- total up/down +3067ft/-2927.
Dear Trail Friends,
Last night's cowboy camping adventure turned out slightly differently than I planned. I found that the wind was howling - and cold - and I simply could not get warm and comfortable enough to settle down and fall asleep. Around 10:20pm (very late for a gal who normally falls asleep shortly after sunset) I put on my headlamp and set up my tent. (That was a first -- setting up my tent in the dark. It actually went quite well). I felt snug and warm in the tent and fell right to sleep, though I did wake up as I usually do around 4, ate breakfast in the tent and slowly gathered myself together, starting hiking around 5:30am.
It was a terrible morning. More of these elevation sickness symptoms that make me totally miserable -- they kick in when I hike up into elevations I haven't yet adapted to. The high of today's hike was probably about 6800.
I continued puzzled and concerned -- altitude symptoms in the past haven't kicked in until 8000 or 9000 ft, and I do not recall anything this miserable. I have honestly been a little worried this might be an early sign of a developing heart problem. (As Chris will tell you, I am rather gifted at imagining catastrophes). I was very relieved when I came up with an alternate hypothesis--in the past I have taken iron supplements whenever I hiked high elevations (to help my body make the extra red blood cells needed to capture the scarce oxygen). I had some stomach upset and switched to a natural supplement. I suspect it was fine for keeping my blood count up at sea level, but not enough for higher elevations. I am excited about ordering iron supplements and testing out my theory.
Photo 1. Just appreciating the designs of nature again. They are so amazing
Photo 2. I cannot skip another view of the tree tops while lying on the ground with my feet raised. The design of the trees against the blue sky, the shifting early morning light, the birds hopping from branch to branch, so at home up there. And all my miserable symptoms of weakness and fatigue and hurting everywhere and feeling all doom and gloom disappear with my feet on the air and my head and back on the ground. Upside down is a good thing.
Photo 3. had picked the foreground mountain for Bonnie's wave today, but then photo 4. happened...
Photo 4. Can you believe Mt Shasta has managed to reappear AGAIN? I believe that mountain is stalking me. Anyway, what a wave Shasta would be to ride. So there she is Bonnie, your wave of the day. Isn't she lovely?
Photo 5. I can never resist photographing these. Again, the beauty of nature's design. And don't neglect to appreciate the little bug plodding around in all this beauty.
Photo 6. So I crossed into Oregon today, just before I camped. I intended to make it a short day, but I got excited about crossing the border -- and about the fact that the cell coverage report suggests there may be coverage just 4 miles north of here. I must say, with no coverage since the day I left Dunsmuir (that would be Day 8, Fri. July 3), I have never known AT&T to be so consistent and predictable. You know how it will jump from 3 bars to one to none in the space of a few minutes? Well, for the past two weeks every time I turn off "airplane mode" it says "searching" for exactly 10 seconds, and then says "no service." Who is this new AT&T? And if it actually goes back to coverage, will my phone and I be able to adapt or will it be like adjusting to rapid changes in elevation?
I reflected a lot today on my various unfinished projects -- the graduate degrees not completed, the books not written or revised. I also thought of relationships unhealed and unresolved. AND I thought of the areas of life where I feel a satisfying sense of completion -- with my dogs who I felt I loved well until they died including being with them as a loving presence when they died, two clients who I came to love deeply (one at the very beginning of my career, one after I retired) who allowed me to be present as a loving presence when they died, my ongoing relationship with Chris -- an ongoing "project" but one I never gave up on, the whole process of retiring as a therapist and saying goodbye and facing the painful (yet affirming) truth that I was leaving a hole in some peoples' lives. The two poetry books I self published.
I reflected on the notion of life integration as the task of this stage of life -- and began to look at my unfinished projects differently. What if I thought of them as Barbara thinks of the trail -- that it doesn't matter how many miles I walk or whether I finish, it's being out here having the experience. I reflected on the rich experiences I had in each of my unfinished degree programs and with each unfinished book. It was an interesting shift. "Yeah but" I said to myself "with an attitude like that, who would ever finish anything?" And then I reminded myself that at this stage in my life there is no way I am going to finish those long ago dreams. Why not learn to cherish the incomplete experience?
And thinking that completeness is such a longing, and in some ways even when we seem to achieve it such an illusion, I still found myself realizing that I want to finish the PCT. I value BOTH the experience AND the accomplishment.
I am pleased as I can be to cross the border to Oregon. I have now hiked almost all of the 1689.5 miles from the Mexican border to this one. (I still have 157 miles between Quincy and Burney Falls to do this fall or next year). It is something I didn't know I was capable of til I did it. I thought of that too: I don't think I was capable of taking those rough drafts and reworking them to the point that they could become novels of interest and value to others. But the truth is, do any of us know what we are capable of until we do it?
Thanks for sharing my walk and reflections. It was again gorgeous country and by afternoon that elevation sickness misery was gone and I was having a grand time. Funny the things I come to love. Like sitting at a quiet stream scooping water to filter. Such a feeling of quiet and being present. Really enjoyed that today, at the last water stop before the border.
Love and happy trails.
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