Mile 906:

I have been in the Sierra Nevada Range for just over 200 miles now. I have climbed to the highest point on the PCT, Forrester Pass, and I have trudged through miles of snow and waded through raging rivers. I could say a million things about what I've seen over the last couple weeks. But as I reflect in the quiet confines of a coffee shop in mammoth the only word that comes to mind is tranquility. I've bled, shed sweat, tears, and laughed egregiously on the tops of mountains where no trace of man are to be found. And now that I'm through the thick of things it saddens me. The Sierras are wild. They are rugged, unforgiving, and untameable. I've seen remains of trees as thick as a car shattered from avalanches. Sure footed friends swept down roaring rivers and boulders crash down from the tops of mountains. All things that make you realize how little control you have out there. But despite all of that a feeling of peace washes over me. There is a silence that speaks to me. The cracking of snow drifts on top of frozen alpine lakes melodically hums in my mind while the whistling wind through fractured rock calms my nerves.

There is some strange correlation between hostility and serenity that is difficult to convey through words but I think Jack London says it best. "Solitude is the despair of fools, the torment of the wicked, and the joy of the good." I'm often left with my own thoughts for long periods of time in the wild. And I love it.