The whisper-yelling wakes me again in the morning, but my alarm’s already sounded, been silenced, and sounded again – that’s what I get for trying to be a bum. Waking up and not having to cook is a nice change of pace, though. Mama Lion and Boone are out so quick for having to get the both of them moving, but I’m not so far behind them. We leave a hiker enjoying the morning and another enjoying their snoozing behind. Continue reading
I have dreams of finishing the trail, only half-remembered on waking. That’s probably to do with the windstorm howling outside, punctuated by some kind of precipitation – kinda gets your attention, particularly when you know you have to get out into it, make it about 20 miles to your resupply before the place closes. Still, it’s 5:30, and I’m not going out into that if I don’t have to, even if I know it’s going to be light enough to hike by 6:30. I’m not terribly interested in hiking through this. Continue reading
I sleep alright after I put my earplugs in, dull the edges of the sounds around me. I wake a couple of times given that, with earplugs in, there’s no really localizing sound, and there are a couple of sounds in the night that could be… well, could be whatever; my brain doesn’t care about them, and puts me back to sleep. When my alarm goes off, all it cares about is coffee and food, and I’m the first up and first out, grabbing water at Lava Spring before I head northward into the morning. Continue reading
It seems that Donald Trump was just sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.
Well then.
I’ve seen a lot of posts to the tune of “this can’t be happening”/”this can’t be real”/”this must be a bad dream” after the election and in the weeks since, particularly given the influx of cabinet appointments of people who are either unqualified or have incredible conflicts of interest.
Y’all. This is happening. This is real. This is not a bad dream.
But you’re right in feeling that something’s not right. It’s not right that Congress has made it easier to transfer public lands to states, and easier for states to sell those public lands to private interests. It’s not right that Congress wants to make it harder for federal agencies to do anything about climate change or to classify species as endangered, regardless of what scientists have to say about either matter. It’s not right that Congress wants to gut the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and make it harder for similar laws – that protect all of us and our public spaces – to get on the books. As people who enjoy our outdoor public spaces, none of this should feel right.
But as today and tomorrow are days of action around the country, today I’m going to focus on concrete action. Here are some things you can do to try to protect our wild spaces:
I sleep better than I have in days, and when my alarm goes off at 5:50, I feel refreshed, even before my morning coffee. I enjoy this feeling for a while, even though I’m ready to face the day, see what it’s got in store for me. 30 miles, I hope. I hope. Continue reading
I’m up at 6 and writing – I’m still so, so far behind on my blog, and the catch-up has to happen sometime. At 6:45, it’s warm enough to poke my head out of my sleeping bag and I call it, start getting ready for the day. Continue reading
There’s so much to catch up on when my alarm goes off at 5:50 – I start writing furiously about my Labor Day weekend and yesterday and entering Washington and and and. My sitemates start moving around 6:15, so I guess it’s cool to properly start my day. I cook and eat dinner – so much easier to eat when food is hot, even if it does take forrrrreeeeeeverrrrr to cook – and chat with my spotmates who are either being nice or being so passive aggressive that it passes for nice. Well, it’s not something I can fix now, though I do throw out another apology for rolling in late last night. I try to pull chocks fast, and I’m out by 7:45 – an hour and a half with dinn-fast, not bad – before they start making moves in earnest. Continue reading
We’re up pretty early, earlier than Seamus needs to be, so he can take me back to Cascade Locks. I’m wistful about leaving – Seamus has this view of the world that cuts through a lot of my the bullshit, and his honesty has this way of speeding me to conclusions I’ve nearly arrived at myself. He’s always a breath of fresh air, and my time with Alice and him has been a healing one. Still, I’ve one more state to walk, and it’s time to get to chores so I can get to walking. Continue reading
It’s Labor Day, so post offices – like the one in Cascade Locks, where a new pair of shoes and my 3F sleeping bag are waiting for me – are closed, so it’s a vaguely-guilt-free zero in the Portlandian suburbs today. It’s 6am when I find myself awake-awake – curse the sun and my inability to stay asleep long while it’s up! It’s entirely too early for Seamus and Alice to be moving, so I guess this means getting my writing and internetting out of the way so I can spend as much of my waking time chilling with them as possible. Continue reading
6am is the new 5am – between the days getting shorter and the seemingly ever-present cloud cover, it’s basically still dark. But by the time I deflate my sleeping pad and evaluate the day’s water and elevation and mileage, it’s light enough to see by. I touch the things I’d hoped would be dry – my wind shirt, my socks, my gaiters – and find them all still damp, and in the case of the last two, that were cozied up under my sleeping pad all evening, more damp than they were before. The magic of the Cascades. Continue reading
Brown Girl on the NST 