Miles: 355 | A cold, miserable return to the trail marked by rain, sleet, and bodies that clearly weren’t happy to be moving again. My IT band flared up almost immediately, Maverick pulled a calf muscle, and morale stayed low as we climbed uphill all day. We stopped short of our planned miles at a surreal, ice-covered campsite near Beauty Spot, trading distance for warmth and safety. A small fire, a full dinner, and early sleep helped — but it was a brutally cold night that reminded me how fragile comfort can be out here.
We left in the rain. Walked all the way back to the trail. According to our plan we were going to do 12 miles this day. We were both tired and sore. The rain didn’t help our moods.
My IT band instantly started hurting again when I put my pack back on. About 3 miles in Maverick went to step over a log and pulled a calf muscle.
He said he felt like his leg muscle went ‘Twang!’ He limped for a while. He also had a terrible stomach ache. We were both in pain and grumpy. The rain turned into a sort of sleet. We kept walking, uphill all day. We ran into Mule and walked with him for a while.
When we got to Beauty Spot the grass was green and bare but all of the trees had snow and ice on them. It was like a fantasy land. It looked fake! We walked a bit further and when we saw a sign for water we stopped to look around. We found a couple good tent sites and a group of other hikers camping there. Exhausted and only one mile before our goal we decided to stop here. I just wanted to get out of the sleet.
After warming up our fingers and toes we went to be early. I was very cold that night. All night.
Of course as soon as we set up camp and had dinner the sleet stopped. My fingers FROZE gathering water. On the bright side, I ate my entire dinner for the first time. It was very cold and only going to get colder. We went up and sat around a fire that Eskimo and Mean Spaghetti made from some damp wood. Two Clicks and Duracell were there, too.
