8/16/12

      It was so quiet last night. Completely peaceful and relaxing. This made for excellent sleeping conditions! The plan today was to hike our first 30+ mile day. So we woke up early and were on the trail just after 630. It feels so good to be on the trail that early. Birds are chipper and the air is still nice and cool.
   The day seemed to fly by though and around noon, it was just plain hot! It was a rather uneventful day really. Just walked a bunch. The first part of the day was characterized by lakes in the Mink Lakes Basin.  It was pretty, but too many mosquitoes. We hiked the last 8 miles by ourselves, always good to have alone time. This evening we began seeing the three large volcanic mountains known as the three sisters. They are so beautiful. Lupine is growing everywhere here right now, and the smell of them is intoxicating.
   My feet honestly hurt after 31 miles today. But we have also hiked 140 in the last 5 days, so it may not be the 30 mile days' fault. We finished hiking around 630. With 2 hours of breaks, it took us under 10 hours to go 31 miles. Not shabby at all!
     Next Friday, I am going to attempt to hike a 50 mile day. It will likely take me 16-20 hours, but I really want to try. Me and Lauren will hike solo for that period, good for us to have a night apart for once. Looking forward to a day off in Bend. We have so much we want to do though.