May 30

It was an absent-minded day today: I got lost three times. My head was wrapped in distant thoughts of autumn days to be spent with Crystal or future graduate studies or other comforting daydreams. My first detour resulted in my missing a switchback and wandering across a sheer slope of loose scree, ending up on a very precarious slope where the mountain seemed to crumble under each step miniature rockslides. Stupidly, I was convinced that I saw a faint trail and that it would eventually become more distinct around a corner. It never did. At one point, I stood there, feeling shipwrecked and confused, without any stable footing, each rock like a sharpened object. I felt tricked. It was so hard to move, I was sliding further down with each step. I had to get off that part of the mountain. Eventually, I saw the trail far off on another hillside and from that, I was able to intuit where I had gone wrong. Another rock scramble across the slanting piles of stone and I had found the trail. Two other incidents not worth mentioning, but equally as frustrating and time consuming.