September 18th, 2024
Mile Marker: 2028.5
Miles Hiked: 22
What a hard, wild freaking day.
We spent majority of last night waking up to rain and huge gusts of wind making our tent seem as if it was going to fall over.
In the early morning the wind would cause the ridiculous amount of condensation to sprinkle off our tent onto our sleeping bags and faces. A nice little spritz in the morning.
I was already dreading today. Cold rain and thunderstorms was on the forecast and I was not looking forward to it.
We packed up and headed out around 7 before the rain came. For a short moment I thought we might miss the rain and for the first couple hours we did as we climbed up to over 12,000 feet. Then the dark clouds started to roll in.
Nooooooooo.
We got to the top of the pass and into a cloud, where there wasn’t much visibility. The wind was blowing outrageously so we started the descent quickly.
The temperature was still freezing but at least it wasn’t raining.
We met up with Aster and Whatever at the water source at the bottom of the first climb and then headed out while they stopped for a snack.
When it’s cold and rain on the forecast, Journey and I tend to keep moving.
As we were going up the second climb, darker clouds rolled in again and then we heard the crack of thunder. Crap.
There wasn’t many live trees around but I wasn’t certain about continuing up the climb. Journey felt like it was safe since we couldn’t see lightning so we continued on.
I hiked fast and as we went upward, the rain turned to snow and I felt like I was in a blizzard. We didn’t take many pictures today as our hands turned into ice cubes.
The hardest part about today was the fact that we needed to keep moving…all day. If we stopped we would get too cold from the whipping wind.
Eventually the storm passed and we made it back down in a valley.
As we hiked along I noticed some live trees and a camp spot under it. I asked Journey if he wanted to take a quick break and he agreed. So we backtracked and started walking through dead trees to the campsite.
Just as we walked through we heard this loud cracking sound and I turned around to see a dead tree falling towards us. I sprinted forward and see Journey long gone. I then turned around and saw the dead tree covering the trail and directly over where we had just walked. If we had been just 5 seconds slower, that would have come down right on us.
Thank the lord we were safe.
We then instantly decided to not stop and keep going. We were over this place, get us out!
We hiked on and another snow storm started. I could feel my pace start to slow down as I was losing energy with minimal food and water. So I tried to sneak bites and sip my water.
We hiked past a side trail and I felt like I was getting cold so I asked Journey how he was doing. He said he was getting cold too, and he had even less layers on than me. We would need to hike faster and Journey let out a military like “HUSTLE!” I almost laughed because I’ve never heard his military voice before but I also agreed. We needed to turn it to turbo mode up the next mountain to warm up our bodies. My hands and feet would stay cold but I needed my core to be hot.
We didn’t take many pictures as our hands weren’t working but it was the most wild scene. Rugged mountains, clouds that occasionally lifted and we were able to see these vast views. Just incredible and wild.
I could feel my red poncho being blown around but tried to keep it steady as I hiked. I loved this thing. I would have been way colder today without it.
Finally as we got on the last ridge the sun started coming out and it was a soft hilly terrain until we hiked down to the pass.
My poncho was flapping ahead of me and I realized it had tore, I wasn’t sure how bad until we started hiking down to the pass and Journey told me I should put it up. It was torn to shreds. RIP my poncho!
As we continued along the ridge, we eventually got out of the clouds and into full sun as we descended. I was feeling a bit loopy since we had hiked 20 or so miles with a bar and minimal water and were above 12,000 feet the whole time. 😵💫
I was so thankful for the sun, I needed to warm up fast. I spent the entire day in pants, rain pants, and 4 layers on top to try and keep warm.
We made it to the pass and I was shocked how nice it was. How everyone I saw going by had no idea just how terrible the conditions were in the mountains.
Without much thought we decided to hitch into town instead of trying to camp and do it in the morning. We needed a town meal and a warm hotel.
Within 10 minutes or so a man pulled over with a mountain bike on the back of his car and said to hop in. He had to move things around but we didn’t care, we were so grateful.
The man was from Texas and was coming out to Lake City to visit family. We chatted about trail, answering his questions. He claimed that a while ago he had everything ready to go hike the AT and the day before he left, got a job offer and decided to take it and drop the AT. It seemed as if he still had the goal to get out one day and Journey and I told him, there is no perfect time, you just gotta do it.
We arrived in Lake City 30 minutes later and I was thrilled. Journey and I drove through this area last year and I thought it looked so cute.
We immediately went to a burger restaurant and chowed down. We were so hungry that even when we finished we felt like we could eat more.
During dinner we found a small cabin to rent for the four of us, feeling extremely lucky since most everything was booked up.
It was the cutest little cabin, a bit crammed for 4, but well worth it.
We turned on the heater full blast and made the cabin an oven.
After a while, Aster and Whatever showed up and we shared our stories of the day. All of us admitting it was quite a hard day.
We would save town chores for tomorrow and today just focus on relaxing and getting warm.
Glad we are all okay!
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 