Day 46 (ODT 14)

Day 46 (ODT 14): 34 miles

It was a quick morning down to Frenchglen, a town that consists of a historic hotel, an odd mercantile store, and I think a school. Thankfully the hotel was serving breakfast so I sat down and had 2 orders which pleased a lot of the surrounding patrons.

While there, I had to make a hard choice. I decided to go around Steens Mountain. It’s still covered in a lot of snow, which I knew would be the case. I at least wanted to try it. But I looked at the weather for the next few days. Basically when I would’ve been up above 9,000 feet, it would thunderstorm the first day, rain the second, and snow the third. That’s not mentioning it getting down in the teens at night, or even colder up that high. So I put my ego aside and decided to go around.

I was a little disappointed cause I wanted the challenge and to see what it was like, but I’m just out here to have fun this summer, and summiting a 9,500 foot peak in bad weather, alone, probably without any footprints, no ice axe, and being freezing cold would be a little dangerous and maybe not the most fun.

In the afternoon, the weather started to wild out. The sky got really scary looking for maybe an hour before it started raining. It didn’t rain much, but it would just fall hard and fast. The wind picked up like crazy too. It was already windy, but it went to aggravating levels. And it always seems to be going in the opposite direction, never with me. Funny how that works.

This also might be the windiest trail I’ve ever done. I’m not sure if I’m getting unlucky, but the wind has been relentlessly annoying. Except for 2 days where it wasn’t there and it was just stagnant heat in an extremely exposed area. I guess I’m just never happy.

Song of the day: wilshire-Tyler the creator