Day 12
PCT Mile Marker 1243.10 – 1256.00
Miles Hiked Today 12.9
I woke up and couldn’t find my hat or my pen.
What the…?
Did I sleep walk and lose them in the woods? I literally had both when I fell asleep. I know I did.
I shook out my sleeping bag. Nope. I packed it up and put it aside. I pushed all my items around in the tent. Nope. I took items that were neither my hat nor my pen, and placed them one at a time outside my tent door. Then the tent was empty. I unpacked my sleeping bag and shook it out again. Nothing. I packed it back up. I walked around my camp, scouring the ground. Where could they possibly be?
The two guys and the young lady whom I’d implored to turn around, apparently had. I waved at them as they passed by my camp.
I made coffee and ate my breakfast and unpacked my sleeping bag again. I unzipped it completely, and out fell my hat and my pen!
Half hour of wasted time.
Mystery Solved.
The mosquitoes were many, but they weren’t the vicious kind that made you feel like a Walking Meat Snack. They just nibbled. Just dropped in for a taste. I hiked in my long-sleeved everything and gloves. I am not a Feeding Station.
Piles of feces on the trail. I wondered what kind of animal left them there. My Dad would’ve laughed and said, “You Don’t Know Shit.”
There was a beautiful and solid foot bridge over the Middle Fork of the Feather River. A small open slat between each board. I secured all my stuff before I crossed over. I didn’t look down. I figured I’d been scared enough this week. I wasn’t interested in growing any more as a person right now.
I sat by a stream for two hours, rinsed off some of my stench, ate lunch, charged items with my solar panel. An old pair of boots clumped by the tree. Spiders hanging out in them.
Everything felt so right. My body felt good. What I am doing makes sense.
Then it was time to go up. Really steep up. Like, took-four-hours-to-go-four-miles kind of steep up. Even then that wasn’t the top, but by then it was 6pm and there was finally a spot to camp. My three turn-around friends were there. We visited until we were falling asleep sitting up and then staggered off to bed.
It was 8pm.