Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. Without it, I doubt I would have made the miles I did today. The morning started out pretty normal, but I knew there would be a lot of climbing. My plan was to take my time and enjoy the hike. I had plenty of time.
Yesterday a guy asked if I had any animal encounters that I wish I wouldn’t. I knew he was talking about grizzlies, but I said that deer can be pretty annoying at night. Today I almost had a different kind of encounter.
This little guy was standing right on the trail and not moving. I almost didn’t notice him, which could have been a disaster. I’m not sure of a skunks range so I kept my distance and cut the switchback it was on.
After that the morning went well and I had enough cell phone service to book a room for my next stop. I’ve had too many times where the rooms were full when I got to town to risk it.
As the day wore on it got a LOT hotter. Probably somewhere in the 80s or even 90. I sweated like crazy and water was pretty sparse today. Combined with all the climbing, that really sucked. I had to carry 3 liters of water to camp tonight with severs thousand feet of elevation gain.
In contrast to those high temps, apparently this pass I went by is the location of the coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous US. I would have settled for something more in the middle.
The day was full of literal ups and downs, but it went pretty well. For some reason, the last few afternoons have produced thunderstorms and today was no different. This time however, I needed to go up on the ridge where the storm seemed to be stalled.
Not wanting to be up there while a storm rolled through I decided to make dinner and let it pass.
After eating, the storm seemed to be mostly clear of the ridge and I was going in the opposite direction. As I got to the top, I realized I may have made a mistake. There were a lot more dark clouds coming and it looked like they were headed straight for me.
Luckily the ridge still had some trees on it so I wouldn’t be the tallest thing up there. I considered camping in the trees and letting the storm blow over, but it seemed safer to push on. I was going perpendicular to the storm and if I hiked fast enough it would miss me entirely.
Seeing lightning in the distance was just what I needed to get moving. I literally ran up a climb so I could get down to the next saddle on the ridge since it looked like the storm was getting really close. Eventually I made it past the storm. I’m not sure if it would have even been a problem, but it was nice to not deal with it.
At that point I decided to push the last couple of miles to the next water source. In the middle of the day I was thinking I wouldn’t even make 30 miles Today but I ended up doing almost 35.
There’s even a chance I get to town tomorrow, but that would mean doing 39 miles with enough time to get a ride. Either way, it’ll be a short hike the next day and a restful stop in town.