Day 17

July 19, 2012 Oh what a miserable night! It rained, the wind blew, and it got chilly. I had crazy dreams that I was Stevie Nicks’ secret daughter. Odd? I also dreamed I was BFFs with the Avett Brothers. I woke up super anxious about summiting Glen Pass. It was super windy so we didn’t make coffee, just ate my breakfast bars and got packed. Glenn was not easy. These passes are insane. Like a mountain of rocks and a thousand switchbacks. Ugh. When we finally got to the top the pass was so narrow that there was just room for your feet and the wind gusts were 30 – 35 mph, but they felt more like 50 mph due to our precarious position at the top of the pass. It took us 1.5 hours to get over Glenn Pass. The way down was steep and every person we saw asked us about the fire. Apparently, its almost out or further enough away for people to get out. Today is Thursday, I know because I asked a girl who was hiking with her dad. She couldn’t believe that we had been out in the woods so long that we forgot what day of the week it was. We saw tons of people who were taking a long weekend to go to Ray Lakes. The funniest scenario began when we met this older Asian man hiking up Glenn while we were hiking down. He asked us if we had seen two little girls and an older couple walk by. We had not, so he grunted, said “forget them” and kept walking up the trail. We thought it odd, but kept walking. Half a mile later, we hear little girls yelling and see a big backpack sitting in the middle of the trail. We hear “help me daddy” so we assume some kid is in trouble and so we start walking faster down the trail where the voices are coming from. We start getting nervous that we might have to help these weekend visitors to our woods, because after 17 days, they are OUR woods. We finally come across an extremely pissed off Asian lady with two young daughters behind her, trudging up the hill. They were yelling their heads off for their dad to come back. The girls were safe. The mom asked us if we had seen him and we relayed our experience. She was furious ! Called him stupid, etc. We kept walking, but for the next several switchbacks down we could hear her screaming for her husband who apparently told the girls a wrong turn. We met several people below who had been swept up in the family drama and we all had a good laugh. Later we were informed that the family was reunited . We had lunch of tuna  Then walked up as far up towards Forester Pass as we could safely. By the time we got to the last camping area off the trail, there were only a few campsites left – thanks to this large group of teenage boys who are camping here. I suspect they are boy scouts. As usual, while camping near boy scouts, it is hard a for a girl to find a place to use the bathroom, especially when there are no trees. What would be amazing would be if they came up to me and offered me a candy bar. A girl can dream, right? Love, Wishful Thinking