Mountain Skirts and a Beautiful Bay

Miles 12.4

Camped at mm 244.8

Mice Are The Enemy. They climbed into the hole at the tiny mouth of my Ursack and chewed the top of my garbage ziplock bag and chewed a hold in my Opsack. They got a few mouthfuls of plastic but did not, thankfully, even touch any of my food. It makes me think about sleeping with my food, but then the mice might chew through my tent, and besides that would defeat the purpose of having a bear proof sack in the first place because what if a bear decided to open my tent? I think that would pretty much freak me out.

So anyway, the other shitty thing about it is that he ruined a perfectly good ziplock bag, and those things are precious out here. Especially the gallon sized ones. They are good for everything from holding crackers to protecting your puffy jacket if it’s raining. They are trash bags and great for doing laundry in. Heck, the other day I asked Anji for a ziplock bag and she’s such a good friend, she slowly handed me one of her two, looking very sad. I laughed and said I loved her so much I would never ask for her gallon size. I only wanted a regular size, but then I knew how deep our friendship ran, that she would even consider loaning me her gallon zippy.

We slept in and had a lovely morning with Denise at camp, but eventually we all had to go our separate ways once again. It was time to hike.
The views were spectacular. Mountains spread their skirts all over, making valleys down below. The climbs were slow and difficult and we felt like our legs would just plum fall off if we took one more step, but there was another view just beyond, so we kept on going.
Over one pass, we heard a horse freaking out down down down in the valley below.
Strange, I thought.
I wonder what he’s upset about, I said.
By the time we hit the valley floor, he’d screamed a few more times.
We decided to investigate. We stashed our packs behind a nice tree and hustled to where the noise was coming from. Was the horse in trouble? Was a person in trouble and the horse was trying alert someone to him?
Then there he was. A Beautiful Bay, all shiny and snorting and delicious in the afternoon light. Signs everywhere basically saying ‘no trespassing’, but using greatly enhanced and colorful language.
We took selfies with him anyway and then escaped back to the forest.
I”m glad we went back to check on him, I said.
Yeah, me too. Anji said.
We struggled on for the rest of the day, and there was little joy in it, but the joy that made its way from that horse into our souls would not be soon forgotten.
When it was time to find a place to sleep, we were well into a “cow country” area. There were heaps of cow shit everywhere. Piles of it. Green and Fresh and Schlopping.
We walked to stream number three and hunted around. The cows had decimated the camping area. Hooves plowed up the earth, enormous bodies rolled around in the mud, green sludge smeared all over the campsite area.
I played hopscotch with the cowpies and eventually found myself behind the camping area in the only safe spot around. A spot big enough for our two tents. An undisturbed plot of land.
This’ll do! I hollered at Anji.
She inspected and agreed that though not perfectly level, it would in fact, do.
We went to get water and had to fight our way through the bushes to try to reach a spot the cows hadn’t already trampled and pooped in at the creek. We gathered what water we could and put a water treatment tablet in there. After the water was treated, we filtered it and had dinner.
Eventually the chores were done and we laid down our weary heads. Alone and happy in the woods…