July 10, 2016 Mile 841.9-853.3 11.4 Miles Teaching is an act of faith. There’s no reason why 35 young people (or in some music classrooms that I’ve taught, up to 65) should all behave. Sometimes, some of them don’t, but it’s rare that an entire classroom feels out of control. Nonetheless, almost every teacher I know has the occasional nightmare of a completely chaotic class. To me, they seem to happen more often during the summer, like my brain is telling me “Don’t forget what you know about classroom management! This is what will happen!” It’s been over a month since I stopped teaching, but I wake from one of these nightmares. It takes me a minute to get my bearings. It’s light out and I can see the sun hitting the high peaks of the Sierra batholith through the trees. Something is moving nearby. I sit up, rub my eyes, and look around the campsite at four deer who happily munch at the bushes. If they’ve heard me rustling around, they are unfazed Lindsey stirs awake, and we start to pack up. I’ve been mentally prepping myself for a slower start and slower hiking over the past couple of weeks. Lindsey has more complex routines and more gear to pack, and she hasn’t had the time to organize and streamline her process like I have. Still, I’m chomping at the bit by the time we’re ready to hike, almost an hour later She has agreed to use my morning hiking routine, which is to pack up and start hiking first, then have breakfast during the first break about an hour after starting. Today we only make it about 15 minutes when Lindsey tells me she needs to eat. I suppress my impatience. Breakfast is slow, but then we’re up and moving again. We begin the climb to Muir Pass. We climb one, two, three switchbacks. Lindsey needs another break. I start to protest, but I remind myself that she just started yesterday, with a massive climb over Bishop Pass. 13 miles is a lot of miles for most people, even without the altitude and the elevation changes. We have all day, and we’re already ahead of where I thought we’d be. Just relax. We stop several more times. Each time I am impatient, but I convince myself to lean into the slower pace. I would rather hike slowly with Lindsey than quickly without her. For lunch, we stop next to a waterfall. I check my maps and am surprised to find that we’ve already covered 6 miles, more than half of what we need for the day. For the rest of the day I am able to settle in and just enjoy myself. A bird rockets by just above the waterfall and disappears into a hole in the rocks. A few minutes later, it happens again. Over and over it streaks by and steers into a space not much bigger than its body. We never see it come back out of the hole, but we’re pretty certain it’s the same bird. It must be exiting somewhere else After lunch the terrain changes. The granite breaks into smaller pieces and dirt gives way to snow and water. We are walking in a broken moonscape, rivers passing between and underneath the rocks we are walking on, deep blue lakes seeping into the cracks beneath our feet. We climb a couple of steep snowfields, and before I know it we have reached Muir Hut. Inside I make hot chocolate for us both. We sit and sip and talk, and our eyes gradually adjust to the dark When we step back outside a half hour later, it is painfully bright. Another hiker takes our photo, and we continue our route along an alien planet. On the downhill it is easier for me to be patient, and we settle into an easy rhythm and conversation that takes us all the way to our campsite at Sapphire lake.
We have a hearty vegetarian Lasagna for dinner and climb into our tent by 6:45, bleary from the altitude.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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