Dear Trail Friends,
TRAIL JOURNAL. Today, especially this morning, I felt unbelievably blessed. I awakened with energy and desire to walk, packed up and left by 5:20am. It was perfect. Enough light to see but still the feeling of predawn light and the world slowly waking up to the new day. There is a kind of quiet waiting that thrills me when I hike in this transition time.
Photo 1 is just about how in love I am with this trail, this world. I love the chartreuse green of the moss on the tree trunks and how it contrasts with the purple wild flowers. I love that I get to be present walking through it at such a special time of day.
As I took my first rest break a thru hiker passed (who I had met a couple times before including on that hot exhausting climb up from Belden on day 2). His trail name is Clinic so I asked if he was involved in a medical profession. He said he was a "nurse for animals" (a veterinary technician) that he started out as a paramedic working with people but he couldn't stand people and loved working with animals. So we chatted warmly about how little we liked people, and how much we preferred wilderness and animals, all the time ignoring the rather obvious fact that we were enjoying immensely sharing our dislike of people with another person.
Lest we forget that she is the guardian deity overlooking this hike, Mt Lassen made her beautiful presence known from time to time. As for example in photo 3.
Photo 4 is just one of those "I am so lucky to be here" moments. A perfectly ordinary scene in these perfectly lovely woods. That I get to be walking through. Almost too good to be true.
In photo 5, you can see how the trail kept disappearing into the bushes on either side. While it's not real bush whacking, one definitely has to whack one's way through the bushes. It was also near here that there was s huge panoramic view of mountains, with the mountains (as I often think) looking like waves on the ocean, looking as if they go on and on, to the horizon and beyond, for ever and ever. The "going on forever" feeling I get when I look at mountains enthralled me as a child. I also loved that feeling when I looked up into a dark starry sky. I loved that about the ocean too, how it stretched out farther than my eye could see. The forever feeling is part of my love for mountains.
When I was in high school I read a book called "1, 2, 3...infinity" and fell in love with mathematics and the idea that we humans could create in our own little brains an idea that seemed to go on forever like the mountains and the stars. (This got me to thinking of a poem I am working on about Tithonos, a Greek mythological figure who falls in love with the goddess of dawn. He is made immortal but not un-aging and I imagine him, as many others before me have, as a very very old but immortal man, yearning for mortality, for an end to the grueling on and on, on and on. Just thinking how often we hate the very same things we love. Ambivalence. )
Anyway, the photo below shows the bushes I had to whack through on the trail.
By the way I know you've been waiting with baited breath for me to remember the name of the man whose mountain lion stories have managed to keep me awake several nights ( in the wee small hours when the wind seems to be circling my tent like some kind of a very silently stalking predator.).Anyway, his name was Rock Hound. And tomorrow I pass beyond the parts of the trail between the two mountain lion sightings. And tonight here I am at a Best Western in Chester, having taken a long hot bath and removed the dirt and dust caked onto my skin (how do my legs get that dirty under my pants?), done a laundry, and planned for a trail angel to take me back to the trail at 8am tomorrow...unless I decide to get up early and hitch a hike.
Yesterday I noticed a very large lake in the distance and was puzzled. It looked bigger than Tahoe but I couldn't think of any big lake in California this far north. Then today I saw it again and realized that my lake was actually the Pacific Ocean! It was my first glimpse of the ocean from the trail (which is mostly very far inland) and I loved the fact that it took me by surprise. That I wasn't expecting it, didn't know what it was. Here's the Pacific Ocean as seen from thePacific Crest Trail in photo 6. (Although right now I am confused again. This directionally challenged hiker thought the water was to her right. Unless I was hiking south at that moment, that would be to the east, right? And the ocean would be to the west? Thank the goddess for gps or I would be wandering lost somewhere at this very moment.)
It was an easy day, lots of downhill The later part of the hike I started hiking as fast as I could, worried I might arrive in Chester on a Sunday after the little local drugstore had closed. As it turned out, I did my shopping at a gigantic supermarket that keeps late hours, but I didn't know that then. It really made me realize how grateful I am not to be a thru hiker and needing to push myself to make the miles so I can get through Washington before the autumn snow falls. It's nice to move slowly and in reverie.
My favorite moments often come when I am resting. There is such quietness and calm, all alone in wilderness, the sound of the wind, the stirring of fir branches in the wind. And of course the ants crawling all over me.
Time for bed. See you tomorrow as we make our way toward a tent site where I hope I will be able to swim.
Thank you as always for your companionship.
POOP JOURNAL. No news is great news on the poop front. Leakage all day was light, liquid, barely brown. A semi-solid poop in the evening ( in a toilet!). Only needed three pads. But I made the detour to Chester and now have all the pads and toilet paper I could possibly need. Sad how the joy of trail towns is diminished by my reluctance to eat foods that might trigger an increase in the diarrhea. Instead of going out for Mexican food and beer, or a burger and milkshake, I bought some yogurt and bananas and just ate my trail food dinner heated in the microwave. Which actually both felt like great treats.
Good night for now and sweet dreams.
Riv
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