Tonight I made my last trip to REI (probably!). The cashier actually recognized me. Awesome. Even more awesome, Robb helped me come up with a system of clips and cords to attach my water bottles to my pack. Love it! We grabbed a few cords and practiced on one of the packs at the store. (The employee there was not helpful -- when I asked for his advice, he said, "Buy a bladder." Um, if I wanted to use a bladder obviously I wouldn't be trying to attach bottles to the pack. Bladders are fine for some people, but the sipping nozzle kind of grosses me out, and I also like to take my water bottles around with me, like into the tent.) Anyway.
Tomorrow I'm going to go through my pack very carefully and try to take out bits and pieces I don't need just to keep the weight down. I can probably lose some of the food, at least. Maybe one or two items of clothing? A few items from my first aid/emergency kit? It might be tough to keep it under 40 pounds. But whatever, I hiked most of the Whitney trail a few years ago with what had to have been a 50-plus-pound pack, and we had to trudge through a lot of snow and I was sick, so 42 or so pounds should be manageable. I really don't have a great sense of my fitness level at the moment (crazy to be thinking that just a few days before I head out) but I'm counting on a couple of years of marathon-level running fitness to help keep me going.
I keep waiting for the regret or doubt to creep in, but there's none of it. It's weird, I expected to have moments -- maybe long, very serious moments -- of questioning my sanity and wanting badly to back out of this trip. Yes, I've been wanting to do this hike for so long, I think since we used to backpack when I was a kid and I thought how cool it'd be to do the whole damn trail in one go. I always thought I'd like to do it someday. But I also always thought it seemed too big, and "someday" probably meant "never." And it is big, and I'm scared. And I'm super excited more than anything else!
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