What a day! It poured most of the night, but finally slacked off towards morning. It was still raining lightly though as we soggily got up before dawn. We hiked off quickly, but due to the cold, didn’t check maps/GPS and missed a turn. This was the story of the day. We camped last night near a trail marker and then today we didn’t see another one in a useful place the whole day. Our wrong turn led us miles off course because we didn’t think to check until the next junction. We then had to bushwhack back to the trail.
We got rolling in the right direction and committed to checking every junction, usually with Piper’s GPS. There were so many turns that you would have never found without a GPS. So many. Today was a day for getting completely lost if I didn’t have a GPS.
Anyways, we did. The other thing was that last nights rain turned all the jeep roads and trails to hilariously sticky mud. We would build up mud inches thick on our shoes and trekking poles regularly. My trekking poles actually started making my arms hurt they got so heavy at points. This was essentially all day too, very little non-mud. It also snowed, sleeted, and rained at various points, but not enough to really annoy us.
It was nice hiking with Kevin and Piper, chatting to pass the time. They don’t quite follow the same schedule as me but I think I will adapt to theirs for now. Longer hiking hours and less breaks, but company and generally the same pace is a good compromise for now.
The mileage I’m quoting for the day is a total guesstimate because we took so many wrong turns and random shortcuts it’s impossible get it right. I have never been so lost as we were today, even while following the GPS, our instincts for where to turn and what not were just so wrong it was almost funny.
Daily Summary
Date: Oct 5, 2011
Day 104
Daily Distance: 32 miles
Trip Distance: 2035.9 miles