Waking up, knowing you have nothing exceptionally important to do, no miles to walk, no chores to take care of, is one of the best feelings. The pleasure of a zero day. Bear Claw, Guy, and me got ourselves out of bed and headed toward the large dining hall where me and Guy purchased meal tickets for the buffet. It is a well stocked place! Hikers everywhere and so many food options. It is a recipe for an overfilled tray. We saw Radar and Peru there along with SOL and Andrew and so many more.
There is a cafe lounge area near the main office with nice computers that have fast WiFi, and so I blogged as I digested my food. Facebook was littered with questions about the snow in Colorado. What was everyone doing, everyone wanted to know. What was I doing? There was some stress and over analysis going on in the online world over these mountains. Were they even passable? Was it just a matter of getting snow shoes or was it legitimately an avalanche situation? People didn't want to be left behind. What were you doing?
Luckily more hikers gathered around the entrance, distracting me from this loop of worry. I went to go hang out in the grass with them and we all got to talking about, you guessed it, the snow situation in Colorado. I guess it was worse than everyone expected. It had been a low snow year until the spring. Suddenly the snow had caught up. We had all been naive in thinking it wouldn't dump on the San Juans anymore, allowing us all to start earlier. Some people already had their snow shoes, some people were talking about picking up their skis. What was I going to do? What WERE my options?
(Braiding Guy's hair)
There is a cafe lounge area near the main office with nice computers that have fast WiFi, and so I blogged as I digested my food. Facebook was littered with questions about the snow in Colorado. What was everyone doing, everyone wanted to know. What was I doing? There was some stress and over analysis going on in the online world over these mountains. Were they even passable? Was it just a matter of getting snow shoes or was it legitimately an avalanche situation? People didn't want to be left behind. What were you doing?
Luckily more hikers gathered around the entrance, distracting me from this loop of worry. I went to go hang out in the grass with them and we all got to talking about, you guessed it, the snow situation in Colorado. I guess it was worse than everyone expected. It had been a low snow year until the spring. Suddenly the snow had caught up. We had all been naive in thinking it wouldn't dump on the San Juans anymore, allowing us all to start earlier. Some people already had their snow shoes, some people were talking about picking up their skis. What was I going to do? What WERE my options?
We decided on a hiker yoga class in the grass to help calm all our nerves and get some stretching for our sore muscles. I led a nice slow class that really focused on the hiker areas, tight calves and thighs, hips and hamstrings, while strengthening the arms and core muscles. Everyone felt better after that. More relaxed and centered. We could breath again, and go about our day more mindfully. It was nice. Just what was needed.
Until we got back to the room later in the day and decided to actively discuss the snow situation. Grim and Bear Claw had been hiking together and so were discussing what they wanted to do, what their options were. It would have been nice to stick together, especially if the snow was as bad as it seemed, but I also understand the difficulty in making a larger group decision. We talked about flipping up north to do the Great Divide Basin in Wyoming, a flat, hot, tick infested, shadeless stretch, and then coming back down and hiking north again. We talked about just seeing how things went and not worrying about it until we reached Colorado. We talked about taking some time off for a week to see if that would be enough time for the snow to melt. We talked about a lot of things.
I felt my anxiety creeping up and up and found myself wanting to leave trail. I was not on trail to get stressed out like this, to worry about making this decision on my own and being left behind by my friends. I was on this trip to grow as a strong individual and help Camp Warren. Was I out here for the right reasons if I was so worried about being left behind? I felt dependent and not in control of the situation at all. How was I going to get up north? If I tried to move forward would I put myself in great danger? I decided to wait until Chama. To see what Colorado looked like. Guy had a friend, Claire, who lived in Durango on an organic dairy farm and could potentially host us for a week as we waited out the snow. That sounded like a god option as well.
Guy and I will leave tomorrow from Ghost Ranch and head toward Chama. Slowly. Let the snow melt. Grim and Bear Claw would be staying another night and day to go up to a Spa and hot springs an hour away for a day of relaxation.
What am I going to do?
No comments:
Post a Comment