Day 57: Mile 683.1 - 702.2

In the morning, I woke by Fox Mill Spring, in an ample campsite under a large shady tree. A great spot--probably my calmest night on trail--but it was cold in the morning as I got my stuff together. I pulled on my rain jacket (it's waterproof, so insulates well), my wool gloves, and still I felt cold, all the way down to my toes. The heat I can take, but the cold?--that gets me every time. So I hurriedly packed so I could get moving to get warm. Only as soon as I left the campsite and got on the trail, even before I could get any blood pumping, the sun happened to clear the top of the hill and fell on me full force. And, suddenly, *everything* got warm, even my toes. And I realized, ah, *this* is why people worshipped the sun back in the day, because all is freezing and bitter and suffering and then the morning sun--just the first beams of the early morning sun--hits you and the world becomes warm and nice and, hmm, maybe I should shed a layer or two.

From there, the hike was similar to yesterday too: hiking through some old dry woods, a long descent down a bare canyon that looks like it burned a long time ago, eventually transitioning from desert into desert-with-a-river-running-through-it--the Kern River--and finally arriving at Kennedy Meadows. There are hints of the Sierras: some more trees, the beginnings of some granite hillsides and cliffs across the valley (although we don't climb them), and the water of the Kern River. But most of today, much like yesterday, was just about miles, mostly to see if the 3-mph mark was repeatable or just a fluke. (Lots of big marks are doable *once*--the real question is whether you can do them *again*.) And, luckily, it seems to be a real thing that I can do. I remember Michael Be once commented that, after his first 20-mile day early on, it wasn't that he was going to start doing 20-mile days now, it was that he knew he had that in his quiver. So I have 3 mph in my quiver now. Will I use it in the Sierras? Questionable: if nothing else the elevation--I don't do well at altitude--will likely compromise that, but it gives me assurance that I'll be able to hit bigger miles after the Sierras, in northern California and Oregon, which makes me feel a bit better about being so far behind.

Because I do feel that way. Kennedy Meadows is a milestone, the proverbial gateway to the Sierras, but also one of the big accomplishments on trail. But me, I don't feel accomplished at all. For dinner I attended Legend's spaghetti dinner--more on that below--and as an icebreaker, he had us give three words to describe how we're feeling. And mine were "fine but slow". Because I do feel fine: there are some adjustments--some small "pivots" to use Thankful's language that I need to make--but overall I feel fine physically. But mentally I feel very slow. I'm clearly not the fastest person out here--the majority of people are faster. I'm clearly not the most prepared out here--the majority of folks I'm meeting now have previous thru-hiking experience, or at least previous camping and long-trail experience. I'm clearly not the most competent out here--I make decisions like camping on the mountain two nights ago, in the worst wind I've experienced on trail, and while I swear ten or more hikers passed by my tentsite without so much as a second look, clearly wiser than me. I really do feel like a day-hiker who happens to carry a tent, pretending to be a thru-hiker out here. But on the other hand, that's nothing new: even as a day-hiker, I would say that to other hikers I was just a photographer who liked to go on long walks, and to other photographers I just was a hiker who happened to take a lot of photos. Never one nor the other: neither side would claim me. And that feeling of being out-of-sync with people appears to continue even out here.

And as for the Sierras: everybody is excited about going into the Sierras and leaving the desert behind. Which makes sense: the Sierras are considered the crown jewel of the trail, the most beautiful section. But for me, right now, they're just more trail. Likely they will change my mind when I see them, but right now I'm not that excited. But then again, I rarely *get* excited about things. I remember many many years ago, back at university, my father pointed out that I lacked vision. And he was right. The future is always this opaque thing to me: I can understand it rationally, and I can plan, and often I will worry and fret, but I can rarely see the big glorious thing that others seem to see, let alone get excited about it. It's just blank to me until it's here, and then it's not the future anymore. It's a great failing, actually, a tremendous blind spot.

So yeah, I have arrived at Kennedy Meadows but I still don't feel like a thru-hiker, still don't feel like I've accomplished much, and I'm not feeling excited about the Sierras. Eh, makes sense I feel like I don't fit in with everybody else!

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Some notes:

-- Fox Mill Spring > Manter Creek > Kern River > Kennedy Meadows

-- Today I met Ziggy/One Love and Tags. Technically I met them yesterday, at Ron's Cafe, but today I leapfrogged with them more. Tags lives in Hawaii, kind of off-the-grid in a park out there (there's no way in other than to hike for about 11 miles) and taught me the proper way to pronounce ukelele (he carries one on trail). Ziggy's starting a job in September--just graduated I think--and so is pushing through the trail, planning to do 17s in the Sierras then burn through the rest as fast as possible. Both guys are pretty chill, though, very laid back even for the big miles they're doing. So I'll likely see them now, maybe a couple days more, and then they'll be jetting off, far ahead!

-- Oh yes, Legend's dinner. So Legend is a, well, legend on the trail, helps out hikers. At the southern Terminus, he had been setup at base camp, but wasn't there and I had passed on through pretty quickly. So this time I figured I'd stay and listen. It was a spaghetti dinner he's serves, but the bigger thing seems to be the mental side. At the southern Terminus he gives the advice: 1) hike your own hike, and 2) don't quit on a bad day. Here, at Kennedy Meadows, he changes it somewhat. Don't quit on a bad day becomes just don't quit. And hike your own hike becomes something that's more about others than self, more about being kind and generous. As he put it, when was the last time you asked somehow how are you doing and actually cared about the answer when it was poorly, and really wanted to help? Because that happens on trail. He had a lot more to say, has prepared activities and things we do--it's a community dinner, as he says, so for the food he asks for a bit of your time. There was the icebreaker ("fine but slow" was my answer to how I was feeling), then there's a bit where you get a few minutes to say anything you like to everyone at the table and everyone has to listen (I talked about how much I liked the desert--well, except for the no water part--but that there's a certain openness and honesty there, basically my spiel from a few days ago), then there's the magic of the trail exercise. And I'm old enough now that some of that does touch me--I get soft in my old age--I think because, sure, some may consider it a bit cheezy in parts, but I feel it's earnest and it's honest, and at that point I have difficulty being cynical and often just join in to the emotion. It was a good dinner, and even though I was worried about the participation--I do terribly at group participation--in the end, this one wasn't that bad (it helped he went around the table and I was always the last one) and for a dinner I felt relatively good and positive. So that was good.