The Ultimate Hike

Going into this day, we knew that it was going to be a big, big day. The whole day was going to be 13 miles with ~3000 ft elevation gain. We didn't really know what the trail conditions were going to be like, but there was definitely snow. We started off at a decent pace, but got slowed down by a bunch of downed trees. The trail report said 77 downed trees, but we only counted 32. We had quite a few tricky stream crossings, but were able to navigate over them via rocks and logs. One crossing we game to was a straight up ford. Scott and Steve burrowed through bushes and jumped onto logs, but I just sucked it up, took of my boots and walked across. The water was absolutely freezing. It was all fresh snow melt, and by the time I crossed the 30 ft creek by feet were numb. Not only numb, but stinging pain and numb. Now I understand why you don't want to fall into rivers like that.

I dried off my feet with my shirt, which seems pretty gross, but whatever. I found Scott and Steve on the other side then we headed back onto the trail. We soon started the big climb. It started out pretty steep and it stayed pretty steep. It was very similar to the hike in the Smokies because it just felt like we were climbing and climbing and not making any progress. Finally, we got above tree line and the view was awesome. We were just staring at 3 peaks towering around us still covered in snow. And there was a decent amount of snow. We took a quick lunch break before tackling this section of the trail and then moved on. We found the trail pretty easily at first, but then it started getting very tough to follow. Good thing we have route-finding skills. There were some pretty hairy situations where one slip would mean a couple hundred foot unintentional sledding trip. The other worry were the snow bridges. Basically, the water from the snow melt flows under the thick areas of snow and undermines the snow. This means that it is easy to fall through the snow. This only happened a couple times, but nothing too bad. Leave it to Steve to find another danger. The weight of the snow had bent over a lot of smaller trees and if you step too close to the trees they will snap up and smack you in the face. I wish I would have seen this happen to Steve, but it is funny none the less.

Once we finally, made it to the top of the pass, it was a very good feeling. Not quite a summit, but it was pretty tough to make it up there. We then started over the backside of the pass, and I think there was more snow than on the front side. Luckily we were going down now. I made a sad attempt at glissading, but it was not steep enough. We were making awesome time getting down, and I suggested going more than 13 miles to make our last day hike shorter. Steve and Scott wanted nothing to do with that suggestion. I feel like I jinxed us because 5 minutes later we were lost. I tried not to show it, but after not being able to find the trail for about 45 minutes, I was very nervous. Worst case scenario we take the wrong trail and get lost. That was very close to happening, but it had a pretty good idea of where we supposed to go and the "trail" that we found wasn't going the right way. After about an hour of running around looking for the trail, I finally backtracked enough and realized we made a wrong turn about a 1/4 mile back. Phew!! That would have sucked. We were very far from anyone and any campground, and I could only think about all the people who have gotten lost on hikes before. Glad we weren't one of them.

The rest of the hike was a very steep downhill and my feet were absolutely killing me after descending 2300 ft in 2 miles. By the time we got to the campsite, there was no desire to continue on. I just wanted to get my boots off and relax. The highlights from that night were eating 2 dehydrated meals (and feeling very full), melting part of my boots when trying to dry them, and using a backcountry pit toilet. We were all exhausted and fell asleep by 9 PM. Got a taste of just about everything you could want on that hike. ULTRA day 23/39: COMPLETE

JM