June 16
I began the ascent of Glen Pass at 6am. The snow was still crunchy. There were some snow fields that that were sketchy and there was some scrambling over rocks to avoid snow covered switchbacks, but overall it wasn’t that bad going up. Going down was rough though. There was a long sideways traverse in snow across a steep face of a mountain. Luckily, a lot of people had already walked across, and there was kind of a chute created from snow bootpack, so if you fell, you wouldn’t actually fall down the mountain. Phew.
At the top of the ascent, a woman named Beck, and two of her hiking partners arrived shortly after me, and I asked if I could hike down with them and they happily obliged to let me join. They clearly knew what they were doing and were very encouraging, letting me follow close behind.
There was some more scrambling on rocks, and then more snow where people had glissaded down, but I just hiked down in microspikes because there were rocks sticking out by then due to melting snow. Some of the snow went over a stream where snow was melting and flowing down the mountains which was a little scary since you could fall through the snow and ice into the water below it, but I made it over.
At the bottom of the pass, I took a moment to calm down because my adrenaline was sure pumping by then. WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST HIKE DOWN?! Looking back up at the face, I couldn’t really believe that I had been on top of the ascent, let alone hiked my crazy ass down somehow.
There were some lakes soon after the pass – really beautiful trail that required you to cross from one island to another in the middle of a lake. I stopped there along with a number of other hikers to eat a snack, swim and just calm our nerves. Well, I did anyway. I went swimming, and by swim, I mean I jumped in and then immediately got out of the water because it was so cold. Another hiker had brought a fishing pole and easily caught 7 trout in the lake. Most of the trout in the lakes were put there, and sadly most of them are starving and hungry because they only feed on mosquitos and don’t have enough food. Apparently they’re really easy to catch because they’re so hungry that they’ll eat anything.
After drying off, I kept hiking. I crossed some sketchy water crossings alone. I felt angry. I was alone, but also felt like FUCK YOU. To all the people who said I couldn’t do this – I just crossed Glen Pass.
I’m still mad at Paul. He rushed through this section, and if he’s actually going to wait for me like he claimed he’s going to – he’s going to have to wait for two whole days. Why couldn’t he just hike with me? He doesn’t want to. I don’t think there’s any other explanation. Just say it to my face then. After I finished Glen pass Part, I thought that Paul might be waiting for me. I thought he might be there saying, “I’m so sorry I made you do that alone, let’s hike together”. But he wasn’t there.
I kept hiking and reached the 800 mile marker. I felt like a little bit of a fraud since I skipped 50 miles of the desert, and then 40 miles of the Sierra, but at this point I guess I’m hiking my own PCG which doesn’t need to include every single mile of the trail, and 700 miles is truly a ridiculous amount to hike.
I came to a bunch of river crossings in the day that required fording, which means hiking across – like water up to your knees, up to your thighs, rushing water, icy cold water, the kind where you need to unclip your backpack just in case you get swept away so that your backpack doesn’t weigh you down and drown you – those kinds of river crossings. Each time I came to one, I thought maybe Paul would be there waiting, not wanting me to do it alone, but he wasn’t there either. He just kept going ahead.
Why do I feel so abandoned? This seems to be such a theme on this trail. It has to mean something. I keep thinking I’m supposed to learn something, or I’m supposed to heal something, or I’m supposed to become something different on this trail, but I don’t know. Maybe there’s no purpose to it, but I keep coming back to this concept of being abandoned and it keeps being such a trigger for me.
One of my earliest memories is on a rocky river bank. My mother had crossed to the other side and I kept calling to her to come back, but she looked back and just kept walking. I remember this in exquisite detail, and she claims this wasn’t a real memory, but I remember this so deeply, it even lives in my bones. Each of these river crossings feels that way to me.
I camped at a campsite where one other guy had already set up a tent. I had been aiming to camp at this campsite but accidentally walked by it and then turned around and went back to the site. I forgot his name, but the man camped there was from San Diego and was section hiking the trail. We talked about hiking with other people on the trail, how it’s so hard to find people who hike the exact same pace as you.
Shoe Leather came along and camped with us as well. It was nice to see a familiar face. I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep. I kept having dirt blown into my tent from the wind, so I built a fort around my tent made of rocks, which seemed to slow the wind down. I had found an extra guy line the day before and took it – using it to firmly secure my tent from the wind. Even though there’s dirt all over my stuff, I still love the wind. I’ll always try to hold on to that. The trail provides. I’m trying to hold onto that too.
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