Miles traveled: 7.7
Mile marker: 767.2
I woke up at midnight and again around three or four. So when my alarm goes off at 5:00, I’m ready for it.
Electronics, clothes, sleep set: I feel like I’m getting more efficient at packing, but I still barely manage to get there on time every morning.
Rafiki walks by my tent and scratches it, which momentarily scares me and makes me curse loudly as I jump.
We were supposed to walk an extra half mile last night, but we didn’t. Bumper did, so we walked through the woods along the river until we saw him.
Bumper is leaning over his bag in his blue shorts with cookies on them. “There’s a log there that you can cross,” he tells us.
We are next to a whitewater stream that runs between rocks. Savannah and I followed Dad to the fallen tree about thirty feet away.
Dad crosses it putting one foot right in front of the other. He is careful, which means I have to be very careful. Savannah crosses next. She slides a little. Pausing halfway, he grabs onto the branch.
He pauses here for a minute. Dad guides her until she sits on her butt and slides over the log. Dad grabs his backpack and hands it to Bumper.
Me next.
I climb onto the log and put one foot in front of the other like Dad did. My steps are too big sometimes. He reached the halfway point where Savannah stopped. I think of the Limitless program, where they measured their heart rate and sweat rate while they were climbing a tightrope. I think about jiu jitsu and how the way I respond to stress in the gym is the same outside the gym.
I take a deep breath. In. Outside.
I take a wrong step and stagger because my gravity is out of balance.
A couple more steps and I’m at the end!
Luxy and Rafiki took off their shoes and walked along the river.
We continued walking, climbing a very long and extensive slope, only made of rocks.
I find everyone identifying a tree. The ground around us is pure white, dotted with rocks and dotted with tall trees.
I walk alone for a while, praying about how I want this path to go. The things I want to work on, how I want to be me, be free of anxiety, learn what I need to learn. I sit on a rock to look at the rocks and trees. My heart is beating fast in my ears and my breathing is heavy. He finally calms down. I hear my blood running through my body. I hear the birds singing. The wind that blows.
The sun shines. It’s so peaceful out here. I can just exist.
I keep moving and get closer to everyone. We ended up practicing squats, overhead squats, and talking about other gym stuff. Luxy has the biggest muscles by far. It’s all I did when I was a little girl chopping wood.
We continue forward. Information Dad looking at all the mountains. He points them out to us. Whitney. The others. We descend through rocky terrain. It always seems silly to go up a lot just to go down. Dad says he just doesn’t see it that way.
We arrive at a grassy meadow where a deer drinks some water. He is quite far from us, but he drinks the water carefully while keeping an eye on us.
We passed a quiet stream crossing. I just wet my shoes. I see a snow flower on the way to our camp. We walked along the rushing river lined with trees.
Again we walked through a river. Dad goes up to camp and the rest of us do the same. We go back down to the river to wash ourselves and do our clothes. I also use a Pitt toilet that has three wooden walls. The fourth wall is missing and faces some trees. My favorite Pitt toilet so far!
I lay down for a while. It’s only one o’clock, but tomorrow morning we’ll reach the top of the Whitney. The sun beats down on my tent. As I lie on my sleeping mat, my skin sweats just from the plastic of the mat.
I try to sleep but I can’t. Dad sleeps for two hours and the rest for half an hour or so.
We all had dinner. Rafiki eats a delicious spam burger. The girls try my ram pump and are disappointed, as am I. I need to do something about this!
I take a couple of Benadryls to help me sleep. I’m in my store and it’s only 5:30. I’m getting up at 11:00 pm tonight so I need to get a good rest!
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