Day 99: Mile 1164.4 - 1187.0

They say that northern California is tough, mentally. And I can see why. The trail today wasn't hard physically--certainly nothing like the Sierras hard--but it was a lot of up and down, going into woods and out of woods, and mile after mile seeming the same. And so, early on, I took the advice of my mom, who often says that, well, if you have to do something, you might as well enjoy it.

So for today, I envisioned the trail like a boat, floating on a sea of woodsy pines and firs. And as the trail swelled it would rise above the treeline, into open exposed slopes, where the sun was hotter and the plants were but short stout affairs, if any. But the crests would afford views of the entire sea, the rolling waves of hill and treetop below, ringed by mountaintops of stone, punctuated by little oases of meadow, and sometimes even highlighted by the pure blues of a lake or two. And as the trail dipped it would drop under the waves into the woods, where the trees reached up to the sky like giant kelp, dense and thick, the leaves of pine and fir, cedar and hemlock intermixing above into broad canopies. On occasion, the trail would come to a meadow amongst the trees, a small band of reef, where perhaps a stream trickled, or a creek burrowed, and all about would spring leafy green plants--mule ears, I'm guessing, with their sunny yellow flowers--and, close to the water routes, wildflowers of purple and white and pink.

But always, today, the trail rose and fell, rose and fell, and I just rode along. And I must say that there is something about *motion* that I like, that appeals to me. There's a certain joy in *movement*. Today, walking into the woods, then climbing out of the woods, then dropping back down into the woods, and repeating over and over again, the same scene over and over again, still: though the waves be the same, yet the rocking of the boat is pleasing. And that was true today: I was able to tap into that love of motion and enjoy the hike, even if it was, to a classicist, "boring". (Although, to break the analogy, while on a boat the seas provide the motion, here it was *me* and my legs and lungs providing the motion, which is *very* different.)

I also varied up my breathing routine to a breath in every *3* steps, and a breath out every *3* steps, just to get that lilting feeling. (Just try counting threes: you'll see what I mean!)

In the morning, I left late, and hiked mostly by myself. And filled my head with thoughts of strained analogies (evidenced above) and other burdens of blog entries. Lunch I enjoyed with company--Double Snacks and Dennis--and in the afternoon I hiked with Double Snacks, and filled my time with conversation, about the Olympics (which started today?), about the Fellowship of the Ring (which Double Snacks is starting on audiobook) (she's read it before, though), about tree identification (she knows much more than me) (which isn't hard, admittedly), about her fiance (who's biking across America right now). All in all a day of goodly pace, making goodly miles (22.6!), and with goodly company in the second half. What more could you ask for?

And that was the hike!

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Some notes:

-- I was the last one out of camp today: woke up, went to clear my nose and throat of mucus (i.e., cough up a lung), which takes about 20 minutes. Noticed that the cold, which I felt had been getting a bit better the past few days (albeit slowly), seemed to have migrated back up a bit, into my tonsils again. Which I took to be a regression: sigh. I think the cold will linger until I take a zero day and do an *actual* zero, which is just sleep all day.

-- Throughout the day, I leapfrogged with Sheldon. At one point, we got to talking and he still seems concerned about making the miles to Canada. I tried to reassure him (or was I just trying to reassure myself?) that as we went on the trail would get easier, and as the elevation got lower our ability to hike would get stronger, so with the same effort we will be making more miles. He didn't seem to believe me--he's not even convinced he's gotten his trail legs yet, for example (whereas I'm certainly convinced I've gotten mine)--but hopefully if nothing else I distracted him from fevered calculations for at least a little while.

-- In the evening, I camped with Double Snacks, Dennis, and Lieutenant Dan (who I met today). And Dennis told stories about Detroit, where he grew up, which is much better now, but back in the day... Dennis lived on 9 Mile and on 6 Mile in Detroit and was telling stories of Devil's Night, which was the night before Halloween, when there would just be fires. Just fires, like 300+ fires throughout the city. People burning homes for insurance, for vandalism, to get rid of that crack house down the street--just fires everywhere. And many many years later, as a grown man, he returned to Detroit to film a documentary on Devil's Night, and called up his (now-ex) wife and she asked, how did it go? And he sighed and said, well, it's they've cleaned it up now, so there like now fires any more. How many?, she asked. Only 52, he replied. And she said, how jaded are you to Devil's Night that 52 fires in a night seems like nothing? But Dennis assures us that, yes, Detroit is much cleaned up now, they're probably down to less than 52 fires that night nowadays. (By the way, as a kid he hated Devil's Night because that night local news would inevitably preempt normal broadcasting to give updates on all the fires, and he'd miss his episodes of Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.)