‘People say it don’t, but really, it do be like that sometimes’ – unknown
I woke up and instantly felt awful. I’d been tossing and turning all night, having weirdly vivid half-dreams. My movements were slow and uncoordinated. Just a lack of sleep I thought.
Until I walked for a few minutes and realized something was off. My body felt weak, my mind hazy, flow of thoughts turgid. Waves of nausea were hammering into me. Did I catch noro after all? Hopefully it was just the meal I had yesterday that landed wrong (should have known not to trust a dehydrated meal made in Montana).
At the next water source, Fitz had news: the last part of the trail to the northern terminus was closed because of fires. Great. The hike just got cut a little shorter. Because I was so exhausted, this news barely registered though. All I wanted was to go back to sleep.
The rest of the day was less interesting. I felt so sick and weak that I fell far behind the others. I had no appetite all day long. At 3pm, I had to cross a river on unstable legs which took me over 20 minutes. It was then I decided it was unsafe to continue on and I would camp 8 miles before the others. I picked a large campsite next to a lake so that others would most likely camp there too and I wouldn’t be sick and alone. On FarOut, there were plenty of comments saying this place often filled up with weekenders and it was a weekend, so I was confident.
Of course, no one showed up and I was completely alone. Da Vinci came by and I had a short chat with him. Wish I had more time to talk to him.
A kind woman I met in Snoqualmie passed by and gave me some Tylenol, since I felt a fever coming on. Thanks to her, I could sleep from 6pm to 6am. I should have asked her name.