Today was the day of the longest elevation gain. K&T stirred around 8am but I had been up since 5:30 so I’d already gotten through my pages, yoga, meditation and an alpine glow photoshoot. The thing I hadn’t factored in was that they have their morning routine and packing up dialed so I was the straggler even through I was awake more than 2 hours before. We didn’t get very far along the trail before we were overtaken by Oceanspray, Umble, Ambassador and Surf n’ Turf. It was fun to meet some of the characters in their blog stories. It was also fun to be in their world even if it was only going to be for a few days.
We ran into all these characters right at the 1100 mile mark. K&T had developed a tradition of making a mileage in the dirt/grass/snow/rocks then taking a picture with their feet in a photo. So fun. I found out about trail names too. Kelsey had become Kraken and Travis’ was Two Pass. I tried on a couple and settled with Short Stuff because I was only on the trail for a short section. 3 days versus 6 months. Maybe Very, Very Short would have been better or Very, Very as a trail name would have been cooler. Only had a couple days to think of one though so I guess I will just go with it.
 Pre-dawn at Lake Aloha |  Morning Alpine Glow |
Tossed Bridge
We traveled through meadows and across streams. After we crested at Dick’s Pass, we started down a fairly steep snow slope. I fell at one point and ended up on my back with my head going down the slope. It was unsettling. I didn’t want it to affect my speed going across future slopes but I think it may have. K&T had been traveling in these conditions for over a month. I felt like the nube. I had only been on snow once in the past 3 years.
We traveled through meadows and across streams. After we crested at Dick’s Pass, we started down a fairly steep snow slope. I fell at one point and ended up on my back with my head going down the slope. It was unsettling. I didn’t want it to affect my speed going across future slopes but I think it may have. K&T had been traveling in these conditions for over a month. I felt like the nube. I had only been on snow once in the past 3 years.
Trail Snow Bridge Once we got down to level ground again, I began to understand why so much of their planning depended on snow conditions. We would get to one, it would be 10 feet high so we would have to scale that then they were so massive in scale at times that we would have to use GPS to refind the trail. There were a couple sketchy snow bridges and one ‘creek’ where the bridge had been completely tossed to the side. It was crazy to think that such a calm small stream of water was capable of such destruction. Other parts of the trail reflected this same history.
We came to a stream that was uncrossable by jumping, logs, stones or bridges. Off with the shoes. I went happily across partly because I was getting to experience K&T’s struggle with getting through all these streams along the way. It was also only knee deep so no wet clothes. We grubbed on our sour worms then pushed on. I felt like I was holding our progress to a slow pace so I decided I was going to push myself to go faster in a mind over matter kind of way. I managed to speed up and felt I was managing to keep a relatively reasonable pace.
As we approached Lake Richardson, our camping spot for the night, the mosquito population increased exponentially. Thankfully K&T had a bottle of somewhat natural bug repellent. Travis kindled a fire, we made a bunch of KD (Kraft dinner), Kelsey did a bit of blogging then passed out. I have to say I was impressed. She is writing all her blog posts on her phone. Incredible.
As we approached Lake Richardson, our camping spot for the night, the mosquito population increased exponentially. Thankfully K&T had a bottle of somewhat natural bug repellent. Travis kindled a fire, we made a bunch of KD (Kraft dinner), Kelsey did a bit of blogging then passed out. I have to say I was impressed. She is writing all her blog posts on her phone. Incredible.
 River Crossing |  |
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