The first time I walked this stretch, in 2018, I was behind schedule and making up miles. I hit the Elk Lake junction at six in the evening already thirty-two miles in, and decided to see whether I could reach forty by ten. Then fifty by two in the morning. Then — fifty being close enough to a double marathon — fifty-two point four. The wilderness here is scattered with obsidian, which felt like reason enough to keep walking. I stopped at fifty-three and collapsed at three in the morning. And I saw none of it. All night, alone under a headlamp, the most I could make out was the suggestion of a mountain somewhere off in the dark. A gimmick, that night. I'm still proud of it. This frame is from 2023, when I walked the same forty miles at a human pace. The mountain kept most of itself behind the haze even then. Mile 1932 to 1972: about 1,950 behind me from the Mexican border, about 700 still to Canada.
