Weeklong Backpacking: Day 2

I woke up in the morning next to my tent-mate Austin by a shaking of the tent by one of the leaders. He said, "Come on guys, time to wake up. It's a beautiful day out!"

"Yeah right," said Austin, as I reached for the stuff sack for my sleeping bag. Austin shortly did the same, but then I remembered. "Today is a rest day!" I exclaimed, stopping Austin from completing the job. We whooped and climbed out of our tent and headed to the dining fly, where Ryan had already started boiling the water. I quickly grabbed a freeze-dried breakfast from my bag and waited for the water. After breakfast we got a few scouts to donate their packs for day packs and filled them with the ten essentials. Then we hiked up for a day hike to climb Cat's Peak. After a short while, we made it to a beautiful lake named Heart Lake. After stopping for water, we hiked on. As the distance between us and the camp became further, the group once again was split up by hiking speeds. It seemed like forever until we caught up with the lead scouts, who had finally found a good spot for lunch. There we broke out tortillas and tuna, and then promptly went on our way.

After lunch it got significantly harder. We went through some old growth forest for a while, but suddenly, we were exposed to the mountain turns. Turn after turn we went on the mountain sides. Each one was very thin at the center, and sometimes it looked risky when we shuffled across. Finally, we saw a path that went up and up, and those with packs struggled. But when we got over the cliff part and the grade was less and less, we saw mountain goats. They stood majestically on top of the rocks, a whole family of them. Some were grazing and others were watching us. One was a mother of two kids, and she had a radio around her neck. After we finished watching them, we got to the top where one of the leaders looked at a map, and then took in the surroundings. After a bit of studying and double checking, he said, "Guys, we're on the wrong mountain."

It turned out that we had missed the trail up Cat's peak and went up two peaks later. It was too late to climb another peak, so we named this CP2 (Cat's Peak 2) and then made our way down.

Unfortunately, as we were making our way down a cloud moved in and surrounded us, making the group cold and miserable. But as we began to get closer to the end of the hike, we got more and more energy and were soon speeding down the final hill to our campsite, where we knew stoves and food were waiting.

Weeklong Backpacking: Day 1

For the past week, I was on a backpacking trip in the Olympic Mountains (http://www.nps.gov/olym/). The trip was a total of 50 miles. These next posts will tell you about my experience in the mountains.

It seemed to just get tougher and tougher. The forty-pound pack pressed against my back as I hiked up the hill, a light drizzle annoyingly falling down on the rocks in front of me. "Whose idea was it to put in these steps?!" I asked to nobody in particular. What counted for steps on this trail were boulders placed in the middle of the trail, making each step a pounding on my knees. We were six miles in to an eight mile hike, and most of the eleven hikers, three of which were adults, had split up at their different speeds. The steep uphill had started and would last the next two miles. Step after step, I made my way up the hill, the trees above me not protecting me from the oncoming wetness. After what seemed like an eternity, I had caught up with three of the other scouts who were taking a break to drink and relieve themselves. I said hi, but then pushed on, knowing that I needed to take less breaks if I were to finish. Then I came to a bridge with one of the leaders next to it. He told me to cross the bridge and then keep going, we only had 3/8 of a mile to go. Rejuvenated by this information, I sped ahead and passed many hikers going the other way, away from this "Sol Duc Park" I was supposed to camp at that night. When I got there, I was met by the cheers of four other scouts, and I had a smile on my face that shined through the rain.