Day Forty, Glacier National Park Backcountry, MT: The Consequences of the Weather

As I mentioned before, it rained all night during my second night in the backcountry. This was merely a minor annoyance at night, as I had to sleep in my only change of clothes, which were wet.

But by this point everything I own is wet and dirty. Although I had only spent two nights in the backcountry, I had been camping the previous five before that, and it had rained nearly every one of those nights. My tent was getting the worst of it, being completely soaked. Dirt that had been dragged in through the course of the last 2.5 weeks had also turned to mud. Shoes, clothes, hat, and socks were also wet, as was the sleeping bag. In addition to being wet all the time, things were now starting to get heavier simply by the weight of the water.

The third leg of the hike was one of the easiest, at about eight almost entirely downhill miles. The only problem with this was that the first several miles were almost all through shoulder-height ferns (to your left, that is the ‘trail’) meaning that I was literally soaked through and dripping wet within minutes. It’s a pretty depressing feeling to be squishing in your shoes and socks with 7.9 miles to go. My spare pair of socks was hanging on my backpack in an attempt to dry out from the previous day, while I was wearing the socks I had gotten soaked with mud in day one. That was miserable. But the hike itself was still another spectacular experience. The chance to hike through virtually untouched wilderness was priceless. Furthermore, at least my feet – which had been coated with mud and dirt – got a good washing.

Soon, however, people starting coming from everywhere, it seemed; at least 40 people passed me. Finally, exasperated with, “Hi. Hi. Hi.” I asked someone where everyone was coming from. It turns out, the Waterton Lake sightseeing tour had just landed at the American side of the dock. This boat runs from the Waterton townsite, at the opposite, Canadian side of the like, to Goat Haunt, the American port at my present side of the lake. The idea is that you pay about $38 for a boat ride 8 miles down the day, a 2-mile day hike to another lake, and then the 8 miles back up to Canada. Kind of a crappy deal. Shortly after crossing this exodus, I arrived at Goat Haunt Ranger Station (a one-room shack) where I passed through Customs. I was not yet across the border, but I was free to leave the country whenever I wanted.

After Customs, I ran into a ranger who asked me if I had seen any bear activity lately. I told him about a track I had seen across the trail on the way down, but that was it. He said there had been a lot of bears in the area recently, to stay on top of my game, and that he would be checking out my camp in about an hour. When the ranger did come into the camp, he told me that they had seen a large black bear near the station that day, and fresh scat and tracks up the trail where I was heading the next day.

I spent a few hours in camp relaxing in what little sun there was while attempting to dry out and do some reading. Soon some other camp members arrived in camp. Again, it was really great to have people to talk to. These three guys were from Wisconsin and were doing about a week-long backcountry trip similar to the people I had met the night before.

Finally it was a dry night. So we headed back down to the Waterton Lake, (about a mile away from camp down the trail I had come in on, right where the Goat Haunt RS was), to skip some stones and enjoy the water. It was a great night in good company.

Day Thirty Nine, Glacier National Park Backcountry, MT: The Time When You Beat Nature

On Tuesday, I set 0ut for the second of four legs on my backcountry trip. While the first leg was a long, 13.8-mile hike, it was over mostly flat terrain. The second leg was much shorter – only about 5.6 miles – but climbed about 2,400 feet and descended about 1,200 feet. It’s important to remember here that what is true in normal walking is about 40lbs more true in backpacking – that is, going downhill is only slightly better than going uphill.

The other thing about going uphill is that, inevitably, you reach the top. And when you do, you are usually a good target for lightening strikes. This goes without saying and is fairly obvious. What complicates matters is that oftentimes weather within the mountains is impossible to predict, and lightening storms typically present themselves in the afternoon. And when I left camp at 9.30am, the sky looked great, as you can see to your left. This picture was taken at 10.00am, during what I will refer to as the “easy and relaxed” portion of the hike.

This next picture was taken a scant 45 minutes later. As you can see, the weather has now become decidedly less friendly and inviting. In those intervening minutes, I had gone from an almost cloudless sky to nearly being in a cloud – and the nearly wouldn’t last for long.

So at this point I had several less-than-ideal options. I had already hiked the first two miles of the hike, but these had been largely flat. I still had 1,900 vertical feet to go, which, fit into just the next couple miles, would be a little challenging, and it was definitely going to rain.  I decided that the best course of action was to keep going, as fast as I could. Which transformed the slow and relaxing hike into the race hike, and races uphill are almost never fun.

And, unfortunately, things were not getting better. As I ascended, the wind started to pick up immensely, the temperature plummeted, the trail got much thinner, and rain started falling. At this point, it couldn’t get any worse – save for a lightening strike. I reckoned that the peaks around me were taller than the high point of my hike – about 6,900 feet – and therefore decided that I could reasonably expect not to get hit by lightening. It was a dubious rationalization, but it worked. I continued to huff and puff up the switchbacks at an exhausting yet staggeringly slow rate of speed. And, following with this day’s theme, things did actually manage to get worse.

Well, at first glance this is a beautiful river. But there are a few things in the picture that you may not notice upon initial inspection. First, the stream is made of glacial runoff. It feeds the chalky blue lake you saw earlier, (Atsina). Glacial water tends to be cold. Second, you can (almost!) see the trail continue on the opposite side of the Mokowanis River. I was able to make it safely across in flip flops, but my feet have never been colder. Interestingly, they would, on multiple occasions this hike, get even wetter. I kept the flip flops on as I was too fed up to stop and put my shoes back on. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision, as I had to cross yet another water obstacle shortly.

Soon the weather began to improve; in fact, the rain had presented very few problems at all. It had never really progressed to full-blown torrential downpour, and the lightening had never materialized. After climbing some 2,000 feet in 2 miles, the trail leveled off (to your right), and finally began to descend at a rapid pace. It then wrapped around a glacial lake and stopped right in the middle of the camp. Fortunately, there were some other campers at this site with whom I could pass the time, as it was not even 1pm when I reached camp.

And this was certainly an interesting night. I met three hikers who were boyhood friends and taking a 7-night backpacking trip as a “vacation.” And, they told me that they had decided to carry extra weight in order to enjoy the hike as said vacation. They had coffee, freeze dried foods, etc. Of course, when all that weight – they still needed only one tent, one stove, etc – is divided into three packs, it comes out about even. Again, this is a good time to emphasize that this trip has been as much about people as it has been about places. (The picture above and to the left might give you a good context for the camp, especially if you click on it to enlarge it. This particular area was the path between the path to the food prep area and the path that led to the tent sites.)

Now back to the deer that I discussed briefly yesterday. Deer love sweat and other human excretions. These three guys were forced to leave most of their stuff out to dry outside their tent in the early part of the afternoon. And to their increasing consternation, Linda – the camp deer – would repeatedly come around to mess with their site. From the food prep area, it was a good 200 yards to their tent site, up some steep boulders and even a smooth rock face. Every few minutes, Linda would come around to check out the site, and one of them would be dispatched to deal with her. It got to the point where they were forced to throw rocks at her just to chase her away. Soon, we could watch one of them make his way up the rock face to their site while Linda would peer over the ledge, see him coming, and run away – only to return as soon as the person left.

But around 3.30pm it began to rain. And rain. And rain. The rain did not stop – straight, torrential downpour – until 5.30pm. At that time, everyone went to make their dinner – only for the rain to start up again around 6.30. And this time, it literally did not stop. I fell asleep around 10.00pm, and the rain was still tumbling  down from the sky and onto the sides of the tent in prodigious amounts. This would make for some crappy conditions on the next day’s hike. Also, at this point, I had experienced rain in five of my last six nights. Already, everything I owned was wet and dirty; remember, I had no towel or anything with which to dry off, other than a maddeningly hidden sun.

So that was Tuesday, Day Thirty Nine. It is currently Saturday night, Day Forty Three. I’m camping in another forest outside Salt Lake City. This was one of my more poorly planned days as I left Idaho and headed to Salt Lake City with no clear direction of what I would do when I arrived, much less where I would stay. I think I half-expected a solution to this “sleeping” problem to drop out of the sky. I ended up exploring the city by car for a couple hours before retreating back into the mountains, as is my custom.

And just because I don’t want to confuse everyone with a LOST-type timeline, let me just recap the past week really quick. Monday through Thursday I spent in the backcountry, Friday I drove a long way through Montana and into Idaho and camped outside Ashton, and Saturday I drove from there into Salt Lake City. Less confused? (And how many days till LOST comes back, by the way?)

Day Thirty Eight, Glacier National Park Backcountry, MT: Off to the Backcountry

I’m already very far behind, so it doesn’t look as though I am going to get to elaborate on my last post, which outlined my activities in Yellowstone. I didn’t care much for Yellowstone anyway; it was essentially a giant Disneyland with real bison. I now have (literally) thousands of pictures which I have to sort through from the last week and a half – but it looks like these are going to have to wait until I get home to get uploaded, as I simply don’t have the time (or place) to sit down and do it here. I haven’t posted lately because I haven’t had time to sit down and write and no cell phone signal with which to send them in.

On Monday, I began a backpacking trip that would take me from Montana into Alberta, Canada. I spent four days and three nights in the backcountry and it was an incredible experience. In the course of these four days, I hiked nearly 40 miles with everything that I would need on my back. Best of all, I emerged in a small town in Canada without a plan or a means with which to get back to the border, which ended up being a fun mini-adventure in itself.

So back to the first day. On Monday, I had to hike nearly 14 miles to reach my campsite. Luckily, the hike was mostly flat, with only moderate elevation gains of a few hundred feet at a time. It also helped that the entire 40 mile hike was between 4,500 and 6,500 feet – where the air was much thicker than on some of my other hikes, which peaked at 10,000 or even 14,000 feet.

Unfortunately, all of these benefits were drastically counterbalanced by a few extra cinderblocks of weight strapped to my back. Because my pack had to carry everything I would be unable to do without for four days, it became commensurably enormous and heavy. Just to give a brief outline; first aid kit, extra socks, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, soft shell, hard shell, heavy fleece, books, food (keeping in mind that you burn far more calories walking all day than you do normally), stove, water, rope, camera and lenses, and on and on. My rough guess is that the pack weighed at least 40 lbs. But it wouldn’t be exciting if it was easy. (There is an ultra-light movement among backpackers, for obvious reasons. I ran into one such follower on the Continental Divide Trail in Grand Lake, CO. The CDT is a 3,300 mile hike. This backpacker had his base pack weight – everything but food and water – down to 12 lbs. They accomplish this by removing all their extra straps, the handles on their toothbrush, tags on clothes, etc, and by buying very, very light specialty gear.)

So the first day, as I mentioned, was a 13.8 mile hike. It was enjoyable, but it would have been even more so had the trail not been washed away by the previous week’s monsoon-type weather – which, as we will see, continued on through my trip as well. (I have spent the last 10 nights outside,  and of those, six have culminated in thunderstorms.) The trail was a vile, devilish mixture of mud, rocks,and vegetation, trampled by a few humans and several horses, and topped off with the occasional green gift from said livestock. And intermixed with the more thrilling sight of bear scat and tracks.  The hike itself was surprisingly uneventful. The only highlight was a brief run-in with a whitetail deer, which seemed more interested in finding out what I was from an uncomfortably close distance than in running away. Overall, deer in the Parks know that they are in the Parks; that is, they know you cannot shoot them. Therefore, they do not care what you do. Their chief objective is, actually, to annoy the hell out of you. You’ll see what I mean.

The National Park Service has a weird way of handling the backcountry that doesn’t seem obvious, so I’ll go into it a bit. You apply for a permit, (the specifics are different at every park,) and they work out an itinerary for you along your chosen trail that places you at a given campsite on each night. In other words, they reserve a site for you, and you handle the rest. The theory is that if no one reports having seen you at these sites after your family reports you missing, they can mount a rescue operation along your supposed route, within at least a few days.

These campgrounds are unlike any other campground. Even though I knew they were coming, I typically didn’t realize I was there until I walked into the post to which the map was stapled. They usually contain about 3-4 campsites, a food prep area well away from the sites, and a pit toilet. It’s all dispersed over a very large area, (say, 300 yards end-to-end,) so you are essentially still camping in the woods.  In tonight’s case, there were no other campers, and hence, I have no fun stories to tell.

But still, there is no escaping the thrilling reality of a trip in the backcountry. Especially a solo hike; while not necessarily intrinsically dangerous, bad decisions when far away from help can easily escalate to form a chain reaction with catastrophic consequences. Typically, these situations are preventable, but the opportunity to truncate the disaster is missed by those who are usually too stubborn to back down in the face of Nature’s superior firepower. A well known example of this sort of self-destructive behavior is the 1996 Everest Expedition, which is recounted in Jon Kroukour’s (his name is hard enough to spell, chances are one in a million I could do it without looking it up,) Into Thin Air. When I entered the backcountry office to get my permit, I was greeted by a poster for a missing person, the subheading of which was “please report any scattered or dispersed parts of"…” followed by a general description of the man and his equipment.

So there is risk, but there is also a substantial reward. The culmination of a day’s hike, while significant in and of itself, is amplified each day as you close in to the ultimate goal; that final step off that last trailhead. Those first 13.8 miles were a good accomplishment; after completing 38 miles, a genuine and uncontrollable grin came over my face. Upon re-crossing the border – and I’ll leave that story for its own day – and returning to find my car… that was a euphoric moment.

Again, following the now established tradition, I’ll leave you with pictures rather than a minute by minute account of every step I took. Unfortunately, I can only include one now, as when I do get a cell signal with which to send this in, anything more than that would get dicey. Again, I’ll post many, many more picture up on the Picasa albums when I get home, because I took hundreds on this hike alone.

 

A couple quick notes:

As you may have gathered, I have been essentially without an internet connection for the last 10 days, and my cell phone signals have been very spotty at best. I have (hopefully) gotten all of the emails many of you have sent and I appreciate your thoughts, even if I haven’t responded yet.

Finally, this trip is, amazingly, drawing to a close. I am currently about, say, 25 miles north of Ashton, Idaho. I plan on passing through Salt Lake City tomorrow, ( which would be Saturday, maybe spending the night?) and then heading to Arches National Park and Canyonlands. After this I will be swinging back towards home and expect to be back there around August 15th.

Thanks again for following along.

Day Thirty Seven, Glacier National Park, MT: Check In

Haven’t been able to update recently because of basically no internet. Even now, I’m only connected by cell phone, so I have to keep it brief.

So we left off on Wednesday night. I spent Thursday night in Montana west of Yellowstone in a National Forest, after driving through part of Yellowstone during the day. I spent Friday night at a campground outside the Northeast corner of Yellowstone. I spent Friday and Saturday morning doing the rest of Yellowstone. On Saturday I drove up to Glacier National Park and camped out in the Indian Reservation at an old abandoned campground.

Today, Sunday, I arranged to go on a backcountry trip in the Northeast corner of Glacier. The trip is a 35 mile, 3 night, 4 day, hike. The neat part is that it starts in Montana at the Chief Montain Trailhead and ends in Canada at the Waterton Townsite Trailhead, where I plan to hitchhike my way back to the border and my car. I leave on Monday morning, and should be back in contact Thursday night.

But I thought I’d get in touch. I am just sending this post through a cell phone internet connection, but other than that I have not been online since Wednesday, so I haven’t seen any comments. But thanks for continuing to follow along!

Day Twenty Eight, Grand Teton National Park, WY: Amphitheater Lake

On Friday, I woke up at 6.00am to start the hike up to Surprise Lake and Amphitheatre Lake in Grand Teton. Mike and I had decided to do the hike together, as it would take at least 5 hours. The hike starts at about 6,700 feet and continues up through about 13 switchbacks.

Again, I think it is better to include pictures than tell the story. The joy of the uninterrupted scenery is only amplified by the almost absolute lack of any other hikers on the trail. Because the Surprise Lake trail is one of the more strenuous day hikes in Grand Teton, it is far less popular than most of the other trails.

Directly before you reach Surprise Lake, the trail becomes a little bit less defined and kind of dead-ends in a small pool which is fueled by snow melt, (see that below).

After 5 miles and an elevation gain of 3,000 feet, the trail stops at Surprise Lake. Made of snow runoff from the mountains above, the result is a small, calm lake with crystal clear waters, surrounded by snow-covered mountains.

 Surprise Lake

 Amphitheater Lake

 Runoff from Amphitheater Lake, into Surprise Lake

After the hike, Mike and I grabbed some food and again camped out in the National Forest outside of Grand Teton.

See many more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/reidksmith

Day Twenty Five, about 12 miles outside Lander, WY: Hike and Drive

On Tuesday, I did a short and easy hike in RMNP, as I was planning to get on the road to Yellowstone at a decent time. I chose the East Inlet Trail, which walks along the East Inlet Creek. I only hiked the first 2.5 miles of the trail and back, which is generally flat and easy going. The first leg of the trail goes through Adam’s Falls, which is a fantastic sight.

Again, there is not much to talk about but there are a lot of cool pictures. Be sure to check the Picasa Album for more pictures; there are a ton of great pictures that I couldn’t fit into the post.

I left for Yellowstone at about 1.30pm. Having been told the park was about 500 miles away from Grand Lake, I allowed two days for it, but had planned no specific course. The route to Yellowstone from RMNP is only on the interstate for a few miles, the rest of the time through winding state roads that, very, very occasionally, run through small, (pop. 500, tops) towns. After the hike, I avoided getting something to eat in Grand Lake because of the high cost, and in an episode of ill planning had thought I would just grab something from McDonalds further down the road. Having not seen a McDonalds for several days should have set off some bells; it did not.

This northern part of Colorado is barely inhabited, and this sparse inhabitation makes for a great driving experience. CO-125 winds on for 53 miles through soft mountains and dense forest. The curves of the road hug the ridges of the hills, and there are hardly any cars around – a driver’s dream. The one frustrating moment occurred when I hit construction; you would think this would not be a big deal on a road where you might see one car every 10 miles. I had just pulled up to a flagman when he let the car in front of me go. He told me that I had just missed the pilot car, and he would have to drive down the length of construction and make the next trip back before I could go. 10-15 minutes was his guess, (but it was kind of cool to drive right by a road being actively repaved.)

It wasn’t until I had gone 70 miles from Grand Lake that I found a town with a restaurant and a gas station. Walden, CO, is a nice town of 734 people. When I stopped at the Moose Creek Cafe, I was well rewarded with a delicious 1/3lb Bacon Cheeseburger. The next customer was a man with cowboy spurs. A few minutes later came a large black lab named Ace. Apparently the dogs walk through the town freely, as the waitress told me Ace didn’t normally come up onto the porch, but so-and-so’s Beagle would.

I drove another 232 miles through Wyoming, into Lander. Surprisingly, (to me) Wyoming has a lot of interesting geology and the drive is thus quite scenic. I had never given much thought to Wyoming outside of its gross lack of population. There are, again, a lot of pictures on the Picasa album to check out.

When I arrived in Lander around 8pm, it was the first town of more than 5,000 that I had been in for five days. I stopped at a gas station and got directions from someone there to the nearest forest access road. The trip up through the forest was interesting. Lander itself is at about 5,400 feet, (probably the lowest I’ve been since Kansas, 13 days ago) but my campsite was at 8,500 feet. The road through the forest is a back and forth gravel switchback directly up a large mountain. It was quite surprising to look at this mountain when driving in, and then find myself on top of it in short order. My campsite was on a nice lake, and I got there just as the sun was setting.

This was my fifth straight night camping. I am getting very good at lighting fires quickly, but I sure wish I could find a shower around here…

(A lot) more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/reidksmith

Day Seventeen and Eighteen, Guanella Pass, CO: Mt. Bierstadt

Day Seventeen: Basecamp
The night before the climb, my Uncle Ben and I camped out on Guanella Pass, located at the foot of Mt. Bierstadt. Guanella Pass has an altitude of about 11,660 feet and is a plain field of scrub, and therefore great to camp on. The mountains get very cold at night – every 1,000 feet of altitude being roughly equivalent to a 4 degree drop in temperature – and the temperature dropped to freezing after the sun went down.

The primary reason for camping out the night before is the departure time; the hike is 3.5 miles each way, and we left at 6.45am the next morning. And camping is a fun thing to do anyway.

Day Eighteen: Tackling the Mountain
Mt. Bierstadt – in the background of this picture, taken from basecamp – is one of Colorado’s 52 official fourteeners; peaks that top out over 14,000 feet. The most obvious problem in scaling these is elevation; Acute Mountain Sickness, (also known simply as altitude sickness), can set in as low as 8,000 feet. At our starting point of 11,600 feet, the air contains only 66% of the oxygen found at sea level. At the summit altitude of 14,060 feet, there is only 60% as much oxygen. The thinner air also means that the relative humidity is drastically decreased. As you exhale, the moisture from your lungs transfers to the dry air you’ve just breathed in, making constant hydration essential. Dehydration can exacerbate the symptoms of AMS, making headaches, lightheadedness, poor judgment, dizzy spells, and visions spots even worse.

The most important thing, therefore, is to be prepared. This includes an extensive gear and supply list: food and water, (I brought along liquid carbohydrate fuel that tastes like death but is digested quickly, carb-loaded trail mix, trail bars, and a gallon of water), layers of clothing, (moisture-wicking tee shirt, mid layer, soft shell jacket, fleece, and a hard shell rain jacket, along with a hat and gloves), and emergency supplies, (signal mirror, storm proof matches, first aid kit, compass, emergency blanket, etc.) A detailed topography map and GPS are a must, and we had both. All told, my pack weighed a little over 20 lbs. While one of the easier fourteeners, Mt. Bierstadt is still deadly. You’d think that most people would have a reasonable idea of what to expect, and bring the proper gear. Sadly, this is not the case.

On our descent, we passed a kid in a cotton Superman shirt and shorts, with one empty plastic bottle of water – less than 1/8th of the amount I consumed on the hike – huffing and out of breath, asking if it got any worse. Shockingly, when we pointed to the summit, he was unaware that it was his destination. He had no pack, and informed us that he had set out at 11.45am – five hours after us. As this kid kept ascending, it would only get colder and windier, and the air thinner. And that would be his best case scenario. Mountains are notorious for creating their own weather patterns, which can change from sunny and calm to a freezing thunderstorm with pounding winds – in a matter of minutes. Hypothermia is a given with no heavy clothing or natural shelter. 

The hike had several distinct phases. The first 1.2 miles are relatively easy, descending about 200 feet, crossing Gomer Creek (the crossing seen on your right), and then ascending back up 200 feet. This took us about 40 minutes, stopping to take pictures twice. At 7.25am, we were at 11,700 feet.

The second phase is pretty comfortable as well, rising from 11,700 feet to 13,000 feet. In the picture to the left, you can faintly see the trail we came up along the ridge. This section was about 1.6 miles long and took us about 90 minutes; 30 of which were spent stopped taking pictures or eating. In the first half hour we covered 500 vertical feet and roughly .75 miles. After that, the grade began to pick up. The last 800 vertical feet took the remaining hour. At 8.55am, we were standing at 13,000 feet, having covered 1,300 vertical feet since we left camp. On foot, we had covered 2.80 miles in about 2 hours.

The third section – the final 1,060 vertical feet – would be the most challenging. The first 130 feet were not especially difficult, the trail traversing the mountain and thus making for a softer pitch. However, the terrain had changed from an ascending trail through soft ground to an ill-defined path over steep builders.

At 13,130 feet, we stopped to rest and down some carbohydrate fuel, hoping to accomplish the next 620 feet at a steady pace and avoiding any rest stops. As I mentioned before, this orange goo tastes like vomit. But the liquid carbohydrates digest quickly and give a burst of energy. The picture above shows the trail ahead, through the snow, and then over boulders. You can’t even see the top ridge. It was physically exhausting work, especially in the scarce air. Each step required a full extension of the leg, hauling body and pack a couple feet onto the next boulder, where the process would be repeated. When we finally emerged on semi-level ground, it had been 40 minutes, and we had ascended 630 feet in 0.4 miles. We had taken only a few extremely brief stops. Still, this slogging pace of 0.6 mph was about a quarter of what we were accomplishing at the lower elevations.

Having ascended those last grueling 630 feet and standing at 13,746 feet above sea level, we were greeted by a summit that still towered over 300 feet 0ver us (see above). On the way down, we saw one man reach that ridge – only to take one look at the summit, and turn to tell his wife that he was done and going no further.

The truth is that the final summit pitch was, compared to the boulders before, the easy part. The first leg started over the snowy ridge seen on your left, just feet away from a thousands-foot drop. Then we hit more boulders. Thankfully, a path could be made over the boulders that was not as physically exhausting as the previous pitch. The steps were smaller, and the excitement of being so close to the top – no doubt helped along by an altitude-induced euphoria – kept us going. When we finally reached the summit at 14,060 feet, it was 10.19am. We had covered 3.60 miles in about 3.50 hours, ascending 2,500 feet.

Feeling as though you are on top of the world is an expression often used, but rarely realized. This was one of those cases where the feeling matched the reality. It’s impossible to put into words how it feels to have reached the summit after so much hard work.

There are far more pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/reidksmith.

Day Six, Bloomington, IN: Hoosier National Forest

Today, I finally got the chance to do some real exploring and went backpacking through (a small part) of the Hoosier National Forest. There was nothing particularly spectacular about the forest itself; hills, trees, etc. It was nice to wonder around and spend the day doing as I pleased, with no gas tank to fill or maps to follow.

I had originally planned to spend the night, but decided that it wasn’t worth dealing with an incoming line of thunderstorms for the entire night. Apparently this decision has caused some controversy amongst some, (Jesgarz Brothers, this would be you.) My thinking is that there is no reason to camp out in a nasty thunderstorm when I can sleep under a nice roof. With air conditioning. I’m not too sure how often I’ll have that opportunity in the next couple months. And my Michigan body still needs a few more days to get used to these

An interesting thing about National Forests is that they are not National Parks. So people live there. At one point, I ran into a property marker and a sign informing me that if I didn’t have a card giving me permission to be where I was, (which I didn’t,) the police would be called. No thank you, turning around now.

To the left was the end of the line for the hike. I’ll be spending one more night in the city before heading to St. Louis on Friday. I’ll be in touch. Tonight it’s off to enjoy Thursday night bar night.