7.29.18

Finding favor through fine sand. The footprints of others shadowed under a full moon. Silver light shooting through pines. Mt Hood under the heavens in a silent wreath of snow. Beyond the brush to my right a vertical drop hundreds of feet to a rushing stream below. I can hear it now, the only sound. Everything else is silent. I am silent. My mind is silent. There’s no more pain. I understand my feet are swollen. I understand it’s 1 am, that we’ve been hiking for 17 hours. 
“Hey mom” I say.
“I’m out here” whispering as if to give coordinates. 
“Just look at that” and I motion to the mountain.
In the distance Timberline Lodge is glowing yellow and orange.
I feel like I’m in Russia. In Chile. High in the Swiss Alps. Somewhere without a name, a place that exists in the imagination-for the imagination. 
I don’t know what day of the week it is. 
I don’t know what happens when I return home...how I return home...where home is anymore. 
I wonder if I’ve ever wanted a home to begin with and what ‘home’ really means. 
We cross a small creek with a flat piece of wood over it. 
At the top of a hill overlooking the lodge we find a clearing beneath a tree.
Thirty-five miles. This will be our longest day on the PCT until the end.
Immediate sleep punctuated by flashes of nerve pain until 8 am.
We wander down to the lodge. In the bathroom I find a clean rag in an open janitor’s closet and scrub the black dirt from my feet and legs. Hotel guests appear and disappear. I barely notice.
We’re here to grab our resupply box and sit down for the breakfast buffet. 
An hour later we’re charging phones and answering mail in the great lobby. 
Tourists wind through with kids in tow. 
Time to get back on the trail. 



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