Since January of this year, as evidenced by my last post on this blog, I have been seeking more of a physical challenge in an effort to facilitate some sort of emotional release, some catharsis. This has popped up in various forms and manifestations over the past ten months or so. In January I felt restless, seeking a more palpable and possibly earth-shattering evolution. I began trail running and I remember noting my excitement at the days getting longer, allowing me to spend more time outside cavorting in the woods.
Then I seemed to lapse into a sedentary period. I got busy, I guess. In April my old man cat died, which threw me off something awful. I kept dating and feeling wholly unfulfilled by the ritualistic passivity that is the online dating beast. Instead of feeling grateful for my resilience, independence, ability to run the trails, I tended to feel lonely. This blue period lasted from about April in varying degrees of severity until my birthday in October. Existential crisis or the numbing cycle of chronic dysthymia; as much as I'd like to believe my personal angst and turmoil is real and true, I also find comfort in knowing that we are all just knots of funky neural connections and hormones sometimes gone awry. Humans be strange creatures.
Then in August I took a long weekend and ran away to Big Sur with a friend and my sister. We stayed at two different campgrounds - first was Ponderosa in the Ventana Wildnerness, and second was Kirk Creek right on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Getting out and getting away was like soul food; getting out of my humdrum routine and into my hiking boots, a tent, and a tiny Primus stove got me itching to get back out as soon as we got in the car to come home. I felt drawn to finally focusing on slowly building a decent stash of gear so that I could get out more often. I felt invigorated for the first time in a few months, and although the continued frustration with having such a consistently low paycheck made me hesitate (asking myself questions like "do I need a sleeping bag or groceries" have become a de facto internal dialogue) I have continued to be inspired to seek that wild escape over my regular and expected daily furnishings.
Over the past several months I've purchased a Kelty Ignite Down sleeping bag, a Klymit sleeping pad, and a Sawyer Mini water filter system. I had my basic Primus stove, a few pairs of hiking boots, and my REI backpack from over ten years ago when a friend and I backpacked around Europe for a few months. I also had my Sierra Designs Sirius 2 tent.
As far as I was concerned, I was ready for my first solo backpacking trip, and had visited Point Reyes National Seashore campgrounds several times with friends. Point Reyes has four hike in campgrounds - Wildcat, Coast, Sky, and Glen. Each campground, depending on which trailhead you start your trip, has varying distance and degrees of difficulty in getting to them, and they are all insanely popular due to all having running drinking water, toilets, and just being downright breathtaking. In September, in an attempt to scratch the itch that had been growing and steadily gaining momentum since Big Sur the month before, I booked a two night trip to Point Reyes, my first night at Wildcat camp, and my second night at Glen camp.
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