The first thing brought viscerally to my attention in the morning is how goddamn cold it is outside the safety of my sleeping bag1. Inside, it’s warmer, but not as warm as I would like it to be – my body wants to retreat into the safety of sleep, but ’tis time, ’tis time to get moving. Pineapple starting to shuffle around makes it easier to get motivated, so it’s reluctantly emerging from my cocoon to get ready for the day. Continue reading
I’m pretty sure my sleep is the inverse of my sleep in Mount Shasta. I have to pee in the middle of the night, but I don’t want to get up, and then I realize that I, in fact, have to get up if I don’t want to pee in my bag. It’s the first time I’ve had to get up to pee in the night in 97 days, and I feel like it’s the end of an era. I’m a little worried that whatever it was that roared earlier is going to come for the tender flesh of my ass, but I make it back into my tent with ass intact. I do have nightmares for the rest of the evening, though, and by the time I wake up, I’m pretty sure I’ve had fewer than four hours of restful sleep. Nrrf. Still, I’m moving by 6. Continue reading
I’m up late – my body loves this whole “real bed” thing, and it doesn’t think consciousness is appropriate until 8. Yes. I delay being vertical for a bit longer by talking with Spesh about meeting up at the end of the month; I hear Pineapple in the other room doing the same with her boyfriend. Eventually, we can delay no longer – we wanna leave our stuff here while we go and do laundry down the street, so it’s up and at ’em in our puffy jackets and rain gear skirts, getting smirks from the locals as we pass. Continue reading
Every town morning is always the same – barely-contained excitement, poorly tempered by the knowledge that I actually have to do miles before I get there. That’s why, I tell myself, I slow it down – we’re aiming for 7am out of camp this morning. My alarm went off half an hour before I needed it to; I’m ever the optimist, thinking I’ll get up and work on something early. Work on getting more rest, more like. Still, we make it back to the trail from the Squaw Valley trailhead by 7:15, so I call that a success. Continue reading
Pineapple’s the first one rustling – she’s so much better at this “actually listening to the alarm” thing than I am – but I’m not too far behind. Dirt Squirrel and Chili start to stir as we pack up, get a move on, but Butterscotch is still sleeping, barely starting to stir as we walk away. I wish I was him right now – the morning is beautiful, serene and soft – but walking early is the price I pay for not being as fast as my peers. Still, I take one last, longing look at the cloud-covered sky, and hope it stays that way to keep off some of the heat of the day. 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
Brown Girl on the NST 