Everyone starts shuffling super early – zipping zippers, rustling food bags, talking quietly – so it’s impossible to sleep past 5:15. My stomach seems to have recovered from whatever the hell that was yesterday, and my feet are starting to itch for the trail, so I’m out quicker than expected, slipping out of camp around 6, just behind Pineapple. Continue reading
This morning, it’s a little bit of sleeping in – the plan isn’t to make miles so much as it is to make sure Pineapple and I get our Burney resupply done. We’re about 3 miles out from Highway 89 – supposedly the less-populated of the two roads into Burney – and I’m anxious to get there already, since I’m pretty worried about getting a hitch. Hopefully it goes smoother than I think it will. Hopefully. Continue reading
Pineapple and I are up in the dark, moving by 5:15 – with shadeless stretches galore on the docket today, we gotta beat that heat as much as we can. So it’s holding our headlamps in our hands in an effort not to trip our way down the trail until it’s finally light enough to see. We pass the tent city parked at the Lost Creek junction practically before anyone else is moving. It might be a lonely day today, but at least I’ll have Pineapple. Continue reading
I apparently turn off my alarm in the morning, wake for realsies as 6:04. Whoops. I mean, not a huge deal today because town is nigh – Old Station is about 7 miles away – but still, the earlier I get there, the earlier there are delicious breakfast foods. Still, it takes me forever to get out and moving – an hour and ten minutes, every one of them dragging itself out to try to help me. Sometimes, you just can’t be helped.
I wake late-for-me at 6, and not a human is stirring yet. I made enough noise coming in late last night, and I don’t want to bother anyone on both ends of the sleepytime clock, so I eat my dinner for breakfast in my bag. I’ve never eaten in my sleeping bag before – I’ve been a bit wary about critters of the bear-y variety – but I am sitting and warm and getting calories, and that’s kind of all a thruhiker can ask for. As I finish my dinn-fast(!), the other tents start to stir, so it’s pack up time for me. I apologize to Tumbleweed for last night’s late entry, then head out across the North Fork of the Feather and onwards. Continue reading
The camp starts to move as one at 5:15, the growing light a call to our morning matins of hastily-munched pop tarts and languorously sipped coffee. Blessed is the Meerkat, I boast, for she is the bringer of coffee and consciousness. Six jokes about renaming her Coffeekat, but she’s so much more than that. Coffeekat is just an aspect of the wonder that is Meerkat. I finish as quick as I can to let her pack the pot I’m using, and then it’s packing up myself. I’m packed and up and out by 6:00, reveling in the glowing sunrise. Continue reading
I’ll admit that I kind of avoided talking about election season while it was going on. It was hard for me to keep up, honestly – I was kind of dealing with my own shit, dealing with the slow, inexorable decline of my endorphins, my dopamine, my seratonin, as I started to spend my days hunched in front of a computer instead of confidently striding down a trail. I mean, I kept up as best as I could while taking care of myself, but truth be told that was hardly better than it was while I was on the trail. I’d come into the living room to Spesh watching The Daily Show or @midnight and I’d get a few pieces here and there. I’d get on the book of many faces and see various articles that people had posted. That sort of thing. I didn’t hear much outside of my algorithm-induced echo chamber, but I knew, despite what I was hearing, that we were staring down the barrel of a potential Trump presidency. Continue reading
I try to sleep, but end up sweating the evening away until I’m exhausted and it’s like I never took a shower at all. Still, I’m up at 5:30, despite the five and a half hours of sleep. Pineapple and I manage to make our way out to Brenda’s truck by 6, we’re back to the trail by 6:10, and hiking by 6:30. Continue reading
In the morning, we lounge – we only have 20 miles to Belden, and we’re not in a particular rush. Meerkat brings me coffee again, because she is a goddess among women. How have I survived this long without coffee? Or without Meerkat? Or both? Eventually, I drain it, and it’s up and out and onwards to town – and this rave we’ve heard so much about. Continue reading
The first thing I notice after the silence of the evening is the loudness of the morning – a low-grade hum that seems definitely out of place. It’s definitely not hummingbirds. There are so many bees, and not the fluffy, bumbly kind. I stay in bed as long as possible, assisted by Meer donating some hot coffee to the cause, before running out and tearing down, bees investigating, but not stinging. I have to pee, but don’t want to expose my delicate ass to the bees, so I hold it and move on along. Continue reading
Brown Girl on the NST 