Day 41. Part 1. Monday April 10. Mile 534.7 (Mormon Lake access), elevation 7538, to Mile 556.0, elevation 7210. Walked 21.3 on trail plus 2 off trail from Mormon Lake (plus 1 Mile extra when I missed a trail marker). For on-trail miles, walked 1261 ft up, 1589 ft down, total grade 133.5 ft/mile.
Dear Trail Friends,
Although it is true that I walked over 23 miles today, if you look at how small the ascent, descent, and total grade numbers are you get a hint of how much easier the trail has become. One can get into a stride, listen to music, sink into reverie, or watch the trees and the earth and the sky. One does not have to keep one's eyes glued to the trail. Most of the time it is easy tread to walk on and easy to find. And yes I still do get lost. Sometimes simply from not paying close enough attention. Sometimes because the trail looks like everything else around it (covered with pine needles for example). But mostly it is as unbelievably different from the trail further south as the climate and ecosystem is.
This was a happy day for me. It didn't start out so - or rather last night as I went to bed it wasn't so. I was worried about where I would get water - reading about possible sources in the app left me anxious rather than reassured. And my bowel disturbances seemed to be returning (for the first time in this trail - I have not even been wearing pads).
But I got up early and started walking at 10 of 5 in the dark. I decided not to return on the trail I took to Mormon Lake - with its steep rocky parts, it's fallen trees, it's muddy patch, it was challenging in daylight and would have been really tough in the dark. I saw I could walk a mile on an asphalt road by the lake, then turn onto a dirt road and return to the trail just a mile north of where I left it yesterday. It worked out beautifully. The road walks were easy in the dark and the day was just beginning to get a little bit light when I re-joined the trail.
For some reason I started expressing gratitude (using an exercise from the Solution/EBT work I did before I retired thst basically consists of sentence completion "I feel grateful that ..."). I thought it might be fun to do 100 gratitudes, and when I was finished I thought: here I am on the trail, I have all day, why not do 1000? Which I did, and it got me so in touch with so many different parts of my life - Friends, family, life passions like math, science, literature, writing, therapy - that I am grateful for. And it got me into the half full instead of my more characteristic half empty mode. Interestingly it led into grief about "failed" relationships but in the context of cherishing the love and service on both sides and not letting myself be so focused on the outcome. I realized how little I have cherished the loving service I poured into therapy because so often the desired outcome (the client moving into a truly happier and healthier life, our forging a relationship that truly helps them to do so) didn't come to be. It was moving to feel grateful for the dream, the intention, the efforts - regardless of outcome. I felt grateful to be able to separate loving service from outcome and celebrate the service as a good in itself.
I got in touch with deep sadness and felt that the trees and the earth and the sky could hold the sadness and the tragedies that felt too big for me to hold. I became more and more grateful for this walk and the new pilgrimage goal - the broken and unrepaired bridge over Bright Angel Creek that prevents my pilgrimage to Ribbon Falls. I love, after reading Chris' lecture notes on Antigone, the idea that tragedy is an inevitable aspect of human life. I can see that my attachment to outcomes is an inability to accept tragedy.
So I could express my gratitude for being alive, for experiencing human life, including the tragedy inherent in the experience. I felt so happy, held in the rhythm of my walk and the presence of the trees.
Here's a selfie at my first rest stop beside a small creek that crosses the trail, where I collected water. (And yes I did manage to find enough water despite all my worries - my gratitudes including grateful for water, for my bottles, for my lips, tongue, mouth, throat and all the body parts that process liquid - grateful for my recent lack of urinary incontinence!) just talking about it makes me pause and take a big drink of cold water.
I also got cell coverage again and got an email from a sweet young man at Mont Bell who had worked very hard to get down pants to me at Mormon Lake in time. But one of us messed up the address causing delays, so I had to ask the (very kind and concerned) woman at the Mormon Lake store to return it. (UPS does not forward. ) He emailed me that he would send out a new pair at no charge and get it to me at my Flagstaff address by Wednesday. He also told me he was born and raised in Flagstaff and loved the pine trees.
Then my trail angel host in Flagstaff Melody wrote that she could pick me up where the trail crosses Highway 40. As it turns out that is 7 miles south of where I assumed we would meet and brought the total mileage from Mormon Lake down from 52 to 45. I realized, wow. I could do that in two days. And I could then have a zero day, a day of complete rest, and still make it to Grand Canyon in time to request a last minute walk-in camping permit. (You may or may not remember - I may or may not have ever told you - that I could not get permits for Bright Angel campground at the bottom of the canyon. Instead my permits are both for Cottonwood which is 7 miles further and part way up to the north rim. I've realized on this hike how tough the long uphill hikes and steep grades are and I realize the one-day return from Cottonwood - I think it would be 19 or 20 miles with an elevation gain of 4700 ft - would really be too much for me. The last minute permit request process is complicated - one requests a number one day, then comes in the following morning and if one's number is good enough one gets a permit for the day after that. So to hike down as planned on April 21 I have to arrive in time to get to the backcountry office on April 19. And the hike from Flagstaff is 112 miles, so I need to allow 6 (17.5 miles per day) or 7 days (16 miles/day). I can rest Wednesday April 12, then hike 7 days and still arrive April 19. I know I've hiked a few 20+ mile days but that is pushing myself and depends on really easy trails).
Anyway - all this made me happy.
An interesting thing - even in the pine areas there were a few small deciduous trees. They hadn't budded visibly yet and I could have taken them for dead trees from a former burn. But there were leaves on the ground. Here's a photo of one, and another of the leaves. Who can tell me what kind of trees they are?
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