20 Miles, 24 Hours, 3,000+ foot climb, blood blister to prove

This past weekend was the big trip for our backpacking class. The plan was to hike in Friday, hike around Saturday, and hike out Sunday. What we actually did:

Friday we hike for two hours the five miles in and pitch our tents, build a fire and have our tasty meals. (Friday night I freeze and it rains). Saturday morning we get up, have breakfast, and begin the trek. We decided instead of taking the trail the entire way to the top, we would take the "shortcut" and just go straight up the mountain. Literally. We were trailblazing and bushwhacking our way through the mud and snow up over 3,000 feet in elevation. About three fourths of the way to the top, we finally catch back up to the trail and take switchbacks the rest of the way up. Naturally, the higher we climbed, the more snow we encountered. By the time we got to the top, we were hiking through around 4 inches of snow. Boy was I glad for my hiking boots. Some people were just in tennis shoes and it had not taken them long to become a soggy mess. We reached the summit, which turned out to be a parking lot. One girl was highly disappointed to discover you didn't need to hike that ridiculous mountain but could just drive up to it. Our teacher had actually arranged to have someone meet us up at the top with hot drinks and snacks, but sadly the snow drifts were too big and he couldn't get in. So... what can you do but hike back down? This time we took the trail the entire way down to complete our lovely ten mile hike. Abby was in good spirits and sprinted ahead of us on the trail in her usual high energy fashion.















Upon our arrival at camp, realizing it would probably rain again soon and hearing throughout the day how most of us would rather be somewhere else, our teacher decided we might as well head back out right then and there. So, we packed up camp, strapped on our massive bags, and headed out. There was a very distinct group of stragglers versus those of us who really really wanted to get back, led of course by Miss Abby. We pretty much sprinted the entire way back to the cars, over streams and mud and crossing the river to do the five miles in about an hour and a half, which had taken us 2 hours the day before. An hour's drive back and we were gratefully enjoying hot showers, clean clothes, and foot massages from kind fiancees.