Day 31

Trail miles: 14.6

Total: 383.9

I had the best sleep of the whole trip last night. I got up and had my bagel with chocolate milk. Then I got Wordle on the second try with the words “death” and “trash” which was exactly how I felt at the end of today. Paula the trail angel gave us rides back the trailhead and I got to sit with her puppy in the front seat. We had an easy few miles before summiting Mt Baden Powell. The first 3 miles were tough but doable, but the last mile was covered in snow and the footprints just led straight up the hill. I had to stop so often because it was so difficult. At least I had microspikes on to help. We summited around lunch and got a ton of pictures with the other hikers we are meeting. Then the worst of the day happened. First, I think I developed athlete induced asthma. So my chest started tightening and I had a hard time breathing. That added on with the fact that we kept losing the trail because the footprints went everywhere but the trail. It took us a lot longer than we thought to do the mileage. Once we got to the top and had 3 miles downhill left, I put on my headphones and cruised down the snowless hill. It was a rough day for all of us that we are happy to be done with. Our camp is a huge one full of hikers we see here and there. They started a fire in the furnace which was very popular.

I put my bag down near the water source today and some old man said “oh my gosh I felt the ground move what do you have in there?” I mean come on why do people think that that is an ok thing to say? Raechel says he should feel embarrassed that he can’t carry as much as a bunch of girl. My favorite response we thought of was “You’re ultralight? Yeah you look like you need to be.” I love running into local girls along the trail because they always seem so excited for us. One told her husband that she wanted to do it and he said “you don’t have to do the whole thing, you can do it in sections.” Her response was without hesitation “oh I’d do the whole thing” like a boss. Another girl also told her boyfriend she wanted to do it. We even give encouraging words to older woman who say they wished they would have done this at our age, but there are people of all ages out here! And we keep up with the men on trail, since we keep seeing the same ones in town and at camp. Puke and Rally (her trail name because she bags peaks even though she puked on the way up) cheered me on as I reached the top of the mountain today, another example of female empowerment on trail!