AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They ate their breakfast and then were ready to leave. Did I want to hike along with them?
I looked around at my half-packed gear. “No thank you, but maybe I’ll catch up!”
Not likely. They took off together, at a brisk pace.
Twenty minutes later I took off on a slogging, mud puddle splashing trudge.
* * *
I had no idea how long I hiked. It was gray, wet, continuously showering, and my mind was blank. One foot after another.
A while later, unable to walk another step, I used my GPS and figured out that a sleeping hut was a mile away. I had to keep going, repeating, almost there.
* * *
I have no idea how I made it to my destination.
When I arrived, the hut was full. I pitched my tent in the driest spot left outside. It rained all night, pitter-patter on my tent. At least the temperature was reasonable, and although I was damp, I was able to sleep out of pure exhaustion.
* * *
The following day was lovely and fresh. The path was muddy, but everything in the world looked clean and the land was covered in an epic green.
I tried to be slow and steady, to not worry about anything, but my pack felt like I was carrying the stone that would eventually kill me. Like a cruel punishment. Like I was that big giant art rock that was driven on a ‘wide load’ truck through the streets of LA, and installed over a precipice at the LA County Museum of Art.
Maybe after I hiked the four hundred miles I was planning they would put my pack in a museum with my photo beside it and people would gather around. That lady did that?
Why on earth?
What was she thinking?
And lastly — she did it for almost a month?
I trudged and trudged.
My whole day was mostly alone, resting and slogging, for almost six hours, until evening when two guys came along. Frank and George, from California like me. We entered a designated campsite together.
There were already four other tents set up, spread out over a field. “Why are so many people camping already?”
George said, “Haven’t you heard? Big storm coming.”
“Another one?” I stared down at my pack. I had managed to drop it to the ground almost gracefully.
Frank said, “Holy shit that pack looks heavy. You — you’re what? Half my size?”
“Stronger than I look.” I said, though inside I felt like crumbling into dust and blowing away on the wind that was picking up all around.
* * *
Putting up my tent was like folding a paper airplane in a squall. George gratefully came over to help me strike in my tent posts, because the wind was whipping so much it almost knocked me over. He yelled over the wind, “You cool now?”
“I think so, yeah,”
“All right! See ya in the morning!”
George and Frank ducked into their tent and I dove into mine and spent the night listening to the wind as it tried to unmoor my tiny ship on the side of the mountain. The top of my tent folded sideways, rippling close to my nose as it took the onslaught.
I had to leave the tent to pee and squealed as the wind pummeled me. Frank’s voice, “You good?”
“Yeah!”
Though I kinda wasn’t.
And then back to the tent to stare up at the roof wondering why the wind was choosing now to do this.
