[pct-l] Sleep issues

[kgreen at camelbak.com (Keith Green)]

I had difficulty sleeping the 1st week or so of my 2002 thru-hike of CA. So
difficult a time was I having that I was considering dropping out. Then one
night the following incident happened:

I had been tossing and turning all night, getting very little sleep (just
like all previous nights thus far). About 1:00am, turning over for the
umpteenth time, I heard a noise outside my tarptent that my brain instantly
recognized as the footstep of an enormous wild animal. I clicked on my
headlamp, shined it into the void and cocked my ear to see if I could
pinpoint the direction from which the behemoth was approaching. Silence.
After a few moments I slightly moved my neck again in another attempt to
point my ear in the correct direction of the beast. Crafty devil he was,
trying to lull me into a false sense of security by playing possum and
sitting immobile. . . . he wasn't going to take me by surprise! Nosiree! I'd
show him. I would lay awake here all night if necessary. Then came the noise
again. Moving faster this time. Faster and faster, it began lumbering right
towards me. My neck was a veritable frenzy of motion as my headlamp flashed
1st right, then left, then right again. My eyes strained to locate my
assailant through the mosquito netting. OH MY GOD WHATEVER IT IS, ITS
SPRINTING RIGHT TOWARDS ME!!!!!

Then I realized it was my 7+ days of unshaved beard scraping against my
sleeping bag as I jerked my head back and forth that was causing the "noise"
I was mistaking for a large animal crashing through the brush.

Sheepishly feeling like an idiot, I then turned over and laughed myself to
sleep. Didn't have problems sleeping for the rest of the duration of my
hike.

Marmot
CA - 2002