Excitement ensues
IT’S FUCKING TOWN DAY!!!I think this before I even open my eyes and I shoot up, uncharacteristically ready for my morning chores.
Deflate neoair, check
Make weird hot porridge with granola and nut butter, check
Brew coffee, check
Take a shit/try to dig a cat hole that doesn’t fill me with shame, check/check
Brush my teeth, check
Pack my items into highly specific ziplocks, then highly specific stuff sacs, then highly specific pockets of my pack- check, check, check.
And off we go!
We’re 4.7 miles to Snoqualmie pass and I am committed to trying to get there fast. So much of my hiking is about deep reservation, the knowledge that I am not quite as strong as 1) I’d like to be and 2) my hiking partners are. If I don’t go slow and steady up and down the trail I will become deeply morose and discouraged by the day’s end, and I always hike just a little more carefully than I could in an effort to keep a little gas in the tank. With such little mileage to go, though, Jukebox puts music on full blast and I pound. By the time we have 2.5 miles to town I am doing the Muffy Davis equivalent of jogging, which isn’t fast at all, but sure is fast for me.
With just a little over half of our daily mileage done, I deflate and sag. I’m HUNGRY dear reader, very hungry and it frustrates me! I ate a full breakfast just about an hour before and I can hear the roar of my stomach as I go and that feels....stupid.
The only time in my life I’ve ever felt this way before was when I was anorexic. Even at my sickest, I would eat large (though calorically sparse) meals until I felt full to bursting and an hour later I’d be starving. Though I am eating quadruple as much as I did back then, and though I am strong and doing my absolute best to fuel sufficiently, this feeling triggers the shit out of me. I am not excited to feel this unending need for more and more and I am unsure how to reconcile these facts. Long distance hiking and eating disorders, man. It can totally be a thing and that’s a game I just don’t want to be playing.
I say all of this out loud. Because it’s easy to get ashamed when I feel triggered and because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this short life of mine it’s that shame is a glorious waste of energy and time. I cannot feel ashamed when I continuously shine lights on the truth and so I do just that, and like magic I feel better. Still hungry, but better.
Snoqualmie pass is, in my opinion, a perfect rest town. You can walk right in, no hitch required. It has an Inn, where we have a giant room with a king bed. There is laundry at the Inn and a hiker box in the lobby. There’s a coffee cart with soy milk, and the teen behind the counter gives me my second coffee on the house for no good reason and I love her for it regardless. There’s a gas station with Juanita’s jalapeño tortilla chips and kombucha and stove fuel and Fritos scoops (like regular Fritos but better!), there is a cart that gives you a giant carry out container of vegan curry with a pile of fresh vegetables, and by golly I even got the veggie burger of my dreams at the pancake house- complete with a side salad AND a side of French fries. All of this is within a few feet of everything else, which I appreciate deeply because me and walking are done for the day. I want a break!
Tik tok is joining us today! This hike has had so many buddies come and go and I am STOKED that many friends want to come suffer along side us. Tik tok is a hiking expert, basically, and she comes bearing gifts! She has grapes and a watermelon, and KT tape, and ziplocks and vagisil (literally the best thing for chafing anywhere on the body, don’t @ me) and so much food. I am fucking EXCITED for this next section to Skykomish, EXCITED to take on this big climb out of Snoqualmie pass tomorrow with even more food then I packed out last time and significantly less all around new hiker pain.
Let’s fucking do this.