Blow downs

Today was quite the day. Lots of climbing and lots of miles. 

I decided to take the alternate low route around the high peaks as I was really trying to get some big miles in. I only had three days of food, so had to adhere to my schedule of mileage today to make sure I could get into Twin Lakes without running out of food. I always carry a little extra, so wasn’t too worried, but mindful. 

The lower route runs parallel to the high route through the valley along an old forest service road. It was quite pretty, and nice and dry. A bit of snow on the two big passes I did still have to climb, but not much at all. 

Lots of folks on ATVs rolling by and enjoying the weather. One fell had setup on the side with binoculars to check out the mountain goats up top. 

I got down to a big lake where there were a ton of day hikers and folks out and about. I actually had to walk through the lake a little bit as the dirt road was submerged around it. But it was alright, I pulled off my boots and sat by the side to let them dry for a little while before my second big climb of the day.  

When I got up and over the hump, I ran into another hiker going south. He was actually a north bound thru hiker, but turned around as there were crazy trees blown down on the trail ahead, and he said it took him hours to get through part of it and finally decided to turn around after hurting his ankle a bit. 

At first, I rolled back with him. About a quarter mile later I decided I didn’t want to climb everything I just went down from the pass, and would give it a go. 

Well, he was right, the blow downs were crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The entire trail just covered with tons of trees. Climbing, jumping, balancing, it was quite the circus act to get through. 

He said the first section wasn’t long, but the second one was. So by the time I got to the second patch of downed trees, I found a way to bushwhack around most of it. I climbed up to the top of the hill and went over the blow downs to the other side of the hill which was mostly cleared. It looked like they had been working on clearing them, as there were lots of cuts on the other side up from the road. 

I met a few other weekend hikers who said they were going to Texas lake, and I warned them about the trees ahead. I didn’t recall seeing it, so looked on my maps to see how fair it was until their trail. I couldn’t find anything, but assumed it was off a side trail I didn’t have maps for. It wasn’t until tonight that I realized they actually had gone the wrong direction on the trail, and should have head north from the road I was about to cross. I felt awful, but had no way to tell them. I hope they made it alright. 

As the day wore on, I had more miles to push. I was finally excited to get to my planned camp, and there was a couple families setup where I had planned to be. So I pushed on another mile up a hill. And sure enough at the next water source, another hiker was setup in the only flat spot. So I pushed on another half mile. Boom. Another hiker. 

Now, it’s 8:30 and the suns setting. I finally found a flat spot near some water, and am exhausted with nearly 30 miles over big passes and crazy downed trees. So asleep I fell very quickly.