any other choices (unless I wanted to hike back up Sliding Sands, which I’d heard equated with Dante’s eighth ring.)
A few more cars passed, and then a couple in a rental SUV pulled over. I got in the backseat, out of breath with the effort of trotting to catch up with the car and carrying the backpack from hell. “Thanks,” I panted. “I’m going to the summit to hike the crater.”
“We can tell,” said the driver, a beefy man in a red shirt that proclaimed he’d survived the road to hana . “Seems like a big backpack for a little lady like you.”
“I’m going in for a week, so I had to bring a lot of supplies,” I said. “Where are you folks from?” Old psychologist trick—deflect interest from self by asking more questions.
“We’re from Canada,” the wife said.
I got their entire social history and family dynamics and was mentally composing my evaluation by the time they pulled into the main summit parking lot. “Good luck with your hike!” the wife said.
I saved my breath by giving them a smile and a wave and set the pack down at the trailhead while I trotted to the restrooms—one last trip to the bathroom, sitting on a real toilet, was to be savored.
Washing up, I let myself finally take a good look in the mirror, a long steel expanse screwed to the wall behind the sinks.
My skin was sallow. My eyes were sunken in pits of shadow, and I’d never known I had so much craggy cheekbone. My blond hair was tangled and transparent, like the tentacles on an anemone. My clothes hung like my shoulders were a hanger.
I looked like a meth addict on a bender. Worse even than I’d feared and avoided seeing. Well, this was bottom. It could only get better from here.
I splashed water on my cheeks, made sure I’d scraped the last of the mascara out from under my eyes. I washed my hands one last time, feeling a certain ceremonial, superstitious wonder as I did so, a naive hopefulness like a girl at her first communion.
This was the journey of a thousand miles that began with a single step—one of my favorite therapeutic sayings. I was going to hike Haleakala Crater all by myself, surrounded by gorgeous nature, with no booze anywhere for miles and miles, and I was going to get sober.
At the trailhead, I lifted the backpack. It was so heavy it took all my strength to haul it up onto a rock. I squatted down and stuck my arms into the straps, hoisted the pack onto my back, and tightened the belt. It wasn’t until it was on and I’d jiggled and settled and adjusted the straps as best I could (as if somehow that would make it lighter) that I walked to the lip of Haleakala Crater and looked over the edge.
Chapter 7
The crater swooped out in a vast, deep blue arc of space and depth of gravity before me. Volcanic gravel, sand, and dirt in the colors of melted Crayolas poured in a frozen waterfall of rock down to, and beyond, the trail. The path of soft, deep gray sand was unobstructed by anything so gratuitous as vegetation; other than the metallic-green pincushions of silverswords punctuating the cinder, there wasn’t a growing thing for miles.
I was slightly heartened to see a dust cloud halfway down the switchbacked ribbon to the bottom, which marked the movement of other hikers, and that gave me the courage to start down.
The air was so clear that distance was distorted. A cinder cone—a miniature volcano within a volcano—looked near enough to spit on just below me, yet I knew from the park map I’d picked up that it was at least four miles away.
I couldn’t look at the views without stumbling, and that meant stopping. It didn’t take long to realize that the more I stopped, the harder it was to start again. My boots sank into the sand at least two inches with each step.
I set a goal to make it to an outcrop below, one that looked like it had a rock or two to put the pack down on, probably a mile ahead. I’ll put the backpack down , I told myself and have a nice big drink of
A few more cars passed, and then a couple in a rental SUV pulled over. I got in the backseat, out of breath with the effort of trotting to catch up with the car and carrying the backpack from hell. “Thanks,” I panted. “I’m going to the summit to hike the crater.”
“We can tell,” said the driver, a beefy man in a red shirt that proclaimed he’d survived the road to hana . “Seems like a big backpack for a little lady like you.”
“I’m going in for a week, so I had to bring a lot of supplies,” I said. “Where are you folks from?” Old psychologist trick—deflect interest from self by asking more questions.
“We’re from Canada,” the wife said.
I got their entire social history and family dynamics and was mentally composing my evaluation by the time they pulled into the main summit parking lot. “Good luck with your hike!” the wife said.
I saved my breath by giving them a smile and a wave and set the pack down at the trailhead while I trotted to the restrooms—one last trip to the bathroom, sitting on a real toilet, was to be savored.
Washing up, I let myself finally take a good look in the mirror, a long steel expanse screwed to the wall behind the sinks.
My skin was sallow. My eyes were sunken in pits of shadow, and I’d never known I had so much craggy cheekbone. My blond hair was tangled and transparent, like the tentacles on an anemone. My clothes hung like my shoulders were a hanger.
I looked like a meth addict on a bender. Worse even than I’d feared and avoided seeing. Well, this was bottom. It could only get better from here.
I splashed water on my cheeks, made sure I’d scraped the last of the mascara out from under my eyes. I washed my hands one last time, feeling a certain ceremonial, superstitious wonder as I did so, a naive hopefulness like a girl at her first communion.
This was the journey of a thousand miles that began with a single step—one of my favorite therapeutic sayings. I was going to hike Haleakala Crater all by myself, surrounded by gorgeous nature, with no booze anywhere for miles and miles, and I was going to get sober.
At the trailhead, I lifted the backpack. It was so heavy it took all my strength to haul it up onto a rock. I squatted down and stuck my arms into the straps, hoisted the pack onto my back, and tightened the belt. It wasn’t until it was on and I’d jiggled and settled and adjusted the straps as best I could (as if somehow that would make it lighter) that I walked to the lip of Haleakala Crater and looked over the edge.
Chapter 7
The crater swooped out in a vast, deep blue arc of space and depth of gravity before me. Volcanic gravel, sand, and dirt in the colors of melted Crayolas poured in a frozen waterfall of rock down to, and beyond, the trail. The path of soft, deep gray sand was unobstructed by anything so gratuitous as vegetation; other than the metallic-green pincushions of silverswords punctuating the cinder, there wasn’t a growing thing for miles.
I was slightly heartened to see a dust cloud halfway down the switchbacked ribbon to the bottom, which marked the movement of other hikers, and that gave me the courage to start down.
The air was so clear that distance was distorted. A cinder cone—a miniature volcano within a volcano—looked near enough to spit on just below me, yet I knew from the park map I’d picked up that it was at least four miles away.
I couldn’t look at the views without stumbling, and that meant stopping. It didn’t take long to realize that the more I stopped, the harder it was to start again. My boots sank into the sand at least two inches with each step.
I set a goal to make it to an outcrop below, one that looked like it had a rock or two to put the pack down on, probably a mile ahead. I’ll put the backpack down , I told myself and have a nice big drink of
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