Exhaustion, Appreciation, and Making Sense

Day 32

PCT Mile Marker 1382.13 – 1398.35

Miles Hiked 16.22

I left before the sun was a sparkle in his Momma’s eye.  

When it did start to live, the sky turned into layers of colors. A pretty cake.

Happy Birthday, Sun.

The trail told me stories of who’d been there. This hiker, that hiker. With their big old feet. A momma raccoon. A baby raccoon. A bird hop-hop-hopping down the trail looking for breakfast.

Shasta was a faded watercolor in the background, and then I thought it was Game Over. The Sun was up all the way. But it actually wasn’t that bad for quite some time. There was a cool breeze blowing, and the trail stayed just on the far side of the ridge, allowing me to stay quite surprised and in the shade.

Rocks hid under clumps of grass, jumped up to catch my feet and then snickered their way back into the ground.

Not Funny, Rocks.

So if I wanted to appreciate this beautiful country, and I did, I had to stop completely and Appreciate. Walk for fifteen minutes, stop. Appreciate-one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, walk for fifteen more minutes.

I found a pooping spot with the best view in the world. Shasta to my right, Lassen to my left, the world spread out below my cliff, just for me to see.

Appreciate…1…2…3…walk.

Yellow morning glories running around, and huge dandelions on steroids, their frazzled hair all crazy.

I was so tired.

Was the night hiking reasonable, or was it based on pure emotion?

Did it matter?

I started to think about the important things in life that you think about only when you are so tired, you’re basically sleep-walking. Like, what happens if you’re climbing Mt. Everest and then all of a sudden you have to poop?

And then I was at my own private cache. And my water was still in its little hole, all untouched and glimmering. And I gave myself a high five.

I set up my camp in the shade and took a Benadryl, and I slept for four hours. It was so hot.  101 degrees.  I moved my camp three times during the day, just to stay in the shade.  

I ate a good dinner, had two cups of coffee, ate a Cliff Shot with caffeine, filled up with seven liters of water, and carried the rest of the water down the road. I gave some to hikers I found nearby, and left the rest in the shade of Cache 22. I hope it helps somebody.

I hiked back out into the heat at 6pm to do another night hike.  

A walked along the edge of the cliff and watched a hawk fly far below me, circling up up up until he passed me and I watched him disappear into the heavens. The wind molded the dry grasses with a slick of Dapper Dan, and they stayed all swirled and pretty the way they’d been combed. The birds practiced their scales, and the sunset buzzed electric pink.

I stopped on a dirt road at 9:30. I realized that the next section of trail was overgrown with bushes. And obviously mountain lions would be hanging out there. So I camped about twenty feet from the scary bushes. Because that was much safer and that made sense. And I had to have my rain fly on my tent. Because mountain lions aren’t interested in eating your face off if they can’t see you. Because everybody knows that.

And I lay there amped up on caffeine, sweating in my hot tent until some crazy hour when I finally got up and took the rain fly off.

And then I just watched the shooting stars for a long time.

Because that made sense too.