Sept 19: Hard travelin'

Difficult hiking continues today. This is surely how the trail will be for the remainder of this hike, all the way down to Whitney.

We slept warmly last night at below 8000 ft, which was a nice change. I awoke at some point feeling very sore and achy, had to unzip and stretch my legs and ankles for a while before falling back to sleep for the rest of the moonlit morning.

The Sierra's terrain is just as the name claims it to be -- serrated, jagged, tooth-like. We climb and then we drop. The trail is boulders and cobbles, slow going, hard work and frustration.

We came up over Seavey Pass early on and faced the great, remote expanse of Benson Canyon. I'm sure that my photos will fall sadly short of capturing the grandeur of this place. Looking out over the expansive basin, I think, "how can we possibly traverse such an impossibly rough set of crags, ravines, towers, cliffs and drop offs?"

We made a slow go of it. Eliza is feeling sick still and we are wondering if it is time to finally use the antibiotics we picked up before setting out five months ago. She has vomitted a few times and we both now have diarrhea. Tomorrow we'll arrive at Tuolumne Meadows and hopefully have a chance to call Varuni and see what she recommends to do about it.

We argued today about food and we both felt desperate and the whole trip seemed pointless, our desire to see this thing through vanished.

We walked on though and felt better soon enough. The days, while shorter than in the heat of the summer, are still long. We are both amazed at how quickly and thoroughly we pass through a cycle of emotions each day.

As we climbed to the highpoint at Benson Pass, again up over 10000 ft, we sang old Dylan tunes breathlessly to one another and had smiles on our weary faces, so glad to be nearing the top of our long climb for the day.