colleen stinchcombe

Date: June 28

I wake up and grab breakfast with Rainfly. He pays for my breakfast which is sweet and then we have a nice conversation about the trail. Afterward I go to do laundry and the whole group is there. They’re planning the next section of the trail.
“Anything I can do to help?” I ask.
“No,” they say.
I listen to their planning and put my clothes in the dryer and then they all go and sit on the floor. I think this is funny, how hikers get so used to sitting on the floor that they avoid chairs. I sit in a chair.
“I think we need to have a talk,” Sole says. I already know what’s coming.
“We’re worried about you in this next section,” she says. “And we’re worried about Co and LiterBit exposing themselves to extra risk by having to help you so much.”
She says a little more and asks if I have anything I’d like to say. I say I think I’ve grown and learned a lot from the last section but I understand if they want to move forward without me.
“I think that’s what we’re saying,” LiterBit says. 
I say thank you for what they did to help me. They go back to the hostel. Rainfly and my clothes are still drying. He sits next to me. “I wasn’t sure if I should have said something earlier.” Ah. This is why he bought me breakfast.
We get our clothes and I pack my bag back at the hostel and we’re doing that weird thing where we’re trying to be polite and casual but it’s not quite working.
I start considering my options. I can’t go into the Sierra alone. There are people doing it, but it won’t be me. I can ask Karma and Nirvana if I can hike with them, but part of me feels like if we were going to hike together we would already be doing it. I ask anyway. But I also start considering other options. Too snowy to go north. I could go west, maybe, and hike the California Coast Trail, a trail made of mostly road walking.
One thing I know: I am not going home.
But I am also sad, and angry. It hurts to be rejected, and I’m angry because I genuinely think I can do this section if I had a solid group. Not a group to baby me or cut my steps or find every river crossing – but a group I could trust and rely on and who knew they could trust and rely on me. I’m angry because I may not get a chance to see what I am capable of in the Sierra. I’m sad because I really wanted to be part of a trail family. I’m sad because I picked the wrong one. I’m sad because I wasn’t worth waiting for. 
I’m glad, at least, that the vibes I was picking up on were not all in my head. 
I spend the rest of the day trying to pull together information on the coast trail. I call Mark, and my friend Sarah, two people I know would drag me up a mountain if that’s what it took. I wish they were hiking with me. 
I get another night at the hostel. Denied is staying in the same room. I mention my dilemma and he says: you can hike with me. I try to make it clear why I am in the dilemma I am in – I am afraid of heights, I am new to the equipment, I slowed my group down. But he says he’s been wanting to hike with someone and to hike slower. He seems to mean it. So I say, okay. 
Tomorrow I’ll resupply and try to find new shoes and we’ll try to get back to the trail.