I struggle to stay warm all night, even with my leggings on, even with my wool Buff as a hat and my normal Buff as a scarf and my sleep shirt on. I probably need to wash my sleeping bag soon, I think, as I’m up for far too long in the middle of the night. When my alarm finally goes off at 4:45, it’s hateful to me, and I hit the snooze button and reset things until 6, when I finally rouse myself. I’m not looking forward to more mornings like this.
It’s easy to wake today since I’ve got a mission on my mind: CATCH PINEAPPLE. MUST CATCH PINEAPPLE. MUST HIKE HARD AND LONG AND FAST AND CATCH FRIEEEEEEND. I’m walking by 6:15. Continue reading
I wake pretty early, with a love-hangover from yesterday. I have the best people in my life. While I hear Bill and Kelsey rustling around, they tell me they’re just off to get coffee, so I decide to stay in bed. It’s not for long, though – Pineapple said she wasn’t trying to make it far, and I think, if I haul, I can catch her. I think. So soon enough, I’m up doing stuff – last-minute calls and texts and emails, and I’m sitting by the door by the time they come back with a friend in tow. Said friend is rad, and they’re rad, and it makes it hard to leave, but I have a lot to do today before I go. Continue reading
I wake later than usual, but neither Bill nor Kelsey seem to care, greeting me when I make my way into the living room and answering my questions about town with a smile. Pineapple texts me about breakfast, and my friends Butch and Harue text me that they’re on their way; as I walk my way to the bus stop about seven-tenths away, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have an excellent day.
It’s cold in the morning – the wind still thinks I’ll be lonely without it – so I cozy into my puffy before emerging into the world. Said wind is in cahoots with me, trying its best to mask the noise of my packing from my sitemate Lost and Found, who’s still trying to sleep. He’ll catch me soon enough, and I’ll probably see him in South Lake Tahoe anyway. Continue reading
The wind becomes gentler in the night, but never stops; I’m restless, tossing and turning and waking up even before my alarm goes off. I’m the earliest up in this group, too, sidling out of camp before the others are really moving. I cross the nearby Wolf Creek, and make my way up to the Asa Lake junction. Continue reading
I always feel like I’m the first one up. Probably because I am – everyone else is faster than me, and I feel like I need the headstart to get a-goin’, make it… somewhere. I don’t know what everyone else’s plans are for the day, but I’ve got that itch in my soul. I should’ve been gone yesterday, but this morning will have to do. Continue reading
The drips from the roof of my apartment – dulled, distant, metallic – sound nothing like the drumming of drips from the pine trees onto my tent, but they keep me awake anyway. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping, sheets feeling strange on my skin, my pillow alternately my favorite part of civilization and just another accoutrement that I don’t need. I’m either too cold or too hot, and while I control the climate now, changing it’s not a simple matter of zipping or unzipping my sleeping bag. So I lie in bed, uncomfortable with comfort, and listen to the persistent plunk of the outside trying to get in.
I’ve been home just under two weeks, and everything I experience is this strange same-not-same, similar in ways, but muted in others. It’s pretty much been town chores on steroids: I’m constantly working, writing, doing laundry, eating food. Too much food. More food than is tenable for this new, sedentary, hunched-over-a-computer-writing lifestyle I’m living. Still, for whatever reason, the real world – what we call the real world – seems much less real than the world I left behind, the world of moments defined by distance, miles, steps. Here, the days just blur, one right into another.
It’s been hard to keep up with a writing schedule – I’m doing a lot of writing for Backpacker still, and I’ve found that writing for myself is harder than I expected. I think the post-trail blues are settling in, and writing my daily entries means exposing myself to my feels. I miss it, miss the trail, miss hiking. Even my body’s conspiring against me in that regard: muscles have memory, too, and they miss being sore, being challenged, seeing new things as much as my mind does.
So I’m headed off to Rocky Mountain National Park to spend a couple of days out. Work all my muscles, jog my physical and emotional memory. Maybe deal with a little bit of snow, although it’s not supposed to be terrible. I’ll have Day 75 up for you folks on Monday – and maybe I’ll even post a schedule I can stick to.
Thanks for understanding.
4:45 is too early when it comes – I pull my clothes in and laze until 5:15. I only have about 15 miles to make to Sonora Pass, and I’m not in a particular hurry. I want to get in and get out, yes, but that should totally be doable as long as I leave by 7. 6:30 rolls around, and I’m walking. Continue reading
I wake at the appointed hour of 5am, roll over in my sleeping bag to feast my eyes on the scene: sleeping hikers, sky growing lighter, lake as still as glass. I almost never want to leave this place – or maybe it’s just this feeling, the peace in this morning – but there are miles to make, and it’s time to start if I’m going to make them. I stare at my shoes like they’re traitors, like they’re the ones forcing me to move, and putting them on is one of the harder things I’ve done on trail. But putting them on lets me wander over to Powder to share her coffee, and enjoy the coming light a bit before I head out. Continue reading
Brown Girl on the NST 