Ch. 115 – Morning Magic & Mist

I barely slept last night. Boostie and I shared a tent, which I thought would help to warm me up. It took until 4am for my feet to finally regain feeling, and warmth. How did I know it was 4am? Well, I kept checking my phone to see if dawn was getting any closer. I just wanted to get hiking!

None of us wanted to leave the warmth of our sleeping bags. We said 7am wake up time… then slept in until just after 8am. I’m grateful everyone slept in, because that was the only few hours of sleep I got! Around 8:30, I heard the voices of the others waking up. Everyone complained about the mouse activity last night, which thanks to our bear cans, didn’t affect us. For Frodo and the others without bear cans – no such luck. Frodo lost half of his trail mix, and Let’s Go lost her tortillas. A true trail tragedy!

Finally, I borrowed Boostie’s puffy and packed all of my things. My puffy got soaked from the rain yesterday, so now I’m down to my quilt that can keep me warm. We hoped to get a little sunshine today so we could dry things out.

Thick fog.

Everyone set off one-by-one towards the road crossing five miles ahead. Yesterday Van Gogh, one of the guys we met in Trout Lake, said his sister was coming out to do trail magic for his birthday. We celebrated his birthday in Trout Lake, so that was lovely he could celebrate again with his sister! Boostie and I got to the first road crossing only 1.6 miles from camp, and there was someone else set up for trail magic as well. After chatting with him and having some snacks and a soda, we continued on to the next road and had bacon, eggs, sausage, coffee, cake and more from Van Gogh’s sister. What a magical morning!

It took a lot of motivation to leave once we were warm and dry-ish in the shelter by the trail magic. In fact, a few of us debated getting a ride from Van Gogh’s sister to town… or at least the next road crossing. I especially considered the option. My achilles hadn’t recovered from the previous day of hiking – likely due to the lack of sleep, and therefore, lack of recovery. I debated, but decided to keep hiking. Free Willy, another hiker we met in Trout Lake, also debated whether or not to take the ride. Ultimately, none of us decided to drive off from the shelter. Instead, we all got up the courage to brave the cold, wet trail with our own cold, wet feet.

Our best views of the day.

It was misery. My achilles hurt on every uphill, but that was just the cherry on top of everything else. Constant cold, wet air with visibility at only about twenty feet sucked the joy out of the experience. We knew we were hiking next to extraordinary views and beautiful volcanic mountains… but saw none of them. It really chopped down the morale within the group.

Due to my achilles issues, I slowed down on every uphill. Boostie and I fell behind Free Willy, Let’s Go, and Frodo. We made camp in the dark, 0.7 of a mile from the others. The sun never made an appearance the entire day, so setting up camp was quite the damp ordeal. Another couple had already set up camp near us, but took up the only other decent tent site with their bear hangs. Of course, that annoyed us, but it is what it is. Boostie set up the tent on a sloped spot in a divot, and we simply hoped that the rain would stay away for the night. Any rain would mean a flooded tent site!