Day 25: Woke up around
9:30. Nice to kind of sleep
in. We said goodbye to the other
group, then I went to clean up Kitchen stuff. Had some Tea.
Left camp around 11:30.
Felt kinda low-energy with no food in stomach. Kinda hungry too.
Feeling went away while hiking.
Felt pretty good actually.
Terrain & landscape changing quite a bit. Rolling hills, more forest, nice. We’re camping at Dream Lake today. Got in around 3pm, it’s almost 5pm now. Pretty hungry. Read Catcher for a while, sun bathing
at the same time. Chillin. Nate and Reese busy hacking[27]
away. This fasting stuff is really
hard. My stomach doesn’t hurt yet
but it’s the thinking about food 24/7.
Horrible. Can’t wait to
eat. I’ll try to find something to
keep me distracted. By the way I
had mad Athletes Foot going on.
Like really bad. The worst
I’ve ever had. Hurts
sometimes. Skin cracked, bled a
bit. Already started using
Lamisil. Hope it gets better.
Went to take a dump
afterwards. Nice. TP: flowers. Then went to take a
swim. There was a mini-beach and
everything, really cool. The water
was delicious. Nicer than Ati[28]
actually. Capable of actually
staying in the water and swimming.
Really sweet. Laid out on
rocks for a while after that.
After that we went to have our fasting dinner which consists of
Tea. Period. Played card games, all 6 of us. Black Jack, Poker, and BS. Fun-fun. Takes your mind off food. I was considering fasting 3 days but for sure I’m doing only
2. That means I’ll be eating again
in 36 hours. Damn. I don’t know what tomorrow will be
like. I’ll probably just try to
sleep lots or just lay around when we get to camp. Anyway, 9pm now, time to sleep. Cant wait till I eat.
But I’m not actually feeling bad.
I just want to eat.
Soon. Good first Small
Group Day. I’m going to sleep.
Day 26: Woke up at around 8am. A small plane was flying in circles by
our campsite really low.
Strange. Maybe they were
looking for someone. Made some Tea
for breakfast. I was feeling so
low-energy. Like I just wanted to
lay there & not get up. Felt
all light headed and light everything.
Felt like air. Got really
tired doing anything. Packing,
walking, standing up. Would always
just stop what I was doing and throw myself on the floor. Not very fun. Couldn’t get food off my mind either. It’s crazy. All I think about is food. Food we’ll make when fast ends. Food I need to eat at Lander. Food I need to buy and bring back home. Food I have to eat back home. Food I’d like to cook back home. Being 30 days in the wild and especially
these 2 days fasting has built this huge appreciation for food. Can’t wait to eat. For breakfast, literally, we’re making
hash browns, granola, and I’m making scrambled eggs with cheese + sausage and
also beans. I miss breakfast back
at Guate. I miss tortillas & avocado. I’d give anything for an avocado and a
lime. Anyways start of the hike
was pretty tough. Felt like
air. Felt better as we kept on
hiking. I led the whole day. Feel much better that way. Had a pretty good pace actually. Had to wait for the girls every once in
a while. Took 2 breaks, always
hiked more than 1 hour I think. We
were talking about how we’re much stronger right now than at the beginning of
the course. At the beginning
hiking 4 miles was like aaahh! Now
it’s like, whatever. And that’s on
an empty stomach. 1 ½ days of not
eating. I can seriously feel I’m
in a much better shape than when we started. It’s pretty cool.
Anyway we’re camping beside Sheep Lake. We got here an hour ago, still haven’t set up tent yet. Everyone just chillin. Reese asleep, Nate reading the
Cookery. He says it’s cruel. Torture reading all that good
stuff. I’ll probably read it
later. We’re thinking of doing a
coffeecake tomorrow at next camp.
Really stoked about that.
I’m hella tired right now, probably I’ll take a nap. Doubt I’ll swim. Can’t wait till breakfast.
Read NOLS Cookery cover to
cover. Really good recipes in
there. Psyched about cooking back
home. Kind of fell asleep afterwards. Woke up to set up tent, fell asleep
again. Feel so weak. Standing up is like Whoa! And I get
dizzy at times and my extremities tingle.
Freaky. Woke up for tea
time. Played some Black Jack. I currently owe like 8 tacos. Damnit. Played some BS too.
Stomach aches a bit. Got
into tent around 7. We all worked
on our Food Lists. It’s
insane. Fantasizing about all this
delicious food once we get back.
We’ll be eating 24/7. I’m
off to sleep now. Peace.
Day 27: Didn’t get to sleep
till around 10. Big stomach
ache. Kept on thinking about
food. Woke up lots of times in the
night, hella windy. It was crazy. Anyway finally woke up when it was
5am. Instantly killed small bag of
fruit granola. So good. Never tasted something so good. Went to kitchen, started cooking 1 ½ lbs
of hash browns. While it hydrated
had 2 bowls of fruit granola with mad milk + cashews. Delicious.
However, when Hash Browns were ready, I was already full. And to top that off, I added way too
much hot sauce. Didn’t even finish
my bowl. And we cooked only like
1/3 of the hydrated stuff. So now
I’m carrying more than 1lb of hydrated hash browns we’ll cook later. Anyway, after hash browns felt pretty
sick. Not good to break a fast
with that amount and type of food.
Never even got around to making eggs. Tomorrow maybe.
Felt sick, had a hot drink, went back to “bed”. Pulled my sleeping bag & pad
outside and slept there in case I needed to puke. Luckily I didn’t.
Slept 1 ½ hrs, woke up to have another hot drink. Then chugged down like 600ml of H2O
with fruit punch. Bad idea. Felt sick again, plus the water tasted
like mud. So freakin’
disgusting. Disgustingly
disgusting. Took a dump later on,
felt kinda better. I’ve reduced my
TP diversity to only 1 flower. I
think it’s called Lupin. I’ll have
to check in the book. Need to take
some pics too. NOLS Goldie
again. Anyway we’re all packed
right now, got a 7 1/2 mi hike ahead of us. It’s already 11am, 2hrs later of ETD. Oh well. It’s just gonna be sunnier. We’ll see how it goes.
Nate is already trying to get us to leave.
The hike was
beautiful. Hiked up to a kind of
plateau. All flat and flowery with
a great view of some jagged peaks, really cool. Felt pretty good, actually really good now that we’re
hiking, I mean eating again. Took
lots of pictures. Hiked in open
spaces like meadows and besides some really cool lakes. Marms & Dads Lakes. Nice hike. Got to camp, finally got to do our normal routine of drop
packs & eat. Good times. Got our tent set up and went to
bake. Made a coffeecake. Very very good. I made the strudel. It came out really good. One of the best things we’ve
cooked. Then I cooked a delicious
rice dish like the one I made in the Enchanted Forest. Really cool. The girls’ stove is busted so they used ours later. We also made a batch of cookies that
night in the tent. Yummy. Cool day overall.
Day 28: Woke up around
7. We’re now sharing a stove with
the girls cause theirs is busted and they can’t fix it. Made some Cheesy Biscuits very very
yummy. Good breakfast. Once again left camp pretty late. We were camping in Fish Creek Park, in
the wrong map sector. Saw another
NOLS course. Oops. Didn’t have paces right either. Oh well. Got walking around 10.30. Cool hiking.
Mostly in forest, along streams, passing ponds, really cool. Lots of pics. Got to Boulder Lake, kind of lost trail. Found it after a while, lost it again,
hiking in huge marshy swamp thing really cool. Found trail again.
Good map reading. Kept on,
rest of trail pretty good, got lost a few times, found trail again with help of
karins or carins whatever. Hike
thru Aspen forests.
Beautiful. There were tons
of them all white, really nice.
Good trail, no need for bearing to Irish Canyon. Hooked up with it, loosing
elevation. Changing plants. Lots of sage brush, pretty cool. More dry, arid area. Around 4pm walk into our camp not far
from road after Irish Canyon. Only
we find the lake we were camping next to is DRY. No water, only marsh. Kept on downstream to good campsite
with H2O. Nasty dirty river, H2O
kind of clean though. Just
illusion. Saw 2 beaver damns. Very cool. Never seen one before. Made bread dough, let it rise. Meanwhile made falafel paddies, real yummy with friend onion
and spices and garlic. Girls made
Macs + Chilli: DISGUSTING. Luckily
had the delicious bread after that in tomato dip sauce. Yummy.
We’re now all outside in the night by ourselves
under the stars. It’s like
10pm. Really peaceful. Quiet. Kind of sad, last day out in the wilderness. Went by so fast.
Happy to go back to civilization, yet not. Life out here is so simple, so peaceful. The best. Never stressed out, constantly happy. Great hiking, great camping, great
cooking, great fishing. Wonderful
views. Wildlife to see. Forest, snow, swamp, rivers, lakes,
boulder fields, mtn passes, saddles, peaks, valleys. So much stuff these last 28 days. It’s really been incredible. I’m really going to miss this peace and quiet and solitude
you find only by going out to the wilderness. It clears your mind.
Going to stop writing now so I can look at the stars for a while. Peace.
Day 29: Last night was
incredible. About 5 minutes after
I stopped writing we heard some coyotes howling, Sooooo cool. There was one howling all solitary and
then we heard another one respond to it from faraway. It was great.
And I saw tons of shooting stars.
So nice to just be lying down at night under the stars listening to the
howls. Eerie and kind of
scary but at the same time you just wanted to lie there and keep on hearing
that. So cool. Later on went back to tent to
sleep. Everyone psyched because of
the coyotes.
Woke up, made lots of pancakes, left camp at 9. Hiked on grazing lands, finally hit the
road, followed to camp. Other
small group already there. Good to
see everyone again. Had group debrief.
Then prepared all equipment to leave. Consolidated all stuff. Then just sat around chillin’ and chatting. Had my Eval. Got an O.K. in almost all check boxes. Had plenty of Need Improvement in areas
like Leadership & Communication.
Got Excellent in Fishing.
Fishing only.
Whatever. They said I
didn’t share past experiences either.
I guess they’re right. Had
dinner, made some banging cornbread.
Cous Cous OK. Mashed
potatoes OK. Scrambled eggs tasted
like feces. Spit it out. Throw all of it in trash. Then had a reading & talking about
what we wanted to leave and what we wanted to take from this course. I’ll probably go to sleep somewhere
alone tonight. Want to be back in
Lander now. I don’t like this not
in Nature but not in Civilization situation. Just want to sleep and wake up and see the bus and have real
milk and cereal and juice. Later.[29]
Footnotes
[26] Small Group
Expeditions. Six students with no
instructors for about 3 or 4 days.
[27] kicking
around a hackey sack
[28] Ati = Lake
Atitlan, in Guatemala
[29] The journal
ends here. Never got around to finishing it.
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