Back packing!

Well I did it. I survived my first back packing trip! This is something that I've been wanting to try every since Tyrel and I started dating. But due to my anxiety and increasing fear of getting attacked by wild animals, I always backed out. Well this time, it was for our 1 year anniversary and I made sure Tyrel didn't let me back out of it. We left early Saturday and came back the next day. We hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail starting near the Dee Wright Observatory and then hiked almost 8 miles to the Washington Ponds near Mt. Washington.

The first part of the trail was through the lava fields, which was actually really cool. It was pretty tough walking through the rocks though after awhile. Once we got through the lava fields it was a normal trial, but both of us were expecting a forest with lots of pretty trees and shade from the sun, but instead we walked through dead trees

Apparently there was a forest fire and it took out all the section of the trees that we happen to be hiking through, so we walked almost 8 miles in the direct sun for 90% of the time. What's even worse is that when we got closer to Mt. Washington lots of logs covered the trail, you couldn't even see it! But we made it to the end and started to set up camp. And that's when the mosquitoes came. Now I was expecting there to be mosquitoes considering we were going to be by a pond, so I packed bug spray. We set up camp but the bugs just kept coming and there were literally swarms of mosquitoes through out our camp site. I constantly sprayed bug spray on both of us but it did NO good. We had to resort to hiding out in our tent for pretty much the rest of the night. Couldn't even enjoy watching the sunset.

The next morning, we were ready to leave and we just packed up our stuff so we could get some relief from the swarming mosquitoes and hiked 2 miles before we stopped to have breakfast. I will admit we booked it out of there haha. The walk back wasn't too bad until we started going up hill and that's where I started struggling. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it back up the mountain. But I'm so lucky to have a wonderful husband you coached me along, making me slow down and take lots of breaks. I will tell you when we got to the top, I felt huge satisfaction that I had made it! The last part of the hike was all down hill which was really nice, because by then I could definitely feel the weight of my pack.

Aside from the swarming mosquitoes I would say this trip went really well. I got to experience what it's like to camp out in the woods while eating freeze dried foods. And learned how important it is to carry extra water. Because we kept getting eaten alive by mosquitoes we never did find water and both of us were pretty much done so we set up camp. I would defiintiely do it again, now that I know what to expect.

Great anniversary hike!

I held my phone outside the tent long enough to get this picture...