Weeklong Backpacking: Day 5

I woke in the morning with a sense of triumph. We had completed one of the hardest trails on our journey yesterday, and today we could rest. I got out of the tent and we started breakfast when the worst thing happened.

"AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!" one scout screamed. He was foolishly mixing his hot chocolate in his lap and then proceeded to spill the whole cup upon his inner thigh. We all told the leaders (thankfully his father was one of them) and he was inspected for damage. This event had unfortunate timing, as we were supposed to leave to hike the glaciers in half an hour. We waited and readied ourselves for the hike, while the scout was being inspected. His father came back to us and told us the situation. "By spilling boiling water on his lap, he now has 2nd degree burns. This gives us four options. Option 1: We go on the hike as planned. Option 2: We skip the hike. Option 3: The rest of you go on the hike while I stay with him. Option 4: I will hike out to the trail head from here with him."

2nd degree burns are very bad. They burn enough to create blisters, but not bad enough to burn off the nerve endings. This means that it hurts very bad, and the burnt area now has blisters that can easily be popped and infected. The scout in question felt fine after some bandages and water, so we went with Option 1.

My pack, which was much lighter, was still annoyingly top heavy as I went from boulder to boulder, moving across a very steep side of the mountain. My motivation was the shade that the two lead scouts sat under, me being the third in the line. I needed that shade and a drink of water. When I finally got to the shade, I was told that we only had a half mile to go. When Austin go to the shade he took a drink and kept going, so I joined him. We quickly made it to the campsites of Glacier Meadows, where it was 1.3 miles to the glacier. We kept going, following the sign to the Lateral Moraine, where we were told the best views were, as opposed to the Terminus Moraine where we would have been plopped down at the bottom of the glacier. However, The best views require the hardest work, as we found out that the trail was just a bunch of rocks positioned on a very steep hill that kept going for 1.3 miles. At this point, the two fast scouts passed us and we took a quick break. Then we dove in to the challenge.

As we climbed higher and higher on the dusty rocks, I kept thinking about water. However, I couldn't drink because if I stopped everytime there was a small flat spot I would not have made it to the top. At this point I was hiking alone, Austin ahead of me and five others behind. The hill seemed to go on forever, but was actually steep enough that I couldn't see where it ended. Just as I thought that I should take a water break, I heard something hit the ground above me. I took a step up cautiously and saw Austin had triumphantly thrown his pack down. I quickly ran up to this moraine where Ryan and Colin, the fast scouts, were preparing our freeze dried hummus. I put my pack down where there was a good view and sat down. It was a beautiful site to see the wide expanse of ice with Mt. Olympus towering right across the ice from us. It looked so close I almost thought I could climb it, but knew the thought was insane. As I ate my pita and hummus, I took in the beauty, and it was silent until Ryan said, "Seconds on hummus!" The beauty was interrupted by seven scouts running and claiming that they got their first.

Once we had finally gotten to the bottom (but not after a lot of pictures of Mt. Olympus and the glacier), we set up a game of Capture the Flag, thanks to my bandanas. It was a fun game, and topped of the beautiful day we had just completed.