Day 84

7.1 miles 

Welp. Woke up today to having my period. I shouldn’t have gotten it as I’m in the middle of my birth control pack. So this is going to suck today. I started to feel the cramps coming on. Already straight to a 5/10 on the pain scale. 
I did not want to hike today. We wanted to hit Mammoth Lakes tomorrow though so we needed to get moving. 
Not going to lie at all… I thought about bailing out back to VVR. It would have been easy to do. But we knew we had to hike on. And I didn’t want to miss any miles. 
So up we went, to get to Silver Pass. Probably the slowest we have gone yet because Woodstock also wasn’t feeling her best self either. 
We both felt sluggish, in pain, and tired as all hell. 

The first part of the day we only did a mile an hour. Then the second part of the pass was a bit easier so we were able to pick it up a bit. I was in front after second snack time with my extra boost of energy from cheese strings. 
About .8 from the top we stopped for lunch by Silver Lake. I ate some tuna in some wraps, beef jerky, candy, and cheese. 
It was chilly while we rested so I had on my rain coat. 

I saw the clouds looking a little rainy so I kept on my coat for the next part of the climb as I knew it was going to rain. I told Woodstock but she didn't believe me lol.
I’m glad I did because about 4 minutes after we started hiking again, it started to rain. 

Then it started to really rain.
And then it started to hail.
And then it started to thunder. Extremely loud.
So we started to book it down the pass because we were exposed at the top.
Once we hiked about 1.8 more miles we stopped and set up our tents and got inside asap.
It rained/hailed for another 3 hours on and off. 
We decided to stay there for camp because I didn’t want to repack everything incase it started to rain again while we hiked on. 


After an hour or so some other hikers showed up and decided to camp near us. Then we saw Hippie and chatted with him for 30 minutes or so before he hiked on. 


After Hippie left we went to the lake and I decided to FINALLY hop into my first alpine lake. It wasn’t too cold so I was able to wade in and get comfortable before the plunge. It was so refreshing and nice. I will do it again for sure. Before the sierra I said I would daily and that hasn’t happened at all so I'm a little disappointed in myself. 

After the lake I dried off and got on warmer clothes and we went to chat with the other hikers. They are going SOBO on the JMT. 

They taught me a new game called Farkle. Which is a dice game. I won in the last round! It was definitely another highlight :) 

The sunset tonight was beautiful as well. 
I’m so glad the rain and hail got us to stop earlier than planned. Otherwise I wouldn’t have hopped in a lake, or learned a new game or seen this beautiful sunset. 
Silver linings every day

Sleep time now ​