Day 22

North of Lake Marjorie to Woods Creek

I woke up debating a 10 mile day. all of the extra miles the day before and 10 miles would give me a comfortable time to get to Rae lakes to do a zero. I haven’t done an actual zero before.

Packed up and got visited by deer and another humming bird. I really love to hear the low buzz of the humming bird coming to check me out. I think the inquisitive nature is what draws me to them. When I was 10 or 11, we visited my cousins in Arizona. They lived near or on an Indian reservation and there was this shop on the way that had little souvenirs. I’m not sure if it was rooted in anything, but an old woman who I thought was the shop owner picked out a rock with an Indian talisman on it and handed it to me. “You should buy this.” I did. It was a stone with a hummingbird etched on it.

Once I left camp, the miles were fairly easy. I wondered if I would run into Marilyn, Becky and Diane but I doubted it. They needed to be at Kearsarge by the 15th and I needed to slow down to be there by the 17th.

I set a steady pace and headed up Pinchot pass. When I got to the top, I had it to myself. There was no one on sight for as far as I could see. I just laid on the rock listening to the sounds and breathing in the air. Wow. This is my day today. I’m up at 12107 feet basically touching the sky.

I pondered God being described as a rock. I loved feeling how steady and hard the rock was underneath me. The entire mountain was like one big rock. A place I could stand on and count on to be there, solid and immovable.

I decided to take my break on the summit instead of down below. While I was laying down absorbing the experience, I got visited by a cheeky chipmunk. It tried to get me to like it enough to feed it. Never feed the wildlife.

Once 30 minutes passed, I switched out my water bottles and started down.

Hiking was pretty solo.

Didn’t see many people until a group of four around 2PM. One of the men recognised my Minnesota North Star hat. He smiled, asked me if I was from Minnesota and pointed to the hat. He is from Apple Valley. Then he offered to buy the hat off me.

I was smiling about the interchange when I got to a water crossing. It was a little crossing but right as I was about to reach the other side, my foot slipped and I fell down. Knee, inside of foot and head all hit rock.

I shook myself off. Checked that nothing fell out of my pack that I needed and picked myself up.

“You are okay,” I kept soothing myself.

I got to the other side, put my pack down. Composed, I pulled out my solar charger… I am pretty sure I’m going to be here for a bit. I checked myself for bleeding. The knee was scaped but nothing there, side of my foot hurt but was walkable and my hat was wet, but where I hit my head seemed to be just a slight scrape. I passed my own first aid inspection. I went to the bathroom, came back laid out my ground sheet, laid down and started to cry.

I felt small. It was just a little scrape but all I wanted was someone to pick me up and hug me. Tell me it’s going to be okay. That I was scared and it’s okay to be scared. I did good. I’ll be okay.

What am I thinking being out here by myself? Who do I think I am? Why did I think I could come out here and finish this trail on my own? I heard my mom’s voice, “why did you do that! don’t get hurt!”

I was feeling accused and went to read some scripture… and for some reason You Version needed a freaking sign in.

“You are not connected to the internet”

No crap Bible App that I download so I can turn to the word when I feel accused. My kindle didn’t have a bible downloaded either. I felt hopeless and tears of frustration started to well up. The small child in me was screaming to be comforted and comforted now… and her source was being denied.

I took a breath.

Try it again.

I clicked the x on the YouVersion screen and a verse popped up. Thank goodness.

Isaiah 43:2

That helped.

I managed to calm myself down.

“It was scary, but you are okay,” I told myself.

I was 7 miles into the 10 I wanted to do. There was a camp site at mile 8.2. I think I would get there, see how I felt and continue on.

I packed up everything I pulled out… and a few tentative steps chanting, “do not fear, I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God.” I got myself to the trail to start hiking again.

While hiking I began thinking to myself, “It wasn’t that bad of a fall. I’ve done worse, but for some reason it felt magnified. It was weird to me how I responded. Calm and collected, I even managed to charge my battery while I was checking myself over. Was it actually that scary? Why was I so shaken up over such a manageable fall?”

I came around a steep section and began climbing down slowly. Because I was afraid of my steps after slipping, my confidence was shaken… I was very slow. I stopped to relax and began again. I slowly navigated the scree steps and when I cleared them, resumed thinking.

I used to try and describe this phenomenon to a close friend of mine. That sometimes when scary things happened, I felt like I shifted into a different gear. Like “big sister Larissa” versus “little Larissa.”

Little Larissa was weak and cried all the time. She needed to be comforted and held when things needed to be finished. She was also playful and liked to be delighted, but she could not be trusted in a crisis.

Big Larissa was responsible and strong. She would take over to make things safe for everyone. Her mission was to keep the people she loved safe and happy.

I started to replay the fall.

I slipped in the water crossing and Big Larissa came out. She did a quick check to get us out of the water and in case we lost critical gear like cell phone or beacon. Then, when we got out of the water, she assessed the place we would be. The cell phone was our main source of navigation in case we needed to leave, it had all of the wilderness first aid notes on it and it was low battery, so charging the backup battery was important and it was sunny. That reminded her of wilderness first aid and she did a check of the body. Everything was okay. Take care of the bathroom break you were thinking about before the fall. Make a clean and comfortable place to rest, grab a snack to make you feel better … you are safe now and then I could cry.

I started to cry again and had to stop hiking.

This was familiar. Too familiar. How many times have I (both versions of me) faced things that I’ve had to learn how to comfort myself and the fact I do it so well shows how often I’ve been able to practise.

Maybe instead of me being a sensitive kid… it was I was a kid that craved comfort.

I needed kindness for the scariness, not anger it happened at all. I needed someone to be big and offer me comfort that I was human. Humans make mistakes sometimes and lets be thankful this mistake isn’t horrible.

So many times when I would get scared, I would go to google and look up solutions for how I was feeling. Then I would pretend that I was okay because I knew what was going on. Being scared was almost like defeat. I had to find ways to not be scared, because if you aren’t scared, you don’t need to ask for comfort and if you don’t ask then you won’t notice it’s missing.

I definitely wasn’t going to make 10 miles. I was going to need to stop and sit with myself.

I got to the camp site and sat down.

The fall was scary. It could have been worse. If it was worse, potentially I would have had to wait for someone to come by to pull me out and I hadn’t seen a single person for most of the day. My response was normal, the condemnation towards my fears was not. The voice in my head, I needed to reply back, “of course I don’t plan on getting hurt!” I need to remember, I had hundreds of miles in the wilderness logged already. I am trained in navigation, first aid and I have qualified experience. I am also smart, resourceful and qualified to be here. Mistakes happen and I need to be prepared for them. Trying to scare myself out of making a mistake in the future will only cause what I am trying to avoid.

I started to set up camp. 8 miles is good enough. I am going to journal all of these things, to get some food, sleep and start tomorrow as a new day.

A verse came to mind as I was setting up camp.

“He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.”

I don’t know which psalm that is, but that one was one that I memorised when I needed it.

I think tonight will be a lot of sitting with wounded parts of my story and inviting God, the comforter into those places.