The Mountains Are Calling

Day 20

Mileage 0

There was food all over the floor.  Piles of noodles and peanut butter sandwiches.  Cookies and breakfast pastries.  Nuts and berries and tuna fish and mashed potatoes and TVP and dried vegetable soup.

And protein bars.  Forty-seven-hundred of them.

At least there’s a good variety.

I put together my food for the next stretch to Drakesbad Guest Ranch.  I also put together a resupply box to take me from Drakesbad to Burney Falls, and another for the stretch from Burney Falls to Castella.  Aidan will bring these to me over the next two weekends.

I treated all my clothing with a special insect repellent that will last for six weeks or six washings.  There was a hole in a mesh pocket on my pack where a mouse gnawed through.  So I sewed that up.

I charged electronics and attached a string from my pen to my notebook so I can stop worrying about losing the pen.

So I can have breathing room to pick something else to worry about.

It went on All Day.  Moving this to there, switching that to here.  How many lunches?  Did I bring too many gluten-free pretzels?  Did I bring too much sweet stuff?  Not enough salty stuff?  Do I really need this much fuel?

I tried to be excited as I strapped my ice ax to my pack.

But I wasn’t, really.

The pull of my home and my family was so, so strong today.

But like John Muir said…

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go.