Sunday, August 29, 2010

I nearly froze last night, and woke up to a heavy coat of frost this morning.  Yikes.


After breakfast we started our hike--another mile to Windy Pass, then 2 miles to Jim Pass, then 7.5 miles to Holman Pass, and then all the way back.  At Holman Pass we found a note that was left for some of the thru-hikers.  I recognized one of the names as a fellow hike-a-thoner; apparently they will all be finishing within the next week or so.  Someone had left money for the first thru-hiker to have a beer in Canada along with a funny curse that anyone not named in the note would be eaten by bears if they took the money.  We left it alone!  :)

It seems that we were a bit cursed, however.  On our way back to camp Irwin realized that he had lost his keys somewhere along the trail.  He didn't have an extra key in his truck.  We hoped that we'd find the keys somewhere where we had stopped for snack breaks, but no such luck.

On the way back we met a guy who had been out for a solo two-week backpack trip, a group of three friends who were hiking from Canada to Highway 20, a father & son doing the loop out to Holman Pass & back on the West Fork, and three thru-hikers on their way to Canada.  It also started to hail on us, and the wind was bitterly cold on the way back to camp.  We stopped to filter water just past Jim Pass and I decided that would be my dinner stop, too: a cheese stick, a Cliff Bar, a candy bar, and some cookies.  I was half frozen by the time we left, and didn't warm up until we'd nearly reached camp.  When we go back I took the food from my backpack & hung it, taking out only the rest of my cherry tomatoes and my half-cucumber to finish as my evening meal.  Then I brushed my teeth & got in the tent--at 7pm!  I figured that I'd read my book for awhile before I went to sleep, but I only read for about a half-hour before I was sleepy.  Talk about going to bed early!  Tonight I got smarter:  I wore my rainpants to bed along with my rain jacket over my down jacket.  I can't believe how cold I get sometimes; my bag is rated to 15 degrees, but I still freeze.  This time I stayed warm for the most part, but my feet were still cold.  To think that I left my down booties in the car just 3 miles down the trail!

Today's mileage = 21 miles
August total mileage = 299.3 miles!!!