Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Half Recollections from the Trail


…too tired and dehydrated to care we all polished off another liter of sketchily treated back spring water from our Nalgenes. The last 15 miles were a blur. What mile were we on now? 38? 43? Does it even matter? My mind had started blurring the lines between the conscious and subconscious. I was cleanly out of the “zone”. We were now going 3 or 4 hour sections without saying a single word to each other. We didn’t need to. Every once in a while Matt or Sed would utter something unintelligible, either because my mind couldn’t process their words or because their minds couldn’t process their speech.

“Why have we been walking through this stream for the last hour?”

“We haven’t.”

Mild hallucinations creep into our vision. I shake my head; the dirt single track comes back into view. I steal a glance at my watch.. It’s 1:35pm. We’ve been hard on the trail for some 13 hours. We push ideas of cold water and a soft bed out of our heads. The most rested person on the team is myself; I’ve only been awake for 33 hours. I think to myself, “how are these guys pushing this hard, this late? they’ve been up for nearly 40 hours now...”

I fade back into that washed out timeless headspace and put another step down in front of me.
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment