Over the last few days, I’d felt dangerously fractured and distracted. I desperately needed to get back into my body. Last night I decided to take off today and climb to the south side of Gallegos Peak. There are more trails in this part of the world than I’ll ever get to explore, but the one heading up Flechado Canyon sounded promising. I even did a little research and found that there have been Bigfoot investigations up that way. Oboy!
High country trail
Well, I did it, lifted myself and a backpack from 8,000 ft. to 10,528 ft. in three miles and even made it back. Six miles total distance, about five hours on the trail, counting lunch and exploring the huge meadow at the top, and I never saw another soul. That would also be in perfect weather, on a Sunday, in early July. The night before, I weighed 200.5 pounds. When I got back, I weighed 194.5. On the one hand, I can hardly believe I did it. On the other, I can’t believe I haven’t done this every week I’ve been here.
The funny thing is that going up, I had no wind, was sweating like a pig, stopped every 20 steps to rest, but nothing hurt. On the way down, I had plenty of wind, wasn’t sweating, didn’t stop nearly as much, and EVERYTHING hurt. I have probably never been so tired — and that was when I got to the top. Making it down in one piece was a trick, too. I had to use all the spiritual discipline at my disposal to relax my body and be in the Now. It really helped.
But God, was it beautiful. And the Spirit was there, the same thing I’ve encountered on other hikes into the back country. It’s not even that hard to locate. There are trails that go most everywhere. Fortunately, these places are at high atltitude: at some point, it comes down to being just plain hard to put one foot in front of the other, and that keeps out the riff-raff. The trail I took is protected by a first mile that’s really steep, and the rest of it, while better, still goes only up, and up, and up…
Something happens when you work your body in this realm, and I don’t want to lose it. I think the extreme fatigue may even help… More on this topic later, but for now you can follow the photo series at FotoFeed. I need a big bowl of organic corn flakes and a quick read of tomorrow’s funnies on the Internet, and then I sleep for 16 hours.
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Yes, back into the body. That’s the ticket.
After climbing a very steep hill the other day with Dang on the back of my bike, Teresa asked me why I’d done it without walking. I replied that I liked to take myself deep into the red-line zone on a regular basis. But in truth, that back to the body line is more applicable.
I think I was in the “red-line zone” for about five hours…