djc

Great idea

Took a tour of emotional experiences today, hit a lot of the major ones, and marinated in the strangest mixture of feelings on my flight back.

A truly unique day. I won’t forget it.

And yeah, I’m gonna cop out and vague post about it because my latest emotional experience for the day is I’m tired.

I think it’s an unfortunately simple pattern. The republicans have mostly been trained that if they propose hitting the American people the democrats will blink.

Definitely all veterans of Surviving Maine which I understand to be its own war.

I think one of the things we’ve all learned together is to keep track of how many stupids we combine and stop if the number gets too large. I think friends and community are sometimes about counting them together, and with each other.

Excited to try more plans with a lower number. :)

I actually made it all the way back to SF within 24h of leaving. Which is pretty stupid, but now I’m back. These days after hikes sometimes I feel it the next day and so far I’m doing well. I feel like I learned some things yesterday, even if some of them should have been obvious. :)

I was in a perfect position to catch the drive back during sunset if I left immediately so I just went for it. And since all the mapping apps still thought the pass was closed, it was empty. It was just myself and the wildlife out there. I saw no other cars for like 30 miles. It was fantastic.

Sonora Pass was closed on my way up, but had re-opened six hours earlier. I had kind of hoped to try to come back via a different pass than I came up on and so I took the opportunity before it closed for the season. I actually prefer Sonora to Tioga, both are beautiful, but I stand by it.

So I asked myself what I wanted to do next. I thought about staying out there and trying again, with a full night of sleep to baseline. But it didn’t seem necessary. I’ll try some hikes on the coastal range closer to home over the winter and try this one another season.

(I’m not sure I could have done this hike then either but I didn’t try then so I don’t know. But that’s neither here nor there. Then is then. Now is now.)

I know this seems obvious and it was logical even at the time but as someone who climbed around in the Sierras growing up (just not carrying gear) I wanted to gauge where I’m at now more directly by going out and finding out. The simple answer is I’m less fit, and now I have a feel about how much.

The hike down was fast and easy, and on flat terrain I’d likely been okay, but this hike wasn’t that. Even the comparatively mellow beginning of the hike goes up about 100ft every quarter mile. And it’s constant. So this trail is just more serious than I am right now.

I kept going and surprisingly it didn’t get harder as I kept climbing with lots of stops, but the outcome was still obvious. Instead of backpacking up to a lake I ended up hiking around for a few hours with a backpack and getting used to the weight. It was beautiful out there.

The weather has been hotter than usual, which is keeping the snow away and also made the trail yesterday downright hot (more than expected) especially in direct sunlight, which I hadn’t prepared for as much as the cold night. I could tell in the first quarter mile this wasn’t going to be my day.

I had a nice day out there along 395. The hike I eventually want to be able to do is along Big McGee Creek and is about a 1000m gain hike up the mountains. It’s probably outside my current abilities with a full pack on a normal day and definitely was yesterday.

As I slipped over Tioga onto the eastern side of the range it was clear I was far too tired. There’s many things I can do on two hours of sleep but this isn’t one of them. That said the window for the season is rapidly closing and I won’t be back out there for a bit so I wanted to see what I’d see.

Wisdom caught up to me. Took evasive action and changed all my plans.

Close call.

Very tired. Back on the cell network. Some pictures tomorrow for anyone who wants these completely unsolicited updates on how my Monday went.

Would have loved to have gotten more sleep. But alas it’s only when it actually matters that I have trouble falling asleep. So… we’ll see how this hike goes. I’ve promised to myself that I’ll cut it short for really any reason, rhyme or otherwise. So I guess I’ll find out later.

Left the Central Valley later than I intended but still well before dawn. Should enter Yosemite shortly, but only to pass through. Out of the three passes in this area, only Tioga is currently open. Any other choice would be a 100+ mile route change.

Staging myself into the Central Valley tonight to go into the mountains tomorrow. Late October in the Sierras by myself is like the ideal first backpacking trip, right?

Oh! For next time can I recommend Paris without any tourist things? That’s a winning combo for me.

There’s something not right with people who hate this place.

(I’m a firm believer that it’s okay to hate things, or even some people. But if you hate this *place* you’ve lost the plot.)

Just standing in an open balcony door gazing at the sun as it sets over the ocean as a gentle quiet rain falls across the city.

… it seems more people are athletes than I had previously realized.

All the non military folks are back with their normal demos, including United doing stunts in a Boeing 777 which is a San Francisco air show staple.

In place of the blue angels, our Canadians neighbors have dropped by with their precision flying squad.

So enjoy the air show this weekend!

So. The government is shut down and one of the few things that affects in the defense budget is things like air shows. This happens to be SF’s typical week for fleet week.

The city said “okay fine then I guess.” And the annual airshow is happening as scheduled. Just without the US military.

Yeah. Living in SD for four years and then moving back up to the bay came with some tough realizations about what I had left behind that weren’t as obvious when I moved down.

The White Dashes
The Beatle
Beats Retro
Compost
Justice System
The Polish Tourist
The Glitch Gathering

Hmm. Gonna need a new Plan A.

Trees don’t care about zoning codes.