CDT Day 85 (8/11/23)

Miles 2061 (Red line 2323.7)- 2093.15 (Red line 2355.9) (32.15 miles)

Verbatim

I am so damn excited to get into town tomorrow. The Montana Cafe is in Darby, and lots of SOBO’s/past hikers have hyped it up (The first time I heard about the Montana Cafe was by Dream Catcher and Sandbag in 2021 on the PCT). One of the comments on Guthooks described a very peanut buttery monkey bread. They said it was too much for them and that they’d wished they’d just gone with the French Toast. I think I could go for both monkey bread and French Toast! A veggie omelet too.

Maybe I’ll see Pepé tomorrow. It’s likely I won’t. But maybe! I wonder who, and if, I will meet. I’m wondering if the trail is getting empty.

It’s a bummer I only made it 32 miles today. But I sat down and called my parents for an hour. That was a good thing to do. My mom had texted me saying she missed me and asked me to call. Better to call from trail where it’s beautiful and quiet and calm, and during which I can take a rest. If I were to call from town tomorrow there would be too much to do.

Maybe I’ll buy some new socks tomorrow. I wonder how my old socks are doing. They’re all alone on the Idaho mountainside which I lost them on… That feels like so long ago. It will be good to be done with this state. In fact, I forgot my socks at camp this morning again! I had to walk back .4 to get them. It was pretty frustrating at the time. I was eating my breakfast very angrily and hungrily.

This morning I scattered about ten Elk in a high alpine glade. There was running water and surprisingly lots of flowers. The wildflower game has really died down at this point. And with it the mosquitoes. :) :) :) I’m cowboy camping. :) :) :) Everyone’s antlers are coming in so strong! The Elk are awesome. But so are the Deer!

While I was taking my lunch break to little Fawns came bounding up to me. They looked so confused, and just stared. There was no mother in sight, and they were just making their way up the valley. They eventually got scared and jumped off when I pulled my hat down over my face. I wanted to see if they would come closer if I didn’t have eyes. It didn’t work.

I yogi-ed more food at lunch today. Three bars and an orange from a guy in a van with a motor bike and mountain bike painted on the side. I also dreamed about packing out whipped cream. I’m hungry; can’t you tell?

Monkey bread?

Post Note

Food. That all encompassing god of life while hiking. There are so many types of hunger. And I, with much thankfulness, only know a few of its forms. There’s the sort of hunger you might feel at home in a modernized country with refrigeration and enough money to buy food. The, “ah man I have to cook before I eat”, sort of hunger. Then there’s the worse, “ah man I have to grocery shop and come home and cook before I eat”. Then there’s the even worse, “Ah man I just rode my bicycle and now I’m really tired and really hungry and I have to grocery shop and come home and cook before I eat”. But none of these three hunger experiences compare to the, “Ah man I just walked 2093.15 miles and now I’m really tired and really hungry and I have to walk another 15 miles before I get to a road and try and hitch hike and then ride to town and then walk to a restaurant and then sit and wait and maybe even have to talk to someone so I can eat”. There are a lot of steps left to go between the “right now” and the future “I am eating”.

I’m trying to coin a hiker slang. I tell all the hikers I hike with long enough to eventually run out of things to talk about about this hiker slang. I’m an evangelist; what can I say. The phrase is; “Hit the Jiff”. It’s not original; even though I usually lie and say it is when talking to other hikers. I’m trying to be famous I guess? Or maybe I assume the slang has more authority, and therefore more likely to be adopted, if it’s perceived to have originated with me and not some other person. That’s actually probably backwards. People will be more likely to copy a lot of other people. But I guess I sacrifice that advantage because I want to be important. I’m not sure what this implies about how I feel about myself in relation to other people… Actually I do. Or at least I have some ideas. Anyways, I got it from a real surfer/ski bro I met at the top of Mt. Whitney while I was doing an evening’s jaunt off the PCT in 2021. I was pretty blasted when I reached the top and a real chill bro reclining in the rocks next to the summit sign holds up a peanut butter jar with a camp spoon sticking out of the top and says, “wanna hit the Jiff?”. It was like he was offering me drugs. But I’m a germ-a-phobe so I declined.

ANYWAYS. The slang “Hit the Jiff” is supposed to be a short hand for describing the very moment of hunger which I’ve described above. When you’re still ten miles, a hitch, a thirty-sixty minute conversation with your driver, a walk in town trying to decide where to eat, and a sit and wait away from the food you’re so desperate for and all you have is the scrapings of your peanut butter jar left to eat… you’ve got to dig deep and “HIT THE JIFF”.

You don’t realize how desperately you worship at the altar of hunger and food until you’re find yourself fantasizing about it all day. My experiences dreaming of food while walking grant a whole new meaning to Paul’s encouragement to “pray without ceasing”. No heads are bowed or hands clasped. That’s not the point. Instead your whole world is caught up and defined by this life altering reality. You are hungry. And so hunger, and its satisfaction, becomes a great source of comfort, excitement, and rest throughout the day.

This is why I recommend eating while walking. You’re out here to walk. You can eat at home. So let’s prioritize the walking. But eating is necessary and does make things better. So why not eat while you walk and thereby make what you’re out here to do so much more enjoyable. I don’t want to make this eating/walking combo sound too romantic. It’s just that you spend so much time walking it eventually gets really boring. Eating is a way to spice things up. You don’t need to eat while you sit because sitting is already so fun just because you’re sitting. But eating is fun! Or sometimes it isn’t fun because it’s the same damn cliff bar you’ve eaten a thousand times and so the walking actually makes the eating better. You can distract yourself from the endless chew. A chilled cliff bar is more of a work out than Knapsack Col. But even when the eating isn’t fun it makes the walking better because eating is energy and having enough energy makes the walking better.

And then there are moments when it all goes wrong. Like when you forget your socks AGAIN back at camp except this time you’ve only walked half a mile away and so it’s worth going back for them and now you’re eating your breakfast while walking the WRONG WAY. Suddenly that enjoyable three-fourths of a mile you would have walked while eating your oatmeal is consumed by the total irritation of wasting time, miles, energy, and FOOD on a mistake you made. The blessing is wasted.

You know. All of this really does matter; but is so trivial. Thruhiking is a great opportunity for attitude adjustment. I was SO UPSET when this happened. And then looking back on it now, or even later that day, I realized how ridiculous it was. And I got to be angry and then shake my head at myself alone without the opportunity to shed my grouchiness onto anyone else. It was a safe place for growth. But, I know I’ll still be upset next time I forget my socks.