July 27th, 2024
Mile Marker: 896.3
Miles Hiked: 27
We slept in this morning with the cool air and a not so restful night. Around midnight, Journey and I both heard splashing around in the pond near us and woke up immediately. We couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was and when we turned our headlamps on, it wouldn’t shine far enough. Whatever it was, we could hear it walking around doing its thing, splashing about. We assumed either moose or elk possibly bear? Not too sure of all their behaviors.
Anyhow, both Aster and Whatever said they didn’t hear anything last night as they were hard asleep. 😂
We rolled out around 8 AM and I was already feeling lethargic, aunt flow had arrived and she was not happy.
Once we had the morning sun shining on us, we could feel the heat and started to take off layers.
Around 5 miles in we caught up to Whatever and let him know that Aster may have taken a wrong turn since she was ahead of us and we reached Whatever before her. Within 10 or so minutes she showed up thankfully. Journey and I almost got off trail in a similar area… The CDT is relentless, we always have to double check and make sure we are on the right trail.
We set out ahead of them knowing we would see each other all throughout the day. It’s a new tramily for a short section but it’s nice to be around other people!
We also ran into 3 separate groups of weekend hikers out for a day hike after we passed this lake. It took us by surprise as we didn’t expect people to be out here but quickly realized there was a parking lot coming up. We both loved the nice evenly graded, smooth trail that led to it. Ahhh.. how nice our feet feel when it’s not chunky and rocky.
We past by yet another trail sign in and are the first to sign in for the day. We saw a couple people who signed in ahead of us, but it is very unlikely we see them.
The morning became hot and had nice gradual stair step kind of climbing. Nothing too hard and nothing too long. I was all about it.
At lunch we stopped at the last water source for the next 15 miles to relax and load up. While us 4 were sitting there, a man on a mountain bike came by and told us he does trail maintenance out here and then gave us girls an apple and everyone a delicious cookie.
He seemed to love to give out treats to hikers and we were so appreciative of them and all the work he does! How sweet!
We then got back to hiking up the stair step climbing; climb for a bit, flat for a bit, on repeat.
The trail had us with open views that showed off the vastly different landscape than we had been seeing. Journey and I love seeing all the changes as we walk from place to place.
I started to listen to Brene Brown’s book called “Braving The Wilderness” and listened to her discuss the concept of belonging. This was also a conversation that was had during a class in my Masters program.
There is a big difference between fitting in and belonging. Fitting in, we change who we are to feel like we belong to a group. Belonging, means we are with people who love us for who we are and we know/feel it without feeling like we need to change.
I thought about the times in my life where I changed who I was to fit into groups. Always wanting to have that sense of belonging.
I thought about how I wanted to belong to a tramily here and found myself conflicted when Brene brought up a quote from Maya Angelou, “You are only free when you realize you belong no place, you belong every place, no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
I used to thrive on telling people I didn’t need anyone, but that was furthest from the truth, I do need people. We all need connection and having that sense of belonging is important. However, Brene went on to talk about her understanding of this quote, learning to love herself and be confident in what she was doing even if it was different than everyone else. Once you belong to yourself, love/trust yourself, you can feel like you belong everywhere. I’m curious to listen to what else she has to say.
Around 3:30 PM we could see rain in the distance and heard the roll of thunder. We decided that we would keep going and maybe it would miss us like the other storms had.
We kept climbing and the trees started to get sparse. I started to worry that this wasn’t a smart decision on our part.
Eventually it started sprinkling and we were nearing the top of our climb.
Aster and Whatever had caught up by this point and we all decided that we should get in this batch of trees and sit out the incoming storm.We all found our way through and hunkered down.
It felt like a fort I would play in as a kid. But I disliked the circumstances we were in. The storm came through and let out lightning and thunder waves that felt like they rattled my brain they were so loud.
I kept praying that the storm would pass and no lightning would strike the trees we were in. We watched 2 young bucks come running up the hill and look over at us hiding in the trees, as if we took their spot and ran off in another direction. Journey and I imagined what it would have been like if they joined us in the tree fort. 😂
This storm took way longer than the one yesterday to pass. We all started to get cold and for a while Journey and I kept his sit pad over our heads and then eventually Journey got the great idea to get our tent out and cover us in it since it’s water proof. I needed this desperately as I was starting to shiver.
The storm let down some hail and freezing winds and as the storm passed it left the cold winds. We all decided we should head out and warm up as fast as possible.
I had to stop and put on another layer first, I was too cold and my fingers weren’t working well. As I put my rain jacket back on, I asked Journey if he could “zip my pits” since our rain jackets have pit zips to help regulate when hot. I’ve asked him a few times to do this for me as it’s awkward and difficult to do it on my own and always find it a funny question to ask.
Journey and I then took off up the mountain to finish the climb and get our heart rate up.
Eventually, we started to warm up but we kept a quick pace. Waiting out the storm put us behind an hour and we still had 5 miles to go at 6 PM.
Thankfully we didn’t have much climbing left and were able to roll downhill to where we wanted to camp.
We flew down and Journey and I searched a line of trees for camp spots but came up short. Thankfully at the very end of the line we found great coverage and a lot of trees.
We all got our spots fixed up and went to the end of the line to eat dinner and reflect on the day.
We were so happy the rain stopped for the evening while we ate and are hoping it’ll hold off tomorrow as well.
So happy we didn’t freeze and so happy to find a decent camp spot!
I’m snug in my sleeping bag and looking forward to sleep.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 