CDT Sobo – Why hike 100 miles and hallucinate in the basin?
„Do you wanna do something crazy in the basin?“
That’s how it started. Mosey and I hadn’t seen each other since early June in Glacier national park. And in the meantime, I had lost track where they are.
„Yes of course“ is the only logical answer. „Of course I wanna do something crazy with you in the basin.“
Regrets?
Their two red headlamps are just tiny dots in the distance. Wind is pulling on the hood of my rain jacket. It’s too cold to wait, I decide and turn back to the trail. Stumbling into the darkness.
Sleep deprivation is eating at me. My thoughts no longer make sense, I see weird creatures in the corners of my eyes. The night doesn’t seem to be a circumstance but a living creature, it’s like being inside the belly of the beast. Lost. Scared. Fighting. Holding on to something. But to what?
Left, right, left, right. Yet I don’t seem to make any progress. My jaw hurts. I yawn.
50 miles, halfway. When I turn around to see where the others are, there’s nothing but darkness. A thick blackness has swallowed the world. I’m alone.
What is lurking in the dark?
A faint light stretches across the sky. Like light pollution but there shouldn’t be any cities close by, right? The sleep deprivation makes me confused. My thoughts aren’t clear. It takes a long time before it makes click in my brain: I pull out my phone and take a long exposure photo of the sky. Holding my breath I wait for my suspicion to confirm: pink and green. It’s the aurora borealis!
The wind picks up and 2 miles later I decide to take a break. I hadn’t sat down since mile 35. I hunker behind a fence to get a break from the wind and wrap my quilt around me. A horrible mistake.
The day before
The car radio plays a song by the Lumineers , JW and I both mouth the words silently. I can’t help but smile and then turn my head towards the window. The wide open land of Wyoming rolling by in the dawn.
I can feel him looking at me, but I don’t want to meet his eyes. The desert is calling me. Calling us. There’s three of us facing this crazy plan. 3 women, 100 miles in one go.
We lift our backpacks out of the trunk at our start line. Saying goodbye feels like unclipping a leash. Time to run, time to be free. Time to be feral women out in the wild.
20 hours in
When I open my eyes I’m horizontal. Perched on my backpack. How long was I asleep for? I check my watch: one hour.
„I have to keep going. I have to keep going“, I murmur. But I don’t want to. I just want to stay here, under my quilt, next to this fence and close my eyes again. Sleep has never been such a sweet, indulgent temptation. I didn’t know I could crave this simple pleasure so much. Every cell in my body was screaming for rest. And it was so easy, all I had to do was not get up. GET UP, PINECONE! NOW!
It’s still dark when I continue, more stumbling than hiking. More dragging than walking. The sun rises, undramatically. The basin just switched the daylight back on. And then I see them.
Next to a small stream. Their faces tired, dark circles under their eyes, but still laughing and waving when they see me. I’m so glad they’re here. So glad we met. So glad they’re thru hikers. Women. Women like me.
„How are your feet?“, I slump down next to them and we update each other about our feet, our mind, whether we’re able to eat.
Seeing ghosts
Then we continue, we’re over halfway now.
70 miles in I throw my foam pad in the sand, lay down and prop my feet up on a fence. „Its not that bad“, the sun helps. By now, I’m beyond being tired. My body has given up and is no longer begging for sleep.
I turn my head and see the others at the horizon and decide to wait for them. I squint my eyes at the sun and focus on my breath. Minutes pass. I check how far they are but there’s no one. Just sand and the glimmering heat of the desert.
„I‘m hallucinating.“
This isn’t unusual in ultra endurance endeavours. The sleep deprivation, the mental and physical effort, heat, dehydration. But there’s a difference between hallucinating during a running event, when there’s aid station every 10 miles or when you’re out in the red desert with two other people in the same state.
I pick up my water bottle that’s already almost empty. After a few minutes of consideration, I decide to continue to the next water cache and wait there.
Can we give up now?
It‘s later afternoon when we reunite. Our lips cracked from the sun, hair wild from the wind. 80 miles have left their mark on us.
But only 20 left, that’s less than a full day of hiking. But it also means we have a lot of night hiking ahead of us. And the second night isn’t any friendlier than the first. The monsters are lingering in the dark.
There’s a sound in the distance. A car. Am I awake or sleeping? I can’t say for sure. I open my eyes. It’s pitch black. I turn my head and there are lights coming towards us. A CAR! And we’re laying on the road in the dark. Fuck. “Wake up, wake up” I say to LAF, who’s asleep next to me.
We did it, 100 miles, 41 hours. Our feet hurt, we’re delirious with exhaustion, our lips are cracked from the dry desert air. But we did it and no one can take this achievement from us.
A Rawlins angel and Thai food
Rachel, an absolute angel picks us up at 2 am and 30 minutes later we pile into a room at the Brickyard in Rawlins. Showers. Sleep.
The next morning we feel like crap. Unsurprisingly. It’s like a bad hangover on steroids, hungry yet nauseous, exhausted yet too antsy to sleep. HRV off the charts. Our muscles feel sore and stiff.
Harsh sunlight is blinding us. For lunch we crawl to the Thai place in Rawlins like zombies. A delightful change from burgers and pizza, plates of papaya salad, fried tofu, shrimp, duck curry, egg rolls and sticky rice cover our table.
Rory walks in and we wave him over to join us. We met him that morning before we left in Atlantic City, told him about our plan and spontaneously he decided to also hike 100 miles in one go. Faster than us though.
Inspector, Pistol, LAF and I split a room. And while I listen to their deep, regular breaths, I can’t fall asleep. My mind is spinning trying to process. The last days are a blur. It’s like suddenly my hike was catapulted into a different reality and it’s all upside down. In a good way.
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Comments 4
You are AMAZING Pinecone! There’s no one else I’d rather hallucinate through the Wyoming Basin with than you and LAF! Thanks for being the wild beautiful woman that you are!!
Thanks for being the kickstart and fuelling fire for this adventure. Definitely my most memorable section of this entire trail. Hope to see you soon for the next crazy quest 😌
Great experience and equally great piece of writing.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Boris. Happy trails!