July 4
Mileage 17
1,157 miles hiked

When I wake up in the morning I feel really, really weak. And I’m dizzier than I’ve been. What the fuck? Seriously, what is wrong with me? This is really cramping my style. I can’t feel tired like this every day. The only thing I’ve changed recently is that I stopped filtering my water. But my digestive system is fine. So what the heck is wrong with me?

Climbing is excruciating but there’s not much of it today, so that’s good. Just seventeen miles through the woods and meadows until the highway where we’ll hitch to Darby. I plod along behind Track Meat and Spark in my own secret world of suffering, sweating in the heat. I have to take a zero in Darby anyway, as it’s the weekend and I have a package at the post office. Man I’m dizzy. Like I’m gonna fall over. I hate to admit it but… everything sucks today.

We catch a ride from the pass into Darby from a nice couple (kind of drunk maybe?) in a pickup truck. We ride in the bed, wind whipping our hair. There’s a cooler full of sodas. Help yourself! Says the couple. Amazing!

Darby is a sleepy little western-themed town, a couple of blocks long. There is just one restaurant open today, on this saturday that is also the fourth of July- the Montana cafe. Otherwise the town is deserted, as though all twenty residents have gone somewhere else. At the cafe Track Meat and Spark order something called the Trapper Burger, which is a burger patty situated between two grilled cheese sandwiches. I get a burger wrapped in lettuce per usual on account of the gluten, and they do it pretty well. Thick sheets of crunchy iceberg lettuce, warm patty and mayo and pickles inside. Basket of sweet potato fries. Yum! Afterward we walk down Darby’s empty main street- no fourth of july celebration here. We’ve heard that there’s a fire ban on account of the heat wave, and there won’t be any fireworks anywhere in the state. No matter, all I want to do is take a shower and then curl up in a ball in the dim, cool hotel room, with the air conditioner on high.

Which I do.

Photos on instagram