Campsite at mile 306 to Cleghorn Picnic Area (mile 328)
All afternoon we walk in and out of the accordion folds of the hillside. We’re hiking late in the afternoon, hours delayed by a morning spent soaking in Deep Creek hot springs. I am hypnotized by the repetition of the day; side hill up a knoll to a small saddle, then follow the hill back into the fold of the drainage. Two near U-turns connected by a straight line cut across the hill side. This continues for hours and somewhere in that space I lose my thought process completely. I’m just waking, sometimes simply starting at Keith’s feet in front of me. I watch his patient little stride, the occasional hitch step to adjust the sit of his shorts. How long do I watch this? I have no idea. I unintentionally study his walk, stride, pattern, noticing the slight sunburn behind his knees, the roll of his blue shoes when he’s waking up particularly steep sections, the way he tucks his poles under his arm and his pace slows while he checks our mileage on his phone. When was the last time I allowed my brain to slow like this, drift into low power mode.
When I do pull my head up it’s to find a low wide valley oozing out to the north. A flat green expanse cut through by a flat blue river dotted irregularly by low slung homes. It feels like anywhere rural America, forgotten by modernity, aged in nostalgia and a reluctance to change. It’s Norman Rockwells wet dream, bathed as it is in yellow evening light and textured by shadows cast from puffy grey clouds that have threatened rain all day but have yet to deliver.
How kind the PCT is to us today. Holding us in this special place within the vastness of everything, the world around us singing in that good way. Even the recovering burned areas are Technicolor lovely, shot through with grass and flowers as they are. I find myself marveling at this day, the perfect nature of everything and I attempt to envelope the streams of warming light, the smell of warm lavender and earth, the funny erratic breeze. I try and hold them inside of me for another day, not exactly. More like another me, I try and hold this day inside me for a future version of me who will cast her mind back for something delightful and stumble upon the memory of this day.
