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September 11
Ah, the exquisite brutality of walking alone, all alone, for four days of cold drizzle, dense fogs, and wailing snows. It gets so hard at times and no one is here to lift some of my weight or carry some of this burden of moving forward everyday. All you can do is grunt. Or scream. At the wind, the trees, the peaks, the saturating clouds, anything at all. Waking up a few mornings ago to the fabric of my tarp sagging down under the weight of accumulated snow, the sound of droplets hitting the tarp. Looking out, I saw the whole basin coated in a thick layer of white. I sighed, exhausted with all this discomfort. One of those moments you know you have to be on top of your game: to avoid hypothermia, to stay on course with a buried trail, to avoid slipping on frozen rocks, to avoid dehydration (I was without water and was too high on the ridge, above the rivers and springs. I solved this by eating the snow off the trees.) I laid under the tarp for a while, hoping the situation would go away if I just waited. Hoping I would be transported, somehow, away from all of this. The snow kept falling, big thick flakes, collecting quickly on the tarp. Eventually, I sucked it up. Packing everything up, trudging through the white hills. It all reminded me of Christmas morning, except without the presents and without the fire in the fireplace and without the family. It took ten miles (very slow miles) until the trail began to drop below 6000', where the snow began to fade and turn into rain. My muscles cold. My spirits diminished. And then, a wonderful cabin appeared, on the edge of a wonderful meadow -- I called it a day. I had had enough. Using some wet wood, I built a fire in the woodstove, drying my stuff out by the fire's heat and drank a cup of instant coffee on the porch, watching the snow fall.
Hiking through timber property today. Endless clearcuts. Weyerhauser and Plum Creek. Most of the devastation was concealed in clouds. The world made into a room of fog, four white walls of moisture enclosing everything.
Ah, the exquisite brutality of walking alone, all alone, for four days of cold drizzle, dense fogs, and wailing snows. It gets so hard at times and no one is here to lift some of my weight or carry some of this burden of moving forward everyday. All you can do is grunt. Or scream. At the wind, the trees, the peaks, the saturating clouds, anything at all. Waking up a few mornings ago to the fabric of my tarp sagging down under the weight of accumulated snow, the sound of droplets hitting the tarp. Looking out, I saw the whole basin coated in a thick layer of white. I sighed, exhausted with all this discomfort. One of those moments you know you have to be on top of your game: to avoid hypothermia, to stay on course with a buried trail, to avoid slipping on frozen rocks, to avoid dehydration (I was without water and was too high on the ridge, above the rivers and springs. I solved this by eating the snow off the trees.) I laid under the tarp for a while, hoping the situation would go away if I just waited. Hoping I would be transported, somehow, away from all of this. The snow kept falling, big thick flakes, collecting quickly on the tarp. Eventually, I sucked it up. Packing everything up, trudging through the white hills. It all reminded me of Christmas morning, except without the presents and without the fire in the fireplace and without the family. It took ten miles (very slow miles) until the trail began to drop below 6000', where the snow began to fade and turn into rain. My muscles cold. My spirits diminished. And then, a wonderful cabin appeared, on the edge of a wonderful meadow -- I called it a day. I had had enough. Using some wet wood, I built a fire in the woodstove, drying my stuff out by the fire's heat and drank a cup of instant coffee on the porch, watching the snow fall.
Hiking through timber property today. Endless clearcuts. Weyerhauser and Plum Creek. Most of the devastation was concealed in clouds. The world made into a room of fog, four white walls of moisture enclosing everything.
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