~13 miles. End of section 10, start section 11
The morning comes and I’m groggy and awful feeling. But I get
dressed and eat quickly. I want to be walking at 8, since that seems key to
getting into camp at an early enough time. And by 8 AM, I’m walking. As
typical, Granite will follow in a bit.
Today is forested walking, unremarkable for many miles. Every
so often there is a break in the trees and I catch a bit of mountain looming
above. Mt. Massive? Or Mt. Elbert? We’re going to attempt Mt. Elbert tomorrow:
4,000 feet of climbing, highest mountain I’ve ever climbed. It’s 14,433 feet at the summit. I’m a bit
intimidated.
Granite doesn’t catch up the way he normally does, and I’m
sleepy. I wait for him at 10:30 AM, lying on my sleeping pad in the sun and
munching on dried mango and almonds. When he catches up, he’s also groggy. We
only walk together briefly, then split up again. We meet at the end of the
section.
Have I mentioned how much I love walking alone? Today I still
love it, but it’s harder. I never seem to hit my stride. We meet after noon at
the end of Mt. Massive Wilderness, at a lovely, sunny creek. We're near
trailhead parking and a road, or else I’d throw myself into this perfect, deep,
rocky stream. As it is, we sit side by side on the bank, our feet in the cold
clear water.
At last we wrench ourselves away and begin climbing. It’s about
500 feet of climbing. I’ve been hating this constant climb, descent, climb,
descent. Can’t we stay up for a few miles?
No. Not this section. We climb and reach the top of a hill and
stat descending immediately, though only for a minute. It’s very hot and I wrap
a wet bandana around my neck. After the climb, I stop and eat a melted Snickers
bar and 3 firefighters hurry past us, head to toe in heavy flame-retardant
gear, sweating profusely. Apparently there’s a fire on Mt. Elbert.
We split up again for the last few miles. There are bugs
everywhere and I cover myself in DEET, but they keep flying incessantly around
my head. I swing a bandana around a few times—that often scatters them—but it’s
useless. Finally I wrap a bandana over my ears to drown out the buzzing.
My feet ache and I’m tired and I’m itchy from bug bites, and
I’m surrounded by a cloud of bloodthirsty bugs. I feel suddenly demoralized.
Why am I even doing this? What’s the point? I feel despair well up in me, a
trickle at first and then a tidal wave, bottomless and engulfing.
And I stop myself—literally and figurative. I stand in the
middle of the trail. I breathe deeply and exhale. I imagine myself putting down
everything I’m carrying that isn’t my pack. All these heavy things taking up
space in my brain. Fears, awkward moments, uncertainty, countless moments from
my past I wish I could do over, every small embarrassment, the cruelties I’ve
inflicted on myself, the gaze of outsiders, grief, my too-broken heart,
tantalizing hopes, driving ambitions. I imagine setting everything down in the
middle of the trail at my dirt-stained sneakers.
Then I keep walking.
I enter an aspen forest, bigger than the ones before.
The perfect green leaves catch in the wind. I notice all the
sounds aspens make in a strong wing—creaking, ticking, squeaking. It’s magical,
maybe more so because I came to it directly from a bit of despair.
I find Granite waiting for me at the trailhead for Mt. Elbert.
This is where we’ll climb tomorrow. We’re still surrounded by aspen and we set
out to find a campsite. We find a place near huge ponds formed by beaver dams,
and I rinse the sweat off my body with warm water.
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