Wide Awake in the Night

Was it a friend’s cough that woke me? My eyes still shut, my brain hovering barely above deep sleep, the layers of waking awareness slowly clarified around me. A soft rushing sound whirred in my ears: the comforting hum of the white-noise fan next to the bed. No—wait. It was actually the clear, green Salmon River murmuring below. My eyes popped open.

I’d fallen asleep before it even grew dark. A week in the backcountry and I’d finally adjusted to bedding down in my bivy sack out of sheer exhaustion while the sky was still light. It was the zenith of summer and the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness seemed barely to dip into night at all—just a blink between languid sunsets and dawdling sunrises. Finally, though, I found myself in darkness, stars densely freckling the strip of sky between the tops of the canyon walls. Sleep had vanished, sleepiness, too, and had become the last thing on my mind.