In Which I Nap Upon a Granite Slab
Monday began when I first awoke just before sunrise, to see the tips of the mountains to the east just flushed with pink while the valley still sat in quiet shadow.  I only half woke up, admired the dawn for a few moments, and then gave up and went back to sleep.  I fought against the light after sunrise for a few hours, and finally surrendered at 9:30 or so.  I wasn’t the last one up, amazingly.  Beck slept in and we weren’t sure if he was still asleep, or had snuck away and gone for a run, but while we were debating he groggily joined us at our breakfast of gorp and peanut butter bagels.
Ryan, Ben, and Megan hiked back the way we’d come the night before since they all wanted to get back to camp early for things.  The rest of us geared up and set out for Aloha Lake.  I wanted to enjoy the hike and the surroundings, but we were on a slightly tight schedule that necessitated very fast hiking.  Here in the Sierras the trails are really rocky and uneven, so hiking fast means looking at your feet the whole time.  Beck was also playing music from his portable speaker and the combination of the two, blocking out both visual and aural cues to what was around me in terms of animals and even things like wind in the treetops, made me feel like I was wearing blinders.  Between that, not having slept much, and the somewhat exhaustingly fast pace, I was somewhat grumpy by the time we reached Aloha.  It was still crazy windy and pretty cold as a result, but Tommy, Halle, and Beck still jumped in the water.  Aloha is an otherworldly lake, a sprawling formation with a white granite bottom that makes the water, in places, a thrilling Caribbean blue.  Big boulders and outcrops, some sprouting pine and hemlock trees, rise from the water, enticing destinations for swimmers on a warm day.  Unfortunately it was far too windy to entice me, so I watched my crazy friends jump in and then curled up on a smooth granite slope to nap in the sun.
I dozed for maybe half an hour, then woke up and joined everyone else for lunch. They had taken shelter on the other side of my boulder, tucked into a bit of a crevice out of the wind.  We munched on PB&J, dry cereal, and leftover veggies from the night before, and then pretty soon it was time to depart.  Tommy really wanted to get back to camp in time for staph ski, so once again we were pressed for time.  We left Aloha behind and not long after, we discovered that we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and had lost the trail.  Halle, our ever-confident hiking leader, struck out in front and led us scrambling up a small ridge to eventually intersect with a clear trail, which we took.  It still wasn’t the right one, though, and we ended up at another lake, Lake O’ The Woods.  Thanks to some helpful signage, we were able to find our way back to the PCT, but it was definitely a bit of a detour.
Even more behind schedule now, we split up for the remainder of the trip.  Halle, Tommy, and Beck hiked back to camp via a trail (“trail”?) that Morgan had informed Halle of, a 5-mile fairly steep descent.  Eva and I went back to where we’d parked our cars at Echo Lake, to pick up her car and drive back to camp.  Our hike was also about 5 miles, but much flatter and more leisurely since we weren’t on such a time crunch and were trying to go easy on Eva’s hip.  She wanted to solo for a bit, and I was looking forward to a little bit of introspective, observant hiking too, so she set off and I followed about 15 minutes behind.  I saw a few birds, lots of wildflowers, and passed or was passed by a number of other hikers.  I caught up with Eva where she had stopped near Upper Echo Lake.  She was sitting chatting with a couple of women about our age, who were training for a longer trip.  They were both college students, interested in theatre and environmental science, so it was a pretty fun talk.  Soon, though, we were on our way, and as we hiked we talked about our high school experiences, our camp experiences, our struggles and our triumphs here.  We were both really tired by the time we got back to the Echo Chalet, but it wasn’t a bad tired.  Just really exhausted from a lot of physical exertion and not a lot of sleep.
Still, I was tired enough to feel incapable of interacting with guests at dinner, so I grabbed some food and went to ski dock to eat with the people waiting for staph ski.  I muddled through dinner, then went back to my cabin in a somewhat grumpy mood.  I showered, got dressed at a snail’s pace, sat on the floor doggedly drinking the rest of the water that was in my Camelbak, and wrote a little.  At 8, I went to find Mariah, because she and I, along with Tara from the Chicken, were partnered up for the “Point Pairs” party that night.  Point Pairs is a party where you and a partner each represent half of a compound word (or a third, in our case).  You dress up as your part of the word and have three drinks taped to you—one taped to both your middle hands, which you share, and one to your other hand, which is in theory just for you.  There were of course alcoholic options but also the choice of an eanab.  I had a coconut water, and Mariah and I had a bottle of Andre (cheap-as champagne) to share.  She and Tara also had a bottle of Andre, and a Powerade on Tara’s end.  I was not incredibly excited about the party going in, partly because I didn’t really feel like drinking but mostly because I was just really, really exhausted.  But I wanted to be a good sport about it—literally, because our word was “sportsmanship” and I was “sports.”
I gathered some sporty rally (really just a jersey and some black facepaint a la football player) and at 10:45 or so, reluctantly rolled over to the Point with the rest of Tam.  I found Mariah, who was dressed as “man” with a backwards cap and a hilariously exaggerated bulge, and Tara, who was a truly impressive “ship.”  Soon we were threading through the crowded cabin, trying to get people to guess our word and guessing others’.  My mood quickly brightened.  It was impossible not to cheer up when people were guessing absurd things like “Philadelphia penis queen” as our word.  Some people got pretty drunk (as one does when one is trying to drink an entire bottle of champagne or an entire 40 of beer…) but everyone seemed to have a great time.  I finally had a chance to talk to some people I hadn’t really socialized with before, like Tara, and Derek from the Chicken.  I was pleased with that since I’d exchanged probably about 6 words that were not directly food- or kitchen-related since camp started.  He seems like a really chill guy, and he’s actually on SuMo but he never comes to our outings because, so he told me, they’re too ambitious.  I’ll make an extra effort to encourage him to join in the future, especially if we’re doing something low-key.  In some ways, mostly looks-wise, he reminds me of a fitter version of Logan, the guy I went out with for a pseudo-date in Australia.
I returned to my cabin at 12:30 or so, drank a ton of water, and crashed. Â Long, long day, but at least it ended on a higher note than I expected!
