Novelist Paul Lynch identifies a common complaint about western males in writing about a beleaguered husband’s desperate troubles, and his wife’s response in Prophet Song.

She is:

“Thinking how of late he wants to be alone, in the end, all men seek the same isolation.” (page 24)

Pondering those words while hiking steadily along the Lower Manzana Creek Trail, I was mindful of the recent discussions about loneliness, male depression and rising deaths of despair in this country (30W13 is visible in the lead photo).

After the stimulating 2015 book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, greater attention went to the plight of “old white baby-boomers” who weren’t living as long, or as well, as other demographic groups in our society.

While despair and depression run rampant in many groups, older anglo males seem to have succumbed most to the deaths of despair, and those men also suffered from the tragic opioid epidemic, alcoholism, liver disease and just hopelessness.

Since this backcountry jaunt would cover nine miles (there and back alongside the gurgling Manzana), and we set a lazy pace, it was obvious my two friends and I had at least seven hours to mull over another scary statistic from post-modern United States.

I reckon I’m an aging  silverback myself, and while still clambering about in the San Rafael, I’m concerned about the old guys.

Mid-January proffered splendid weather as we arrived at the (free parking) trailhead adjacent to Nira Camp. We parked at 7:30 a.m., just after sunrise, while the nearby Manzana roared like Niagara Falls.

It was 34 degrees, there were clear skies and ice gleamed on the single car parked at the trailhead. Yet, we knew it would warm up to at least 60 degrees by noon, and later we would have to strip off some clothing.

For example, I wore long johns since my ancient legs hate the cold, as well as a windbreaker and gloves; my 8-pound fanny pack held food and extra gear.

Manzana Creek is smaller but still flows quite vigorously, and we were just able to ford some wider spots without submerging our boots.

Wild Pete counted six major crossings for the entire trip to Horseshoe, and I could manage them only by wielding my twin poles carefully and cleverly.

We ran into one guy named “Bill” making a solo backpacking trip, freely roaming the wilds, and he had a sunny disposition, and seemed ready to parley for a backcountry minute. He most likely was starved for conversation.

Bearded with a tanned face and a tight backpacking outfit, Bill was returning from at least a couple of nights outside in the San Rafael, with nary another human around. Campfires at campsites are permitted, so he had kept warm that way.

Bill had overnighted at Manzana Schoolhouse — nine miles one way from Nira — and visited a favorite campsite of mine over on the Sisquoc River at Water Canyon.

I asked him what pushed him into the high lonesome route since ‘Schoolhouse is way out there.

“Just had to get away from the noise, all the people, good folks but …,” he said.

“I hear ya,” I muttered almost inaudibly, looking down and hoping for more.

“In the solitude, I sometimes remember to remember who ‘I’ really am,” he said.

“Uh, OK.”

I pushed on around him, meeting his smile with one of my own.

So, the male “isolation” thing Lynch notes isn’t merely a physical solitude or urban hermit hideaway, but encompasses all of the people.

There are nearly 8 billion humans crowding Mother Earth right now, and damaging Her, too.

After reaching Potrero Canyon Camp in an easy 1½ miles, we forded the Manzana and remained close to the creek (not aiming for the Hurricane Deck’s sacred zone) and booked another 1½ miles to enticing Coldwater Camp.

There are three sites in the broad potrero at Coldwater, and water is near at hand.

We pressed on immediately for immaculate Horseshoe Bend Camp, yet another 1½ miles downstream, and mellow hiking.

As you enter the obvious “double meadow,” turn counter-intuitively right and curl back around to enter the campsite from the inland side, where you will see the famous Horseshoe sign.

Moving through two successive outlier camps, horse camps really, you enter the choice site right at the pool and with the circle of flat stones ringing the ice-can stove — we call it our own local Valhalla.

Note the creek bubbling in the background of both Horseshoe Bend camp photographs.

In Norse mythology, Valhalla was a majestic mead hall in Asgard, and Odin presided there, while Freya ruled at nearby Folkvangr.

I imagine her thegns and matriarchs seated on these stone surfaces, and Odin’s warriors like Loki and Thor lounging on such sturdy northern benches.

At this spectacular site, we met one other set of humans: three young men backpacking downstream toward historic Manzana Schoolhouse Camp, a full nine miles laden with 35 pounds of gear and food each.

As Mr. C quoted, there are more than 35 crossings on that creekside trek, and the more difficult fords are closer to Schoolhouse and the confluence of the Manzana and the Sisquoc rivers.

We chatted, and they were out to have fun and “get away from it all.” They planned four days and three nights for the 45-mile “Great Southern Loop,” as Dennis Gagnon deemed it, working out to almost 12 miles of backpacking per day.

I already knew, from our own slow going on the huge rocky “wash” portions, that nine or 10 miles would become very challenging.

The three young guys knew the trail names, wanted to overnight at Cliff Camp on the Sisquoc River for their second night out, and had the GPS numbers to locate the abandoned former camp.

They didn’t acknowledge any pessimism or despair at all, but heck, they were out on an outlandish adventure, and clearly they were good friends.

They didn’t know, or care, that U.S. life expectancy has been declining since 2014 after decades of progress, and it looks especially steep with older white males.

Bill and then this trio exuded friendly vibes and absolutely no signs of that again male need for some sort of isolation. In a mix of Franz Kafka, George Orwell and Cormac McCarthy, Lynch’s novel depicts the dehumanizing impacts of endless conflicts and cities, and how his fictional woman and her normal bourgeois Dublin neighbors are simply trying to survive what’s become a terrifying civil war.

There is plenty to get down about, and a male neighbor of the frightened wife moans:

“It’s plain as day what they’re up to, he says, they’re trying to chase us out like vermin, that’s what they’re doing, they want to exterminate us like rats, it’s just a matter of time and effort …” (pages 227-228)

Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize for this dystopian view of a decadent and demoralized West, and this novel came out before the Gaza bloodbaths, and after reading it I needed the backcountry and some loquacious buddies.

Hiking along an alluring creek with water-music in your ears for seven hours, with scant human conversation, supplies a little antidote to that picture of a world gone wild.

Many among us seek a respite, and where better than the banks of the sylvan Manzana? We all need our fantasies to keep going and wandering paths upon which to ponder the human comedy.

4-1-1

Driving: It’s 47 driving miles from Santa Barbara to the trailhead at the new bridge just east of Nira Camp. Take Highway 101 to Highway 154 to the Armour Ranch Road turnoff at the Santa Ynez River, to Happy Canyon Road. Drive to the very end.

The best map is Bryan Conant’s “San Rafael Wilderness Map and Trail Guide” (2015) and is available at Chaucer’s Books.

Books: Paul Lynch, Prophet Song, 2023 Booker Prize; Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2015).