Well, this is the first thing I’ve done from the list that did not feel terribly rewarding once I’d completed it. In fact, I’ve had a hard time writing anything about it just because I’m so disappointed in the way this trip turned out, and I’m a little heartbroken because it was something I’d been looking forward to so much. But I guess the point of the list is to do interesting things that make me a more interesting person, and I did learn the very important lesson that one should perhaps choose companions for a five-day backpacking trip very carefully.
And so here is how I spent a few fairly miserable days hiking through an utterly gorgeous stretch of beaches and not really enjoying myself very much at all!
Backpacking along a beach is so much easier than climbing a mountain that I barely even breathed hard this entire trip. Well, I guess I got a little climbing in.
And there was also a little rappelling down beachheads because apparently we picked a trail where they train Navy SEALs or something.
I like this picture partly because it shows what happened when I tried to make friends with some barnacles during a sketchy little beach scramble as the tide was coming in, and also because this is the last time those brand-new trail shoes were blue. Because the next obstacle was ankle-deep mud. For miles.
Third Beach, at least, was magic. I spent hours wading in tidepools and poking at anemones and scavenging beach pebbles and watching shooting stars and building a bonfire of driftwood and watching orcas from the tent in the morning.
Eric and I had a conversation some time ago about how he doesn’t really like just-plain-backpacking anymore now that he climbs, and I didn’t really get it. But I came back from this trip, my first backpacking trip in maybe three years, and Eric picked me up on his motorcycle to cheer me up, and then over margaritas asked, “So do you hate backpacking now?”
YES, KIND OF.
YES, ACTUALLY.
And after hitchhiking back along two highways, and still with nine miles of deserted dirt road between us and the car, I laced up my shoes and grabbed a liter of water and volunteered to jog the nine miles to the car alone, so I would just like to say right here that climbing mountains has put me in pretty phenomenally good shape.
Here comes another weekend, and here come the mountains. Lesson learned.
THING #9: DONE. (11/101)
