Dec 20th
I survived! But… Today was definitely one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever had. The morning started at 5am when we all got up and got ready for the day and packed our bags. We had breakfast at 5:45am and were on the trail at 6:30am. We had a five hour hike, mostly up hill, and I was dreading every moment of it. I had slept horrible the night before. I really have only slept in a tent twice in my life and both times I had outdoorsy friends with me to push me through is. Last night I was alone in the wild, luckily I was surrounded by the Canadian Forces so I felt a little more secure. I heard all sorts of things in the night, I woke up every time someone went to the bathroom, or when animals moved around and even when it started to downpour. I was tried and as soon as we had walked for 5 minutes I was already out of breath and questioning how I’d make it through the day. Somehow I managed. We stopped about every hour for a little bit to get the group caught up with one another. The first hour and a half was uphill and seemed awful, but I had no idea what was in store for me after the break. We rested for 20 minutes and had snacks then were on our way. The next hour and a half we crossed “Dead Women’s Pass” which is 1200 stairs up. Let me clarify the stairs, they are not nice cement stairs that are evenly placed and easy to walk on, they are rocks that are all different sizes and levels, some of them are a foot and a half high. Let me tell you, I will be coming home with buns of steal, my butt is killing me! One of the Canadian Force guys, Jeff, was really nice and hiked with me the whole way. We chatted about life and it made the hike much more fun. I was pleased to make it to the top and catch up with the group. We got some great pictures and enjoyed the view, even though the clouds did roll in. We waited at the top for about 20 minutes, it was very windy, cloudy and cold.
When it was clear that the others were still pretty far behind Mario gave us clear directions and sent our part of the group on the last hour and journey to the campsite. Luckily, this part of the trip was all downhill, which is much prefer.
Jeff and I hiked along with six of the others in the group (even the two who hiked part of Everest!). Parts of the hike down were challenging because the rocks were all wet and very slippery. I almost fell a couple of times. Almost everyone in our group has hiking shoes which help to prevent twisted ankles. I didn’t have any, so I tried to carefully place my feet. I luckily did rent two poles which have been great for this hike, it has really helped me keep my balance, given me an arm workout, and prevented me for falling flat on my face a couple of times. We got to the campsite at 12pm (30 minutes earlier than Mario said it would take us). We waited for a few more people to arrive and had lunch. Lunch consisted of veggie pasta and was quite tasty, although I would have liked to have a little more protein. After lunch I changed into dryer clothes and took a nap for an hour and a half, which was wonderful. We had afternoon tea and biscuits at 4:30pm and followed it with an intense game of spoons where the looser had to do funny things like pushups in front of everyone and yell “ I’m a big loser” at the top of their lungs. I luckily saved myself the humiliation and never lost! We had dinner at 6:30pm which consisted of pork and rice. I really don’t like pork so I ate about half and gave the rest to one of the Canadians, Mike. Mike gave me his dessert in return, I think that was a pretty good trade J. We have an early day tomorrow, we’re getting up at 4:45am to start hiking before the sunrises to I turned myself into bed nice and early at 8pm.
Bye for now.
Love,
Katie
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