They are going to twilight – the walk: the walk

We are in the heat of the day, in the middle of the walk, and things are not as well or elegant as I would like them to be. I rescued the challenge of four states because my bag broke against my back so strong that it made me cry. I lowered my dinner at our first night in Pennsylvania. I am hot, sweating, stinky and finally I begin to feel the exhaustion composed of three months of hiking without stopping. And every child I have pursued on the path has shown subzero receptivity to my romantic signals. How are you playing for six months of desert survival but not a little flirting?

Suffice it to say that the summer that is coming is emerging to be onerous. And this is a shame because everything I want to do during the summer in the forest is to swim and play. Forget twenty miles, let’s take a nap under the mottled green tone of a rododendro forest. We put a Canadian algae in our hair and be naiads in the stream. We are going to Bioblitzing, we build a fairy house, do you feel me?

In the light of how I would prefer to spend my days, I was excited when the remains and the Lektro proposed that we change to night walks during this recent brutal heat stretch of 90 degrees. We wait for the first day in a magnificent farm near Duncannon, watching British films with the occasional detour to feed Bottle Jeff the lamb or operator of three itinerant goslings. (Thank you Brooks and Anna for sharing their beautiful house, and thanks Lektro for extending the invitation!)

All rested and fed up with the free field pork chops, we returned to Duncannon at 6 pm to assume the path at night. The rise outside the city was horribly sweaty, as expected, but we glimpsed a spectacular red-orange sunset from the ridge line. When the darkness fell, I felt sharp and energized in a way that I had forgotten that I could feel, walking in the carved heat of this month. I started my favorite paths, singing through my small catalog of original songs in my head, and made some expected lyrical changes in a ballad that had pushed on the rear burner. We became friends with numerous strong porcupines walking on the way to us, delight in their furious ascent for a tree once they realized that they had a company. We take naps and snacks in the middle of the path, with no one to move or temper our humor inego.

Beyond those advantages, I like to walk at night: the dark silence and the magnified whispers of the forest, the eyes of the deer looking mysteriously red in the brush as we pass. I felt that I was knowing the forest that I had become accustomed to daylight on their velvety nighttime robes, a more mysterious and premonitory character. We ask ourselves out loud if the Coupars are in fact completely extinct in this region, or if, as, like some of the signs of the desert we have found, they warn, they persist here beyond human surveillance, stalking somewhere not so far from trees.

The intrigue and novelty of this first effort of the whole night only reinforced my enthusiasm for a completely new schedule through a schedule. But it didn’t spend much time before the other shoe fell; The shoe that remembers a human body needs a regular and adequate dream to work. When we arrived at our camp by Clark’s Creek a few hours after dawn, none of us could sleep well. The day was too hot and, in the middle of the morning, my whole system felt reluctantly locked in an extravagant and surprised vigil. My hopes for our progress to possess at 8 pm that night was not high, and indeed after an hour I left the path and unfortunately He admitted that he couldn’t walk another mile without a nap. I did not have mental energy to see my balance, which in Rocky Pennsylvania in the dark is a recipe for disaster.

That first nap drove us to another mile, after which we abandoned our plan completely and set the camp at 1 am for the rest of the night. We wake up feeling very renewed and resolved to modify the commitment of the night walk towards a more reasonable half -day nap frame and a midnight nap. That is a plan that I can support because it reminds me of twilight animals, along with the night and daytime, you have creatures whose vigil activity reaches its maximum point around dawn and dusk. Humans, I think, are much more appropriate for a twilight cycle than a night one. We like our afternoon naps, and I have even heard of cultures and periods of time to wake up during a period of night activity is the standard practice. Walk while fresh, hide from the Pico del Sol, pay attention to the demands that this season makes in our bodies. Like many of my experiences in the AT, the entire episode was the adventure that became misfortune again converted the adventure. We continue learning from our mistakes, learning from the forest, learning from each other and moving slowly to the north.

And I wouldn’t change that sleep day and dreaming of Clark’s Creek for the world. The remains and I float around the curve in the river with our crocodiles stuck in our shorts, who knew that the humble camp shoe is also a personal flotation device! We put Canadian algae in our hair and play sirens. The fish nibbled the dead white skin of the fingers of the feet. I am not asking a penny more than that.

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