Sunday May 30th

Ian slept the longest I'd seem him sleep in a very long time - he did not rise until 10 a.m. I thought about waking him up, but figured that he deserved to sleep as long as he wanted to on vacation, especially considering that he's been an early riser for the past year or so.

After breakfast, we broke down the yellow & blue North Face tent because it is a fairly cold tent on cold nights, and set up the green & yellow tent we have always used.

Today was the day for the Big Hike - Agawa Falls Trail. The day was quite nice - sunny and hot enough for shorts & a tank top. The trail sounded doable - 24 K. We reached Black Rock Pool, which was a wider part of the river the trail followed. A sign there claimed that the distance to the falls was 7 K, so we thought that we didn't have much farther to go.

However, this was not true. The trail went on and on. We kept thinking after awhile that the Falls had to be just around the corner. The scenery along the way was very beautiful, but the trail became extremely rugged after a few kilometers. There were many very steep, rocky ups and downs. My knees were not handling the beating, despite the fact that I was babying them as much as I could.

Aside from our stop at Black Rock Pool, we did not stop to rest or eat. We ate a little as we hiked, and I eventually had consumed almost all of my liquids, which included three water bottles, and half a bottle of sports drink.

I finally reached a point at which my body told my mind that it could not continue without a substantial rest period. We stopped beside the river, where we ate more food, and I used our filter pump to refill all of our water bottles from the river (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ianjones/pictures/North04/North04-Pages/Image11.html). Black flies were plaguing Ian, so we had to move on more quickly than I would have liked, since I really needed a long break.

Having not had time to digest my food or rest long enough, I was still extremely fatigued, yet we had to immediately climb a series of sheer rock walls in order to turn back and return the way we'd come. I was pathetically weak, and yet Ian was still going strong, and he was steadily gaining ground on me.

At some point, however, some Girl Scout cookies (Thin Mints) and whatever else I ate and drank must have kicked in, because I began to feel revived. When we reached Black Rock Pond, we examined the "7 K" sign a little more closely, and noticed that someone had scratched a "1" in front of the "7", and "no fucking way" after the "7 K". I got a pretty big kick out of that, because that was my impression as well. It made sense if the original "24 K" we'd seen referred only to the distance in, because 7 + 17 = 24.

After this hike, the Coastal Trail seemed pretty easy, although up until this point, it had been our most challenging hike of the vacation. Near the end of the hike, I was feeling stronger, although at the end, I was pretty tired.

Back at the campsite, I took a tepid (and not to be repeated) shower, and then we claimed our reward of sitting out on the beach reading and chowing down on snacks. I could not stop eating cheese. Between us (and most of this was Pam), we ate half of a brick of smoked Gouda.

After dinner, Ian could see that I was extremely tired, and very kindly told me to get lost while he cleaned up. I laid on the beach for awhile watching the sky, until I felt strong enough to sit up.

Despite lots of snacking, and a full dinner, I was still hungry. I crawled into the tent quite early - before dark - and wolfed down two pop tarts and a bunch of Girl Scout cookies. I fell asleep quite early.

The yellow tent was indeed warmer, but it appeared that we'd switched tents too late, because it simply wasn't as cold up here as it'd been in the U.P. The yellow tent holds heat so well that I was too warm.
^ Up North, May - June 2004 < Saturday May 29th Monday May 31st >