Dear Trail Friends,
I am sitting in my tent, it is almost 8:30pm and all I want to do is go to sleep. I am wondering where I will find the energy to write this message.
My day began at 3am when I woke up as I so often do wanting it to be 4am already so my day could really begin.
At 4am I began my morning very slowly, with coffee, cheese, beef jerky and a breakfast bar, while still sitting in my sleeping bag.
It occurred to me I should upload the blogs for the last few days because I did have cell coverage. But when I tried to do so, my iPhone app for uploading blogs (blogtouch pro) crashed. I spent the next couple of hours researching my options (searching the Internet for folks with similar problems, contacting the app creator - who actually answered!) and when it was clear I had to reinstall the app and recreate the blogs I proceeded to do so -- luckily I had rough drafts of the text part on my iPhone "notepad." By the time I had recreated the blogs, reinserted the photos (going to smaller size because I suspect both too many and too large photos may have contributed to the crash-- tho who really knows? Not even the maker I suspect )
At this point it seemed tempting to stay for a hot breakfast (the cafe would open in less than two hours, at 8) so I packed up my backpack and went to the laundry room, where I plugged in my iPhone and battery backup (they had not gotten fully recharged yesterday) and did a few sewing projects: repairing the bag where I store my p-style (the well-loved pee chute that lets me pee standing up without taking off my pack or pulling down my pants); sewing a cord loop on one of my ultralight "towels" (sort of like thick durable re-usable paper towels) so I could hang it from the -- oops forgot the word for those thingies you can hook onto things -carabiner!- on my waist pack, and use it in place of the bandanna I lost (I left it drying on a tree the day I got caught up in the mother complex, at the water source where both I and the boys with the dogs had stopped--it is so interesting that when I engage with people on the trail I tend to lose things, real things, not just my sense of how I want to hike my own hike. ); and a second button on my pants (I mostly wear them way low below my hips like those boys whose pants are almost at their knees. I do this because the waistband chafes painfully if it is under the backpack hip belt -- and that is precisely where the pants are designed for the waistband to be, alas. I decided to sew on a second button so I could experiment with wearing the pants higher, at my actual waist (above the pack's hip band). I had a second button (I discovered they supplied an extra button, sewn into a pocket or something, when it began to chafe badly under the pack. So I cut it away from the fabric but kept it in case I needed it. Then I came up with this great idea -- why not two buttons, one for wearing the pants high, one low?)
I went to breakfast where I found the service disappointingly slow ( I know I'm in the grip of the mother complex when nothing is good enough - it's wanting to be fed on my terms, in my time, with none of the friction of actual others--the return to paradise. )
After breakfast, in a foul mood, I walked the half mile out to the road to hitch, and then for reasons known only to my unconscious, I refused to hitch and trudged the remaining mile and a half in the hot sun, feeling sorry for myself.
It was almost 10am when I got to the trail. The first thing to greet me was the sound of a very robust white water creek. I made a video remembering my brother Scott wanting to hear the actual sound. Only I dare not upload it and risk crashing my blog app again! It would be fun to share it with you, though.
For a moment it was fun to be back on the trail. I was glad to be in woods and not in unending fields of lava. But then I began to be bored with the woods. The trees went on and on. Between and behind them, more trees. One couldn't see very far in any direction, just a blurring into trees-trees-trees. No horizon. Not much sky. It occurred to me the best way to look at the woods is in the inverted pose where I get to see sky. I began to understand why some people refer to Oregon as the green tunnel and feel claustrophobic after the vast open expanses of at least the crests in much of California.
I tried to get myself to notice the beauty of the woods. What I noticed is that I was not having any spontaneous "wow" experiences, any coming around the corner and falling in love with what I see and having it take my breath away.
Photo 1. The falling water (viewed from the bridge) that I made a video of.
Photo 2. River beginning to have a little teeny hint of the wow experience when we climbed a little higher and I could see more sky between the trees.
Photo 3. A genuine woods-wow: this lovely shade of green, this soft looking understory, and River is off and running making up her story about how soft Oregon is (uh...lava rock fields? Volcanoes? Remember?). Then it's all about the soft and the hard, the soft of course relating to the mother complex and the hard, well, you know.
Photo 4. A lake comes into view --not sure but I'm guessing it might be Four Mile Lake. At first I'm struck by the beauty. Then I look closer and notice the pale tan border around the lake -- no trees, no water-- and realize that's how far the level has fallen during the drought.
I was amazed that I could get in a 16 mile day getting on the trail so late. I am hiking faster and easier in Oregon. Everyone says Oregon is easier and faster, and it probably is; I also think the magnesium and iron supplements Judith got for me are really helping my stamina and ability to do uphill hiking and tolerate elevation change.
I stopped for water today at a place some of the comments in the app described as "mosquito hell." Thanks no doubt in part to my insect shield (permethrin treated) long sleeved shirt and pants, and my headnet, I did not get bit. But a man beside me got bit fiercely and had blood dripping down his leg ( from killing a mosquito, or? I'm not sure).
When I got to my tentsite there were Mosquitos suddenly all around (there had not been any noticeable number on the trail), so I just put everything inside the tent and did the setup (of pad, air mattress, sleeping bag, etc. ) all from the inside. A little awkward, but it's exactly the same as what I will have to do when it is raining (water, instead of Mosquitos).
I ate my dinner inside, with yellow jackets fiercely buzzing around my tent. I'm not pleased there is a giant ant somewhere in the tent, an ant I've been unable to locate and kill. At least I managed to get the three Mosquitos that got in. Summer hiking is going to be interesting.
That's it for now. As always, thanks for coming along.
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