After the sun went down last night, the little monsters keeping watch over our tent, who hoped I’d go outside to pee so they could bleed me dry, gave up and went home. I had fallen asleep while I was waiting them out, but a sudden clap of thunder woke me up.
I didn’t waste any time- after checking to see that the monsters were indeed gone, I quickly ran outside, did my business (whew!) and got back inside the tent just as it started to rain. The thunderstorm that accompanied the rain was marvelous. The seconds between the lightning and thunder steadily decreased from 12 to less than 1 (I automatically count the seconds between lightning and thunder and have done so since I was a kid, when I learned that you could tell how far away the storm is by doing so). I didn’t sleep until it was over, mainly because it’s been a long, long time since I’ve had the pleasure of being safe and (mostly) dry during a thunderstorm that was so close.
I say mostly dry because some rain did get into the tent because the storm was so intense that some blew in, it wasn’t terrible and I managed to keep my quilt dry.
As we were packing up this morning (to include wiping off the wet tent), the monsters came back to terrorize us. They made things more difficult, particularly when they decided to attack my face, but we were eventually able to hike way, leaving them behind to wonder how we escaped.
After fleeing the monsters, the hike this morning was quite pleasant. I thought it was going to storm again this morning, or at least rain on us, but the rain stayed in the distance. I did get to see a rainbow as a result, though, which made feel wistful for Maui. Another perk of the rainclouds was that they kept the temperature perfect for hiking.
As the day went on, the sun came out and the trail left the cover of the trees. It didn’t get too hot, though, since The Wind stepped up and provided a cool breeze most of the day. The views aren’t as striking as they used to be, but I enjoyed them nevertheless.
We also encountered snow again, although thankfully there wasn’t too much and it was easy to walk on. Still, it felt strange to be walking on snow in the middle of July.
Towards the end of the day, at the top of our last climb, we saw a baby goat with her mother. The baby was so cute! We took a break and watched them for a while.
After enjoying the goats, I geared myself up for the last several miles, which were a pretty steep downhill. I was worried about how my issue would respond - I felt mostly fine all day and really didn’t want to end the day hobbling into camp. For the most part, everything felt ok (although I did take some ibuprofen just in cases). Even so, when I made it to our last meeting spot for the day, I told Nick that I wanted to stay. I felt mostly fine and probably could have made it to the next possible campsite 4 miles away, but I didn’t want to push it.
It was just after 4 pm (so early!) and I must admit that I had a little internal fight with myself before making the wise decision to stay - I really want to push the miles to make up for the time we lost, but I also really want to get back to 100% so I CAN push the miles. Stopping early felt like the right call. This might very well be one of the last days we get to stop early like this so I’m going to savor it.
While we didn’t see anyone except Info yesterday, we’ve seen lots of hikers today, to include James and Kera, Blister, G Man (just met him), and Puddles and Sunny D. Puddles and Sunny D JUST walked by the tent to say hi and I’m happy to be around them again - they always seem so happy, it’s infectious.
Along the trail:
Camp:
