Coming to You From the North Fork Bathroom

A shot from the desert section

The wind blows strong enough by the North Fork Ranger Station to make its warm, quiet vault toilet building seem very appealing.

I told myself I'd never sleep in a camp bathroom again, but alas the temptation has again become too strong.

This time, I had the sense to actually pitch my tent inside of it rather than cowboy camp. This time I do not have hundreds of ants and spiders summiting my body from the concrete bathroom valley below.

I am sometimes amazed by the absolutely awful things I put up with while first on trail. Comfort just wasn't a focus back then, survival was. Overcoming my fears was.

And now I am here in full comfort. Tent, sleeping pad, stove, a new hiking outfit. I suppose I have graduated from simply surviving on trail to actually relaxing a bit.

I say that after a rather humbling 8 mile climb up from Acton this afternoon. It was so sweltering I had to stop for a break four times. "I did 28 mile days in Washington!!" I kept telling myself. "I should be able to crush a measly 8 miles in the desert!!"

The thing is that the trail is like any other version of life. It never stops being hard. Yes, you get better at handling certain things but there are always new challenges coming your way and never a point where it magically becomes effortless.

I've been especially thinking about how this applies to relationships lately. Friends, family, more than friends...it's always hard to maintain these things. The second you stop putting in the effort to keep the momentum going, you really get nowhere.

I feel as if these relationships are harder than ever for me while on trail. Distance has a way of making even the closest friends or family seem so far away.

And I didn't really care about finding any romantic relationships on trail beforehand- in fact I told myself to avoid these at all costs- but don't these weird niches of society probably contain the people most like me? The desire for finding someone clouds my mind and confuses me.

"Ugh.just be happy being alone, it's simple that way," one side of me says. "But that's how you end up a lonely old ferret lady," says the other (ferrets are really awesome though).

I don't know the answer to this inner argument. I know for sure that I miss my friends and family, and that balancing those things with my need for adventure is going to get easier, but won't ever stop being hard.