Backpacking Trip Part 2

The first morning of our trip Mike dropped us off about 8:00 am and we set off enthused and hopeful.  The trail was very much up and down and very rocky.  I didn't realize that most of the way would be rocks and boulders everywhere, and I stumbled a lot trying to get over and around them, and had two fairly significant falls.  Jeannie insisted on carrying my tent as well as the sleeping pad, and they made me carry two of the trekking poles for more stability on the rocks.  After the 2nd fall Ara actually took my pack and put it on front to back, with her own pack back to front, and I don't know how she did it, but she did. 

It was fairly warm all day and drizzly although the rain didn't reach us through the trees enough to get us totally wet.  That night one of them got a text from Mike informing us that a huge rain storm was heading right through the area we were camped in.  Jeannie and I were in my 2-person tent, and Ara in her 1-person tent, with the tent doors facing each other.  All of the sudden after the rain came pouring down faster and heavier than I've ever experienced, Ara yelled that her tent was leaking.  We opened the tent doors and she threw our packs in (she had kept all our packs in her tent), then came her wet sleeping pad and mattress, and then she flew in soaking wet.  The three of us slept in my dry tent and though it was crowded with 3 of us plus all our gear, it was cozy and sort of fun.

The rest of the time the weather was maybe 70 and fairly cool, but good hiking weather.  There was no let up from the rocks, and about mid-day on the 2nd day I took a really bad fall, striking the left side of my face on a sharp rock.  I worried that I broke my nose or else shattered my cheekbones - it ended up I didn't break anything except some blood vessels in my left eye, and have a huge ugly red injury on my cheek, a very bad cut below my knee, and superficial cuts on my nose.

  I didn't think I could continue, but being in the middle of nowhere I had no choice.  I would have bailed out the first day, and certainly after the second, but Jeannie had flown out from CA and she and Ara had put so much into this trip, and my pride in continuing what I started made me keep going.  I am in sad shape now and it will probably take a while to heal, but I'm going to be ok eventually.  I'm so glad I kept going and feel the accomplishment did a lot for all 3 of us.  We didn't hike many miles total, but for the terrain and the accidents it didn't matter.  The closeness we all feel and the loving help they gave to me makes such a difference.

I'm still going to be posting photos for a while - many seem to be redundant, but I have photos taken by Jeannie and Ara with their iPhones, plus I haven't even looked at the ones I took with my camera.

The lake picture is actually where our hike ended and Mike picked us up, although none of these pictures nor the ones to follow are in chronological order.  (Having trouble with Blogger, so I will just close this post out and continue tomorrow.)