I slept entirely through the night, which is a rare thing on trail lately for me and showed the level of exhaustion I’d felt the day before. When I awoke, it was to an inch of snow on the ground and my shoes literally frozen solid (including my shoe laces!). I put my shoes in a plastic bag and then slipped them in my sleeping bag in hopes of thawing them out. It worked sorta, or at least enough to be able to force my feet into them. 

The first mile was painful as my feet were not accustomed to walking on stiff frozen shoes.

It began snowing early and pretty much kept at it for most of the day. Last night’s snow erased all traces of the trail, so Sandman and I (although mostly Sandman today) had to break trail and navigate through the snowy landscape. We’d search for breaks in the trees or perhaps an indent in the snow that looked like the trail. We mostly stayed on trail, although had to consult our maps on our phones frequently. It made for slow going and we’d only covered 20 miles by 5 pm. Along the way, I slipped and banged my knee against a knock. It hurt and cut a hole in my pants, but I thought nothing of it until I got to camp and saw the red of blood on my pants near my knee. I cut a decent chunk of skin off my knee. 

I was thankful to have a hiking buddy today because 4 eyeballs makes it easier to find trail in the snow. As we ascended our last pass of the day, it really began to snow and visibility drastically decreased to maybe 30 feet. Being exposed on the pass during a storm was mentally and physically stressful as we pushed through to get under tree cover.

We made camp early again around 5pm exhausted from a long day. As soon as we set up camp, the storm broke and it was blue skies for the rest of the night.

Miles: 19.4

Total Miles: 1,223