There are certain events that are so unique that they stand out in the memory of your life. Some are good events that make you happy when you think of them. Happy events like meeting your significant other, or getting married, or having children. Sad events like the day your sister dies too young at 38, the death of family members, or catastrophic events like 9-11. Today started with such an event for me.
In a word, I had a shitty start to my day. I will always remember today’s experience up there with being 4 years old when I was so sick I couldn’t stop throwing up. My dad finally got me calmed down and I sat on his hand in his lap while I watched “The Brady Bunch” and pooped in his hand. (Probably more traumatic for him than me, but memories are memories). Or the time when I first encountered squatting porcelain on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. I didn’t quite have the knack of it and didn’t squat low enough. I ended up filling them instead of hitting the bowl in the floor. Fortunately, I had a pocket knife and could cut off my underwear. Today moves to the top of my poop memory horrors.
I was going to wait until we climbed away from Summit Lake because I knew the mosquitoes would be bad when we got away from the wind blowing on the peninsula we were camped on. As I’ve already established, I cave from PPP (peer poop pressure). Everyone said they weren’t going to wait, so of course, my bowels joined the chorus.
As soon as I crossed the trail from our spot, the mosquitoes swarmed. I tried cutting uphill to catch some breeze. I looked around to make sure I was out of eyesight of anyone and saw a camper van through the trees. I cut back a bit and found a higher spot behind some trees. I dug my hole and did my business. As I was filling out the first round of paperwork, I looked down between my legs and saw hundreds of blood suckers gnawing on my thighs. My first instinct was to swat them and kill as many as possible. One problem though, I had filled out the first round of paperwork, but not submitted it yet. I was now covered by more than mosquitoes.
As I was trying to start to clean up this mess in addition to the subsequent paperwork which needed to be filled out and submitted, a group of nobo hikers appeared about 10 feet from me. I had circled back around to the trail without realizing it. I made uncomfortable eye contact with the lead hiker, pulled up my pants, and turned my back to them. Bear appeared on the trail and started talking to them. This helped create a diversion to keep them from looking at me, but there was a huge magnitude of paperwork that still needed to be completed.
They hurriedly left and Bear proceeded uphill to me and gave his usual “grrr” to let me know he was about. He was the only one who hadn’t seen me. He apologized and said he hoped he hadn’t interrupted my privacy and started hunting for his own spot assuming I was finishing up. I told him he should probably move along a bit. When he left, I spend the next 5 minutes finishing up old business.
Afterwards, I went back to camp to get back in a breeze to get relief from the multitudes of demon spawn. I washed my hands off in the lake then sanitized them, then washed them again to be sure, and finished up with some more hand sanitizer. I couldn’t shake the feeling from my hands. It’s like when you have a young puppy that has an accident on the floor and you step on it with bare feet. It takes days before you forget the feeling between your toes.
At least I knew what to expect from the mosquitoes today. I changed into my long sleeve shirt and pants, put on my head net and tucked it under my buff on my neck so no skin was exposed. I then got out my glove liners. As a final round of defense, I sprayed myself down with a eucalyptus insect repellent. I was a bit warm, but I was ready for mosquito battle.
It was the right move because the little blood suckers were miserable all the way up our first climb. 7 miles of pure hell. Sweat was pouring down my forehead. I couldn’t see because of the bug net, but, for once, I wasn’t bothered by the high pitched hum in my ears because I knew it was outside of the net.
When we reached the top of the climb, we finally got a strong enough breeze that we could remove our head nets and relax for a few minutes. This will be one of my favorite breaks of all time. Bear and I had gotten some song lyrics confused earlier so he pulled out his phone and played some Jethro Tull. My personal favorite, Locamotive Breath, followed by Skate Away. While we were sitting there we talked about major life events that got us to where we are today and how they brought us all together. Bear and Sassy are tremendous fun and we laugh more with them than anyone, but it’s also nice to have the serious, soul searching conversations.
The next 3 blissful miles to Windago Pass were mosquito free. We passed a few thru-hikers that told us about the water cache at the pass. Thank god it was there, because we didn’t see any other water since we left camp. We were planning on a pond about 9 miles in, but it must have dried up. While we were sitting having lunch, a car drove by. It looked like the driver was checking on the cache and then he drove away. A few minutes later, he came back and parked.
The driver got out of the car, grabbed a cold drink, popped the top and walked up to the cache. I thought he was just showing off now. He had cold drinks and we had hot water cooking in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, we were very thankful for the water, but as I suggested to Bear later in the day, when Sassy overheated, he might pee on Sassy rather than pour any cache water on her. The pee would be much cooler.
The driver was Jojo who works for USGS. He’s out for a week helping a coworker take some 100 year photos to monitor changes in formations and glacial status on some local mountains. He came over and started talking to us. He then realized his drink was cold and he generously offered each of us drinks. This is true magic. Jojo wasn’t planning on being an angel and we weren’t planning on anything at the pass (other than hoping the water cache was still being maintained). We spent an hour talking with Jojo. This was just the break I needed after my shitty start to the day.
It was less than 6.5 miles to the place we were planning on camping. Thanks to our break with Jojo, it was past the heat of the day and we were feeling more refreshed. The best part about this hike was that the final 3 miles were downhill. As I get more tired during the day, I need more data to keep me going. I’m not allowed a phone of my own, so I asked Bunny to let me see the phone and then I’ll carry it the rest of the way to camp (she gets mad if she has to take the phone out for me repeatedly). I needed to prepare my feet for the final push.
I opened Guthook and it said I still had a mile to go. I tried to refresh it several times, but it always said 1 mile. I was devastated. I thought we were almost there. I sat down on a log and got out my pee water for a drink. Just as I sat down, I heard a dog bark and Guthook updated our position to 0.1 miles. I was happy and my feet were ecstatic. Kunta Kente I have found you.
When I rounded the corner I saw Bear and Sassy talking with Molly and Clint. Scooby was having nothing to do with all the new strangers arriving. I dropped my pack and went to the ground. Everyone just assumed it was my love of dogs and didn’t bother to check if I was ok. Over the next couple of hours, we got to know Molly, Clint, and Scooby.
Molly is a school teacher in Portland. They had just gotten married last September which prevented them from going on a honeymoon because school was starting. The plan was an exotic vacation in a locale like Bora Bora, but Covid struck; backwoods it is. The new family hasn’t really backpacked much before, so they tried to do a lot of research ahead of time. They decided, because of Covid, to do an eleven day self supported hike from Crate Lake to Elk Lake. Since they are relatively new to the idea of hiking, they are carrying a pretty large tent, chairs (I’ve often considered this option but settle for logs on long trips), 11 days of food, plus 11 days of food for Scooby. Even with all this, their packs aren’t much over 40# each (the 4 # of trail mix might soon be fed to chipmunks).
They had a bad day today like I did (maybe not EXACTLY like my day, but hard). Water has become an issue for them and they were worried about finding water here at Six Horse Creek. Instead of dropping their packs to check out the situation, they decided to hike down to the creek as a group. Molly saw the stagnant pond and said “oh, hell no!” so they ventured further down to find an actual stream and water fall. Afterwards they hiked back up (with heavy packs now made even heavier with a couple gallons of water) to where we met them. They are both young and in great shape, so they can get by with the extra work. After Clint led Bear and me to the water, I can only conclude Sassy and Bunny would have died doing what Molly did and/or Bear and I would be dead for taking them down. With a few more experiences like today, they will be excellent backpackers. Nothing teaches better than a few miserable days. They’re already talking thru-hike assuming kids can wait.
I was shot after our water trip because I had gotten eaten alive down in the stream. I had to stop and filter water while Bear and Clint just grabbed some unfiltered and left me in the swarm. I was a bit dehydrated, tired from the hiking, and slightly anemic from the loss of blood. By the time we got back, Bunny had already set up our beds, washed off the days grime, changed clothes, and started self-medicating. She was so worried about us taking so long, she had even asked Sassy if she heard anything coming up the trail. Bunny was hungry and wanted to go to bed. We were messing up her evening.
I begged everyone’s pardon and explained that, even though I was exhausted and sweating, I had to retire to the tent where I had the privilege of preparing my wife’s super. I hope I set a good example for Clint by doing all the heavy lifting and cooking. As it’s well known to all the males in the backcountry, a backpacking husband’s work is never done.
EFG
Hi EFG! We loved reading your blog post about the day we met. It’s great to see how far you’ve all made it! Clint and I are finally feeling back to “normal” at home, although it took my feet about two weeks to fully heal. Your blog is very entertaining! I’ll keep reading as you all continue on. Keep it up!
Glad to hear you and Clint are alive and well. We had a great time meeting you. We’ve modified our goal for the year and are hoping to get to the Sierra but not go through. We might end up doing the Tahoe Rim Trail. We hope to run into you in the trail again, someday. Stay well this school year.