Yesterday I will meet Cracker on a frozen slope. I will find magic in my hat. I will take my first ever nap on the trail. But this is the morning of Day 4, when everything becomes new.
Mornings on the trail all begin the same: I wake up spontaneously just before sunrise, lie there in my sleeping bag thinking “it’s cold,” and then I roll out of the tent, start the coffee, and pack up. I make it a habit to get up at least once at night, ostensibly to pee, although I know I could hold it. I just want to make sure I look at our shared night sky at least once–all those stars, just once. I’ll spend the day seeing and thanking the day sky, and it seems crazy to sleep through the deeper experience of all those stars and planets.
Dawn in the mountains is an embrace, part mother’s, part lover’s. There is no neat horizon for the sun to rise above, but the light comes, almost imperceptibly–it is dark, and then everything is a shade of dark blue-grey, and then the stars are gone save one or two of the brightest, and then there are the mountains standing around you in every direction. It is a dim light that envelopes you, and holds you gently. Mornings in the mountains you are busy, heating water for coffee, breaking down your tent and packing up, anticipating. And so I was not prepared for this dawn to explode on the mountains before me. I could not see the sun, only it’s golden light striking the mountains before me. It took my face in two hands and drew me in to it. It held me there.
Aparigraha means letting go. It means recognizing that impermanence is the only constant, and you can’t hold on to things. But I will never let go of your sunrise. It was there so briefly, and then it was gone and became something else. It didn’t need me or want me; it just was. Aparigraha also means learning to be let go of.
My trail name is Honey Badger. The thru-hikers would always ask “what’s your name?,” and “George” did not register with them. But when I answered “Honey Badger,” they’d almost always smile and respond “Honey Badger doesn’t give a shit!”
I kept trying to be grateful for all I had at that moment, but I kept coming back to thinking “I’ve got at least ten pounds of stuff in this pack that I don’t need.” I was trying to keep in mind yesterday’s swadhyaya and tapas, but that too heavy pack, and the trail that just got irritating going downhill because I knew that meant I would just have to go back up, and eventually all I could think about was making each step I took a perfect step. I imagined the most efficient, relaxed, powerful, beautiful step I could possibly take. I forgot the step I had just taken, didn’t worry about the one coming next. I just thought about taking one beautiful step.
The plan for this trip was to leave my car at the Wolf Creek Pass trailhead, hike six days up the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) past Hunchback Pass and hook west up the CT (Colorado Trail) to follow the Elk Creek drainage toward Molas Pass where I would meet me friend Rob Graham, who would take me back to my car. But I have accepted now that things never turn out as planned, and that in itself becomes part of the plan. Things went exactly as expected.
You go up one, and it is hard, but you think “when I get to the top, I will have accomplished something important, and I will see more clearly.” But then you get there, and you see the damn trail just goes right back down the other side, and back up another very similar mountain. You have accomplished nothing.
The only other people I saw during my hike were CDT thru-hikers, people walking from the southern border with Mexico up to Canada during the 3-4 month window when lack of snow up high makes the trip possible. These were amazing people. So positive, so full of joy and gratitude for being exactly where they were at each moment. And walking so much faster than me! Cardboard, Hercules, Ketzyl, Cracker, Nugget, Kodachrome, and Yellow Mustard: trail names, the only ones that mattered to anyone up there. We’d chat a bit, and then they needed to move on, cover more distance before sunset. And when they were gone I’d say “there’s no way I could do that. What am I trying to prove out here?”
The great thing about a day like this is that you are so tired that you don’t have the energy to still wonder what you are trying to prove. You just want to eat, get warm, and sleep. I was forcing dinner down when something spooked this deer, and she actually hissed at me. Twice, like a really big, angry snake.
And I was at that moment so grateful to be right there, grateful to have set those two intentions for the day and not done what was easiest. To have seen the day through, and gone to sleep on a mountain surrounded by hissing deer.
My Name is SCHOOLS 