Gnarly River: Day 5 : Silver Pass Creek 9,701 ft asl

Thursday July 3, 2014
21 Miles Today
103 Total Miles

The ability to appreciate beauty and the ability to reason. These are two characteristics of the God that we see in the opening chapters of Genesis. God created order out of emptiness and he declared it very good.

We humans mimic our creator when we create order and we declare it good. Take for example, the John Muir Trail. Here we have a man, John Muir, and his legacy in our history where he declared something good. Why is it good? Because he said so? No, it was good before he said so. He only observed what God had already declared. Muir was not alone in his observation and declaration. It was self evident and the machinery of human organization, both public and private set out to create a trail to provide a place for future generations to observe what Muir saw.

As human beings, we mimic God by protecting and celebrating the beautiful. While bees construct beautiful combs of hexagonal structures. Does any one bee ever stop to observe the beauty in what they are doing? Ants live structured ordered lives that at utilitarian and only have value as part of the colony. A Bug's Life notwithstanding we have no record of any ant seeing what is around them as beautiful. Does a lion or a bear ever conserve anything for future generations? We alone as humans have the ability to reflect the nature and character of God in a singularly unique way that is inexpressible by any other being in the world.

Today I set a new personal record on maximum number of miles walked in a single trip, surpassing my previous record of 95 miles when I hiked the Wonderland Trail around Mt Rainer.

Today was a long day I hiked mostly by myself I passed a few people but for the most part I was by myself. In that sense it was a difficult day. I am the only person camped at this spot. I am feeling homesick and lonely. There may be opportunities to make friends but most of the time the people I meet are going the other way. The few people I meet going the same direction I am meeting because they are hiking slower than I am.

When I got to camp I had no motivation. I didn't want to setup camp or cook dinner or get cleaned up. I was in a funk mostly because I was tired and had no water and low blood sugar. Fortunately I got here early enough that I had enough time to get everything done even though I was doing it all at half speed. I had lasagna with meat sauce. I don't think I am going to want anymore freeze dried meals for awhile after I get home from this trip. I also had trail brownies for dessert. Those lifted my spirits. There is something wonderful about chocolate that improves your mood and makes you feel better. Hooray from comfort food!

Last night was cold. It was cold enough for me to think seriously about why I have a 40 degree bag in a place where the temps can drop down into the twenties. I had to pull out my space blanket in the middle of the night and drape it over my sleeping bag. Then I could stay warm enough to be comfortable. I was thinking about how miserable it would be if a storm blew in. I am camping at about the same elevation tonight so we'll see if the space blanket is needed again.

Wow, a whole bag of pretzel crumbs...