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Beginning of the End

We hunkered down on bear cannisters and rocks, clutching warm rehydrated vegetable soup and taking a good stab at joviality.

My trailmates had been waiting for me down the road from that meadow where the Boy Scouts were tragically struck by lightning. They looked worried when I caught up with them.
I just wanted to know when we were going to make camp.
We'd have to push on for another mile or so, they said, until we reached the spot where we were going to pitch our tents upwind of a river.
We all took off again, me trailing behind as usual.
When we reached our campsite, they checked their watches and observed that Trish time was about 45 minutes a mile.
Now, remember, that's no paved, flat mile we're talking about here.
Christina said there were a couple of ways we could attack the summit of Whitney the next day. She started talking about various scenarios that involved me catching up with the other three of them somehow at the peak.
That's when I stopped her midsentence and told her, "I'm just happy I've been able to make it on this trip. I don't have to summit Whitney this time."
Shoot, my biggest victory on the trip, I felt then, was that I was learning to take whatever came without worrying so much.
I was having faith in the end of the trail.
So we made camp, our fingers growing numb in the deepening twilight. Then we huddled around the cookstove while Lon dished out the soup and other goodies.
That night was the first that we really talked, joked and told stories. It was the best of the trip. Christina, for instance, told the tale of a Bakersfield date who thought a tallboy in the park qualified as a romantic time.
Then we all dispersed to our respective tents.
I spent the night sleeping little and trying to get various body parts warm. I was too excited and a little bit nervous about the prospect of what I was going to do the next day.
We had a plan, and it called for some mental and physical strength on my part, maybe more than I'd ever had before.

Posted by Trish Choate at 03:14 PM | Permalink