July 6 :: Backpacking Day 2

Despite a terrible night of sleep, I was wide awake and ready to hit the trail first thing after hearing people outside our tents.  The wind was still pretty obnoxious in the morning, so we bypassed a hot breakfast to hit the trail earlier and get out of the valley.  You know we had plenty of other food to eat anyway!  With the snow fields behind us, I didn't really care what type of terrain we had to cover today... except well, we were going to have to ford a river.  Yeah... but I had at least 5 miles to hike before then so no big deal.  Again, everywhere I looked... Beauty.

The trail was pretty thick with alders and other growth.  It got very buggy, too... like I didn't want to open my mouth to yell "Hey, Bear!" or anything... because I was terrified of swallowing one of the million in my face.  Needless to say, I wasn't concerned with getting any pictures of that... We finally got to the river that we had to cross.  

You should click on the pic below to read the crossing tips just to get an idea of what we were up against. :-)

This is where we crossed.

For those of you that passed on reading the tips... Here are the highlights.  I had to unbuckle my chest and hip buckles.  If I were to fall in and float downstream (because of the fairly strong current) I would need to get my pack off ASAP and that is not the time you want to be fooling with extra buckles.  As a group, arms linked, we crossed the river... one cold step at a time.  I had psyched myself up for the water to be breath-sucking cold.  It wasn't.  Don't get me wrong, before I was even half way across my feet were numb... but I could breath just fine! ;-)

Happily through the river on the other side.

Just in case you haven't noticed, I wore the same pants.  These are magical pants... They are lightweight, wind and odor resistant... They repel bugs, dry quickly, and zip off into shorts.  Seriously, within 10 minutes of being out of the water, my pants were DRY.

Loved that rock... hahaha

Beauty, beauty, everywhere

The trail drama was pretty much over after fording the river.  The rest of the hike (just over 10 miles, I think?) was little ups and downs following the river bed.  It was yet another ecosystem, and still incredibly beautiful.

Do you see the crazy beautiful sunshine on the rocks?!

Our 2nd "river crossing" ;-)

Everyone was pretty wiped by the time we got to our 2nd campsite.  The day's worth of hiking (especially the stop-and-go-again pace) really wore me out.  It was kind of funny as we got back into trees and forest-y areas... I felt so at ease being back in the trees!  Totally understood (now) what Scott meant about trees being comforting.  

2nd Campsite

Campsite was to the left on "this" side of the bridge, over the creek and to the right was our cooking site.

Our chef.

After dinner, it was the same routine... brush teeth, clean dishes, pack bear cans, hit the sack.  Dinner this night was really yummy, though I can't really remember what all was in it.  It was filling and tasty, though!  It was a nightmare packing the bear cans this night... With no gorge to toss a bag into for the night, we HAD to get everything in the cans.  After way too much effort, we finally got everything in, without an inch to spare... they were STUFFED to the brim... Scott stashed them away from our campsite, and everyone got into the tents... until we heard someone say, 

"My bad." 

Scott's response: "What?" 

"I found some more beef jerky." 

For real?!  Poor Scott.  He insanely, patiently took care of it... got it in the bear can though I have no idea how.  I slept much better this night and was out shortly after my head hit my comfy camp pillow...

Campsite again... the trees helped darken things so it was easier to sleep... PS- pic was taken around 9pm.

Good morning, day 3!