Huckleberry Point

Huckleberry Point

Sunset hikes / night hiking are becoming my thing. I’m starting to really enjoy the dark and seeing the stars. This is good because I’ve been toying with the idea of a hiking project that entails night hiking, but it might have to wait for next summer.

I arrived at the trailhead and these 3 women who had just finished their hike were tailgating. They were concerned because I was getting such a late start, but I could tell they didn’t want to overstep boundaries either. They wanted to give me their phone numbers and make sure I signed the book and had my headlamps. I thought they were super sweet and super cute. One of them kept saying, “She’s going to be fine. I believe in you!”

The trail was really wet because it had just rained and because that trail just tends to hold a lot of mud. It wasn’t that bad for the initial mile, but once you start on the trail to HP, it’s deep puddles where you sink in to your ankles. It doesn’t bother me so long as my feet stay dry.

HP and Bearpen are two of my favorite meditation spots along with many of the plane crash sites I’ve visited. It’s just so quiet and still—you realize presence and silence are not a lack of something but a thing in themselves. And the views help too. It can be hard meditating at home because my dog has a collapsed trachea (she’s old) and it’s a lot of coughing and loud breathing. There are also just the sounds of the house. So I hung out at HP for a bit meditating and watching darkness fall.

I returned to the trailhead around 10. My only problem with the night hiking is I have fantasies of getting things like food shopping done on the way home, but the stores are closed. I’m at that point where I’m starting to eat weird things. Like what can I mix in with this random can of spicy frijoles?

Today’s beer was Frost IPA. There seems to be consensus among everyone whom I drink this with that it is a solid IPA.