Alone Time

This is an entry I've wanted to post for a long time but I have really struggled to write. I've started it over and over, but have been unable to complete it.

Maybe it's because I don't get enough time alone to get my thoughts down!

Ha ha!

Honestly, I think I havent written it because its a complex thing to explain. You see, I'm not entirely sure if the low level of alone time I get is because I'm social or because I'm female.

As it is, hikers complain about not getting enough down time. Generally, you get up in the morning, tear down camp and eat breakfast. You hike all day, taking a few breaks to eat, collect water, or rest your feet before pressing on. You get into camp an hour or two before sunset, reconstruct camp, collect water, make food and go to bed with the sun. If there are cool people in camp you might choose to sit around a fire and chat for a bit in place of reading, making a journal entry, or planning out the next day of hiking like you normally do before exhaustion pushes you off to sleep. It's a schedule that doesn't leave you with too much time for yourself, especially if you hike with friends during the day and/or sleep in shelters with other hikers at night.

Add being female into the mix and you have a real recipe for ZERO time to yourself. It is a strikingly obvious fact that there are not many women on the trail (maybe one gal for every six guys), even fewer of which are single (maybe one in ten females), meaning just about every male hiker out here wants to jump your bones, i mean, hike WITH you instead of pass you or leave camp WITH you instead of before/after you; they all want to 'chat' with you on your break, at dinner, while you set up camp, while you tear down camp, on your way to and from the privy...

Okay so its not THAT bad, it just feels like I have no time for myself sometimes. And even when I am alone (say in the privy, collecting water, or visiting my hammock for a forgotten item) everyone in camp seems to know where I am and what I'm doing, ESPECIALLY if I'm the only female in camp (most nights I am).

It's a difficult thing to get used to, even after 3 months on the trail. I've recently put some space between me the guys I was hiking with, we'll see if I get sick of the alone time it gives me!