Day 65- June 23rd

Wow today was another super long day! We woke up at our beautiful campsite on the ridge and cooked up some oatmeal with wild blueberries and dried strawberries and cherries, (Thanks Dona!) I started with just that in case my stomach had anything to say, but no complaints!

Of course we started the day off with a climb. I swear one of these days we're going to camp at the top of a mountain just so we can start with a descent for once! My stomach felt waaaaaay better, but my energy level was still really low. We took frequent tiny breaks and climbed waaaay up high!

The scenery turned real awesome real fast. There were high meadows and ridges and snow capped peaks in the distance. 

Just before 1:00pm, we had climbed up to Chicken Spring Lake, a high alpine lake that sits almost at the top of a 12,000 ft. mountain. It was a perfect spot for lunch as the sun was nice and hot.

Taking a dip at 11,250 feet

We must've stayed there for over an hour at least. I had to warm up and regain feeling in my extremities after swimming. That water is the coldest water I've ever jumped in hands down, brrrrr!

We climbed up to 11,400 feet and when we turned the corner we were blown away. We had a perfect view of most of the peaks we would be climbing just off in the distance. I'm not sure which ones are which but there's a lot of them! 

We then started a looooong descent down a sometimes awfully rocky trail. The deep sand from the boulders and loose rocks were a recipe for disaster, and the many big step-downs were jarring on the knees, but we made it down with no falls!

There were definitely some beautiful sights along the way, so we couldn't be toooo upset with the not-so-ideal trail conditions.

Eventually we came down into a beautiful meadow area at 9,600 feet with a nice river right next to a large camping area. We decided to call it a day here. There were 5 deer nearby just picking through the lush grass for some dinner.

We learned our lesson with mosquitos near water sources, so we preemptively got into our anti-mosquito gear. Claire says I look like a beekeeper! 

Luckily there weren't too many of them. I think I only had one land on me on my hand but I got the bugger before he bit. Claire got one right in between her eyes :(

We cooked some yummy food up; garlic herb mashed potatoes and Mexican style rice. I had been slowly eating more and more all day, and my appetite was coming back in full force! 

Soon into our meal we met Oscar from Germany who started today from Cottonwood Pass, just before Chicken Spring Lake. Oscar is hiking the trail up until Yosemite. He just finished high school in Germany and is really into backpacking. He even made his own backpack and some of his other gear!

We went 17.62 miles today, climbed about 2,300 feet and then went down 2,200. I was actually surprised at how far we got, seeing that we took our time on the climb AND took a really long break at Chicken Spring Lake.

Tomorrow we'll purposefully only hike 7.5 miles and end up and the Crabtree Ranger Station, only 7.5 miles below the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the 48 contiguous United States. 

The next morning we'll leave at about 4 for the summit. Yes, 4am!! We'll climb up and back down as a day hike, leaving our tent and most items back at the Ranger Station. Suuuuuuper stoked to get some nice rest tomorrow and then summit Whitney!!

-Thanks for reading! 

Day 64- June 22nd

This morning my stomach felt really good compared to yesterday. Energy level was still really low but I knew I was going to take it easy. "Mr. Clean" was camped nearby and I went over to barter some of my food for some oatmeal. He gave me 4 packets and insisted he get nothing in return! 

I cooked up one of those, and my stomach didn't fight it. Last night was a mess and that's also how I had left the tent.. Because of all the mosquitos, (even still in the morning!) packing up and organizing the bear cans and filtering more water was extremely slow. We didn't leave Until about 10:45am.

As always our day started with a huge uphill climb. But this time, instead of rushing up it with electrolyte energy, I took my time up, slow and steady, stopping to cook another oatmeal whenever my energy level got too low. This worked out great! I only had to stop and eat oatmeal twice on the trail, and I even held down a few Welches fruit snacks, yum!!

The scenery was SO beautiful today! Instead of straight up and then straight back down, the trail took us through high meadows and traversed around mountains, then up and down passes, all while staying up near 10,000 feet!

The day was warm but not too hot. Still hot enough to wear shorts instead of pants, despite all of my mosquito bites. Between the water source where I rested and last nights campsite, I have over 40 mosquito bites on my body today. There are 20 bites on my right leg alone.. :( I've moved my rain pants and rain jacket to the top of my pack (mosquitos can't bite through rain gear), as well as my head net, so whenever we approach water I can be protected while collecting/filtering. 

That worked pretty well today. I only got 3 or so new bites versus around 40 yesterday. Yuck, mosquitos! Just thinking about our chances of getting some weird disease from them makes us sick!

We did 11.51 miles today, really not bad for the late start and the multiple oatmeal breaks. As I type this at 9:30pm, all my food and water that I consumed today has stayed in my body, and I feel a lot better. No intense stomach pains today. I think working myself back up slowly was the key, and hopefully, this stomach flu is done with! 

Tonight we're camped on a beautiful sandy ridge with no neighbors :)

Man this place is beautiful!

-Thanks for reading!

Day 63- June 21st

This morning we left the river by 7:15am. My stomach was not feeling as good as I'd hoped it would, and I sill felt very low energy, but we had just taken a zero and were antsy to leave. I ate a couple items in the morning with no rejection from my stomach.

After about an hour of climbing, I took the strongest electrolyte packet that I had been given yesterday. This stuff was engineered by NASA for hardcore athletes. It has 78% of your daily value of sodium, and you need to dilute it with at least 16oz of water. The stuff didn't taste too bad, and heck, I needed to retain some hydration, so down it went!

We climbed up into some beautiful scenery today, we're finally getting some glimpses of some of the near-future peaks we'll be conquering. Also, there are finally more trees around than I can count! Huge trees! 

Tress that provide shade during all times of the day and even shade about a 1/4 of the trail! We're so used to having to crouch under medium sized shrubs in the desert for a little protection from the sun that this is a HUGE relief for me.

The climbing was so crazy today! We literally climbed up for 4 hours straight! Surprisingly my energy level stayed moderate for the most part. However, after miles of climbing, I HAD to stop and eat. 

According to our maps, we were pretty close to the top when we stopped to eat. I felt so low energy and knew I needed some food, so I made a huuuuge burrito with trail mix and peanut butter inside.

After getting over my food coma, we summited the climb and started down. My stomach began to hurt really really bad. Normally I feel energized after a big lunch, but today I felt very weak and dizzy and a little fuzzy all around. Even just having the hip belts around my waist as usual was causing a lot of pain.

By the time we got down to the next water source, I was in some serious pain. We had also miscalculated our water carry and didn't take into consideration our slow uphill pace and our long lunch break. So for the last 6 miles or so before the water I had less that 1/2 a liter.

Dehydrated and getting attacked by mosquitos, I laid there trying to feel better. Man, the mosquitos sure are intense! Anywhere with a hint of moisture or water is unsafe to stop or break at. I knew I was getting bit but I couldn't swat all of them away. Bourbon came over and gave me some anti acid reflux pills and also some Pepto Bismol pills that I took right away.

The nights camping spot and solid water source was under 3 miles away,  and it was only 4:00pm, so I pulled myself together and we started walking again.

Getting to the camp was such a struggle! I couldn't have my hip belt right around my waist at all. Unfortunately, because I didn't, my shoulders and back took all the dragging weight and ended up hurting real bad.

I could barely help Claire with the tent as we got eaten alive by mosquitos. They were 100% worse here than at the last water source and the sun was lower which meant they were coming out to feast.

All I could do was lay miserably in the tent with zero energy while Claire went and filtered some water for us to cook some food. "Six" have me some ramen because all the food I have has a lot of nuts and things that are hard to digest with a weak stomach. 

Claire cooked from inside the tent while an angry swarm of mosquitos pummeled the netting. Every time she unzipped the door to stir or check on the food, 5 new mosquitos would get in. It was a massacre. 

When the ramen was done, I pathetically looked at it for a while and finally got down a few bites and drank some of the soup. I probably ate less than half of it, as my stomach would allow no more. Poor Claire finished the rest for me and then started to clean up the dishes and do other things that still needed to be done. I kept apologizing over and over because I felt so lame and not helpful. 

I laid on my side for a bit, as it was the only way I could lie without my stomach hurting. About 10 minutes later I decided to drink some water and try to arrange myself into my sleeping bag. I took a tiny sip, rotated my body to get comfy, and then had to run outside to start violently vomiting. 

I felt so horrible! Not only did Claire go through all the trouble to do all those things and cook for me, but then I go and throw it all up. I was a mess! My stomach did instantly feel a little better after that, so I went down to the water to filter us a few more liters of water and then went straight to bed.

We did 14.4 miles today, which isn't bad seeing that normally, when not hiking 14-20 miles a day, I would give my body 2-3 days to recover from the stomach flu or food poisoning. I'd east some saltine crackers and sip some 7-up until I could hold down food. But out here, I can't make a Safeway run and get those things. 

All I have to eat is hiker food. Extremely hard to digest hiker food. I am thinking that that's what happened today.. I started off ok, pushed myself way to hard up that hill and burned all my energy, and then overloaded my stomach with the trail mix burrito. That mixed with heat, dehydration, and hiking; well, here I am throwing up all my food again :( I learned my lesson and tomorrow I will take it easier and eat tortillas all day..

Thanks for reading! 

Day 62- June 20th

Wow, today I felt thousands of times better than yesterday! This river is the perfect place to take a zero, relax, and regain some of my energy!

Last night I slept just fine, no emergency wake-ups. The tortilla stayed down, and someone even gave me some good electrolytes that I took today to help rehydrate my body. Not drinking enough water wasn't the problem, but the stomach flu definitely robbed me of all the water in my system. Today is a day of healing.

Between yesterday afternoon at the river and today, we've encountered 7 other people who got a crazy stomach flu coming out of Kennedy Meadows! All of which lasted the same time and had the same symptoms. We've been trying to find a constant to find out what the problem was, but I'm just thinking that someone who was there was sick, and a handful of people around them got the same thing. Since Claire didn't get it and we drank the same water and ate the same food items, I'm ruling out food poisoning. 

Whatever it was it has left my body! Shortly after waking up, my appetite rushed back to me and I started eating a lot. We went down to the river around 8am and filtered a few liters of water each. We relaxed in the tent, reorganizing our bear canisters and just laying out. Later when the sun was out in full force, we rinsed our clothing and shoe insoles in the river and took a little dip ourselves!

Relaxing on the riverside in the shaded grass was definitely quite refreshing. 

We headed back up to the tents and cooked a lot of food. I could feel my appetite slowly coming back and I almost ate a whole packet of Idahoan potatoes.

While we were prepping for bed, someone was nearby trying to find a nice campsite. He tripped over a rock and hit his head on a sharp rock with the full weight of his pack crushing him against it! I heard him fall and yell so I jumped out of the tent to see if I could help. He had hit the rock with his face just above his left eye, and blood was running into both eyes. I helped to get him cleaned up and applied a bandage to his head. He also landed hard on his wrist and thought it may be sprained. I told him he should rest at the river tomorrow and make sure he's ok, but he said he only had enough food for a certain amount of days and needed to push on. I really hope he's ok.

Well, if that's not enough excitement for one day, I was talking to Bourbon and Nema today and they had two bear encounters last night, (probably the same bear twice), up on the hill exactly where I had collapsed and waited for Claire to come and rescue me. Freaky!

Well, today was a zero day, and a well needed one. Now I'm actually glad that we had so much food on this stretch and we were able to spend this extra day here for me to recover.

-Thanks for reading!

Day 61- June 19th

Well, today I spent most of my day with a stomach flu... :( yeah, definitely my lowest point on the trail... I just want to say before I start, that's if it wasn't for Claire, I would've been in some serious trouble today. Stranded and alone, and probably pretty close to passing out. But let me back up a little bit, we'll get to the bad stuff later..

Today we left the river shortly after 7:15am. Even though Claire woke up at 5:00 and I at 5:45, it takes a little longer for us to pack up with the huge bear canisters in our packs. Claire's pack is bulging to the max at 41 lbs. The top of her pack sticks out more than its supposed to. She sort of looks like a backpack with legs:

We climbed 2000 ft by 10am and that's when everything started going downhill for me. I was drinking plenty of water, but I was getting extremely tired and emotional. My stomach was churning and I felt like a mess. We took many breaks for my sake and our progress became slow. 

We kept going up and up, and I kept getting slower and slower. We took many breaks in a pretty neat burn area. This was definitely the most beautiful burn I'd seen so far. There was a little bit of water trickling down through this valley, and everything felt alive though severed.

At noon, after taking almost an hour to walk less than a mile, we knew something was seriously wrong. At this point I was so weak I couldn't lift my pack. I had no energy but I had eaten a bunch of food in the morning, as well as a few snacks since, so I knew I wasn't hungry. 

I felt very nauseous like I had to throw up but I couldn't bring myself to. I kept drinking water but instantly becoming thirsty again. I felt constipated, my stomach hurt really bad, and I hadn't pee'd all morning.

At 12:30, Claire decided to book it ahead of me down to the next water source at another crossing of the South Fork Kern River. It was still 3.8 miles up a big hill and her plan was to go there, drop her pack, grab some more water, and then come pack to relieve me of my pack. 

Seeing her leave gave me an extra push of energy to try and make it as far as I could. That didn't last very long and in about 30 minutes I had to stop under a tree and the throwing up began...

I violently threw up at least 2 liters of water, and then all the food, and then down to my stomach bile all in one sitting.. I knew I had to try and go a little further and made it 1.3 miles from where Claire left me and then collapsed to the ground. 

I set up my sleeping pad under some shade, but as the sun moved away to start the afternoon, I was soon exposed. I had absolutely no energy. Not even enough to move from the sun and I laid there getting burnt for a little while. My lips were so dry that I kept drinking little bits of water. But 10-20 minutes later I'd throw the water back up.

The sun was hot but I had the chills. I was really really cold. My forehead was on fire, but my cheeks cold as ice. I had goosebumps on my arms and legs, and not even enough energy to go pull some extra layers from my pack.

I had just entered the backcountry and had started into the Sierra, the most beautiful place we've seen yet. And here I was, dying on a bed of pine cones with no cell service and no energy to fight off anything that might come to snoop around my food. Throwing up all my water and at the same time dehydrating from the lack of it. I was so weak and scared, it was the worst I've ever felt physically and mentally.

At about 3:30pm, Claire got back to me. It was WAY faster than I had expected, she had RAN 3.8 miles, mostly uphill, in 1 hour! Talking to her about it later she said she was filled with adrenaline and wanted to get back to me as soon as possible. She helped me collect myself, hoisted my giant 45 lb pack, and we headed towards the river. 

I still had the chills, so I had changed into a long sleeve shirt, even though the sun was still beating hot. My mouth was so dry and my eyes barely open as I dragged myself along the trail. Claire's pace was still 3 times faster than mine even though she was carrying my pack! 

It was 2.5 miles back to the river from where she met back up with me. We had only gone a mile when I had to stop and throw up again. I think this was number 13 or 14. At this point I had no water left in me. I was basically heaving out and choking on super dry saliva and the tiny amount of water I tried to put down after the last episode. 

I knew that I had a little while before the next set, so as fast as I could, we made it down to the river. Coming down the last hill after the ascent, there were some beautiful rolling hills and lovely clouds. Even in my state, I couldn't help but ooh and ahh. Claire took these following pictures while walking down with my pack:

The hills are alive with the sound of puking

Claire had found a perfect spot to camp under a nice tree just a little way from the waters edge. As she set up the tent, I went to the river to rest. I laid down alongside the river, on some grass in the shade, still battling the chills. 

After an hour down there I stumbled back up to the tent. I still had nothing in my stomach food-wise, but I had managed to hold down a few sips of water. I hadn't thrown up for a few hours, since walking with Claire. I figured the worst was over, so before I lay down in bed I ate a plain tortilla.

I hope that I feel better tomorrow. If I don't wake up in an emergency state in the middle of the night I'll be quite pleased. My stomach is no longer twisting, and although I have no energy, I feel a bit better.

Today I walked 9.79 miles, 2.5 of them with no pack. Claire walked/ran 14.79 miles today, and was carrying my pack for 2.5 miles! This girl is amazing. She really stepped up and saved the day today when I was literally helpless. This girl is my world, and the love of my life. Today just added to what I already know: she's a keeper for life :)

-Thanks for reading!

Day 60- June 18th

Being able to sleep in is soooooo nice! Right after we woke up we walked over to the general store to catch a ride over to The Grumpy Bear for some breakfast. It's 2.7 miles from the store, and someone drives a truck back and forth from there often to shuttle hikers to and fro.

Right when we got in we ordered the "All you can eat" pancake special. This is a funny name for it because the pancake is the biggest thing you've ever seen in your life! The special also comes with two eggs, some bacon, and potatoes. 

As many other hikers around barely picked through their plates, I got down to business. Yep, all gone :)

I even had a tiny bit of Claire's and then I could take no more.. We paid up and took the next truck shuttle back to the store so we could pack up our tent and bags. 

The day became so hot that we decided to wait until the afternoon to head out again. We charged our phones and chatted with our trail friends. 

Right to Left: BJ, Metro, and someone who we really don't know.. 

At about 1:30pm, we were somehow hungry again!! Where does all this food go?! Justin, (the drummer at John's get-together last night), was hard at work grilling up some awesome things. He asked us if we were hungry and said he'd make us something special for free!

Man oh man were we so happy that we decided to go to John's yesterday! This is what Justin cooked up for us:

This monster was twice as big as the $10 double cheeseburgers that they have for sale there!

We hung out on the porch and socialized for hours. Claire did a sweet French braid! 

Finally, it was about time to go. With our packs full to the very brim with the added bear cans and 9 days of food each, my pack weighed in at 45 pounds and Claire's 41!! This is the heaviest they've ever been.

Big pack! But still smiling :)

Soon we crossed into the South Sierra wilderness! How exciting!! We're finally here!

Leaving the desert and entering the mountains! 

Today we hiked just 5.2 miles from the store and camped near a nice river. Tomorrow we'll filter 1 liter of water instead of 3 or 4 or 5, (Hallelujah!), and then a brand new adventure awaits us!!

-Thanks for reading!

Day 59- June 17th

I walk into a room and saw an old friend from Hawaii I haven't seen for a long time.

"Kainoa! How have you been?" 

He replies, telling me all about his life the last few years. His voice starts to trail off and soon I can just here sniffling and crying with shallow short breaths.

"Hey man, are you crying?"

Suddenly I woke up in the tent. It was just a dream but the crying was real. Claire was sitting up in her sleeping bag and I asked her what's wrong. In between sobs she told me that her toe is throbbing and her whole leg hurts severely. Claire's not the type of girl to cry over a little pain, so I knew it was serious.

In the morning we looked at it and it was definitely a little infected. Claire had pulled a tiny hangnail about 4 days ago. The area became inflamed and irritated, but nothing more than usual. She wrapped it with gauze and tape to keep it clean. It had been fine up until tonight, so we're definitely gonna be keeping an eye on it.

We got to sleep in a little bit because we had camped under a tree blocking the rising sun in the east. We left about 9am, knowing we had under 5 miles to get to Kennedy Meadows.

Soon we passed a great milestone, 700 miles! This means we're over a 1/4 of the way done with the trail! It's a little crazy but also a little sad. Time has been in a weird warp where it feels like we've been here forever but also like we just started the trail last week!

We had some nice and exciting views as we were coming up to Kennedy Meadows, and we also went through a very densely thickened stream bed and a few cattle boundaries.

We made it to the paved road and took a right 0.7 miles to the famous Kennedy Meadows General Store. When we were walking up we got a big applause from all the hikers on the huge porch! It was a welcome to be remembered, we'd officially conquered the desert and are heading into the endless beauty of the Sierra!

We saw soooooo many people we know, too many to even name. But surprisingly, I still didn't know most of the people there! We caught up with Metro and BJ for a minute and then headed inside to pick up our packages. 

The place was SLAMMED! We went in and wrote our names on a paper list so they could look for our boxes. The lady at the cash register told us to come back in a bit. We headed back out onto the porch and placed an order for some burgers at the grill connected to the store. The cashier had suggested that if we wanted to get a burger, we'd better get on the list. 

Minutes later, we knew first hand what all the fuss was about! We both had double cheeseburgers. Mine was the special of the day called "Pineapple Express", with pineapple, onions, and BBQ sauce. One of the best burgers I ever had!! 

After a celebratory beer and polishing off the burgers, we went back in to check on the package-finding. There were 7 packages total and there was a $6 holding few for each! That's the quickest $42 dollars we ever spent!

Going back outside we picked an empty spot on one of the tables on the porch and opened everything. More goodies from Claire's mom Dona, yummy! We also got our bear canister that we packed in Portland which contained a bunch of food and our micro spikes, as well as the paper map and Yogi's guidebook pages for the Sierra up until South Lake Tahoe. 

We also got Claire's new pad from REI, Claire's new hiking poles from Hiker Hunger, a shirt that she had ordered online, and the box we sent ahead from Mojave with the stove, some cook food, and our extra layers like a beanie and gloves.

Looking over all of our food, we realized something. We had waaaay to much.. That's definitely not the worst problem as hikers we suppose, but it's a problem nonetheless when you have twice as much food as can fit in the bear canister. 

Also, after hiking 700 miles, we had a new, more accurate sense of what 9 days of food for us each looks like, and since a bear can usually only fits 5 days of food for one person.. Well, you can do the math. We needed another bear canister. I definitely didn't have an extra bear can in the budget, but luckily it was only $65 here and they're normally $80! 

Here is my food box in a medium size priority mail box for reference, WITHOUT any of the sealed and packaged dehydrated cook food we're taking!

And here is the bear box with the same food!

Now came the hard part: getting the dang canister into the backpack! The canisters almost take up the whole inside of the bag, and they're such a hard, oddly shaped item that it makes it difficult for anything else to also be in the bag. We ended up stuffing all our clothes around the darn thing just to make everything fit! Somehow, magically, we both got our packs shut! 

After we packed everything away, we decided a reward was necessary! Claire ordered another double cheeseburger and I ordered 2 huge chili cheese dogs! That's two whole meals in less than 5 hours! 

A few minutes after the end of round 2, someone pulled up in a big silver truck and asked if anyone wanted to go the the Grumpy Bear. The Grumpy Bear is a restaurant 2.7 miles down the road and they are supposedly the only place with wi-fi in Kennedy Meadows. We said we'd like to go and jumped in the truck with a few other hikers. As we were about to pull away, the driver told us, "Alright guys, you need to order dinner in order to use the wi-fi." Well, it looks like we're eating again!

We enjoyed a nice little truck ride and pulled up the Grumpy Bear still super stuffed. We went in and ordered two chocolate milkshakes and a cheese fries to split. We figured that'd buy us some wi-fi. The wi-fi was suuuuuuper slow, like painfully slow, but I was able to find a few things online I needed, including the updated Sierra snowpack information.

Unfortunately the signal wasn't strong enough to upload any of my blog! :( The last time I got to post was in Lake Isabella at the KOA four days ago! You guys might not be reading any of this for 8 or 9 days until we get into Lone Pine! :( I'm still writing every night, just can't upload, prepare for two weeks at once!

We closed out our tabs and soon the same person popped his head in and called around for a ride back. We jumped in the truck and enjoyed yet another pleasant ride.

The second we got back we got invited by a trail angel named John to come to his house with some other hikers and get showered up. Since we hadn't even set up out tent yet and it was almost 7pm, he pointed out where he lived and we said we'd stop by later.

We went out behind the store into the  huge area where PCT hikers are allowed to camp. It's a cool junkyard area with a lot of old antique junk like old gas pumps and all sorts of cool stuff.

Ready for a shower, we walked back to the road and tried to figure out how to get to John's house. We could see his house from the road far in the distance but had no idea how to get there. We followed some hiker prints into a series of confusing dirt roads and properties. Eventually we jumped over some bushes into an old dirt wash that seemed to head to the house. It was such a mission!

As we got closer two dogs started barking at us and running towards us! I braced myself for a possible bite but they were super playful and just ran around us barking and jumping. We saw someone up in the window signaling us to come up. Whew! It WAS the right house, what a relief!

Lucy, another hiker from Czech Republic met us downstairs and showed us up to the main room. This place was amazing! It was a really cool cabin style house with 4 levels. The other hikers already there were Makeshift and Helen Keller, Lucy and Rocksteady, and another couple. 

John was jamming on the guitar and Justin, the one who was cooking our delicious burgers earlier, was playing the drum kit! Connor, a teenager who was working as the cashier at the grill at the store, and his Grandpa Stan were also there.

It was a good get-together and everyone got to shower and enjoy a few beers while rocking out on some instruments. John could really play!

Claire and I headed back before the rest because by 11pm we were falling asleep in our chairs. On the way back we ran into HR on the road and we "guided" him back to the campground. There was still music playing through the speakers on the patio of the general store, so we sobered him up a little bit with some food from the hiker boxes and helped him find his lot slipper for a good 20 minutes! 

How'd it get under there?

There was a gigantic teepee with a fire in the middle and we peaked in for a moment before retiring to our tents for the night. 

It was definitely a long day. It's hard to believe that we actually hiked almost 5 miles earlier this morning. Tomorrow we'll sleep in a little bit, probably get a little breakfast at Grumpy Bear, and then hike out a few miles if Claire's toe seem ok.

-Thanks for reading!