NOLS Wind River Wilderness - Part IV


Part I  -  Part II  -  Part III  -  Part IV

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]










Part I  -  Part II  -  Part III  -  Part IV



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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