When I didn’t think my spirits could plummet any further, Adam appeared like a woodland wizard. Wohoo! “Hey Adam!” I was so happy, I wanted to skip and dance and spin. That night we played Uno, ate our food together, I answered Sam’s random questions like, “have you ever lied? What is you favorite type of tree? and Do you know anyone named Josh?…do you like him?”
Jon doesn’t like spiders so he set up his tent at the tent sight in front of the lean-too while Sam, Adam, Aubry and I situated ourselves in our sleeping bags. It started to poor, lightning and thunder and the roof started to leak on my end so we all squished together. We turned on a headlamp and sent Jon an S.O.S. signal to come join us in the lean-too so that he did not have to get soaked but he never came.
That night I told Adam that Jon was annoying me. “We’ll take him,” he said.
The next morning I had a serious poop cramp. I got up as quietly as I could and tip-toed to the privy to relieve myself. Then I tip-toed back to the lean-too and started packing up, as quietly as possible. Normally I would have changed, had breakfast, taken everything out of my pack and reorganized it, but this morning I forfeited breakfast, kept my sleepwear on and literally stuffed everything in my bag, all while dreading the squeak of Jon’s air mattress.
When I finally pulled my pack on and clipped the waist-belt, Adam stirred and breathed out a forlorn, “bye…” “Adam, you guys are cool, I just need to get away from him,” I said before I gave a smile and scurried up the second half of White Cap.
With no sustenance I was surprised by my energy as I flew up the rocky incline. I kept thinking that Jon would wake up, see that I was gone, and leave in the same fashion I did to catch up to me, but I reminded myself that he hated hills and would be slow moving up this one and that even if he got up the second I left I would smoke him. At the peak I dialed Linnea and left a patchy message informing her that plans changed, I would be arriving a day early for my pickup from the KI road. Originally I was going to take two short days, but I needed to shake Jon and the only way to do so was to hike like a bat out of Hell and disappear.
After 3.5 miles I put my pack down and had a couple handfuls of trail mix, then I kept motoring. After mile 7 I dumped 3lbs of food and the rest of my isopropyl alcohol off at the lean-too signage; with my pack weight down, my shoulders stopped aching and I was able to move faster. Pine forest is prickly on your feet so I put on my smart wools. The problem with them was that they were my dad’s socks so as much as I pulled them up they would slip down and the excess toe would flap especially after getting soaked with mud. I then cut off the toe portion. This exposed my dirt caked nail beds. I looked like a hobo.
Four miles from KI a thunderstorm began. Just keep hiking, hiking, hiking, I sang inside my head. The rain fell hard and the lightning and thunder flashed and rumbled almost simultaneously so I knew the storm was right above me as I ran over rocks and sloshed through mud puddles. My glasses were coated with a liquid lens and steaming, I had to constantly take them off and slough off the water and secure them back on my bridge as I dashed on forward. I slipped a lot and I feared for my life the entire time. This is when I ditched my hiking poll, I did not want to allow for any chance of me getting struck by lightning because I was holding on to a metal rod.
The adrenaline and the falling rain gave my heel wings as I pressed on to the road. About a half mile from the road I happened upon a curious man in on the trail playing with his remote control monster truck. I wanted to give him a bit of warning instead of sneaking up on him because I know that I looked scary, between the muddy/cut socks, the the soaked button up shirt that was blood and mud stained, the steamed lenses, bandana, bug net and wooden hiking sticks. This man would soon become a trail angel.
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