Day 81: Mile 911.0 - 926.9
These days, mornings are the worst. On this morning, I woke up early, walked to the clean bathroom, then--since nobody else was really stirring much--went back to sleep. Mornings are tough because waking up I move so start to worry about being able to breathe, then sitting up is painful--it's just a lot of pain to come back to conscious control of the body. But evidently sleeping during the day--as evidenced by my going *back* to bed afterward--is ok, that feels more comfortable.
Too bad days are used for hiking, not sleeping!
For today's hiking, the Focusing continued--where I just concentrate on my breathing and the 10 feet in front of me--and remains the only way I can get any sort of mileage done. I was able to do a little bit of Ismael-style swivel (that's Ismael's way of doing step-step-step glance up and see the scenery, step-step-step glance up and see the scenery, step-step-step glance up and see the scenery), which was good since the views today, well--
There were two.
The first one was earlier in the day. At this point, the PCT splits from the JMT at a sharp vale: the PCT takes the eastern side, the JMT the western. The eastern side is the more plain, but it affords views of the western side, which is absolutely spectacular. Over there, the mountains are these stark pinnacles, that look (to my untrained eye) starkly volcanic, in contrast to the smooth granite of the rest of the Sierras. Below those sharp spikes, the slopes drop off precipitously to a secret dent, where a brilliant blue lake crowds the narrow space before spilling into a cascade of white falls, tumbling down now smoothed granite all the way down until it disappears into the vale below. And around the water, and up and down the slopes, the green tops of trees, carpeting the spaces. At the time we passed, with the clouds above throwing shadows, it looked stunning: a picturesque view that literally could not have been better assembled had it *been* a picture. I remember looking out over it with Dylan, and Dylan mentioning that the JMT is supposed to be more beautiful than the PCT in this decoupling. And he's right, it clearly is, which I said, but then I added, yes, but we get to see *that*, and they get to only see *this*, and I gestured at the slopes we were traversing. Sure, Dylan replied, but they get to *walk* under those pinnacles, to which I replied, yeah, you're right, that would be pretty amazing. So, yeah, the JMTers get a better deal on this section: I hope they enjoy it!
The second was Thousand Island Lakes, which we arrived at late in the day, as the sun was getting low. Even the lead up to Thousand Island Lakes, coming over the ridge and seeing a spread of green meadows, with winding lines of multiple blue streams gently flowing through them, buttressed on both sides by the remaining stone of the pass. Follow those streams to their source, and you find a wide lake, lapping quietly at stone shores, tucked below a rim of, again, volcanic-looking peaks. Here we stopped at the first shore we found, and almost everybody got went into the water, AC/DC and Outlast, Lux and Kahleesi, and Dylan (of course), and some went swimming (like Dylan, of course: last out of the water). I did not swim: these days, my right arm still doesn't work quite right. In normal hiking situations, it's fine, but when I stretch it out, or even just try to hold it up, the muscles in my arm start to spasm. So I don't trust that in the water, to say nothing of immersing my body in an unbreathable liquid when my lungs aren't working quite right. So I just sat on the shore and ate gummy worms. I could have waded in, I guess, like Uno did, but sitting on the stone shore, watching the sun slowly approach the far peaks, chewing away at gummy worms, well, that was pretty nice too!
Speaking about the health front, today I was able to sneeze for the first time! And it hurt like the devil: it was a sort of half-strength sneeze, and it stressed my ribs so much that I wasn't able to breathe for a good 15 seconds afterwards for the pain. But it did happen, and technically that's a Good Sign. Also, I'm able to yawn now, albeit shallow yawn, not the full throated ones from the cartoons where you get to see the uvula undulate, but a yawn nonetheless. This is also a Good Sign. And burp, again not full throated, rather those little closed-mouth burps that die halfway up your throat, but burps nonetheless. This is also a Good Sign.
But there are also Bad Signs. In particular, while I'm able to breathe a bit better--after hiking maybe 5-10 minutes or so, I can feel my right side stretching out, the breaths starting to push into new territory--also a variety of old ailments are returning. My right iliac crest is sore again, so I had to adjust my hip belt to press against, rather than sit upon, my crest, which is inefficient and ultimately much more exhausting. The ends of my toes on the left foot appear to have softened some, so now when they press forward they feel more tender than I'm accustomed to. These sorts of weakenings of what has already been toughened, to my uninformed medical mind, almost suggest a resource shortage. The body is focused on recovering the ribs and shoulder as fast as possible, and that means previously well-supplied outputs--the iliac crest, the toes--are now hurting again. Suffice to say that, even though Good Things are happening, hiking is still painful, with now indirect pain atop the (admittedly diminishing) direct pain, plus general exhaustion, plus elevation--well, we may have missed the mark by about a mile today, but I still feel my body got worked over!
-- San Jaoquin River > Agnew Meadows > Thousand Island Lake > Island Pass > Campsite
-- Today while hiking, I got to hear some stories from Lux. Lux is a natural-born storyteller. Not only is he good at telling them, but he leads into them inadvertantly: he'll just be talking about something and then, without any change in tone or cadence or style, you'll be in a story. Today he had a couple of stories of encounters with animals. In one, he was driving home at night in a Volvo, when an elk came charging out and started running not across the road, but along the road. And alongside him! And it lowered its head as if to hit the car from the side--like you see in the movie car chases, only with an elk instead of a stunt driver--and Lux saw this and noticed the glass of the driverside window was only so strong so--uttered an oath--and slammed the whell hard to the side to avoid the inevitable hit. And drove down into a ditch. A car that had been driving up behind him then came up and stopped and the driver also muttered an oath. Are you ok?, the driver asked. Yeah, said Lux, did you see the elk? No, the driver replied, I just saw you drive off into a ditch! But regardless of witnesses, there was indeed an elk, and it was indeed going to hit the car, and Lux felt he had done well in avoiding the hit.
-- Today, Kahleesi mentioned that she prefers hiking in the morning: she slows before lunch, and is slow after lunch too. A sentiment to which I agreed: I often feel the same, and often tire in the afternoons. That's why I strive (though not necessarily succesfully) to start hiking earlier in the morning. But to which Dylan replied, well, then, there's your solution: don't eat lunch. Touche!
Comments
Post a Comment