Sunday, June 30th.

Sunday, June 30th. Day 12.

Today's miles = 20.5 Total CDT miles = 154

This morning was hard to get out of bed. It was just a bit chilly outside and there was condensation on my tent. I would sleep the whole morning away in my tent then hike all night (I hike the strongest after 4pm). But Monkey is really good about getting moving in the morning. He is a strong morning hiker and I am beyond opposite of that. I am so weak and have low energy until around 3 or 4pm. Once I hit that time I am good to hike until the sun comes up again whereas that is the time Baboon starts to slow down. It's quite inconvenient really. So, I drag my ass off my sleeping pad anyway and suffer through the morning hours of the hike trying to keep pace with Baboon. One of my favorite times of day is when I get my surge of energy and it becomes the opposite. Unfortunately by that time there is only a few hours of hiking left for the day. I almost never want to stop for the night when we do. I would rather hike a few hours longer then sleep in a few hours later the next day.

So, as usual, Baboon had to badger me to get me out of tent and once I did the morning was horrible and difficult for me to trudge through. It felt all uphill (whether is was or not). The trail was decently mellow today though. There were a few climbs in the morning but after lunch it smoothed out a bit and I was able to make up some miles from having moved so slowly in the morning. The trail stayed pretty close to Strawberry creek all day after lunch. Before lunch was when the day was a little interesting. We came to an open meadow with Beaver Lake to the right of us. The trail went straight. We went left. There were notes on the map that you could potentially bushwhack straight up the side of the mountain instead of taking the trail the whole way and switchbacking up it. I had no energy with it being morning and all and I HATE bushwhacking but I didn't want to be a poor sport so we went straight up the side of the thing! It was perfectly safe except for the countless scratches (on sunburned skin) and spiders I acquired all over my body.

To be honest I didn't spend much time looking around today. I was pretty focused on looking at my feet and the daydream I was having. I did notice, however, when we entered The Bob Marshall Wilderness (aka - The Bob). I noticed because The Bob has some trail crews and I was having to climb over less blow downs. The Bob also appears to have suffered a bad burn. Most of the day after lunch was hiking through a burn area. We are also camped in a burn area tonight. It's not my favorite environment to sleep in. At least Panama, Beth, and the pups are camped out just along the way. As I said before, we all feel safer camping in numbers.