Day 116: Exhausted, hangry and wrecked

August 13, Day 116: 1952.6-1976.5

Miles Hiked: 23.9

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for the perseverance to push through a tough day. 

I didn’t get much sleep tonight at Elks Lane Resort, several of the weekend warrior campers were up late being loud and random cars would drive through the camp ground at night. I was hoping to sleep in but by 6:30 I was awake. I took my time packing up because what I really needed here was some supplemental resupply to get me now to Santiam Pass since the previous 16 miles of fire closure opened up in front of me. The store didn’t open until 9, so I sat by the lake and made coffee eating my breakfast. Luckily I had service so I could at least “doom” scroll through the latest news or space out looking a social media. By the time the store opened and I was able to buy a couple things, by the time I got back to trail it was 10am and I was hoping to do 25 miles today to make tomorrow a little easier as Sarah is driving my truck down to help get me around the huge Jefferson fire closure and to hang out in Bend with Kristie and Erica. I was a little annoyed with the extra 16 miles of trail that just opened as of midnight last night because I was hoping to have two days of not doing big miles, and with today’s late start it means I’ll have to hike into the night and not take many breaks. So my day just wasn’t starting off right and I was exhausted and grumpy. The coolest part of the day was walking through the Obsidian Limited Entry Area, the shiny black rock was very pretty, but my mood matched the darkness of the rocks around me.

 I was so tired and just running of fumes doing the large miles to get me through Oregon. Finally at 5pm I stopped at a cold stream, took the beer I carried out from the resort and cooled it off in the water as I made dinner. I chatted with some weekend backpackers and ate dinner, the beer made the day a little better, but the food is what changed the night.

Once I started back down trail my mood shifted, I just have been hangry all day and just needed a break and a good meal.  Several miles down trail I ran into Hiccups and Kitty Titty camped for the night and it was such a relief to be done with the day. We all cowboy camped and planned to wake up at 4am so we could be at Santiam Pass by 4pm to meet Sarah, we have 24.5 miles to do tomorrow.