Monday, May 25, 2015

Day 41 - Hiking through Windfarms is Windy, and my first "10 by 10"

Mile 529.2 to 549.7 20.5 miles

UP and attem, hiking by 0610, all morning chores complete.  Windy as all hell.  I was hell bent on getting my first 10 by 10 in (ten miles by 10am). I had come close before.  Grant had to keep stopping to address his blisters, but I really wanted to charge on, so I left him (knowing he had enough water, come on, I would never leave him to die in the desert, and for god's sakes, it's blisters, and people are always walking by, well, not that day, but i would have gone back for him, and I had goals!!! Fueled by the first marathon of my life, I became a callous person, but you know)  Ok, well, I got my ten by ten, but it was at the cost of our relationship...Not totally, we hugged and made up, then hiked on. We've been together for 14 years, we tend to repair our rifts quickly.
Hiked on through wind so strong it was blowing me off the trail. Not too scary, but a tad annoying and challenging.  Made it to our water source, where we saw Cavalier!!!  hahaha, we had caught up, sort of.  He was leaving, and we were going to spend 1-2 hours at the water source.  Very funny how this trail works out though.
Had a huge lunch, trying to eat through the weight on my back. I still haven't learned how to resupply and always have waaay too much food, which equals way too much weight. Headed out of the canyon where the wind continued to blow me off the trail, but uphill, instead of down the steep hillside :)  Uphill, downhill, UP HILL. I know it's the nature of the beast, but some days you are just over it.  Made it to a water cache with chairs and apples.  We had enough water, but ate an apple and chatted with some fellas, subsisting off of food they find in hiker boxes, boiling water and making stews out of things such as couscous, mashed potatoes, and anything else, all in a big pot they share. So fun to see how other people do things.
We hiked on another half mile, and scoured the area for half an hour before we found something enough out of the wind but not next to dead trees.  Made dinner in the tent because of the wind and fatigue, then to bed.

2 comments:

  1. I found an article with a photo of the warrior hikers. I wanted to see who you were talking about! http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/news/the-path-to-healing/article_ebd5f298-f397-11e4-9ed9-a30f846acbca.html

    ReplyDelete

Keep it clean. Don't be mean.