Day 13 – Trinity Alps

Dreams on the trail are nothing less than amazing. So much time at night is spent in a sort of half sleep because you are not comfortable or you have to pee but you don’t want to get out of your comfy quilt.

Ahead of us are two big climbs totaling over 2500 feet. I am aiming for one of two campsites 18 to 20 miles away. The rain chance is diminishing to 0 today. I have been rained on the last four nights, so that is a welcome change. I am writing this paragraph at 4:30am so I can get up at 5am. It’s not so bad because I was in bed by 8pm. You have to get up early to hang with the Wander Woman and Jane.

I get out of camp at 5:51am. A new record! The first few hours are spent making the long descent to Cal Hwy 3. Even though I left only 5 minutes after the others, I do not catch them. They are fast and I am a dawdler in the morning.

Today I enter the Alpine Wilderness area of the Klamath National Forest. My knee starts acting up immediately. I thought that stuff was behind me! I pop down a second ibuprofen. This takes the edge off. Nothing is going to suppress my happiness today! Because I did something this morning that I have not done since I left home: I played my music.

Doesn’t everything go better with music?

You might be thinking, Why on earth did you wait so long?!” OK, as usual it begins with a dumb idea. I promised myself that I would not play my music while I hiked because I wanted to be fully “in the moment.” You get that, right? But somehow that morphed into not playing music at all. So while I was laying there awake at 4:45, I got out my Bluetooth ear buds and played something. It was so great. I played three songs, and I almost played four except the Wander Woman had begun wandering in their tent and I knew I was on the clock.

It is sometimes hard to translate the panoramic beauty of Mountain View’s, but it is not hard to appreciate these trail side beauties.

And even though it was Monday, I suddenly find myself in worship.

When worlds collide

What is it about certain signs? If we hung this sign up in a third grade class, would it be covered with paper wads at the end of the day. Is the shot-up sign destiny, or is it the product of its environment?

I have come to believe that the Trinity Alps are called Alps after the European ones because of this unique feature that you find everywhere in this section: the alpine meadow.

My brush with music in the morning has me wanting more. As I start the first climb of the day, I need something to take my mind off my knee and keep me focused on putting one foot carefully in front of the other. To keep myself from becoming an “unpresent” zombie I make a deal with myself to switch my music on or off when I see a PCT sign during this climb. Here are the top three songs of the morning in no particular order:

• Rolling Stone (collab with Chieftans) – The Long Black Veil
• Foo Fighters – Long Road To Ruin
• Lauren Hill – Lost One

Fresh air

In the middle of my second climb, a group of fresh-faced kids pops up out of nowhere. “Are you going all the way?” they ask, breathlessly. I have not offered this information, so I must now look the part. When I confirm their suspicions, they all look at each other and nod their heads. I feel like saying, “and I wish I had half the energy of you!” I am sitting at the foot of a gnarled tree gnawing on 10-day-old uncurled, unrefrigerated pepperoni. Am I now some kind of sage? Marvel not, young Padua, for a PCT thru-hiker I am.

Be careful what you ask for

By some miracle I catch up to the women. They had stopped “to cook something.” Right, they probably had a luau in the time it took me to catch up! Anyway, I do enjoy seeing them. I get the names of all them finally. The Wander Women are Christine, Lynn and Annette. And then there is Jane. We all leave together, and they offer to let me go first.

I was up to it. My knee pain had subsided. I was determined not to make a fool of myself like I did yesterday. Oh, I didn’t tell you? Tuna (trail-tested twenty-something thru-hiker) offered to let me go past him on the trail as he ate his peanut butter burrito. A shashayed by him like a drum major and promptly dropped my trekking stick. It bounced up and I caught it like it was all planned. I didn’t even look back to see if he was watching. Will Ferrel would have been proud.

Just before I reach camp, I make a milestone.

I reach my destination campsite by 5pm. I have learned form the Wander Women that if “hiker midnight” is 9pm, you had better be in bed by 8pm.

I set up my quilt. I wolf down my tuna and ramen, then get my sweaty (now dry) clothes off the bush I hung them in and stuff them in a bag with the rest of my clothes for my pillow, and finally settle down to see if I can get a message to Patti. I get one message out but the service will not let me make a phone call. I send a happy birthday to my son who turns 30 today? (Unbelievable, right?) Then I settle down in my quilt to write this blog. I get up once because I think I hear a bear grunting up the trail. If it is, I hope he stays there.

• June 14
• Starting mile: 1555
• Ending mile: 1576
• Daily PCT miles: 21
• Total PCT miles: 204
• Wildlife: a sign-eating tree