But ... but you said!
We are hiking with Emily. She is hiking the entire John Muir Trail. We found her in an outstanding, serendipitous fluke.
The very day we decided to do the John Muir Trail project, one of our editors, Matt, a guy who can handle five emergencies and still find time to search online for poker partners, came upon a Craigslist Fresno entry from someone saying they wanted to hike the whole John Muir Trail in August, and that they were looking for companions. He thought we posted it. But no, it was real. It was Emily.
The first time I met Emily, I told her that I've never been backpacking and I might slow her down.
"But don't we all always carry things on our backs?" she said, and assured me she was on no set schedule. She said we'd set a pace where I'd have time to write and send and hobble. A few weeks ago, Emily e-mailed to say her friend Jim was coming along. They'd known each other in high school, he'd just taken the bar. She didn't know him that well, but mutual friends said he was a seriously good guy, the exact person you wanted to have your back in the wilderness.
I met Jim the night before we left. ... He strikes me as the kind of guy who would rescue the hapless and whatnot. But on this trip, I have a tormenter -- and it is Jim.
He looked at maps before we left that first morning and decided we would go to Cloud's Rest at 7,200 feet on our first day. Yosemite Valley is about 4,000 feet. Neither Darrell nor I have ever backpacked before. Jim insisted on [hiking] at the rear. A dedicated Boy Scout, intent on not letting any wayward journalists make a wrong turn.
I thought it was thoughtful, but the first hour of the first day of any hike is always the hardest, and I wanted to set my own pace, get my own rhythm, without holding anyone else up. Still he insisted that he had to be behind. He had these trekking poles and they were click-click-clicking and scraping granite right behind me. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Every scrape made my muscles - that were already carrying 35 pounds of a quad-burning trajectory - clinch. I finally confessed my admitted neurosis and asked him to please let me go behind. He told me I better get used to it -- safety and all.
... Theresa, a backpacker who early on took me under her wing, said to make sure and enjoy each step. Don't always be thinking about getting to camp. A common refrain in yoga is to listen to your body and not your ego. And then there's my favorite general all-around advice: breathe. You can do most anything if you remember to take a deep breath. Or in this case, about five deep breaths every 10 minutes was what I needed. But I couldn't stop without holding everyone up.
Marek, The Bee's outdoors writer who came along for the first part of the hike, said that I just needed to get over the guilt trip of thinking the world stops because I did. I pointed out that although the world didn't stop, I couldn't take a breath without everyone in my sight stopping. But Marek and Jim continued behind, protecting me. I'd try to go faster and lose them, but they'd always catch up.
Finally, though, I managed to get away from them, walking under dripping water by Nevada Falls. It was steep, but I was in my own space, breathing to my own rhythm. I turned my face up, and let the water just drip down. To my left was a white plume of waterfall, bright blue sky. It was a perfect moment.
So I'm clinging to this one piece of wisdom that I went in with: I'm here for the little moments.
I knew it was going to hurt. I knew it was gonna be hard. But I was looking for the waterfall drops and I found them. And I will find a way to get away from Jim's trekking poles.