Amelia Bikes

June 17

Listening to: Hazlett – Doing my Best

This morning, I went over Pinchot pass. It was one of the less steep passes, but I had to walk over a long snow field where I was still swarmed by mosquitoes. At 12,000 feet altitude. Are you freaking kidding me?! Mosquitoes must be the pe(s)ts of the devil because how can they possibly be alive in snow fields at 12,000 ft altitude? Seriously? There’s so much water in the Sierra from all the snow melt, along with a lot of marshy areas, so there’s a lot of mosquitoes everywhere all the time – and they’re awful. But still.

Mono has been sending me info about the pass conditions via Garmin, as he’s two days ahead, which has been much appreciated. Because there is no phone service in the Sierra for hundreds of miles, there aren’t that many comments on the FarOut app with recent reports about the conditions that have been updated recently, so I feel like I’m going in blind. And alone.

This is one of the easier passes despite the snow fields. It wasn’t as steep, and didn’t require as much scrambling or being on crazy switchbacks, so it felt a lot easier. I crossed the fields in the morning while the snow was still crunchy. There was a marmot at the top of the pass that didn’t seem bothered by humans at all. I had a tortilla with a beef packet for lunch, and I think the marmot was hoping to get a bite as well. The beef packets are more palatable than tuna packets which just gross me out to no end, but the beef packets are quite disgusting in their own way – appearing pretty much the same whether going in or coming out.

I felt accomplished when I reached the bottom of the pass. Fuck all these men telling me I can’t do this, mansplaining, or treating me like an idiot. I’m going to do this, even if I’m alone. Paul wasn’t waiting for me at this pass either, which I guess was fine. I feel like I’m hiking my own hike now. I was still upset with Paul and still asking myself why? Why would you be so upset over someone who left you alone out here? I ask myself why again, why do you keep ending up in this dynamic with men who devalue you?

A story for another day – but childhood trauma of course. It’s a part of me. How do I get it out? How do I get rid of myself? I think of young Amelia who had nobody at all. She’s still inside me, the wounded part of me. How would I protect her? I certainly wouldn’t leave her alone in the wilderness, and I’d run off predators like a mama bear, or like these mountains which are ever more powerful. If I were a mountain, I’d fire off lava chunks and hot ash destroying anything or anyone who would do harm to her. The brave, courageous part of me, the adult part of me would do that for her.

I sat by a river thinking about all of these things when another hiker passed by. I said hello, he said hello, and he kept walking, disappearing behind a grove of pine trees. He returned without his backpack, and handed me a blue Jolly Rancher. “The best flavor”, he said. He told me that I looked like I needed one. I said thank you and he just walked off and didn’t say anything else. As he walked away, I started sobbing tears. Real tears. I think it was young Amelia crying because someone saw her. Someone cared enough to walk back for her. She wasn’t alone out here in the wilderness. I hugged my knees, her knees, and rocked back and forth, like putting a baby to sleep.

I set up camp by a river and open fields in a valley surrounded by mountains. No wind. Nobody for miles. I took off all my clothes and bathed myself in the river, a baptism of sorts. Maybe the first day I felt free, the first day I felt like I belonged here, on the trail, in the mountains.

As I sat by the river, I thought I heard voices, or music. Logically, I know that it was probably my brain filling in information based on the water noises to something familiar, but part of me started wondering if it was the mountain gods, the wind gods talking to me. I performed the ceremony asking them to watch over me, to guard me with my new vessel name. I’m very superstitious when it comes to boats, and I fully believe that we don’t understand everything about the world. Who knows if it really was the river speaking to me, but even though I couldn’t really understand what the voices were trying to say to me, it felt friendly, it felt loving. I didn’t feel alone.

Am I completely losing my mind out here?

I watched the sun disappear over the mountain range, and the sky turned shades of pink before the stars began appearing one by one.

I felt good today. I hiked almost 15 miles, which, in the Sierra, is a lot. My feet actually felt good. I feel like I have the exact right amount of food. Things feel right. Nobody here to rush me. Nobody to talk down to me or put me down. My confidence is coming back.

Part of me hopes that Paul doesn’t wait for me. He knows he hurt me, he just doesn’t care. They never apologize. At least not in a timely manner in the way that you deserve. You need to just be okay with getting no closure because cowards would rather slither into the darkness then face their own emotions, or the reality of what they did. Just disappear please.

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