September 8th, 2024
Mile Marker: 1830.7
Miles Hiked: 20
Today was a strange turn of emotions. Well, I guess not totally surprising since I’ve been quite emotional on this trail. 🤷🏽♀️ I woke up and my resting heartrate was again extremely high (for me), my HRV had plummeted, and my stress showed high. It showed similar metrics that I had after a 150 mile gravel bike race. My first immediate thought was, either I am not recovering or my body is fighting something.
This plagued my thoughts and worry and I started questioning if I should get back out or go home with Maddie for a few days. Mind you aunt flow is around the corner and I couldn’t keep my tears in.
Eventually before breakfast, Maddie and I talked through the anxiety and worry and when I should be concerned about my heart rate.
We went downstairs and had breakfast that Aster made, leftover veggies with eggs and toast. It was yummy. Then we all went and packed our bags and cleaned up the house.
As we were all sitting in the living room, it was then discussed if we should head back out to trail or not with Whatever feeling like he was. There was definitely something going around with all of us as we felt lethargic and Whatever was congested and had an upset stomach. Which Journey and I had a couple days ago.
We decided that we would stop by Safeway and grab allergy medicine for Whatever then head out to trail. Once again so thankful we had Maddie to drive us around.
Once at the trailhead I felt tears come to my eyes again as I said goodbye to Maddie. She is like a sister to me and it hurt to see her go as she helps keep my head on straight.
She drove off and we started down the trail.
I kept tears in my eyes on and off for the first hour or so. Trying to listen to her words and everyone’s support, I was okay. I also knew that my anxiety was going to make me manifest symptoms if I fixated.
My aunt texted me “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” and I found solace in that. I kept telling myself that God is with me and felt a calmness in it.
It was an ebb and flow of this for the first half of the day, anxiety creeping in and me reminding myself he is with me. Until eventually I felt calm and could think of other things.
The trail today was mostly in the trees which I really appreciated. I didn’t need any high ridge walking just mellow hiking in the trees. We had some steeper, shorter climbs but nothing like the past couple of days. We were able to cruise at a 3 miles per hour pace although it felt like we were going a lot slower.
We all kept an eye on Whatever to make sure he was feeling okay and he claimed he was, just that he needed to hike slower.
We all took turns being the leader which was nice. It’s always a good feeling to let someone else lead and navigate where you can just follow the footsteps of the person in front of you. It helps to zone out.
At lunch we ran across Ace and chatted with her for a while. It was nice that her and I had a lot of similar viewpoints, such as wanting to do the lower routes and being done. Although I’m looking forward to New Mexico, I more so just want to be done with Colorado. It will be a triple crown for both of us and I think we are both ready for what’s next after trail.
She also pointed out something that Journey and I had talked about, that the trail culture was more rude on this trail than others. We have never seen people down vote people’s comments on the FarOut app or snip back and forth in the comment section. Typically the app has always been so positive and kind and not trying to degrade someone. It’s frustrating to see that on this app, just like you see in social media. We don’t need that out here, we don’t need to gang up on someone just because they do things differently. We are all out here for different reasons, all working through our own challenges, don’t bring hateful spirit to trail… a place where we can grow and heal.
Today I listened more to Humankind and had discussions with Journey about people being innately good or bad. It was intriguing to hear his thoughts. We both come from such different backgrounds and have seen such different sides of people.
During one of the descents, we walked through Aspens and can really start to see their change in color to yellow, it’s beautiful and I’m excited for them to continue to turn colors!
We arrived at a water source 20 miles in around 7 PM and Journey and I decided we would stop and eat dinner and probably camp. Aster and Whatever decided to eat dinner and continue on for 4 miles to get to the junction to hike Mount Massive and get their 14er in. Journey and I didn’t care much since it wasn’t on trail and don’t feel a pull to hike it.
So we got to camp early tonight and will get to take it easy tomorrow to get into Twin Lakes and wait for them tomorrow evening.
It’s been easier days the past week or so but I’m okay with it. I know it’s about to get really hard in a couple days for the next couple weeks so I’m soaking this up.
The second half of today was nice. And I’m feeling content tonight, especially getting to camp at a good time.
Hoping for good sleep.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 