Some day soon, there will be a blog entry without any references to poop. Today is not that day, but I’ll be brief. I do most of the trail food shopping. I prepare all of the meals. I fetch and filter water 99.63% of the time. I set up the tent (once Bunny helps me determine a location and stakes out the corners) so Bunny can get out of her boots and get comfortable. When we are in civilization, Bunny insists I put the seat down every time I pee. I asked just one simple favor from Bunny this morning…when you scout a location to dig your hole, either dig it big enough for two or dig me a hole close by. She did neither. (Pretty harmless for a poop gripe from me, but there it is.)
I was really wanting to get a 20 mile day in WA and today looked like our best shot at it. Only two climbs and then a lot of downhill. I also had an ace in the hole to keep Bunny motivated—I purposely bought very little candy on this leg of the trail and we haven’t had any yet. I had a Snickers as a reward for a hard effort day. Snickers are our unanimous #1 candy bar. We diverge terribly at #2 (really, no more poop stories today). We would have made it if I could only find a way to get Bunny to get up in the mornings. We didn’t leave camp until 9, again. We’re falling apart on our morning routine. We need Bear and Sassy back.
The first climb was only 1000’ over less than 2 miles. That’s level by AT standards. We were at Mica Lake by 10:30 where we took a break and dried out some of our wet stuff. We use a single wall tent that tends to get a lot of condensation if we don’t choose the proper location or have enough ventilation. We had limited site selection last night and Bunny insists on closing the blinds so neighbors don’t peek in. We got buzzed by a couple of F16s that did an inverted roll over the lake. They were gone before we could even get near our cameras.
It was another day of relative isolation, we only saw four hikers, total, but we did pass 2 tents late in the day and there were 3 tents where we ended up camping, although we saw none of the campers. Only marmots and grouse again today. We got a real strong musky smell at one point and I was hoping for a bear, but Bunny’s stomach was bothering her a large part of the day, so it was a false alarm.
With all the climbing and waiting, I had plenty of time to think. Usually I go over past incidents and chastise myself for handling the situation wrong. I’m trying to ween myself from the self flagellation whip and am making some progress. Today, I spent a lot of time thinking about one of my best friends from college. He was/is a sweet guy and was like a brother to me since he had emigrated here from Asia. Bunny and I have visited him and his family twice in the last two years. Mainly, I was thinking of his two great kids and his wife and the relationship he has with each of them.
Like me, he is an engineer by degree. Whenever we see a problem, we have been trained to fix it. That is just the exact opposite of what we need to do in our personal relationships. As hard as it may be to accept, sometimes we are just supposed to listen to problems and NOT offer solutions. He has a fantastic relationship with his daughter who is one of the happiest and most positive person I have ever met. She is wise beyond her years. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have that same relationship with his son and wife. I’m looking for a way for him to be the kind, gentle person I know him to be with the other two members of his family. I know it’s none of my business and will only lead to injuring our relationship if I stick my nose in his business, but I worry about the whole family’s happiness.
Washington is having a tough time with Bunny and me. We want to keep her on the list, but are having difficulty with that maneuver. Today, we saw stunning views almost all day long. We are still in Glacier Peak Wilderness and are walking through snow capped mountains. The problem is the damn flies. Yes, they are slow moving, so it is very satisfying that you can usually kill 10-20 at every break. But every break, they are all over you. I pulled Washington from the list again today when they caused me to drop my tuna salad sandwich on the ground at lunch.
We didn’t make it to the top of our second climb until almost 5:30. We either had 3 miles to our bail out camping spot or 8 to where I was hoping to make it. Even with a Snickers on the line, Bunny couldn’t be persuaded to push on. We made it to our bailout spot by 7:30. As I said before, there were already three other tents there, but everyone in them was already in bed. The campsite is adjacent to a glacial melt stream which is raging loudly which covered up the sounds of us setting up camp and eating. We set up next to another hiker who is going to be quite surprised when he wakes up in the morning. If it’s an old guy, I hope he opens his eyes wide before he pees on our tent in the middle of the night. Have some respect. We don’t have a Big Agnes tent.
EFG