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Stopped at: Corral junction sign, mile 736.7 Miles today: 21.4
There's nothing exciting about leaving at 10:00 am and beginning the day with a sluggish climb. No doubt Marlon and Zach were well on their way. Immediately up the incline there was a perfect flat area for a tent.
About 6:30 am, there was rowdy grunting noises from a herd, which I thought were bears, but bears tend not to be social animals. This was the exact same noise from last night as Zach and I were setting up our tents. The sound came from cows moving down the hills to the stream; however, these cows didn't make their familiar mooing, but rather just grunting as though they were upset. It sounded like they were heading down across the stream to where Marlon had set camp. Minutes later, the guzzling of a vehicle came and went quickly like a dream.
Before packing up, I walked down to where Marlon was last night and didn't see any signs of him or his equipment being trampled. He was safely gone.
I assumed yesterday was a good day, and my doubts about continuing the PCT were temporarily succumbed. Yes, it was definitely transitory- very transitory! Now, I realized it was just a fleeting moment in time.
The doubts which crept lately into my mind like light shining under a closed door have now flooded me as though the dams have been broken. Life has been like an overcast day with the sun battering through at moments, but in the end the darkness overcame any glimmering light. I can no longer weather this storm. Today, at my most desperate moment, I was alone to face my worst foe: myself.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I started desceding the mountain peak, but I wouldn't allow myself to cry. I don't know how many more miles I can mentally endure, but the minute motivation in the beginning have now withered away to nothingness like the last grain of sand falling downward inside an hourglass.
At a water source before an endurance climb, I hung around for an hour washing the liner socks, filtering water, and eating sandwiches. The mosquitoes around here were hungry too.
The climb nearly took 2 hours to complete, the longest climb of the trail up to this point. Initially, it was fun to climb and see the forest recovering from a fire of long ago; however, after the first hour, the climb was just a climb. As it peaked from ridge to ridge, it became a burden. At some peaks, a good view wasn't even available because the landscape was blocked by partially alive trees and stacked boulders.
At the zenith the temperature was chilly with a mild gust of wind as the sun was fading into the distance and stealing back its warmth. On the descent, I had to put on the undershirt to maintain warmth.
During the late evening hiking, especially the downhill, I felt good and thought little about exiting the trail. Maybe it was a morning thing or a climbing thing which created all the doubts. However, I still felt the trace of sadness looming around the corner like the crazed killer in a horror movie.
I had intended to hike until 10:00 pm, but found a nice flat area next to a short live tree tree 8:45 pm. I had plenty of water for tonight and tomorrow morning. There were 2 problems: the contact solution bottle was down to the last few drops and tomorrow would start off with a hefty climb towards the junction heading to Lone Pine.
At 10,000 feet elevation, the weather grew cold quite fast after dusk. I forewent dinner and headed straight inside the tentless sleeping bag. I have a difficult time getting up in cold weather, but I wanted to get out of camp by 8:00 am tomorrow.
