The weather cooled off a bit overnight, and the day passed beneath a gentle breeze from the south. I settled into a comfortable pace along the mostly level trail and worked on getting my head back in the game. All day I watched small lakes slide by, set in emerald meadows and overlooked by craggy cliffs of grey and rust. I snapped a picture of Bull Lake, with Shasta receding in the background to the east.
The trail is running roughly west-southwest for now. That can get a bit depressing when you realize you are actually hiking away from Canada. Still, it was a nice day and progress was pretty easy. My feet didn't hurt as badly as they could, probably because of the smoothness and lack of grade in the trail. I ran into a through hiker named Norm, from Buffalo. We chatted a bit and I was reminded of performing in "The Full Monty" because of his accent (the show is set in Buffalo and we were expected to perform with the accent).
I did have a minor disaster with my filter. When I was in Sacramento the first time I had gone to REI to get a new water filter. When they had none in stock I decided to try something new. I bought a squeeze filter, which works by filling a reservoir with water, screwing a filter onto the mouth of the reservoir, and squeezing it into another container. Apparently the reservoir, which is made to be squeezed, was not made well enough. The bag burst at the seam, leaving me with 1 liter of filtered water and 2 liters yet to be filtered. Fortunately I have water purification tabs, courtesy of the Hendersons, as a backup. However, upon reading the instructions it appears that you need 4 hours for the process, otherwise the tabs might melt my stomach lining or something (I'm not sure on that, but the warning does say the tabs will cause permanent damage to the eyes, can melt skin, and may cause damage if swallowed before completely dissolving in water). Since I didn't have 4 hours to wait, I decided to go MacGuyver style on my broken filter bag. I used some duct tape to seal the bag... that's it. Bet MacGuyver would never have thought of that! Still, the bag drips constantly, and since I am dry camped, I can't afford to lose any water. Fortunately I had a backup plan. I poured some unfiltered water into my bottle, then mixed it with a packet of crystal light and drank it. It's the same principle that makes bills go away when you place them at the bottom of the stack and refuse to look at them. If I can't taste the giardia, it must not be there. Brilliant!
I made it to camp, alongside highway 3, early in the evening, leaving about 4 hours of daylight. Since I had already put in 30 miles I decided to just sit and enjoy the rest. I finished the book I was reading, "Anansi Boys," by Neil Gaiman. It has an interesting caption about story telling, and how it changed our ancestors' relationship with the world.
"... people respond to the stories. They tell them themselves. The stories spread, and as people tell them, the stories change the tellers. Because now the folk who never had any thought in their head but how to run from lions and keep far enough away from rivers that the crocodiles don't get an easy meal, now they're starting to dream about a whole new place to live. The world may be the same, but the wallpaper's changed. Yes? People still have the same story, the one where they get born and they do stuff and they die, but now the story means something different to what it meant before."
I have been thinking about my own story, as told through this blog. I wonder how the telling has changed me and my perception of the environments I am moving through. I wonder if it has changed my relationship with those who are reading it.
Anyway, I am now moving on to a book called "The Night Country," by Loren Eiseley. Uncle John sent it to me and I am excited to read it!
