Date: 10/3/20
Daily Miles: 27
Total Miles: 1784
Since we had given ourselves a pretty light day yesterday (which we thoroughly appreciated), we needed to make up some miles today. We figured it would be doable since it would be another day of road walking.
We got up at 5:00am and packed up quickly. It was pretty cold this morning, but it seemed to get even colder as we walked. We felt like we were warmer when we were packing up than we were an hour later.
We were able to get water six miles in at a spigot on the side of the road. There we had to get enough water to last us the next 22 miles. The extra water and big food carry has been causing more stress and pain in our shoulders, which makes the day feel longer.
As we were getting water, a truck and three quads drove by. Each vehicle had at least six hounds with radio collars. We were surprised to see them, because we associate them with bear hunting, and we hadn’t realized that bear hunting had started.
The road walking today was a mix of nice smooth gravel roads, and narrow rocky roads. We were able to make decent time on the smooth roads, but the rocky roads really slowed us down, because it was such hard walking. The rocks were the fist sized volcanic, not so kind for our heels.
Our usual temperature swings were on display again today…we were freezing in the morning and baking in the afternoon. The heat today just seemed to zap all of our energy. Our pace was a lot faster in the morning, and then seemed to nosedive in the afternoon as we got so hot.
We ran into a hunter this afternoon who had been out bear hunting (without any dogs). He was actually bow hunting, which we were surprised to see for bear. He gave us a Gatorade which tasted really good, even though it was warm. He had told us that when he checked the weather this morning at 8:30am, it had shown 37 degrees. So we knew we weren’t imagining the freezing temperatures when we were walking at 5:30am.
We made it to our second water source (and our final destination for the day) around 6:30pm. Since our next water source is another 22 miles away, we decided to do tomorrow’s laundry tonight. So we took off our socks and underwear from today and washed them, before walking about a hundred yards away to camp.
We are both feeling pretty beat tonight, so hopefully we’ll sleep soundly.
Questions or thoughts on this article? Please leave them below: