Muffy J. Davis

Long Distance Hiker

In which I am delighted to be a person amongst people: SDTCT Day 2

We wake up at six AM and visit the privy one by one. Hadley reveals that they use empty oatmeal packets as toilet paper, and have you ever heard anything more brilliant than that? I honestly think I have not.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I pledge by body to the Anza Borrego desert as penance. I might lose a toenail and my hips ache and I am deliriously happy as the sun spreads golden yellows and pinks across the ridge. I am in love, so so in love and what I am in love with is myself and the life that I am building. I’ve never felt like this before, always needed someone to attach the euphoria of being alive to. It’s incredible.

I hike and I ache and it’s ok. We climb between sandy rock spires, up and up and then we are at the top of inspiration peak overlooking everything at once. We crawl down between the boulders and through endless weaving sand and the terrain changes to wide open space, a field of scrubby ground plants to pick our way through until we get to town.

By the time we hit the road to Borrego Springs I feel like both a pile of scrambled eggs and a sponge in the microwave. Kara, Callie, Pilar, Kelly and I agree that a six mile road walk in the heat doesn’t seem ideal so we walk and try to hitch, walk and try to hitch. Our thumbs are stuck out for hours before we get picked up and when we do it’s in the last two miles by a guy named Dave. It’s Dave’s birthday! We love Dave.

In Borrego Springs I eat a giant plate of rice and beans and guacamole and fajita vegetables and then I am spent completely, dazed. Callie orders a plate of chips and cheese and the cheese is neither melted nor queso – just a pile of cold shreds tossed on top of great greasy handfuls of chip.

We go to the dive bar and we drink margaritas. I never drink, but I do this time and it’s fun and wild and free and my toenail is just a memory, my hips no longer ache. Hours later we hike out of town, position ourselves just at the bottom of tomorrow’s 4000 foot climb.

On our walk, I find out that Raine knew she was queer when she started taking gender studies classes at university and learned that it’s, like, totally okay if you have fucked men and will fuck men again. Liza knew she was queer when she joined a co-ed softball team at age 8 and became completely entranced by the cup she had to wear as a part of the guidelines for the catcher’s uniform.

I fall asleep to Liza and Raine and Kelly and Audrey identifying the stars. They are laughing and then quiet whispering and saying such nice things to one another, and I settle in to lightly ease dropping, entranced by the human experience.

I love people. Not all people, but the ones I choose to surround myself with for sure.

📍 This section of the SDTCT is on unceded Kumeyaay, Cocopah and Cahuilla land. My writing is a part of a fundraiser for Border Angels, a humanitarian aid group based out of these beautiful borderlands. My next entry will not go up until the fundraiser meets $1500, so please consider donating if you like the work and have the means.

We are gay: SDTCT day 1

We’re in Pineapple’s den, in her dad’s nice house, in the suburbs of San Diego. Callie’s alarm goes off at five AM, and silently we all sit up, deflate our neoairs, roll up our beds, and change into our hiking clothes– casting jeans and belts and extra pairs of underwear aside. One by one we are tooth brushed and then we are downstairs eating cereal- puffins special K, now with added protein. Pineapple has made a big pot of coffee and there is carton after carton of almond milk.

Pineapple’s dad drives us to the trailhead. He is a nice dad, maybe the only nice dad I know of and he easily laughs as we talk about how gay we all are. Does Pineapple identify as gay? I don’t know, but we’ve decided this is the queer hike of the San Diego Trans County Trail and so if she wasn’t before, we’ve claimed her now.

Today is Carrot and I’s two year anniversary, except we broke up two months ago. She was going to be here, then not, then maybe going to come anyway, then not. It’s hard not to think of Carrot when I hike, and of course today it’s harder. I text her to say that I love her and she texts me back to say she loves me too. It doesn’t change anything, we’re still broken up- but it feels profoundly comforting to love her from far away, to know that what we built doesn’t dissolve with a shift of label. I have never loved anyone like I love Carrot Quinn. I take solace in the fact that that can still be true.

We drive and I sit and the small sadness dissipates. I’m practicing a new thing lately, an exercise of sitting with the feelings and seeing where they go. Most of the time they slide right on by without causing too much damage, without me needing to squelch or fix them at all. Feelings just disappear! I want to take out a billboard. You don’t have to avoid them at all!

At the terminus to the Salton Sea it is perfectly blue skies and the air is toxic but smells fresh. We take a group picture at the sign that says “end” and I feel quiet and grateful and also sure that it’s going to be very hot very soon, and so we walk. Like an amoeba, eleven of us navigate to the wash and I love seeing people use their maps and head in exactly the right direction.

We stop four miles in, in the shade of towering striated wash wall. Liza packed out fresh carrots and eats them quietly. Pilar has a tooth pulled recently and can’t eat chips at all, though she had a big bag strapped to her pack. We all wail in unison.

“A hike without chips is like a hike without feet” Callie exclaims and we all nod in solidarity. It’s true, man. It’s just like- really true. Pilar says she can eat chips in a couple of days and I am honestly very excited for her.

We walk on slick mud and get endless cases of poop shoe, a phenomenon that cakes our shoes in smeary mud until they become platforms. The mud dries and turns to deep sand. We lapse into silence, some of us put on headphones. I am listening to Bad Bunny and I am listening to Kesha and I am listening to Taylor Swift. Pop music makes me feel like I’m flying and like I am invincible.

I bounce up the wash as fast as I can until I become acutely aware that both of my hips and my collarbones are growing deep bruises from my pack. The faster I go, the sooner I sit.

I walk and the feelings come and then go. I am delirious with gratitude. I’m cresting on a wave of grief that slams me. I am thinking about sex, hands everywhere, tracing circles on skin with my fingers. I stop to eat, I stop to pee, I stop to talk about attachment with issues with Hads.

We reach our water cache at mile 17.5 and each fill up our bottles so that we’re all carrying between four and six liters. My shirt sits soaked and stiff on my body, and while I lay it down to dry in the sun we discuss our camping plan. 19.5 miles today? Maybe 21? Our bodies are screaming and there’s a privy at 19.5 so we end on that.

We slog our water for two more miles and we talk about how we knew we were gay. I figured out I was gay because in middle school I changed for gym in the bathroom stall for fear of what the sight of one errant breast would do. Kelly knew they were guy because they discovered cunnilingus in ballet class when they were four years old.

📍 This section of the SDTCT is on unceded Kumeyaay, Cocopah and Cahuilla land.

Day 40: Finish

I hear Bogwitch quietly shuffle in their tent. It’s five AM. They want the breakfast buffet at Timberline, which ends at 10:30. They’re on a mission, I tell them they don’t have to wait. They’re up and out quick. 


My stomach wretches. Quietly, I eat rice noodle ramen and drink half of my coffee. I’m addicted to caffeine, but the acidity makes me gag every other sip. 


I look at the selfie camera on my phone. My eyes are rimmed in deep bags, I’m pale. There is no way I can hike nine miles before 10:30. I want to sleep for one thousand years. I want to cry until I have nothing left. 


I hike a mile, shit, hike two miles, shit again. The urge comes so fast, it’s hard to dig a good cat hole and I feel guilty. I’m cold sweating, and I’m noting the facts. I cannot hike faster than this, though it is not at all fast. Carrot is gone, my two friends that were maybe going to hike Oregon with me decided not to, Bogwitch is faster than me on a normal day and they’re getting stronger while I waste away. The band of my spandex shorts is baggy. I shit again and I feel really, really alone. 


On this exact day last year, I took my first steps on the PCT. I was so scared to long distance hike then, really unsure how to set up my shelter, how to use my stove. In one year, I have hiked just a little over 1800 miles. I know how to hike now. I know how to use my gear. I know exactly how much water I need for what conditions, I know how to set up my shelter when the ground is too hard for tent stakes. I know how to keep mice out of my shelter. I know exactly how much fuel both a small and a medium canister provides. I know how to crush miles when I feel like shit, I know how to reel it back when I am treating this part or that gingerly. I know how to acknowledge the unceded indigenous land I walk on, how to be a grateful guest. I know how to blog when I can barely think. I know a lot about long distance hiking, but in this moment I also know that I should stop. Not stop hiking forever of course , but stop for this year. My goal was to finish Washington, and Washington I did. For now, just over 1800 miles in a year is enough.


I decide this and I cry. I cry not because I am about to be done hiking, but because I have four more miles of climbing to go and I don’t know how I am going to do it. I shit twice more and I crawl to Timberline Lodge. The closer I get, the more people I see. Children and the elderly pass me with ease. When I arrive Bogwitch tells me I look as white as a sheet. 


I hitch out to my friend Emma, who is waiting for me with her car. With every mile away from the trail, I know Bogwitch is headed ever South, that this decision is permanent unless I want to hike alone.  I don’t want to hike alone, and when I finally leave Emma, the tears about that come for real. 


Hiking has given me so much purpose since my entire life changed in 2018. In 2018 I closed the business I worked so hard to build. I divorced someone I thought I’d love forever, but it turned out I could not. I prioritized queer relationships. I lost my home and my dog in the divorce. I moved to Tucson. I got a new dog. I loved myself, and honestly I fucking hated myself too. Because I didn’t know why I needed to level everything to be happy, and I also didn’t know if happy even really existed. 


Through all of this, I let myself do the thing I’d always wanted to do but never quite made time for : I decided to take the time to walk. I walked in Alaska, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon. I walked with my lover, my friends, with strangers, and alongside people I downright hated. My walking filled a lot of my time in 2019, a good chunk of every month, most of April and May and all of July. While I walked I open mouth sobbed again and again from so many emotions. I sobbed from my broken heart and from the injustice everywhere, from my fear of a police state, because I need a mom that I’ll never have, because people I love are dead, because people I love are alive and beautiful— so fucking beautiful I can’t believe we get them here and now, in this place on this planet. 


I’ll miss walking. It’s hard not to acknowledge the pride that walking makes me feel in my body, though that feels tricky in a world where I don’t exactly want to center myself and my body, what with all my cis, thin, white, able bodied privilege. And what about the thing that my brain does that makes me think I should probably exercise all day every day no matter what? Long distance hiking certainly doesn’t do much to assuage that, so I guess that’s something I’ll think about with all of my free time off trail. I’ll think about what part of me has a really cool new hobby and what part of me thinks I need to do something really hard and taxing with my body to be a cool person in the world. 


But for today: there is my dog. There are endless tall cups of filtered water with lemons slices, vegan and gluten free buffalo wings in vegan ranch. There are my friends who say “oh thank god” when I tell them I’m going to get a poop test and I’m going to get a blood test while I’m at it, maybe my vitamins and minerals are off. There is a bed, one that I sink into, that carries me away, that catches my tired bones and exhaustion and says:

It’s ok, Muffy. For now you can rest.

(For those curious! I have a sweet sweet combo of cryptosporidium and anemia! The crypto will go away on it’s own and the anemia explains….a lot. I might get back on trail for a section or two and I might not, but either way I plan to rest hard!)

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook, Molalla, Wasco, and Wishram land.

Day 39: Done, done, done, done, done.

Today Bogwitch and I want to walk 25 miles. We’re comfy in our shelters, we’re surrounded by our friends, and still the alarm is set for five and we pack our things, drink our coffee and go. If we’re going to make it we have to move quick.

 
My stomach is bothering me. It’s been bothering me since Trout Creek, really. It intensified while I was in Portland, giving me diarrhea so bad I felt hollowed out. I thought it was my period. I thought it was the Chipotle I ate. I thought it was the fiber I’d consumed in town, that my body wasn’t used to it anymore. 


Today, it has been one week and I still can’t stop shitting. I’m dizzy when I stand up. I’m cold sweating on perfectly gentle terrain. I want to hike 25 miles but I also want to feel good while I do it.

 
I clench my jaw and just try to go. By noon I’ve gone 12 miles, stopping for lunch at a spring. I haven’t seen anyone all day, Bogwitch whooshed ahead at eight AM and I am deeply lonely. I think I see Carrot’s foot prints for a moment and then I remember that she’s not here at all anymore, won’t be coming back. Bogwitch got new shoes, I don’t know what the bottoms look like so I can’t track them. I’m just here, shitting and walking by myself. I can’t shake the feeling that it makes no sense. 


After lunch the heat intensifies and we start to climb. On an exposed ridge I get a ping of reception and it is here that I lose it, sobbing while I text my friends about how alone I feel, how I’m pale and pasty, how I’m scared of the diarrhea right now because I don’t want to continue to lose weight. It is on this ridge that I decide that A) I am going to get off trail and get a poop test and B) I think I actually might be done. 


This year I’ve hiked 1800 miles. Before this year I had hiked zero. I’ve hiked through rain and hail and sleet and snow and heat and humidity and bad directions and inaccurate GPS tracks. 99% of the time I’ve had a great time, and here on the ridge, covered in biting flies feeling like the biggest dumb ass on Earth, I am not.


I don’t have to hike in Oregon. I’d said I was just committed to Washington, that everything else was a bonus. I’ve always said I’m not likely to do the whole PCT this year, that I’d miss my actual life too much. If it’s time for me to fix my stomach and eat and do yoga and pet my dog quietly for the rest of the year that could be ok. I don’t have to do so much to feel like I have a purpose. 


I zone out to an audiobook. Mt. Hood peaks out and I wait to feel something, but instead I feel nothing at all, a void inside of me where awe is supposed to go. In my last two miles, I walk a sandy exposed climb and with every step I think: I’m done. Done done done done done done done. 


I get to the Sandy River, which I plan to cross to camp and it is a raging chocolate milk water nightmare. The water is thick with silt and I cannot see the bottom of the river. It’s difficult to tell how deep the water is, where would be the least raging, if it’s smart to cross at all or if I should just wait ’til morning.

I am meeting Bogwitch, and so I cross gingerly, right near a couple and their dog whom are attempting to do the same thing. I anchor my legs as hard as I can, bending my knees to stabilize. The dog crossing next to me begins to wail, and I nearly cry as the dog gets pushed downstream just a little, howling. Bogwitch shows up across the river and myself, them, and the couple all cheer the dog, encouraging him to swim hard, get back to his people. I touch shore just as the dog does and we exhale our collectively held breath. If I saw a dog get swept down a river, I am really not sure what I’d do.

 
Once across, I lay out my situation to Bogwitch, mention my stomach and my morale and the honest truth that Bogwitch is getting stronger as I get weaker. That every day I grow more and more sure that I am not going to be able to keep up.

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook, Molalla, Wasco, and Wishram land.

Day 38: In which we are queer.

Alley lets me use her shelter and it is paisley and very tall and has a FLOOR. My shelter has no floor, and therefor each night I obsessively worry about mice and how to keep them out. Without the mouse loop playing in my brain, I sleep like the dead.

At first I wake up at six, but then I decide not to. I pull my beanie down over my eyes and sleep until 8:00 AM instead. Usually I’ve been hiking for 1-2 hours by 8:00AM and when I do decide to wake up for real, I feel fucking incredible.

Slowly, I get out of my tent. Bogwitch and Meredith and Alley join me, and slowly, we eat breakfast. We drink coffee. We debate between staying here, at Whatum Lake, or going down to Lost Lake where it’s ten degrees warmer. Alley brought floaties and so we decide to go where it’s warm enough to float. We make avocado toast for me and the rest eat sausage and eggs cooked over open flame in a cast iron skillet. There is no rush to anything, we have plenty of time. I listen more than I talk, a new thing I’m trying out. Bogwitch was thinking they’d go but instead, they decide to stay. I feel happy.

At Lost Lake, I bob in the water, not too far from the shore. Denver and Denver’s chihuahua Rodney show up and I bury my face in soft dog fur, sniff tiny frito feet. We all eat chips and drink wine in the warm sun.

We talk about who in the group could be catagorized as baby and who could be catagorized as Daddy. Everyone is Daddy except me, it turns out– including Rodney the dog. Pisces is always baby though, there’s no shame in that. I don’t make the rules, I just show up to play the game.

The day grows long and I grow sunburned only on the tops of my feet and the crease where my bathing suit meets my belly button. We go back to our campsite and make veggie burgers and meat burgers over the fire and I make mine a double patty with chips between each layer of pea protein patty and bun. I am still hungry when I’m done, but I’m hungry so often now that it feels more annoying than satisfying to eat at all.

We build a fire and my exhaustion is thick, I have trouble keeping my head up. I excuse myself and crawl into my quilt listening to the group talk about starting a massage train. Fleetwood Mac softly plays on the Bluetooth speaker, and they start playing Never Have I Ever. Alley says “Never have I ever shit in the woods” and I drift off, wondering if I could count the amount of times I did exactly that, even if I tried.

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook land.

Day 37: Feelings and evictions and tacos and camp.

I don’t sleep well. I crave an actual bed so much on trail, but the city is loud and it’s hard to sleep. I pack my car, I make the bed. This home base in Portland has been a place I return to a lot in the past few months. My old roommates and friends have been evicted, they’re out on the fifteenth. I’m probably never going to stay in this house again.


Today I get a ride to the trail in my own car from Vanessa who lives in New York, who I never get to see. We hike together for a few miles and then she has to turn around to make a lunch date and I am hit with a loneliness so profound I could cry. I don’t want my time with my friend to end, and I don’t want to stop hiking and turn back with her either. It’s confusing being a person sometimes. 


I hike the infamous climb out of the Columbia Gorge and I am certainly not fast, but I am steady. I start at 712 feet elevation, and climb up to 4,110. I stop to eat a muffin. I stop to drink some water. I feel every feeling ever, in rapid succession. Carrot is on the Olympic peninsula. I am hiking Oregon. My stomach is spasming, sending wave after wave of nausea. I miss her so much. I know time apart does us good. I wonder if I’m fucking up, I haven’t really cultivated a trail family and beyond Bogwitch, I don’t feel connected to anyone. It’s fine not to connect but is it fine to feel so alone? I think maybe I don’t want to hike Oregon after all. I don’t know what I’d do instead. 


The climb ends and I fly. I figure if I want to make it to camp, the camp where a small group of friends has promised to meet me, I’m going to have to hike hard. It’s five PM. I have six miles to go. I decide I’ll try to get there by seven. 


It rains and mists, but it’s low key enough to ignore. I walk through the Eagle Creek burn and there are scads of wildflower and fern amongst the charred husks. 


A mile away from camp, I see Alley in the distance. Alley offers me a beer and my stomach clenches. I decline and we walk the last little bit chatting about feelings and evictions and tacos and camp. Meredith and Bogwitch are waiting. We’re going to grill corn over open flame. 


I’m so happy I could cry.  

📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook land.

Day 34, 35, 36: an intermission

Dear readers,

It is on these days that my tendonitis returns, but now in a different spot on the same foot. I am on a stretch of trail that I hiked last year, and I have diarrhea every day. I get off trail at Panther Creek and go to Portland for a few days to regroup. Carrot goes to Alaska for her own adventure. I am going to continue on in Oregon, at least I think so? Bogwitch shall cronch forth with me, but TBQH Bogwitch is FAST and I’m not sure I can keep up. I have a lot of methods of KT taping under my belt for the tendonitis. I’m gonna give the diarrhea one more day before I worry about it too much. I’m packing my boxes for Oregon. I am a swirl of very small injury and emotion. The blog will pick up at the Washington/Oregon border!

I mention all of this to say: some thru hikers have a lot of *~feelings~* when people skip miles. I truly don’t give a shit either way, but I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that I skipped about 35 miles into Cascade Locks because my body and mind felt just a little shitty, I missed the comforts of one of my homes, I’d hiked this stretch before, and I have a lot of logistical concerns to take care of from my last minute decision to hike Oregon. I’m sure you understand!

And really, thank you so much for reading. It honestly means a lot.

Muffy

Day 33: a gentle forest

I don’t sleep enough, but the sleep I do get is hard and good, a solid gesture. My throat feels weird, I eat ramen for breakfast, I drink instant coffee at the picnic table.

Eventually, we are ready to go. I hike for a five miles that truly flies by. I stop to poop, and the cat hole I dig is easy and good. There’s not much to focus on in the woods, and so I focus on that. It feels good to dig a good cat hole. It’s not as easy as one would think.

I hike to Blue Lake kind of dazed, kind of bored. The forest is generous and lilting and soft and to be bored is an offense but I am a human, a deeply flawed human. I at least try to handle my boredom eloquently, try to not complain in my head too much.

I’m sorry I say to the forest. I’ll try to be more appreciative.

We have an early lunch at Blue Lake and it is a glittering jewel beneath us. After lunch it’s lava fields and a sloping downhill that does not end and coniferous forest. I see Dave and Sunkist and Blue Jay, they’re stopping to camp a few miles before we do. We are now solidly between PCT SOBO hiker bubbles and it’s very lonely. Mostly I see north bounders all ripped and rangey and windburned and we don’t talk at all. I absolutely hate the idea of hiking Washington in September in the freezing rain, and I hate the idea of northbounding so fast that I’d finish before the rain came. For these reasons, I thought I’d never want to NOBO the PCT, but from this vantage point, it doesn’t seem so bad.

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📍This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Chinook land.

Day 32: Back to the trail

I post on Instagram to find a ride back to the PCT. Tempest messages me, says she has the day free, that she’d love to help a hiker out. She reads my blog and loves Carrot’s book. She can leave at 1. I’m so fucking lucky.

I errand on overdrive. I go to brunch, I eat a breakfast sandwich and a small vegan quiche and take two blackberry handpies to go. I go to REI, I go to Walgreens. I charge my electronics, willing them to charge faster, knowing they generally need overnight. I refill my food bag with things I actually like. I shove everything deep down into my bag. I’m ready by 1:50, Tempest is patient. Like I said, I’m lucky.

Our drive is so nice. I’m shy and stranger weary but Tempest is great. She has a nice dog and brings snacks and is smart and fun. The two hour drive flies, and then there we are, at a big nice campsite in the gloaming, surrounded in a ring of trees and a cute and moderate amount of mosquitos, nothing that stresses me because I compare it to what I have seen before, which was a mosquito mafia here to fuck my ass UP.

Portland was nice but I’m happy to be on trail, could kiss the ground under my feet. Over and over again I’ve said I’m not committed to hiking the whole trail, and still that’s very true. I can’t imagine not being home come September, but I also can’t imagine not being right here, right now.

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📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.

Day 31: Many miles hiked on 3 hours of sleep.

I toss and turn all night, finally acquiescing and watching Netflix on my phone until 2AM. I am watching Tales of the City, and I didn’t realize how hungry I was for queer representation until I saw people like people I know were on TV, all shiny and beautiful and queer and trans. I am so grateful for this sort of thing but also I’m still so tired. I’d rather be asleep than watching queer dramas unfold, and that’s really saying a lot.

I fall asleep at two AM, under the starlit glow of Mt. Adams. At 5AM I wake up, 100%. I blearily rub my eyes and prepare a double Via, knowing I can’t caffeine away a three hour night of sleep but also not having any other options.

I want to reach the shuttle into Trout Lake at 11. I am 14.5 miles away from town, I am hiking by six AM. I have five miles to go 14.5 miles and so I do. I know my body can do this. Even with my 25 mile day yesterday, even with 3 hours of sleep. I go through undulating forest, and thick mist turns to rain. It is a light rain, I’m going into town today, I don’t even care. I just go.

I text with Monica. I get it in my head that I can go to Portland and I can’t stop thinking about it. I can see my friends. I can lift my bad mood. I can eat a lot of vegan food.

I get to the trailhead to reach the shuttle just before 11, but it turns out the shuttle is at 11:30. I hitch into town instead, bust into the Trout Lake General Store blurry eyed and asking for a shower. I get four dollars of quarters and take the most transcendent 10 minute shower of my life. I scratch away the dirt on my legs, my arms, my face. I’m reborn when I’m done, meander back to the store a totally different person.

I get a huckleberry smoothie and an iced coffee. I eat fries, I eat a salad. I get my box and give away almost everything in it. I packed myself the same food for the entirety of Washington. This is my last box and I hate it all.

Monica shows up with Chipotle for me and it’s packed so heavy with food, I could scream with delight. I eat every bite, and Monica and I talk about firing our respective therapists in the last few months. I fired mine because she said it was a problem to identify as a survivor, when I could be identifying as a thriver. Why can’t I be both?!

We eat ice cream, bringing our friend Tik Tok along. Tik tok might join me for some of Oregon, and I am getting excited thinking about what Oregon will be like. I’ve hiked Washington, but never seen the PCT in Oregon. I hear it’s rolling hills, the least elevation gain and loss on the whole trail, is a lot of nice forest that’s beautiful (though compared to Washington maybe a little boring.) I see my friends Becky and Brenna and they are incredibly high and make a lot of astute observations about, like, life, mannnn. They’re blasted out of their gourds and full of truths that hit the target like arrows out of their mouths.

I go to bed so fucking grateful for my friends, and really full of beans and ice cream. I also go to bed longing to hike. I wish I could conflate Portland and the PCT, have every nice luxury right at the base of the mountain.

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📍 This section of the Pacific Crest Trail is on unceded Yakama land.