Super Hiker Woman (Trying Anyway)

Since we didn’t have too many miles to go to get to the Trailhead, and we’d just be hanging out there anyway, we took our time. We even heated up water for coffee for Annette, and my new taste sensation, hot Mio (it’s like hot cider, but it’s not apple). As a testament to our increased efficiency, we were still ready to go by 8:30 (still earlier than our first morning). We headed out, and crossed the Canyon Creek Bridge.  By looking at us, you’d have no idea we haven’t showered, and have been wearing the same clothes for the last 7 days! However, it’s a good thing you can’t smell us! As we were told by Ninja, the trail was well maintained and fairly flat. We crossed many small creeks.  At one point, Annette was feeling the effects (digestively speaking) of her double dose of coffee, and the other half of a smoothie mix, and was dealing with said effects just off trail. I was sitting a little ways along the trail waiting, when I saw a couple of hikers heading toward Annette. I ...

Day 6 dawned with a wet tent for me. The previous night I had closed one side of my tent completely (both doors). It looked like some clouds were coming over the Pass, and I didn’t want to have to mess with closing both sides in the middle of the night if it started to rain. I think that restricted the airflow, but it was also quite dewey in the morning, and I was set up on grass. Regardless, my tent was soaking wet. I shook off as much water as possible, and packed it up. A bit of good news was that in looking at Gaia (another gps app), I realized we were farther than I thought. Whoop!!! We started out the day with a nice climb to the top of Fire Creek Pass. It really was a beautiful climb, and the Pass was gorgeous as well.  Yowza! That’s a long way straight down! Glad we are not going that way! The view from Fire Creek Pass That is the way down! Annette even found some snow! Yep, we made it to the top! Milk Creek Glacier The trail down was steep and rocky. We just took it slow (...

It was a beautiful night. After the sunset happened in front of one side of my tent, the moonrise happened out the other door. Each night in my Z Packs Duplex tent I left at least two of the four doors open. It helped greatly with condensation. That night was also the first chance to really dry the socks and shoes. My socks were mostly dry by morning. Shoes had a bit more to go.  According to my totally inaccurate calculations (because we didn’t really know how far we were), we were behind about 15 miles. Since we had one day coming up that was only supposed to be 4.5 miles, we thought we could divide out the miles and still make it to our resupply on the 15th. We left Reflection Pond at 7:15.  First up was a climb up to White Pass. We weren’t sure when we actually crossed the Pass.  Glacier Peak? Enjoying an actual trail! Interesting stripe of white rock.  Shadow me! Going up.  Saw several marmots.  As we were hiking along, we came to a crew working on the...