kitsu

For those of you who do not yet know, I will be back in Jersey from December 20th 'til January 10th.  See you then.

Dorm life is wondering why the hell there's a huge amount of vaseline on the door handle of the entrance to the suite.

Yesterday, I saw a river otter.  It was just swimmin' about Chester Creek, right by the bridge one must cross to get from my dorm to the area where they feed us.  It was adorable and tiny.

 

Also, I have not seen a moose in over a month, and I am greatly displeased about this.

Aaand, I have survived!

Sorry it's taken me so long to report on last weekend's camping expedition, but I was faced with a couple obstacles. The first and most troubling of which was a nasty cold. It's getting better, but I still am faced with lack of sleep due to...well, unpleasant cold-related things. I'm sure you can all relate.

The second obstacle was that my camera survived the trip about as well as I did--it made it, but is a little worse for the wear. That is, it still functions and takes pictures and all that wonderful stuff, but I can no longer extract pictures from it. The USB plugin seems to've been somehow damaged. But this is easy enough to get around--I just went out and bought a memory card reader.

And so! Pictures.

I'm afraid I do not have many pictures to share with you (seventeen, to be exact), but I assure you that I was not slacking off in the picture-taking department. I simply did not have a lot of opportunity to get my camera out and shoot away. Anyway. On with the story!

We got to the trailhead around 10:15-10:30(AM) or so. The trailhead itself was at quite an elevation. It was raining lightly as we drove up the roads winding along the mountains, gradually changing into a wet sort of snow. Moments after parking at the trailhead, it became full-on snow. It was light, but started sticking immediately.

So, we all headed off. We planned on camping at Eagle and Symphony Lakes in the Eagle River valley. This is approximately a 6 mile hike from the trailhead. "Six miles?" I'd thought when we met to discuss the trip a couple days earlier. "I can do that no problem. Hell, I walked about fifteen miles a day five days a week over the summer." Boy, was I wrong. I hadn't properly taken into consideration that a 105-pound person's frame is not likely to do well under the weight of a 50-pound pack. Especially while walking six miles, in the snow, through a hilly mountain valley.

Quite an adventure it was! But I'm getting ahead of myself. From where we set off, the terrain/scenery was like that in the above picture. It was lovely, watching the thick snowflakes fall, rapidly covering the browns and greens in white. Soo, we walked along towards our camping destination, occasionally stopping to snack and recouperate. It was pretty cold out, though, so we never ran the risk of breaking for too long--moving keeps you warm, after all.

A little under halfway along (about 2.5 miles), we crossed the above bridge. Eagle River was beautiful (I have another picture of it on my flickr page). By this point, I was starting to get a little sore and exhausted. Now, don't get me wrong. I new as soon as we set out, pack on my back, that sooner or later my body would collapse under the pressure. But I didn't start to really become concerned about my ability to complete the hike until shortly after the bridge. Without a pack, it would be a pretty nice, easy hike. But, moving along.

It was when we reached the boulder field that my spirit finally broke. We were there. We could see Eagle Lake in the distance. All we had to do was get to it. All we had to do was walk/climb/fall the mile of the boulder fields. Don't let that picture fool you. You can hardly even see the millions of rocks and boulders under the snow, and the fact that I took the picture from about 3/4 of the way (where I finally collapsed and could not re-right myself for a few minutes) up the boulder field (that's right--up; they were fricken hills made of rocks!) disguises the height we had to climb. Also, I had to pee. That's right, I'll say it. We all had to at some point (and some--oh thank god not me--had to do more than just pee...). But, it was just one more mile! I could wait until we reached the comparatively friendly grounds of the camping area.

But at long last, we made it to the top of the boulder field. It was an impressive sight. Mountains on all sides. Bouldery hills on all sides. It was also one of the few moments where you could see some blue in the sky. Unfortunately, I was in a great deal of pain in the thighs/pelvic joints/shoulder/neck areas. And still had to pee. So, after collapsing and wanting to cry out of joy of being almost there and frustration at that almost, I took care of the latter part of those complaints (yes, among rocks), ate some cheese, snapped two or three pictures, and was ready to pass out then and there. But, we had to go on.

And we came upon Eagle and Symphony Lakes. It was now 5PM, and would be getting dark within a couple hours. There was some sort of shanty on a hill overlooking the lakes, and we used this as base camp. We did our cooking in there, where the walls (or what there was of them) could block the elements a little bit. It was just as cold inside as out. Before resting, though, we had to go out and find spots for our tents, then set them up. I was sharing a tent with two other women. After doing this, we gathered around the shanty, had dinner (Cup Noodles, cheese/crackers/salami, and hot cocoa for me), and just hung around a bit before heading off to bed. I went to bed around 7:30, the others in my tent followed half an hour or so later.

In my fleece-lined down sleeping bag, I was barely even cold. It was wonderful. Rest. Warmth. By this point my hands were freezing, no matter how long or vigorously I did the "penguin pump." But of course I couldn't just fall asleep. Why exactly, I can't say. But there I was, laying comfortably (heh, well...not really), for about three-four hours or so before I managed to fall asleep.

The world was being torn apart when I woke up. The tent was shaking, pressing down on us and then being pulled back up, violently. And there was a sound, such a sound. Not quite a howling. More like a roar. It was the wind. The others woke up just as I did. The tent was falling apart. And we all had to pee. We checked the time, all of us certain that it had to be about 2 or 3AM. It was a little past midnight.

We pulled on our extra coats, pants, gloves and boots, and opened the tent's flap. Snow came blowing right into our faces. Four inches of snow--not too bad. Our packs, between the tent flap and the rain flap, were frozen solid (note: I suspect this is where my camera took some damage). We went out, me being the only one with a flashlight, and made a group trip to a giant boulder, hoping for a bit of respite from the wind. We got a bit, but not much. Let me tell you--it was cold. You try pulling your pants down in the middle of the night, the wind so strong you can barely stand, snow blowing all about you.

That done, we returned to our tent, to repair it before going back inside. A couple stakes had come loose and were flapping about in the wind; half of the poles were no longer in their proper locations; one pole was bent in such a way that it would never function properly again. So we managed the best we could. We got it back in one piece, at any rate, then huddled inside, freezing. Once inside, we all started laughing at the absurdity of the situation, wind roaring and tossing the tent about. We had some snacks in an attempt to warm back up. The Snickers bars were frozen solid, and I wasn't even going to try the cheese.

After a few hours, the wind died down, and I fell back asleep. I'd say I got a total of about three, maybe three and a half hours of sleep throughout the night. We were all woken up at 9:30. It was time to have breakfast and pack up.

We finally set off on our way back around noon. By this point, we were all talking about how great it would be to get back and have a nice, hot shower, and some real food. Before setting out, all my pains except the pelvic joint ones were gone. When I put the pack back on, my body screamed. Six miles, I said. Just six miles. Then you can go home. And take a shower. And pass out.

It took us only five hours to get back (as compared to the six to get out). I and one other person were especially bad off, but we made it.

Took two days for the pelvic-joint pain to disappear, and I haven't slept well since last Thursday night. But it was worth it.

Never again, though. Dear god, never again.

I'm going camping today/tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have some more pictures and such in a couple days.  I make no guarantees, though, as it's supposed to be rather rainy.