Day 17

Day 17: 19 miles

The morning started out a little chilly. I got up an hour after I had planned cause it felt so cold. Finally I got up and around and got moving. I went about a half mile when it was just too cold and I couldn’t take it anymore. My hands were in serious pain and I felt like I was about to be sick. Since snow was covering everything there was nowhere to sit or lay down. I hustled back to the shelter as fast as I could (not very fast). Once I got there I got out some hand warmers which were pretty ineffective and then I rolled up in a ball and yelled and groaned in agony for the next 30-45 minutes while trying to warm up my hands.

I didn’t have service in the morning so I wasn’t able to check the weather. But when I did at 9:00, after the sun had been out 90 minutes, it was 2 degrees. So earlier it was probably around -8 or -10 using my comparison capabilities.

After this I was pretty irritable. Every minor inconvenience set me off. It was a good reminder that getting mad at inanimate objects and plants doesn’t achieve much.

It was slow going the rest of the day. I wasn’t in a great mood and I was walking in deep snow with no tracks to follow. Finally in the last mile of the day there were some tracks from day hikers and I felt like I was flying.

My water filter and bottle were frozen basically all day so my water intake consisted of .3 liters I was able to squeeze through unfrozen and eating a good amount of snow off tree branches.