Cold Feet

Cold feet pretty much sums up my weekend. Zach and I went backpacking with our friends Tyler, Greg and Morgan. The date was set a while back and we were committed no matter came our way. Snow is what happened to come our way.

It was lightly snowing as we packed the car Saturday morning. By the time we parked at the trail head, there was snow on the ground and snow was still coming down. As we headed down the trail, we encountered many stream/river crossings (double the normal amount on this trail), most likely due to snow melt from last week's big snow. I lost out on the first stream crossing and got wet feet. This is when my feet got cold and stayed cold.

There was point in which we had to cross through rushing water. The guy before us warned us that his dogs nearly washed away when crossing. We tied trash bags over our shoes and attempted to cross. I believe that 3/5 of us made it through without getting wet shoes. Which really means only 2 did not have wet feet since my shoes were still wet from the very first crossing.

We made it to camp and started gathering firewood. As you can imagine, all the wood was soaking wet from the previous snow melt and the current snow...yes, it is still snowing on us. Tyler was brilliant in searching the bowels of the cave for dry wood. We were able to get a fire started (we found out the next morning that we were most likely the only ones able to start a fire according to reports from other backpackers). I was able to get feeling back into my toes by the fire, but they never really got warm. Then it was off to bed to wake up to even colder temperatures outside.

Once out of the sleeping bag, my feet froze solid. It was not until an hour or more into our hike that I began to gain feeling back in my toes. Thankfully I was able to keep my feet dry when crossing the much lower, calmer streams. Zach actually opted to take his shoes off and walk across the biggest crossing in the probably low 30* weather. But, all of us made it out with our toes still attached and working.

It was a cold trip, but a really good one. I am glad that Zach and I stuck with our commitment even if it meant having cold feet:)

...pictures to come