Sept 16: Gettin back into it

We are breaking on the white, feldspar-flecked, sparkling trail under the beautiful blue canvass sky with close, low floating cotton whisps swiftly passing overhead. I gaze out over the Carson River canyon and make out the rich, chocolate brown of the bark on many a gnarled old Mountain Juniper, stark and stately they stand against the towering cliffs of chalk dust granite. I feel a pinl hint of anticipation that these stone faces will start speaking soon, telling tales of nothing having ever changed.

Around me here now are whitebark pines, tall and thin. Water crashes heavily in the canyon below. Up and to my left, Eliza stretches on a rough, pale boulder dome. The sun, way up and past her, further up the sky, still peaking down into the canyon and its chill, is making the scene hazy and dreamy. Eliza is feeling sick again -- or still, more accurately. She is afraid that she has gotten something in her stomach, perhaps from pond water, not boiled long enough. I don't know what to do or say. It's a shame that we suffer on our own in this life. Then again, this is a good spot to feel the sickness of creatures in your stomach, I guess. The clouds might be the perfect distraction. Something to focus and meditate on. The way their shadows flit over the uneven cracks and crags of the great stone faces across the canyon. Eliza is stretched out on her back in the sun now. The breeze is picking up and biting through my shirt and shorts. We are up and off now, returning for the first time to 10,000-foot elevations since leaving California three months ago.

We set camp tonight at a bitter windy pass, in the dry, soft bed of a summertime pond. We are having trouble cooking due to the quick licks of warmth stealing breeze and the thin air altitude.

We lie in our puffy, blue bags. I read Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" outloud -- picked up at home, to reread here in the mountains he finds so uplifting and freeing.

We are three full days along now, feeling our way back into the swing of things. Eliza is still physically a bit uneasy, however. I hope that whatever it is just passes.