September 11th, 2024
Mile Marker: 1900.7
Miles Hiked: 22
This morning was wet and cold. Neither of us wanted to get up or moving. We laid in our sleeping bags and around 6:30 slowly started moving.
While getting ready, Cast Iron walked by and claimed last night he walked in hail and rain, having one of his worst days. He then debated red line versus the purple line alternate. The red line was high and exposed all day and the purple line was a little lower and stayed more in the trees until the last pass. He decided to go red and claimed he might try and hitch out since storms were on the forecast.
Journey and I debated for a while and then I received a message from Whatever that they were taking purple.
We decided to wait for them to arrive as the sun started poking through the low fog. Ahhhh.. it was slowly but surely warming up our bodies.
They arrived and we set out for the day. We did a short bushwhack to cut some of the purple mileage out, it was a big out and back that seemed pointless. We had a river to cross and I am the only one with sandals so I crossed quickly as the others looked for good feet placement with their bare toes.
The morning sun was shining brightly and wonderfully and I was soaking it up.
We also came out to a view that felt like I was high in the clouds. Beautiful.
After a few miles, all 4 of us walked separately for 4-5 miles to the next water source. Journey was out ahead and I walked solo.
It was a strange sensation. I had done this plenty on the other thru hikes but not yet on this one for any long period of time. I felt like I was missing something and also had a quick nervous jolt. It felt weird to be alone but I knew Journey needed it and I did too. It’s not easy to be 4 feet from anyone 24/7. Especially when you are tired, hungry, and going through any negative emotion.
I plugged in music and tried to find my peace. I was okay, I’ve done this before.
After a few miles I came out to a clearing and realized the dark clouds were moving in faster than I thought. Shoot. We needed to dry out gear so I turned it to turbo mode to get to our meet spot so that I could lay things out.
I made it just in time. After about 10 minutes or so, thunder started to roll in and we were packing up. Journey and I headed out together and Aster and Whatever had stopped earlier to dry out gear and would catch up eventually.
The day was filled mostly with on and off rain. We had a few motorbikes come by and it was so intriguing to watch them ride in such difficult terrain, zipping by.
Around 2:30 the rain held off for a little as we crossed a more clear path away from the trees. I was thankful.
I kept my music in all day, playing shuffle from my liked playlist. I found it funny as I kept thinking to myself “Oh I like this song!” about every single one.
It made hiking in the cold rain more enjoyable. It was hard to be mad with random songs from Dean Martin and Jack Johnson rolling along in my ears.
We made it up and over one climb and down to a trailhead. Here we saw a whole family on 4 wheelers and one of them in a royals poncho. I yelled out “go royals” but I don’t think he heard me.
We hiked on and realized we were going to be hiking up a gravel road the whole way. It was chunky gravel but doable. Then it started raining on us some more and even started hailing. The higher we climbed the colder it got and then the rain turned to snow.
As long as we kept moving we both stayed warm enough. A few jeeps were coming down the pass and asked if we needed anything and one said “I have a warm seat heater here if you need” and we laughed and said we wished but kept moving.
Some of the ATVs that rolled by smiled and shook their heads like we were crazy. It always makes me laugh and feel somewhat proud of what we are doing. We made it to the top and the snow had stopped. Thank you!
We then started down the mountain and saw 3 bull moose lying down separately. I have never seen a moose laying down before so this was new. They kept their eyes on us but didn’t seem a bit worried.
As we moved down I realized I was getting cold and we stopped to put our fleece and gloves on.
We made it to our camp spot and were excited about the spot we found until we looked up and realized we were under a ton of dead trees. GAH!
There was someone with a car and tent nearby who seemed to not care about the dead trees which is always surprising. We then went to get water and found a wide open clearing with lumps and rocks and decided we could fit. It was safer than the trees.
As we were starting dinner, Mosey and a hiker named Chef came off the redline and Mosey was drenched and shivering. They had hiked the redline with little protection the whole time. It was all exposed. I was so happy we took the purple line.
Chef got out her emergency blanket and started warming up water. She wanted to go into town but we weren’t sure any cars were going to come back. So they set up camp next to us and eventually she warmed back up. Thank goodness.
While we were finishing dinner in our tents and sleeping bags, Aster and Whatever rolled in. There are 6 of us camped together and all hoping to stay warm tonight with the dropping temperatures.
We are at higher altitude for camp so it’s cold and will be our coldest night no doubt.
Eek!
Happy we got into camp early and were able to get everything done before the sun set.
Fingers crossed we stay warm.
Night Night.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 