Hello Trail Friends,
I am sitting in my tent on my air mattress with my feet tucked into my sleeping liner and bag, looking out at the view in photo 1.
It is now 6:30pm. I've had a funny day. Started out low energy and with muscles (and mind) feeling weak. So I made an extra rest stop and drank a second protein drink "clumpy" (my version of a "smoothie" for the trail - I add coconut milk powder, banana powder, peanut powder and freeze dried coffee to power up the protein drink powder with more calories and caffeine. It works very well if I am willing to put up with the fact that nothing dissolves perfectly. So I call it a "clumpy" -- like that is how it's supposed to be. ). I had a couple extras so it seemed like a good idea. It was. I whizzed up and down the trail and developed delusions of grandeur. Began to plan on doing 19 miles today and again tomorrow and arrive at Manning Park tomorrow (Wednesday) instead of Thursday. This seems a little silly, after all my efforts yesterday to get emails to Chris suggesting she pick me up Thursday. On the other hand, I would probably get to see Chuckles again (we could even ride the same 1:50am bus), and would get home earlier Thursday without Chris having to spend an exhausting day ferrying and driving to get me and come home again, and we could go out to dinner on Orcas to celebrate my grand finale. It all seemed quite reasonable under the zoom-zoom spell of the extra dose of caffeine. However, come 4pm when I stopped for my last rest - with one mile to go by the original plan (to arrive Thursday) and five miles to go by the new plan, it was pretty clear that my energy had crashed - and the 15 mile day was going to be plenty for me.
While I was setting up my tent I saw a lot of holes around the campsite. I put rocks on the holes but still felt concerned about hordes of subterranean rodents emerging at night to nibble thousands of holes in my tent in their relentless search for food. This is actually something a lot of hikers describe. Well - maybe not hordes and thousands of holes - but you get the picture. (I don't think I ever got around to telling you that my very first night on the trail I almost didn't sleep for hours and hours because a rabbit kept coming up to my tent and looking intensely interested. I was worried about it gnawing holes in my tent. I whipped myself up into the most terrified night I have ever spent on the trail. Over a rabbit. It was only when I told myself I was suffering from a "gnawing anxiety" and noticed the pun - get it, the anxiety gnawing major holes in my mental state as I am worrying about a rabbit gnawing holes in my tent - that I was able to laugh out loud at myself, and fall merrily asleep. )
I thought I might sleep better tonight if I hung my food bag out of rodent reach and in general I would feel better if I mastered the art of hanging food bags (I am already planning to ask our good friend Cindy, a long time camper and gifted physical education teacher, for lessons). So I attached a stone to my line and threw it and missed the limb three or four times. Then lo and behold it went over a limb. Okay, it wasn't the limb I was aiming at. It wasn't high enough to qualify as hanging a food bag for a bear, or rather from a bear (I forget all the rules -- but I think the branch has to be 12 ft high and the bag at least 6 ft from the trunk and I forget how high off the ground -- I will have to learn the rules as well as how to throw a stone with rope attached in the general direction in which I am aiming. ? But hey I hung up a bear bag for the very first time in my life. Photo 2 shows it hanging there (from tree on the left.) Good job, River. (I say that a lot on the trail. I am a very encouraging trail mommy to myself. (
This morning I woke up in the usual pre-dawn dark and started my hike at the first light of dawn. Photo 3 and 4 and 5 show mountains in different stages of morning light.
Photo 6 shows frost along the trail at the first high elevation area. Frost was a great thing to add to the grand finale themes -- memories of walking through frost, ice, snow.
To be continued in Day 12, part 2
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