Friday, June 19—Day 58

Pinchot Pass sucked. We’d camped seven miles short last night, and I found myself tired and sluggish for those seven miles. The area before the pass was beautiful. Grassy meadows with Deer grazing, unafraid. Blue skies, lakes, and the bright orange and deep green of pine trees, all framed by rocky, snowy mountains.

When the trail began to climb up the pass, things changed. There was a lot of snow on the south side of the pass, and the sun had already warmed it to melting. I postholed the whole way up, sinking in to my shins, my knees, my hips. Trying to get out of hip-deep snow is exhausting after a while, and when we finally crossed over the top of the pass, I was both triumphant, and a sort of poor winner, saying all sorts of terrible things and making gestures at the slopes behind us. The mountains returned the favor, as we had to ford river crossing after river crossing, each one wider and faster than the last. For every ford, I took off my boots and socks, rolled up my pant legs, and stepped in the freezing cold water. The current tried to sweep my feet out from under me, and almost succeeded a few times. The water pushed and pounded my legs, reaching halfway up my thighs and soaking my pants, and it was all I could do to keep my balance, stepping carefully and not so carefully on the rocks along the bottom. None of us fell in, but we were soaked and freezing anyway when we finally set up camp. I can still hear the roar of water all around me. I miss the desert. ‘Night.