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Day of Letting Go
June 22, 2006It happened just before the meadow where the Boy Scouts were struck by lightning.
I let go.
I had been going at a fast clip again -- also known as a furious jog -- trying to make time and catch up to my trailmates.
The familiar gibbering panic was trying to invade my thoughts.
Finally, I stopped dead and looked out at the meadow. Sun glinted outside of the shade of the trees, and it was impossible not to relax looking out at the idyllic scene -- in spite of it's sad history.
I'd come so far from the city on vacation to kick back, do something different and recharge my batteries.
Instead, I'd spent just about every day battling through at least one episode of fear and panic, my feet rushing to keep up with my head.
I came to a decision.
Forget that.
No more going through the wilderness with a city dweller's mentality. Rush. Rush. Rush.
I was just done, done, done with that.
I slowed my feet to a decent, brisk walk, inhaled the fresh air and took the next daring step.
Posted by at 03:16 PM | Permalink
The Whitney Question
June 19, 2006An unspoken question was hanging in the air, becoming almost as solid as the rock underfoot.
Would the trailsnail try to summit Whitney?
I already knew the answer.
An easy day was before us. It was something called a cross-country day.
Apparently, this meant no pass sucking the life blood out of me.
It also meant going through increasingly woodsy scenery, a pleasant change from boulders and stark switchbacks.
Since I didn't have to work so hard, I had energy to reflect.
Surprisingly, I found that I was glad I'd come on the trip. At the ripe old age of 41, I'd proven to myself that I could do something completely brand new, physically demanding and independence requiring.
Not bad for a somewhat chunky lady. Indeed, I was the chunkiest lady I'd seen on the trail.
But it wasn't keeping me from doing what I wanted to do.
Plus, I actually liked it when I wasn't panicking or running across a valley, trying to beat the sun.
I felt better than I had in years when I wasn't inching along a switchback, wheezing for breath.
My trailmates were cool, and the thin mountain air was clearing my head.
As I kept up a good clip, I realized that I was doing something I wanted to do again.
Go figure.
I liked backpacking.
When we gathered for lunch beside a pleasant stream, Lon was liberally splashing himself with the ice cold mountain water.
What, I wondered, would it be like to be clean again?
Who cares? I was happy, High Sierra dirt under my fingernails and all.
I sat on a log and munched crackers and beef jerky.
A scraggly, skinny man was nearby. He began talking in a sort of monotone about being in the wilderness for something like 35 days. His mom was going to pick him up in 10 more or so.
His food stores were low. He'd been living on dried food that he'd fixed before he abandoned his life in Washington, D.C.
Things just got too wierd there, he said. He had to come out to the mountains to clear his head. He tried to carry 90 pounds in his pack because he was going to be out so long.
(He looked like he weighed 90 pounds.)
But it got too heavy. His body rebelled.
I couldn't quite imagine what that meant even though my body's rebellion had turned into longterm guerrilla warfare.
Dark shadows hung under his eyes. He could easily have passed for a homeless person who hadn't eaten for a week.
I tossed him an energy bar, and he caught it like a frog snapping up a fly.
When Lon and Christina appeared, he began the spiel all over again.
He got more energy bars for his trouble, and then he wandered away.
A few minutes later, we heard him by a stream, going into the spiel again. The other party of hikers tossed him food. He subsided and disappeared.
I wonder what that guy did next with his life, but I'll never know.
I'm pretty sure, though, that he's getting whatever he goes after, judging from the rain of energy bars that fell upon him that day.
Posted by at 11:04 AM | Permalink
Ahead of the Sun
June 16, 2006After we all made it down from Forrester Pass, Lon took a map out and showed us where we needed to be to make camp that night.
Before the day was over, I would find myself in a race against the sun.
Hiking alone had its good points.
For one thing, I didn't have to worry about keeping up with anyone. I've noticed that tall people rarely notice the short people scuttling to keep up with them.
But if the tall ones aren't around, problem solved.
So I was merrily hiking along. The sun was high in the sky. A few clouds scuded overhead, and the hiking was some of the easiest yet.
The only thing was, I couldn't really estimate how far it was to my evening destination at a campsite among some trees. Sure, I saw it on the map, but what good have maps ever done me?
OK, that's an overstatement.
I have, on occasion, been able to obtain some benefits from map reading. But among the mountains without familiar landmarks like Big Blue or the Attebury Grain Elevator or Kemp and Kell, it was a whole different story.
I just had to follow the trail and trust that there was a destination.
The sun started sinking lower, but it was still far above the peaks.
I'm not sure exactly when I noticed that it was slipping dangerously close to the mountains pricking the horizon.
But I am sure that when I did, I quickened my pace.
Soon I was in a full run, my backpack hammering against my backside.
I kept this up for about an hour and a half.
Yes, it's hard to believe, especially with nearly a year of soft city living since the trip, but I actually ran that long.
The sun sat on the peaks, glimmering a goodbye.
I gripped my trekking poles with white-knuckle intensity.
Heck, I wasn't even sure when the day would be over, much less when I was going to get there. I had a headlamp, but I never planned to use it for more than roaming around a campsite at night.
Twilight became more than a threat. It was happening, and I was still on the trail -- no trailmates in sight.
Trees began popping up trailside. I knew the campsite was in some trees.
Maybe I was getting close. I was so afraid that darkness would fall before I got there, that I didn't stop to use the bathroom (aka, go behind a rock.)
That didn't help relieve the tenseness of the situation.
I soldiered on for several more minutes. Then I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
There was Christina, no backpack but wearing her standard bandanna on her head.
Great. I was going crazy. It was a done deal. Maybe somebody would write a book about my "Into the Wild" experience when they found my body after I spent days gibbering in the wilderness before ...
You get the picture of my mental state.
But Christina was no mirage.
"Hey," she said.
That was all it took. The frustration of hours alone, trying to stay ahead of the sun, caught up with me.
"Where's the campsite!?!" I said.
She told me it was something like a mile away.
"What!" I leaned against a rock and let it out, "I have been by myself all day, trying to find this $%$%$ campsite. I didn't even know if I was going the right way, and I have to p**."
(I'm using an asterisk because the powers that be indicated disapproval when I sarcastically called someone a brainiac in a comment on a coworker's blog.)
Christina listened patiently while I held forth on all the wrongs supposedly visited upon me by fate, my own denseness for thinking I could do this, blah, blah, blah. Tears of frustration and anger rolled down my face all the while, both a humiliation and a relief.
Then she said something that made me realize that she, indeed, was a true friend:
"I'll wait here and watch your backpack if you want to go ahead and p**."
Later, she told me how much she enjoyed having me on the trip. I told her I wasn't sure why, considering when we were alone I railed and wept.
After I p**ed, she told me that she had started out when I didn't show up at the campsite and had been determined to keep walking until she met up with me -- however long it took.
How could I stay mad in the face of that?
I'd pictured my trailmates passing a bottle of tequila around while a boom box thundered some sort of trail rap into the trees and they laughed the hours away. Of course, that was ridiculous. For one thing, nobody had any tequila or a boom box.
Christina and I walked back to camp together, and by the time we got there, I had regained possession of my trailface. I greeted my other trailmates with determined good cheer.
Then I got into my sleeping bag and tent as soon as hiking etiquette would allow.
Posted by at 01:35 PM | Permalink
Rock 'N Roll
June 05, 2006Reaching the top of Forrester Pass was a triumph over altitude and relentless switchbacks.
But the way down had its own host of challenges.
The altitude of Forrester Pass is about 13,200, according to www.trailspace.com.
That's not bad for a girl from Wichita Falls -- altitude 946 feet, according to www.lone-star.net.
That day at the pass, I was feeling every foot of the 13,200 feet up there in the cold with bearded mountain dude talking cheerfully about his coming marathon hike.
After a too-short rest, my group started down the other side. The trail down was like none other I'd ever encountered or would again on the trip.
It was full of rocks, boulders, pebbles, etc.
My old hiking boots were letting the strain through the worn rubber on the bottom, plus I often had to hoist my 5-foot-2-inch frame up with my short legs, leveraging from boulder to boulder.
Awkward and scary don't even begin to describe things.
Sometimes I even had to jump from one rock to another, and I'm no boulder hopper.
Then there were the tiny pebbles that slid out from under me without notice.
Scraped knees were a price the way down demanded.
But the hardest part came at the very bottom.
Spotting my trailmates gave me new energy, and I almost leapt from rock to rock.
I could see small streams and pools of water below. Flat rocks invited me to rest easy.
Then came the abomination.
I saw it while still several paces away from my friends, faithfully waiting for their slowest hiking companion.
Chris was reclining on his back on a big comfortable rock. (Yes, they do exist on the trail.) His hat was down over his eyes.
He was very quiet.
He was napping.
While I was fighting the rocky monsters above, he'd been catching trailside shuteye.
I was sad but forgave him for this outrage.
After all, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Posted by at 10:54 AM | Permalink
