The land of women

A hiking trip, an election, and a fury

You didn’t miss Wednesday’s newsletter — I simply did not have it in me to write something quippy about the election news alongside a handful of local road closures and events. The Dispatch will return as scheduled next Wednesday, and will include updates on election results for local measures and races. I started The Dispatch in 2021 to help provide information to the Morongo Basin which, at the time, was as much a news desert as an ecological one. In the intervening years, several other hyperlocal publications have cropped up, and I’ve been thrilled to see the reception they have all received from our community. The Dispatch is run by one person and has never ventured into a subscription or pay-for-access model — I write two newsletters for free each week. As such, I am free of the corporate journalistic model of unwavering objectivity, and endorsed Kamala Harris in this year’s Presidential election. I firmly believe in the rights and safety for all people, in the foundation of science and education, in the ability of access to life-saving health care. If you feel compelled to argue otherwise with me or in the comments of The Dispatch, please feel free to unsubscribe.

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Today’s accompanying tune: “I Hate it Here” by Taylor Swift

I looked up for a moment only, so rocky was the trail as to demand nearly the entirety of my attention. The canyon walls soared around us, consuming the vistas of rolling hills and magnificent buttes we had driven through before we began our descent. Artifacts of August’s flash flood lingered — uprooted and twisted trees with their haunting silhouettes, fresh cracks of sandstone that had succumbed to gravity now freestanding boulders several stories tall with their foreboding power. Each glimpse, a single moment, a single snapshot, of the hours spent hiking deeper into the canyon, enough to break the monotony of the rocky, washy trail we were following. Each still life alive with the promise of what was yet to come, what we hadn’t yet experienced, what we didn’t know was coming. And with each glance, it became more and more apparent — this trail that exclusively serves a single location, a trail only accessible via permit and strenuous backpacking, was traveled almost exclusively by women.

Women walked with heavy packs in groups of two, three, four, five, six, seven. They walked alone, some with headphones and others fully in tune with their surroundings. Some were carrying those 50-liter packs for the first time, others were well worn by trails before. They laughed and smiled in the sun; they glowed even brighter once the rain began, the dour weather never dampening their parade. They picked camp spots along the creek, divided up camp chores, and made themselves a home at the bottom of a canyon for a few nights. They chatted quietly with their neighbors and stared at the stars once the sun sank beyond the canyon walls. They forded streams, descended slick ladders, braved the cool rush of the waterfalls’ spray to take in its magic. They trekked further still, towards the point where the blue waters merged gracefully with the muddied waters deeper still in the canyon. They swam, they played, they huddled together in patches of sun seeking warmth on cool mornings. They guided others towards lesser known routes, the off-the-beaten-path vistas, the composting toilets. And when the time came, they again hoisted their packs and began the grueling journey out of the canyon, buoyed by their days spent alongside the creek with each other.

Even now, nearly a week later, I couldn’t tell you why this trail appealed mostly to women. I’ve hiked, camped, rock climbed, and backpacked enough to know how unusual my experience was — I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve been part of a gender majority while recreating in the outdoors as a cis woman. Oftentimes, the women I come across are recreating solo, as am I. Very rarely have I encountered groups, let alone large groups, made up entirely of other women. Yet here I was at the bottom of a sacred canyon in Arizona, smiling and nodding at more women than I ever had in my life. I recommended camp shoes and reusable pee cloths; I received recommendations for dehydrated meals and water shoes. It was, to be frank, the closest I’ve ever come to recreating the camaraderie of a bar bathroom in the outdoors.

Maybe this hike seemed more approachable to folks uncomfortable venturing deeper into the wilderness, since the campground is clearly marked and serviced with composting toilets and potable water, opening the door for people that traditionally felt excluded or unwelcome in other terrain. Maybe the fact that this trip required nearly a year of planning thanks to the permit system in place made it so that folks used to organizing and juggling multiple tasks were more prepared for the undertaking before they even arrived. Maybe that the draw, the purpose of the trip, is primarily beauty over conquest. Maybe the slow movement of the creek, the light on the canyon walls, the physical challenge were simply part of an appealing way to spend a weekend. Maybe a friend recommended it, invited them, encouraged them to push beyond their comfort zone, supported them. Maybe because, together, we felt safe and strong, capable and confident. Maybe because a chorus of women sat at the top of the ascent out of the canyon, cheering on other women they had never met because they, too, had done it. Because we could, so we did.

We drove out of the parking lot on Sunday afternoon, winding our way back to Southern California with an hour less of daylight. The election was only days away, but the buoyant triumph from the weekend seemed sunk in the canyon, left to be tended by the women who remained. An ominous discomfort settled in where just days before had been assured confidence. We could, but would we?

As the results rolled in on Tuesday night, I thought about the women we passed as we hiked out of the canyon as they were only just beginning the journey. The permits allow for three nights of camping, meaning they would be hiking out Wednesday morning. Cell phone and internet service is extremely limited. They wouldn’t know until it was too late. I imagined how they would react when they found out, how they might feel about the outcome. How the calm and safety of the trip, so welcoming to a group of people so unbearably but reasonably cautious and aware, could be wiped out in an instant. How instead of the slow building dread over the course of an evening, they’d be hit with it in a rush, the tsunami threatening to wash them back down the canyon and out to sea. How a friend or family member had to send a text that wouldn’t go through, how they went to sleep under the stars on Tuesday full of nothing but contentment and a bit of sweet exhaustion found only at the end of a strenuous but fulfilling day. How they woke up in a different country, a different universe, without knowing it, on Wednesday morning. How, statistically, some of them — almost entirely White women — celebrated, while the rest mourned. How the realization sank in that, no matter how strong, how accomplished, how confident, they, too, would never be enough.

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I’ve written before about unlearning the misogyny steeped so thoroughly in my family — how my mother would point and sneer and judge the women around her, telling me both consciously and not that women were never to be trusted, never to be liked, never to be venerated. That she preferred to socialize with men, that she considered herself a guys’ girl that, unfortunately, was given a daughter with which she only sought to sow her seeds of discontent. That she believed women who worked were terrible mothers, that education wasn’t important for a woman that should be focused more on the disciplines of the home. That, by going to college, I would hopefully find a husband — the degree was secondary. She mocked pop stars and celebrities. She criticized cashiers and waitresses and aunts and cousins. She attempted to turn me against my female friends; she policed what I wore; she dictated which hobbies she considered acceptable. She sought acceptance from my brother and my father, my uncles, her brothers. And for most of my young life, I followed her lead. As the only female role model I really had, her perspective was something I simply accepted and replicated. It was the air I breathed and the world in which I lived.

Unlearning that is a process, one full of missteps and mistakes and commitments to do better. To be better. To be a girls’ girl, one that listens to Taylor Swift and likes to dress up and refuses to judge other people for any perceived femininity. It is learning that being feminine is one of the strongest things any of us can be, regardless of what the rest of the world wants to tell us. It is also learning the brutal truth that so many people, other women included, simply hate women for being women.

Many other writers have made far more eloquent an argument about what happened on Tuesday — how so much of it can be traced back to a collective anger, distrust, and hatred of women. That a woman losing the presidency once was a gut punch but a second woman losing the presidency is nothing short of fuse-lighting infuriating. That more than half the country is willing, if not motivated by, women’s loss of rights. That more than half the country thinks like my mother, that letting women become strong, become independent, become human, was a mistake that must be corrected. That public spaces should be openly hostile to all marginalized people, women included but not exclusively. That, if more than half the country had their way, every woman I saw during my weekend in the canyon — strong, confident, capable women — would instead be chained to a life she never asked for. That we could never venture into the canyon in the first place. That we were never worthy of being there in the first place.

Like my mother, that half of this country underestimates us, our strength, our resilience, our determination, our capacity for empathy, our commitment to a grudge. We do not owe forgiveness, do not owe politeness. We do not owe them anything. We owe ourselves the support, the encouragement, the strength of knowing they will never have what we have. They are scared of exactly that. They are scared that we know we can hike out of the canyon, we can see the sky above us and heave the heavy packs up and up and up while other women shout their support of our labor. They will never know the camaraderie, never know the joy, never know the community. What a sad, sorry life that is.

Here’s to the girls’ girls, and the girls’ girls only.

- Megan