From Mazama Village, Crater Lake National Park, elev. 6021. Walked 1.07 miles on Annie Springs Trail, to PCT mile 1818.4, elev. 6336, (up/down +324/-20). Then walked (not counting a 7.2. mile round trip "excursion" where I took the "stock" PCT -- for horses--which bypasses Crater Lake instead of the hiker PCT which goes along the Crater Lake Rim Trail) 2.4 mi to the 11.72 mile "Crater Lake Alternate Trail." So while I only did a little over 14 actual PCT miles, I hiked over 22 miles. The gps doesn't give me any way to calculate the total up/down but it was considerable.
Dear Trail Friends.
Oops. I was about to write you that I am in my tent with my headlamp having wakened promptly at 4am, and getting myself ready to get started hiking at 5am. There is one itty bitty problem. The iPhone tells me it is 12:40am, meaning that I mistook 12:20am for 4am. I guess I will now try to get back to sleep (too bad I already drank coffee as I began the process of waking up and organizing myself! Well, thanks for pointing out my mistake. (Good thing I decided to start the morning writing to you. Funny thing is how deeply rested I felt and ready to hike after such a good night's sleep. Let's hope that's how I feel when morning actually gets here. For now, back into my sleeping bag! Oh, another good thing. I had one half of the front beak down on my tent because it totally looked felt and smelled like it would rain last night. As a result I got a bit of condensation inside my tent. This ultralight tent is condensation-free when the beak is up--as it can be in mild weather- and there is lots of air passing through. But less so with beak half down and a lot less so with the beak fully down -- tho that gives the most privacy and protection from wind and rain. The good thing is that, unless it rains, having opened the beak as part of the preparation for heading out, I probably will have a nice dry condensation-free tent by the time actual morning arrives. Until then, sweet dreams. Speaking of which, it's a long time since I've received any dream guidance for this pilgrimage. I think I will request some. )
Hello again --
Now it is night time and I'm in my tent.
I am sooo tired and I feel sad that in hiking more miles a day I am leaving myself with less zest and creativity for writing about the walk.
I didn't exactly choose to hike more miles today. I planned a fairly easy day but misunderstood maps, apps, etc. and stayed on the (well-marked as the PCT) stock trail instead of the hiker alternative trail (not marked as the PCT) that follows the rim of Crater Lake.
While I did not receive a dream as requested, I did seem to receive guidance from the terrain and my reverie. It began with reflection on the name "Pacific Crest Trail" and the way that name reflects a tendency among Americans (and humans in general, maybe?) to focus on the peaks, not the valleys. Because of course it is just as much a trail of Pacific lows as it is of highs. And to get to the highs you have to climb up from the lows, and the highs are always followed by descents to lows.
As I thought about the up and down nature of the trail, I found myself hiking through a burn area that was fairly bursting with new young life. I couldn't help thinking that I/we have that same one-sided preference for life over death, birth over destruction.
Photos 1-3. Life springing up out of destruction. Even the bent over trees in photo 3 seem less to be screaming out against destruction and more bowing to the inevitable and welcoming the new life.
In relation to my pilgrimage, I think this is a big part of what it is about. To take the valleys of life with the peaks, the destruction with the creativity, death with birth. Not easy.
I am so tired I think I will sleep now and finish this in the morning.
And now it is Tuesday morning July 28. Despite weak and shaky cell coverage Chrissy and I had a sweet talk last night.
Back to pilgrimage thoughts: less abstractly, I think a big pilgrimage theme is learning to embrace and cherish incomplete, fragmentary experiences. To fully take in the beauty of relationships that ended in disappointment, with feelings of guilt or hurt or rejection. Or of dreams and projects never fully "fledged" like all the unfinished graduate programs and novels.
When I was on reverie about the "10 best things" that have happened to me in my life, I found myself including friendships wIth people with whom I lost touch, whether through my own lack of attention or their unwillingness to stay in connection. My best friend in college Debbie Friedman. Perhaps she was frightened off by my lesbianism, perhaps by the period when Mary died (during which I looked and acted a lot like a person with mental illness, just didn't get involved with and labeled by the "mental health" system, which in my case I suspect was a blessing and allowed me to find my way back to the trail. ) I found myself counting Debbie's friendship: her love of folk singing and social justice, her bright colors, her vivid warm personality, her welcoming family with its tradition of commitment to social justice, her calling me to account when I acted thoughtlessly in the friendship ( and so helping me to learn about love) as one of the "10 best things." So often when I think of Debbie I argue with the outcome: why didn't our friendship extend into adulthood? What defect in her (or me) caused it to die young? Now I could simply savor, love, feel genuine gratitude for the beauty of the connection between those two young women. Of course there are valleys as well as crests, of course friendships like forests undergo destruction as well as the miracle of new growth. This feels central to my pilgrimage. Learning to love what Is.
Chris tells a story of when she was born: that her parents made a vow over this beautiful, so-wanted baby,long awaited (as they put off marriage for years and years until her father. Vati, had a secure job as a professor and could stably support a family, not knowing that Hitler would be elected the following year and that Vari would be fired for being, in Hitler's eyes, Jewish). Their vow: "to love this child for who she is, and not who we want her to be." This pilgrimage for me is about learning to love my hike, this trail, this walk through the world - for what it is and not what I want it to be. Crests and crevices, death and life.
This particular reverie grew out of the intimate interweaving of life and death, the dead burn area trees and the very young fresh new trees bursting with life and possibility, shining in early morning light--on the trail I was on only because I made a mistake and missed my turn. So these "wrong turns" themselves provide a metaphor for experiences I might see as mistakes or failures. This pilgrimage is about learning to see them with new eyes.
When I arrived at the Rim Village store I met G and G, the couple from BC Canada I had dinner with last night. They two had taken a wrong turn, going left instead of right when they reached the PCT from the spur trail to/from Mazama Village where we had spent the night.
Photo 4: G and G at Crater Lake.
Photo 5: Me at Crater Lake. I was glad I chose to hike the extra way back -- knowing there would be no camping on the rim and it would mean a 21+ mile day. But wanting to see Crater Lake. I had worried a little that all the build-up might make the real thing disappointing. But no, it was truly beautiful. Especially the deep deep color blue of the water.
Of course I took far too many pictures of Crater Lake. And so, to be continued in part 2 of Day 32.
No comments:
Post a Comment