PCT Day 154 – Perhaps an Argument Worth Having

Campsite at mile 2408 to campsite at mile 2425

I wake disappointed to find the tent walls beginning to lighten with the first signs of dawn and my bladder demanding the first pee of the day. Feeling as though I’ve been asleep for only a few hours I begrudgingly pull myself from the tent to answer the call of nature. It is outside that I discover what I had mistaken for an early morning sun is actually the moon and it is still the middle of the night. Hallelujah! I relieve myself and dive back into my sleeping bag, pulling my hat down low over my eyes and drifting back to sleep.

When I finally pull my hat from my eyes it is fully light outside the tent. My phone reads 6:58am and Starman is still deeply asleep. I attempt to rouse him, cajole him into moving until finally I am so sick of sounding like a frustrated mother pleading with her adolescent child that I relent and we spend the next few hours packing in slow motion. Finally beginning to walk at 11am, by body already telling me it’s almost lunch time, that we should have done 10 miles by now. But no. I have repeatedly said that Starman’s laxidasical morning pace is an argument that is not worth having. Yet, as we get on the trail late for the umpteenth time with a minimum hour and a half to pack up now the norm, I wonder if perhaps it was an argument worth having. After more than five months on trail the fateful day where we could get on the trail with any amount of expediency has never arrived. Nor, it would seem, have I been able to adjust to Starman’s schedule. But what is there to be done about it now.

The day passes in a series of tree lined climbs and breathtaking views. Massive grey faces of rock soar into the sky, cut through with wide glacial swaths. Raging waterfalls made minuscule through the wonders of distance and space zipper towards the valley floor where they blossom into fathomless lakes and tumbling rivers. The weekend rains have given up their tenuous grasp on the sky and already smoke from wildfires is blowing into the valleys. Smearing and smudging the faces of these exquisite peaks and bringing with it the white skies and artificially warm light to which we have become accustomed.

However today the passage of the sun overhead grates on me. Each time I look at my maps we are not as close to camp as I hoped. My body is out of synch with this late start and I cannot conceal my frustration. I know that once we have arrived in camp and performed the daily litany of chores we will retire to the tent where Starman will have an hour to relax by watching television on his phone. Meanwhile I will have an hour or two of work writing and editing photos. Knowing that if I don’t keep on top of this daily workload it will expand to consume any down time I may get next time we’re in town.

Today it all seems too much and I find myself crying into my evening mac and cheese, feeling all the dumber knowing that this is a self imposed chore. Feeling all the more frustrated as I think about our remaining days, yes just days now, on the trail and wondering if this infernal blog will ever be good for anything besides reducing the amount of sleep I get. Then trying frantically to come up with something else to write, because who wants to read a blog in which the writer does nothing but complain. Finally, I abandon the whole thing as a lost cause and hope that upon proofreading this post later I don’t resent myself for not putting more effort in, for not writing something more beautiful.