My body wasn't thrilled with me when I woke this morning. On the trail life is so simple, but in town a thousand little things crop up, and you constantly feel like you're missing something. This feeling kept me awake until the early hours of morning. I also ate too much, and the two beers I managed to finish weren't sitting well atop the lump of donuts, cupcakes, fruit, steak, soda, candy, mashed potato, and grilled vegetables.
I dragged myself through the morning, feeling better after a morning soak in the tub. I added to the mass in my stomach a pancake breakfast, coffee, more fruit, and two more beers. Feeling gross, but confident I had taken in as many calories as humanly possible, I packed to go.
My pack was heavier than ever before, with nine days of food. To make matters worse, my eyes had been bigger than my stomach when I went shopping. Rather than throw food away, I decided to eat the extras throughout the day today. I had a 1 pound burrito, two beers in my nalgene bottle, half a bag of cherries, and most of a 2 liter of soda (I needed a clean 2 liter bottle to replace the old one in my filtration kit). All told, my pack was probably over 60 pounds easily. Which made it worse that the terrain has now shifted to steep ridges separated by glacier carved valleys. That means climbing massive hills only to drop back into a valley and prepare to do it again. Don't believe me? Take a look at the pictures and tell me you want to hike over those mountains.
Today was well over 4000 feet of climbing. Hell, the first hill out of the pass was 2400 feet by itself. I made only 22 miles because of the weight of my pack, the killer hills, and the late start. Besides, to go further I face another 2400 foot climb, a challenge I was not up for. I had a look at my guidebook and it looks like these steep sided ridges and deep meadow filled valleys are going to be with me for the rest of the trip. There goes all hope for an easy cruise to Canada!
The good news is that the scenery is spectacular. Huge looming rock faces, strange glacier carved pinnacles, and beautiful sweeping vistas abound. The trail is often blasted into cliffs, leaving my eyes bulging just trying to take in all the views. The glaciers left gorgeous lakes in their wake, set like jewels in meadows far below. I would recommend Alpine Lakes Wilderness to any avid hiker, and in fact Spectacle Lake might be one of the most picturesque backcountry lakes I've ever seen. Just make sure you have the legs of an Olympic marathon runner before you come. I am also astounded by numerous snow melt waterfalls (pictured) which seem to spring from every rock face.
After a hard day I quit early along Lemah Creek. The bridge here is washed out, so I had a cold fording through knee deep and incredibly strong water.
My body is killing me from all the elevation change over loose rock trails. I am especially having trouble with my left wrist and right knee. I slipped on a rock early in the day and came down hard, with all my body and pack weight jarring these two joints. My knee bitched for a few miles but, upon seeing it got no sympathy from me, eased off for the afternoon. Now, however, it is a struggle to bend it, which makes camp life a lot less fun. I should be better after a good night's sleep. Besides, I drank and ate through a lot of the excess weight, so tomorrow should be noticeably easier in that regard.
By the way, a happy birthday to my chauffeur, Kevin "Greyhound" Henderson.
