From June 22 until June 24, Tennessee hiked 26 miles mostly on the Skyline to the Sea Trail in Big Basin Redwood State Park. We chose to start at Park Headquarter in Big Basin Redwood State Park as opposed to the trail head in Castle Rock State Park simply because reviews on www.everytrail.com suggested it was more enjoyable to bypass that part of the trail. We hiked to the sea the first day, and spent the rest of our time meandering around the subsidiary trails in the park.
Our trip to Big Basin Redwood State Park was an enlightening adventure in a number of ways. First, superficially, it was a relaxing foray into the woods; a fun reset button from busy, hyper-connected life. But, through new obstacles and a slight misadventure, it was served as a reminder of how important training is for life, and how making the best a situation is always a choice.
The Skyline to the Sea Trail is beautiful from the first step. I kept wanting to stop to take a picture, though it was hard to take it all in on camera. It was hard to take it all in in person! The trees and colors and smells enveloped us as we walk, and it didn't take long to get into the grove of hiking. Watching my step while watching the surroundings, breathing deeply because of the exertion while breathing deeply to take in the fresh, cool air.
As we hiked along, my nervousness began to melt away. My body could do this: I was quite capable. Ordinarily I wouldn't have thought twice about how I would fare on a multi-day hiking excursion, but being 11 weeks pregnant was not exactly in the training program leading up to the trip. And being pregnant definitely impacted my ability to train. The first trimester was a sampler’s platter of standard pregnancy symptoms; I started out dizzy and tired, moved on to extremely exhausted, then spent a couple of weeks in a state near constant nausea. I’m not complaining, (and from the comfort of my second trimester I can reflect and say it wasn’t all that bad), but I will add that I wasn’t walking into this trip in the state of health I had intended. However, because training has been an important part of my life for the past number of years, I know I had enough of a base to get through the trip, albeit not as robustly and rigorously as I had originally planned.
Honestly, it made me think of the number of times I watched individuals in our community return from an injury or an illness hiatus. Feeling less than your best is disappointing, but I’m coming to respect training as a means for staving off the worst symptoms of being unwell. I was reminded of a shirt Mully often wears. "Honor the body you are given" it says, and on the trip I internalized how important that is. Not just so one can achieve new personal records or get through a tough workout as prescribed, but also to be able to thrive when life throws a curveball. Getting injured, or sick, or enduring the first trimester of pregnancy can hinder one's ability to train or train as per usual, but training when well can make enduring that time without falling to pieces or being completely incapacitated possible. As Mark Rippetoe says; “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.”
As we reached our campsite, my shoulders were glad to shed the pack weight. Tennessee and I were excited to set up our tent again for the first time since our honeymoon, so that was the first order of business. We timed ourselves and it took 14 minutes. Just 14 minutes to set up our home for the night. Then we set to work with the second (and in my eyes far more important business) of getting dinner going. We had talked for the last hour about what we were going to make and had settled on a minestrone soup. We pulled out all the food and the stove fuel… but couldn’t find the stove. In either of our packs. I had visually double-checked our packs but not against my packing list and ergo, we managed to forgot the stove. Later, we found out we had left it at my cousin’s house, where we had been staying before we left. So I was reminded of something that we did on my NOLS trip that I clearly won’t forget again: at your home (not at the trailhead where you’re still pretty far from anything you might need last minute), unpack everything— EVERYTHING— and go over your packing list.*
We were bummed to not get our warm meal, but we had to admit it was pretty funny [albeit incredibly stupid] to forget the stove. We had enough food, just nothing as savory as we had planned. After taking stock of what we had, planning out the remaining meals, we sat down to a dinner of rehydrated yogurt. It was as gross as it sounds, and barely made better by loading it with trial mix, but somehow, it wasn’t a bust. We could have been upset because we both took turns forgetting the stove: Tennessee took the stove out of the bag at my cousin’s house to look at it the night before. I saw it the morning of our departure and moved it close to our bags but failed to actually put in in the bag. Or we could have just been upset in general because eating soupy lumpy yogurt and chewing on dehydrated carrots isn’t my idea of fine dining. But there was nothing to be done and nothing to be gained from being upset. And, those are honestly the experiences you get only in the backcountry— when everything you have is so important and precious and it’s all you have to get you through whatever situation may arise.
After our gourmet meal, we grabbed our water containers and left our campsite to finish the day by hiking the last mile and a half of the trail to the ocean to watch the sunset. On the way, we were surprise to see baby bunny after baby bunny hopping across the path ahead of us. Every ten feet, there was another baby bunny. The answer to the bunny query was around the next corner when we came upon a small, organic farm. There were lemon trees and all manners of greens; kale, chard, romaine, butter lettuce, and varieties I didn’t recognize. It was so beautiful and peaceful looking. I was a little afraid Tennessee was going to go knock on the farmhouse door and ask for a job he was so enamored.
The beach was cold but the experience of watching the sunset after a long day’s hike was satisfying.
