Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 18, July 13

Day 18, Monday, July 13. From PCT mile 1629.96, elev. 6783, walked 16.92 mi to PCT mi 1646.91, elev. 1704 ft - total up/down: +1832/ -6944ft.

Dear Trail Friends,

Whether you are here or not, gathered in a warm protective circle of interest and support around this blog as you used to be around the trail emails, I need to continue to imagine you here and and come ong you to warm my hands and heart. Others need a campfire to feel at ease. I need the light and warmth of your presence -- of our connection through photos and language and story. 

Last night as I approached my tent site I realized that I was not so afraid that other hikers would get there first and my site would be gone. (Of course to be fair, no thru hikers passed me yesterday, only a church group of 6 hikers who I seemed ultimately to have left behind, a couple who had met thru hiking in 2012 and we're now weekend hiking with their big white dog --great pyrennes, I think is the breed -- after they passed I wish I had told the dog I had once hiked over "his" mountains, and a solo woman hiker out for a few days heading south. ) instead if I were really honest I hoped that another hiker would be there, a woman solo hiker around my age, someone with whom I might feel a deep kinship. 

Photo 1. Morning light over the mountain as I begin my hike about 6am. 

Photo 2. My morning walk was a meditation on my niece Angel and an imaginary conversation in which she told me what it was like to be her: to be ripped at age 2 away from the family, race, culture, socioeconomic place she was born to and to find herself placed in a family, however loved but with love contaminated by guilt and benevolence, forever the outsider, the "dark criminal" as she put it, who would never belong to the family. She accused me, she expressed hatred -- yet the conversation was so alive. I have no idea if any of this bears any resemblance  to the actual Angel's actual experience, but it sure jerked me wide awake to what her experience might have been. And I felt in touch with her as a real person (I know I know it was "only" imagination) in a way I rarely had in our actual meetings). I was listening, it felt as if she was speaking her truth. I walked around a corner and there was a tent and a dog named Angel came bounding up to greet me, joy of life exuding from every leap and wriggle. The dog's person, Barbara, is a retired 69 year old former English professor at Auburn College. She is thru hiking in one year but in her own relaxed way. She carries books (she had just finished two and offered me one-/a Sue Grafton mystery and a book of literary fiction. ) she hikes 10-15 miles a day. She skips the areas (like Yosemite) where dogs aren't allowed, or those like Hat Creek Rim which might be unhealthily hot for Angel. She'll be out for five months. She doesn't really care how much she accomplished. Just being here, that's what it's all about. A similar attitude toward her career. "I chose it because I love books. It was a good job."

Photo 3. The trail lost in a profusion of flowers. There are worse fates than being lost in flowers. 

Photo 4. Bonnie's wave today: let her (let us) ride on a wave of flowers (as much a reminder of transience for me as a butterfly is). I believe this is a variety of what we call "Ocean Spray" at home ( or is it "Sea Foam"? ). So it seems like a natural flower to serve as a wave one can ride. 

Another thing about last night. I realized I'd gotten in the habit of closing the fly of my tent: fear of rain mostly but also of everything out there in the night. I reminded myself that the makers recommend keeping it open -- it occurred to me there would be more air passing through, less condensation. It had been a long time since I had laid there and gazed at the stars through the trees. It occurs to me that closing up one's tent, or over planning and controlling one's hike, fosters an attitude of fear, just as I found in my younger lesbian days that hiding, in and of itself, fosters shame.  

Now it is 6:15 pm and I am sitting at a real live picnic table at Grider Creek Campground in (I think) Klamath National Forest. I am eating my supper (my usual dried black beans with spices and coconut milk, sweet potatoes, peas, red peppers -- to which I added some freeze-dried peas, carrots, corn and jalapeños, which definitely livened my soup up a bit!). I am tired and hungry. Both today and yesterday I hiked more than I am used to (almost 19 miles yesterday counting my "detour" and almost 17 today.). Despite plenty of rest stops ( and lying back with my feet up, which I love, and I barely resisted including another photo looking up at the trees.  I was lying back listening to the movement of the nearby stream where I had collected water, watching the clouds move, and then a jet came through leaving two parallel contrails behind. Gradually they merged, faded, blurred. I thought about the difference between falling water, drifting clouds and the straight thrust of that jet. It reminded me of me when I get into rush-rush-rush mode. ) what happened to that sentence? Despite rest stops, I am truly exhausted. And famished. I had two extra trail bars and I just ate both of them with my dinner. 

So no energy for stories but here are the photos. (I'm trying to cut back on the number of photos because uploading them may be tough. Guru Bobaroo showed me how to make the photos big but admitted he never tried uploading more than three at a time. So we will see -- next time I have coverage--how it goes when I try to upload these last few blogs. 

Photo 5. Madrona trees -- first I've seen on this section hike. Also saw horsetail ferns. Remind me of Orcas -- and the whole aspect of this pilgrimage that is about walking between the first landscape I loved (the mountains and deserts around San Diego, the canyons in San Diego) and the my adult love for Orcas and the Pacific Northwest. I really have the sense as the Oregon border approaches (I will cross it this week) that I am walking from California to Washington, my footsteps bringing these two landscapes into connection. 

Photo 6. I passed these two young men on the trail. One of them handed me a fortune cookie. The other looked at me and said "Don't I know you from somewhere?" It turned out his parents were meeting him last fall when he was section hiking Washington and I met them and we waited for him and they gave me a ride to town -- though on the way we stopped to look at the salmon leaping upstream. It was really fun to meet him again. They are from Australia (the parents originally from the U.S. but found more forestry opportunities there and ended up really liking the people and culture: unpretentious and open. 

Photo 7. There is no excuse for including this photo. My absolute (though totally arbitrary limit) is supposed to be 6. You've already seen one photo taken lying on my back (with feet elevated) and in a way if you've seen one you've seen them all. But these may be my favorite moments of the day. Such stillness settles into my body and mind and heart. My back pressed into the earth. My heart and lungs and brain seem to find special rest pressed into the earth, and my feet reaching up toward the sky. I know the photo can't share that deep rest with you but I can't help wanting to try. 

That said, I'm almost ready to crawl into my tent and go to bed. Tomorrow it's an easy 6 miles into Seiad Valley (my next resupply town -- very very small town) where I will pick up my box, shower, do laundry and either spend the night at the RV camp's paid campground, or head out for 4 or 6 miles in the cool of late afternoon/evening and camp on the trail. I slightly favor the latter because I've seen how hard it is for me to adjust to fast elevation gains. And the trail from Seiad Valley gains 4000 feet in the first eight miles. I seem to adjust to elevation best in my sleep, my body seems to recalibrate. So, we shall see. I hope you made it to the blog and I thank you as always for your interest and support. 

I forgot to tell you what my fortune cookie said; "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open." Maybe the fortune is about the lost key to my writing room. Someone -- the readers who support me --IS interested. I just need to keep walking and keep my eyes open to who is with me. 

Goodbye for now.