked up speed and shot like a bullet, no, like an arrow, that's a better way to describe it, because it didn't disappear, it remained visible. I saw it go and followed it with my eyes. I had an unobstructed view to the East. The ball of light shot off to the East like an arrow and kept going out, straight out. In a blur, straight out over the Mojave desert ... out and farther and out of sight.

It was three or four good seconds and that star light turned to a dot out of sight. I saw it go and it left us both stunned. What had we seen? It was here, right up above. We had watched it for a half hour or more, saw it start making large triangles. The light went out. Come back on. Move slowly a short ways and turn into arrow speed as it shot straight, out across the Mojave.

When I calmed down, looked around and confirmed we were still alone, I got back in the car, rolled up the windows and locked the doors, then began our way down the mountain, the back way, toward Jawbone Canyon, Mojave and Los Angeles. Of course I talked about the event with a few friends, but what we saw made no sense. And we saw it. That's it. Driving down, all the way I kept looking back for the star to return.

                                                                       -30-