Day 16

Day 16: 23 miles

Today was just a great day. The vibes were up. After sleeping for 11 hours i felt like a new man this morning. Instead of thinking about how wet I would be from getting snowed on all morning and how wet my feet would be from walking in it all day, I was in a great mood and appreciated the beauty of the fresh and untouched snow.

I was moving very slow in the afternoon because tree branches weighed down with a bunch of snow were covering the trail so I constantly had to bang the snow off them and fight through them or try to go around. Neither worked very well. The morning wasn’t very extreme but most of the afternoon I was walking through snow that was consistently above my ankles and sometimes knees because it was drifting.

In the last mile before getting to camp I managed to get pretty far off trail. With the fresh snow and nobody else being out, there was no trail or tracks to follow and after it was dark it was hard to tell which random trees to walk through in the middle of the forest. So I ended up going to the top of a ridge when really I could’ve just walked on the lower part. I had to go down a steep ledge to get back to trail but made it fine except for getting covered in snow up to my thighs. I slipped and fell in the snow a or today which was frustrating.

My coat and pants are pretty soaked so theyre currently airing out but will probably just freeze overnight cause I think it’ll be below 10. They’re too wet to bring in my sleeping bag with me and there’s just not many options out here.

The only real view today other than the natural snow serenity was “beauty spot.” I took a few pictures up there but it was so windy within a few minutes my hands were going numb and feeling painful from the cold so I got out of there.

Resupplied today and got some toilet paper 🤙🏻

Song of the day: Break Free-Ariana Grande