I am exhausted. Therefore only quickly. The early start at 5 had one benefit – we were even too early for the lazy mosquitoes ๐ช
Today we had to cross Mt. Thielsen. A lot of snow again and millions of mosquitoes which made it unpleasant in some stretches. Even though I have refused to wear a long sleeve shirt for hiking so far I think I am ready now. Bug net and long sleeve shirt in the next town for me!
It took us 14.5h today to do 27 miles ๐ณ The snow slowed us down massively! Sliding and navigating takes a lot of time and is tiring. And on top you can never just stop or you will be eaten alive by the mosquitoes.
Mt. Thielsen though is a beauty. An almost completely eroded volcano crater. Climbing around was not really complicated.
But when we came to the creek which is supposed to be a reliable water source we found this. Still completely covered in snow.
We already had no water for over 20 miles and the next creek was another 16 away. We had a bit more then 1l left but not enough for the next 16 miles. I was sure that there was water running underneath. But how to get to it? Maybe a hike somewhere? I started listening and was very certain to hear running water in the distance. So I climbed up the creek bed into the bowl above and after about 400m there was a drop in the creek and the snow had already disappeared. And that’s were the water came up to the surface. What a relief! Unfortunately I was stupid enough to explore without taking our containers. So I had to walk back to get them, back up and down again. As if we wouldn’t do enough walking already… ๐
Highest point in Oregon and Washington. Funnily the 15m radius around the sign was snow free – different to the 10 miles around it all day long…
Kaylee just complained that we apparently have done 375 miles since Shasta without a day off and she said that she will go on strike if we don’t take one soon… ๐๐๐ I guess she is the only reasonable person in our hiking group making sure we don’t kill ourselves.
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22. April 2017