We Gone Done Got Lost

Day 12

.....or so we thought.

The morning was frigid. While we complain about the driving sun, we woke up to an ice coating on our tent! The extremes the desert throws at you are vast and intense. Our bodies are representatives of that. I have bubbled skin from sun poisoning and ians hand went raw from too many uv rays.

To heat ourselves up we got moving fast. We had an uphill battle and knew the day would have a lot of great views because of the altitude. The first half of the day was quick and we met a section hiker named sweet pea who use to work at Denali and other national parks. Moving along we met a group of people in a local hiking club. They were warm spirited and gave us some extra bars which we munched on happily.

Then one of the worst things that can happen in the desert, or any wilderness, happened... We got lost... Or so we thought. After reaching the 7,000 foot summit there were multiple trail crossings, and without any markings we took the one that looked most like the PCT. It may sound strange but after hiking on a trail for hundreds of miles you get use to how it's maintained and the typical ascents and descents. After a while it became a steep descent, not typical of the trail since it's graded for pack animals. We started to wonder. Then we made a hard right east towards a vast and empty desert- we became more uncertain. Turn back and face hours of retracing, or push forward and possibly head farther away. We chose to go with our instincts and kept descending. Eventually after a very quiet and tense hour we saw a sign for the spring we wanted to break camp at. We were not lost after all! A feeling of relief came over us as we began to fetch water (a half mile away) and brace ourselves for a windy night underneath tomorrow's snowy summit.

We get ready for bed early to stay warm and look forward to a resupply and a night in town tomorrow.

- Andy