Some random thoughts about hiking today –

It recently occurred to me that, in order to make the mileage I’ll need to finish the trail before the snows, I’ll probably need to wake up at the crack of dawn… EVERY DAY. (The butt-crack of dawn. Sunrises are over-rated.) And although part of my reasons for doing this hike are to remove myself from the daily work grind, to set myself free of the treadmill of deadlines and endpoints, I’ve chosen to do something with a deadline. The PCT isn’t a wander through the woods, it’s a journey, with an endpoint, with a definite deadline. (SNOW, the deadline is called SNOW.) On my list of vague worries about this summer, one is that I will not be awake enough to see the world around me, that I will be on the endless, brown treadmill of dirt, and never stop to look up, to hear the birds, to enjoy the view.

I’d like to be a real explorer someday, but I just don’t know about alpine starts…