The First Day

I finally got on the trail on Wednesday, 4/9, around 6:30 in the evening. I hiked two miles in and then camped because it was starting to get dark and I wanted to get up early the next morning. On Thursday, my first full day, I managed to do eighteen miles into Lake Morena. The weather was beautiful for hiking and I was enjoying myself...until the last five miles or so. The trail is very smooth until those last miles when you hit a big hill. After weeks of hiking it wouldn't have been a problem, but on the first day (and at the end of the day) going a mile uphill in the hot sun is a bit exhausting. My morale dropped considerably before I even realized it was happening. After getting up the hill I was somehow feeling at my worst emotionally and mentally. "Why did I decide to do this again? I'm going to do 700 miles of desert AGAIN. ALONE. And for what? So I can say I thru-hiked? Who cares? It's just walking a long way! This is what I need to do to feel independent? This is ridiculous. I'm going to be out here for four months. All alone. Slogging through the miles. Day after day. How am I going to do this when I already feel this lonely and depressed?"

When I got to Lake Morena I immediately called my mom and told her how shitty I was feeling. Lamenting that I'd chosen to hike mile after mile all summer rather than having a relaxing time with friends and family going swimming and just enjoying my time. I had been so excited to get back on the trail and now that I was there, I couldn't understand what had compelled me to return.

Of course my mom was understanding and encouraging, but when I hung up with her I still didn't know what the hell I was going to do. I'd been picturing how I was going to tell people that I'd quit the trail at mile twenty.

I walked to the bathroom at the campground and saw a sign telling me to go to site 64 to camp with the other hikers if the camp office was closed, which it was. On my way to the site, I ran into a girl that I'd met at the beginning of the day who was hiking with her mom. She told me they'd gone out to dinner and had three pieces of pizza left if I wanted them. Of course I was elated. I actually cried a little while taking it from her, so that made me feel pretty dramatic and ridiculous, but she understood. My first bit of trail magic, when I needed it most.

I took the pizza to the site where a bunch of other hikers had already set up their tents. I sat on the grass and savored the deliciousness, feeling like everything might be okay. Then some hikers came and struck up a conversation with me, and I remembered the sense of camaraderie on the trail that makes a long, tiring day fade away.

And it always helps to fall asleep gazing at a sky bright with stars.