At 4:30a I woke up needing to go to the bathroom. I hate it when that happens. We’d be waking up in just an hour and I had to interrupt my glorious sleep to go out in the cold. It makes a person feel cheated a bit. I would have held it off until I got up, but it was pretty urgent. I made sure my sleeping bag was left closed to keep in as much heat as I could while I was away. Then I passed out for the next hour.
It was cold again this morning. I’m pretty sure that’s the normal now. Although, I have to say, it wasn’t nearly as cold as it has been. So in that way, I felt lucky. We were hoping to see a moose in the pond we were camped next to. None came. You would think they would know their presence is expected and put on a show. Later, when we were hiking, Snow Monkey would call us all over because he thought he heard one walking in the forest. We would all stop and look out, but again, wouldn’t see anything. We still have over two weeks left to have a sighting. I can be patient.
We were hitting the trail by 7:30a, about a half hour after our original goal. Today we covered over seventeen miles with 5,700+ feet of elevation gain in the day. Half of that was concentrated in a couple of pushes. Our legs burned, by tendon is sore, and my feet are angry. I was so tired for the last four plus miles, I frantically looked for a place to call it a day. In the end, I’m glad we got here tonight. It makes up for our short day yesterday.
The trail was still wet today. In many spots water ran down the rocks. Someone said it was like walking up a waterfall. There was a lot of mud we had to pick our way around. Sometimes we were successful, other times we lost a foot in it. My socks were damp from the day before. After a bit of hiking, they finally started to feel dry. And… right on time, my foot fell into more mud. The cold stagnant water filled my shoe. Seems about right. It’s something you have to be able to laugh at, otherwise this would be miserable. There are a lot of fun reasons to be out here. Part of that is getting to play in the mud, cold or not.
Photo Above: Portrait of Wonder Woman
This afternoon I watched Warthog take a step and then something darted across the muddy path. I looked close and saw a tiny grey vole frantically working its’ way into the leaves. He was adorable. I was kind of surprised to see him out here. We get a lot of chipmunks, some mice, but I haven’t seen a vole yet. It made me think about home and my cat, Mr. Fuzz. Fuzz will often catch these little creatures and leave them in the driveway as a present. We will get a handful of them during summer. I sure do miss my cat, he gives great snuggles. For a time, I considered bringing him along. I decided it would be cruel to do that. The first rainstorm would send him over the moon. Although I’ve heard that people have brought cats. They are often a favorite at shelters, especially if they are good mousers. But I thought Fuzz would be better off back in Grand Rapids. He spends his days playing with my sisters’ cat, Lola, and sleeping on whatever piece of furniture is his favorite for that week. Besides family and friends, Fuzz is probably the next thing I miss most about home. It may be ridiculous, but I usually get to FaceTime with him a bit whenever I’m talking to my sister. Yeah… I’m that kind of an animal mom.
It was late when we were finished for the day. We arrived at the shelter around 8p. There weren’t any tent pads open, not that we could see in the dark anyways. So we had to make do with some awkward space around the shelter. It works. We’ve slept in weirder spots. These makeshift campsites always make me thankful for our sleeping pads. They are several inches thick when they are inflated. For the most part, I can’t feel rocks, roots, and other things that may be underneath me. It means we don’t have to be so picky where we put our tent, which opens up a world of possibilities when we finally stop for the night.
A seventeen to eighteen mile day means we are starting to pick up our pace again and make good progress. For a long time we averaged eighteen miles per day. That mileage went down when we started hitting tougher terrain. It’s been frustrating and a bit discouraging to see your pace and progress slow. I have high hopes (high apple pie in the sky hopes) that we continue with full mileage days like today. If we keep that up, it’ll give us more flexibility with our summit date, allowing us to “weather cancel” for a day if needed. It’s always better to give ourself extra time, even if it means you have to work harder for a bit to do so.
-ansel