Sanity

7/4/2013

Sanity


As I hiked in the pouring rain , on Monday morning, July 1st...... splashing along through the puddles......baby stepping across the slippery rock faces, and squishing into occasional muddy stretches....I was thinking how good it was that there was no lightning with this storm....only torrential rain.  I was not wearing rain gear.  Rain gear protects you from the chill of cold rain,  but if you are hiking hard,  you get wet underneath, anyhow,  from sweat.  In the summer...... when it is warm and hypothermia is not a concern....... one may as well forgo rain gear.  Being soaked to the bone, by water...... instead of sweat..... as has been the case lately.....was actually refreshing, and the downpour was even holding the mosquitoes at bay.  Once I adapted to that initial "wet clothes clinging to skin", sensation...... I concentrated on the hike, on following the trail, and those white blazes.
The rain was a bit cold during my brief breaks of sitting on a wet rock, or log, but it's coolness was perfect for actual hiking, and I was making pretty good time.   My clothes were getting some of the sweat and dirt rinsed out of them....... and so was I.  It was all good.
It all seemed so everyday normal,so natural..... that I was forced to consider the question of my sanity.

I am splooshing up the slopes and down the slopes......... navigating across rock hazzards, and swollen streams, and am thinking......
"No bugs, no sweat, clean clothes, clean body.... it is so good to be soaking wet!!"
Have I been out here too long?  Does one have to be totally insane to hike the whole AT?
Or is it possible that after 4 months.......... that I am there.....that I have arrived.....that I have adapted to this trail....and to what it takes to see it through to the end?
 An interesting question.  I am not certain of the answer.  I only know that I plan to keep hiking, to go up the next hill.

A day later,  "Sundance" and I successfully navigated our way from Jacobs Peak,  down the steep wet rocks of St.John's Ledges, to the Housatonic River below, near Kent,CT. 

It is a tricky task dry....more challenging wet.  Once safely down, "Sundance", much faster than me..... bade farewell.  I strolled along the edge of the river on a flat path for miles.  I came apon a muddy stretch,  and stepped onto a rock,  to avoid the mud.  My foot slipped....... and down I went face first into the soft mud.  One whole side of my rain-rinsed body was suddenly mud.  My hiking poles.... my pants....my shirt...my hat......my face, and even my eyes, were full of mud!!!!

Luckily,  the rain swollen river was steps away.  I tested the edge with a muddy pole,(it dropped off pretty fast)....then stepped into the chest deep, warm water and rinsed off.  Then I climbed out....soaked again,  and kept hiking.  "What luck",  I thought, "to slip on a rock and fall into mud...and not onto rocks.... while traversing the Ledges.  What a lucky fall indeed!".