PCT Day 37 – Tailspin

When I crawled into bed last night, I was so tired I couldn’t think straight. After about an hour struggling with my blog post, I gave up, wrote down some reminders about what do say and crashed. I think it was a combination of town stress, town sleeplessness and altitude (10,100 feet) that made me so tired.

Anyway, I woke at 2am and finished the post by 3:10. What a schedule I keep now! My alarm went off at 5:10 but I had already been up for 10 minutes. I am out of camp by 6:10! This is a major achievement…only if I don’t squander the extra time. But squander I do.

Slogging

First, my system is not right. I have to stop twice along the trail to poop! It’s town food. Don’t ask how I know. These are not leisurely endeavors. These are 4-alarm extravaganzas. I do feel better afterward though.

And then there is this climb to Donahue Pass. The morning is pregnant with possibilities. At 11,000 ft, this is my highest PCT pass. I want it to be spectacular, but the sun won’t cooperate. It is too slow. Everything stays shrouded in shadows.

The headwaters of the Lyell Fork are perfect mirrors, but they too do not give me what I want.

Looking back you can see two groups of lakes formed by the Lyell Fork. The one farthest away is where I camped last night.

Perks

The mountain is hiding it’s splendor because it wants me to see its tiny treasures. Miraculously, there are six birds on the trail directly in front of me. I freeze. They do not fly. They appear to be some kind of partridge. The only way to show their magnificence is with a video. These perfectly colored birds disappear when they are not moving.

The pass is startling in its harshness. The light is too bright, the shadows too black, the textures too rough. The sky just above the horizon is electric pink. You breath deeply up here because you can and because you have to.

Only a couple hundred feet beyond the pass, the land starts to become normal again. There are trees and grasses.

There is still snow clinging to these peaks. Snow-melt still feeds these creeks. The water up here is delicious and cold.

Facets

A few days ago I uncovered the “crouching tiger” in the striped bluffs above the trail. Today, next to a quiet creek I discover the “hidden dragon”.

The descent from Donahue Pass is really all about the lakes. Rather than name them all for you, I am just going to show you my favorite pictures.

The Worst

Even though I have this nice little lunch spot under a little tree by 1000 Island Lake, I don’t feel hungry. I am thirsty but nothing satisfies. I leave some of my food uneaten.

And then I go into this terrible place. I am normally rather moody, as most people who know me will tell you, but today I go straight to the bottom. I want to stop hiking tomorrow. I loathe the hikers that pass me smiling brightly in their shiny clothes. I hate the food I have, the drink, the clothes. I think about how I can hurt myself so a helicopter can come pick me up. I dread camping tonight. I don’t want to go to my next scheduled trail stop. I play this through my mind over and over for about three hours until I am a hot sticky tar ball of self-pity.

And then it passes. Like air being let slowly out of a balloon, it goes away. I find a good campsite. I wash my face and body of with a bandana dipped in the creek. I eat dinner and get ready for bed just like I do every night. I can’t explain it, except it was probably chemical or hormonal. But Lord, let me not go through that again!

Flowers!

It’s been a while since I had any good flowers to show. Today I found three when I was having my pity party. They are not as showy as most flowers I have featured, but if you contemplate them (like an icon) their beauty reveals itself.

New friends

I have been leap-frogging with the two young ladies that rode the bus with me to Tuolumne Meadows. We camped at the same location last night. And tonight we are camping together, too. They introduced themselves as they walked by me at lunch.

They are Pam and Erin. Pam is a “float pool” nurse, meaning she can do just about anything. Erin is a internal medicine doctor who just completed her residency. They are headed for Mount Whitney and then back home. They only have two weeks, so they are measuring their pace closely. They both jumped into ice cold Ruby Lake as I walked by. (Well, Erin said she actually walked in slowly.)

Chatting with them cheered me up even more. We seem to be hiking at the same speed, so I may see them a few more times before the end.

• September 2
• Starting marker: 931.2
• Ending marker: 917.8 (JMT)
• Miles hiked today: 13
• Total PCT miles: 432
• Today was like a bad LSD trip. Hey, you don’t suppose that guy in the Starbucks yesterday put something in my water?!