Katy Trail Hike: Day Two

September 3rd, 2011

Originally, it was my plan on the second day to wake up at 5 and hit the trail by 5:30 in order to beat the heat of the day. I began in the right place by drifting to the surface around 4:30am, but then I remembered a very important thing about myself: I have an overly-active imagination, heightened by darkness and camping out alone in the forest. Every scary part of every book and movie I’ve ever seen came to mind, and I huddled beneath my sarong and decided that there was no way I was leaving the tent until the sunlight chased away every dark rider, axe murderer, velociraptor, and monster from the Id that was lurking just outside the tent.

At last I braved the outdoors, just as the eastern sky was turning pink. I ended up getting down to the Katy Trail around 6:30, which was still a decently early start. The air felt dense and humid, promising another sweltering day to come.

Soon I fell into parallel step with the Missouri River, and the sun hung low and golden over the waters, casting a vibrant column of light on the surface. Molten gold faded to palest silver and everything in between— my river, in all its beauty.

That day I traveled through deep shade in river-bottom territory: lines of trees over the trail, bordered with wide rows of corn or fields at rest, blurry at the edges with a hot morning haze; cloudless sky, raggedy limestone bluffs to my left, grown up with maple and walnut and oak and elderberry. I saw remnants of the flood of ’08: empty strips of wild fields, shot through with muddy rills, marked with massive cottonwood skeletons.

It was also a day of birds: massive crows chasing each other through the treetops, turkey vultures sailing overhead, robins darting through the underbrush. I saw cardinals, downy woodpeckers, indigo buntings, warblers, and even a couple of rufous-sided towhees. Squirrels, large and russet-tailed, sometimes bounced across the trail, carrying walnuts and staring at me with hematite eyes. The woods ranged from scattered river-bottom trees to open-air forest to dense vegetation swaddled in vines. 

I paced myself, I walked in the shade, and I remained happily heat-stroke-free. Around 5 that night, after nearly 18 miles of walking, I arrived at my brother’s house, where he let me take a shower and curl up in an air-conditioned guest bedroom. I was asleep before 7:30.

An excerpt from my journal that I wrote just before going to bed:

“And here I am, in a cool house, feeling content, if not hardcore. The side muscle on my right shin feels a bit strained, but otherwise I’m in pretty good shape. One day I’ll look back and marvel that there was a time in my life when I could hike 18 miles in a day and not be that tired!”

~Lisa Shafter