CDT Day 94 (8/20/23)

Miles 2252.1 (Red line 2600.5)- 2271.6 (Unmarked alternate) (19.5 miles)

Verbatim

Today was a good day, although a bit discouraging to not make the mileage I’d hoped. I didn’t realize there was a closure/alt and had expected an easy hero in and out of Helena. But, as is with trail, things are unlikely to be straightforward. It rained and I ended up overnight in a cheep motel in Helena attending a Catholic Mass on Zoom led by Pam a female presider. haha. What the hell.

It’s a Sunday, so everything food wise in town was closed. I ended up eating at the Staggering Cow, which is a pretty lame establishment in my opinion. They served everything in so much plastic! UGH! The rice and bean bowl was so lame for the $$. And it was full of huge amounts of plastic.

There were good parts of the day though. I had a really funny experience doing the Darn Tough exchange. The store took the dirty socks right off my feet. They said it didn’t matter because they were just going to throw them out. I was like “what?!”, you have to clean those and mail them in to get the refund. They had no idea what I was talking about. I told them they really did need to keep them and that if they were going to throw them out they might as well just give them back to me instead. They didn’t like that suggestion. They finally started taking me seriously, looked concerned, and walked into the back room with my dirty socks. Lol.

The most important part of the day was meeting Denali/Mary. She was a really experienced thruhiker in her 60’s/70’s. I couldn’t tell. She was slack packing the detour around the closure NOBO to head back into town before the rain. We talked about a a whole host of things and she invited me to church. It was fun! We shared ice cream and lunch together once in town. How wonderful to spend time with her.

I’ve picked up too much container plastic here in Helena. I just ordered a cinnamon roll here in the coffee shop and they gave it to me in a plastic box…

I’m so tired of the work of this trip. I want things to be easy and fun. I want to accomplish the goal. Instead I’m rained out, frustrated with poor gear in a gigantic pack. I’ve lost the ability to be streamlined and quick. Feels dirty. Feels like a mess. Even getting home will be hard with all the crap I'm packing.

I’m looking at these people chilling with friends on a rainy day in a coffee shop. Get me home or get me in the mountains where I can do what I’m here to do. Can I just hit back to back 35’s?

Post Note

Oh man. When I was given that cinnamon roll I was so upset. That’s actually an event which occurred on day 95, but I’ll give you an advance story now. It came in a plastic box large enough to not get any of the sweet icing smudged on the top or sides. You know those cake boxes? One of those. My name was called by the barista and I walked to the counter. It was sitting on top of the display case for other pastries. I picked it up and asked if they could take the plastic away. She shook her head and said no, that it would have to be thrown out because it was used. So. Ridiculous. If I hadn’t touched it with my hand could it have been taken back? Should I have let her hoist the weight of such a ridiculous use of plastic when taking out the day’s trash? No. Instead it went in my pack and worked to keep me from the 35’s I wanted to crush. It wasn’t heavy, but it took a lot of space. Eventually it got smashed and cracked and broken open. Then it fit well within the moldy crevices of plastic deep down in my pack. But when I would reach down to pull out my sleeping bag, which I stuffed deep in the recesses of my back each morning, I could feel its razored edges grating against the back of my hand. I’d even specified I wanted to eat it in the shop. Why did it have to go in a “to-go” box?

Denali was literally an angel. Spending time with old wise people, especially if they’re women, was exactly what I needed this summer. Pepé was my brother and friend. I wouldn’t have traded him for anything. But to spend time with Denali was just different. It was right. I saw her first about a mile into the detour around the trail closure. I’d be road walking again, for about eighteen miles total, to get around a section of trail being worked on by loggers. The mountain road wound back and forth as it descended from on high. I could see Denali below me, maybe four hundred feet down, and at least a mile in front of me. The first thought which came into my head, which I promptly tried to repeat several times vocally, was Darth Vader’s “I have you now” to Luke Skywalker in the Death Star trench. I suck at accents though, so I never really got it right.

I caught up to Denali as she’d paused to delayer a rain jacket. It had threatened to rain all morning, but had begun to lift into a lighter gray overcast. The perceived threat of clouds is all relative. You get pretty in tune with it when you spend all day outside. We talked and talked and talked. Denali wondered why I slowed down to chat with her. Denali, you were exactly where I needed to be. We empathized about the earth, the experience of thruhiking, the drive to do so, the sort of stories you come across along the way of your walking, about animals, about religion. I love listening about people’s experiences with religion on trail. But the most important thing we talked about was the felt experience of the “selfishness” of trail. Trail really does feel selfish. You’re off on your own, skipping out on most of the social responsibilities expected of a loved and loving human being. You’re not working actively to produce anything for yourself or other people or the world. You’re just walking. You receive a lot more tangibles than you give. All that and you leave people behind when you go walking. Sometimes you don’t come back.

Denali had a family. She raised a child (or was it children?). Her husband, however, had become emotional unstable and relationally unsafe. He’d worked in the military, struggled with medications and substance which his career in the military had made necessary for his well being. Eventually she created space for herself and went walking. She hadn’t really stopped. She’s a prophet for sure. Sort of like what I imagine Jesus or John the Baptist to be like. Ghandi maybe. Siddartha. Those people. Denali.

Denali invited me to church. But before you get over excited that she was evangelizing you shouldn’t. She knew there was nothing she had which she could give me. She knew there was nothing I needed which I didn’t already have inside myself. We were both well aware of our complete equality, vibrant location, and powerful uniqueness. She had become a friend, and friends give what they have to give. And friends receive what is given. So I went to church. It was funny to be sitting there in a cheap motel room smelling lightly of all the people who’d come to use it before me. I was in a church. In the heavenly sanctuary, even. Being ministered a Catholic service by a female priest. It felt… underground, revolutionary, and completely ordinary. These people didn’t care about the Catholic Church. They just happened to be Catholic and wanted to do a church.

But god I just wanted to be back out in the woods.