Stephanie's Trail Journal

Saturday, April 24th

We didn't see any bear, much to Gizmo's chagrin. I didn't sleep much - I was waiting for bears to raid camp and paranoid about mice running around my head, or worse, run into my bag (I made sure to keep my sleeping bag cinched down tight).

The morning's hike was gorgeous, about 4 miles descent into a hemlock/rhodedendron forest. The scent of those plants mixed with wet earth is heavenly. I paid for the beauty after those 4 miles, however... the trail suddenly turned viscious with steep climbs and descents. My shins and achilles began to burn, and my feet began to feel like stumps but I made it to Hawk Mountain Shelter for lunch. I had some serious thoughts of staying there for the night, but it so early in the day. I stayed there for about 2 hours and then decided to push on to the next shelter (but I should have listened to my body!). That section had the steepest climbs and descents that I'd encountered and my feet took a severe beating. My left knee started to ache on down steps (recall that I had knee surgery on my right knee about 10 years ago) so I leaned on my trekking poles a little more and limped into a campsite by Justis creek. It was a beatiful site with a handful of spots in a hemlock grove right on the creek. I gathered some wood for a small fire, set up my tarp shelter (for the first time, sucessfully, I might add), and fired up my cook stove for dinner. I enjoyed a dinner of potato slop followed with a quick hot cocoa. It was kind of nice camping alone... I tried out all the gear I didn't want to pull out in front of the hiker-pros. At the end of the night I hung my food in the trees (thats 12 feet high, 6 feet from a tree trunk, kids) and hopped in my bag. I was a little paranoid about bear activity - and mice crawling around on me - but all was quiet in camp with the exception of water thrush calling. It was really nice, but I was so tired, I turned in around 10 and didn't write in my journal.