Day 156

Trek was awesome.

It was also quite eventful. I am still discovering scrapes, bumps, bruises and the odd sore muscle. I'm also still recovering in the sleep department, so this is likely to be a highly revised post as I come back and re-read it.

We kicked things off with a 7 hour or so car ride through Wyoming's vast array of sagebrush and nothingness. Fortunately, I was in a vehicle with 6 people that I now know are rockstars. There were Nate and Kristen and their 8 3/4 year old son, Hyrum. My fellow young single adults were Ben, Katie, and Julie. Since I have the leg length of your average Dachshund, I volunteered to sit in the very back with Hyrum. This was also a great arrangement because I've missed in depth discussions about Legos, Skippy Jon Jones, and various ways to play dodge ball. However, my the seating arrangement made things interesting due to the fact that I still very much wanted to get to know everyone else in the car, and apparently I am an elderly woman who is experiencing hearing loss. Somebody would say something up front, and I would hear something completely different in the back, if I heard anything at all. This would lead to conversations that went something like this 

(Actual excerpt):

I heard something about a helicopter

Me: Well, it would sure have its pick of where to land out here. It's wide open. (Chuckle)

Rest of car: Silence

Ben: What's landing, Stephanie?

Me: The helicopter. (Awkward chuckling as I wait for everyone to catch on)

Katie: None of us said anything about a helicopter . . . 

Me: Oh . . .

Eventually, we made it to Martin's Cove.  We only had a short 2 mile hike into the cove. 

It was relatively flat and a well paved trail. Everything went according to plan, except for the weather. The wind was strong enough that I could spread my arms and lean most of my weight into the wind and it would support me. I took a video that doesn't completely do it justice. Fair warning: Turn down your volume before watching.

After a very thought provoking trip through Martin's Cove, we hopped back into the cars for the hour trip to where we would set up camp. Ben was kind enough to cram himself into the back seat for this leg of the journey. I stretched out my legs in the next seat up, enjoyed the scenery out of the window, and felt slightly vindicated as this conversation took place:

Me: That is one of the most beautiful horizons I've ever seen in my life.

Ben: What dress?

Me: Huh?

Ben: The pretty dress you just talked about . . .

Me: HA! It's not my ears! It's the back seat! The words change between here and there! HA!

After nearly flying away while setting up the tent in the ridiculous wind, the weather began to calm a bit as we ate dinner and then were taught some square dances by the resident senior missionaries.

Then we unwound even more by playing jump rope with an enormous rope. We then played tug-of-war, stick-pull, and leg-wrestling. After spending a bit of time around the campfire, I hopped in my bed a bit early, with the hopes of being well rested for the next day's 10-mile hike.

Around 11:30 camp quieted down enough for me to drift off.

Around 12:15 I was awoken by a couple of the guys talking. I was beginning to be slightly annoyed, when my mind registered that they were talking about their tent being flooded with at least 4 inches of water.

My semi-coherent mind threw out the thought, "At least I'm sleeping on an inflatable pool float. I'll be fine."

Then the thought of a flooded tent fully sunk in and my eyes flew open in unison with my hand struggling its way out of my mummy bag to feel the ground around me.

Dry.

The floor was dry.

I started to breathe again. My tent with 5 girls had lucked out. Several other tents weren't so fortunate and had to wade with their stuff over to the trailer we used to haul stuff around in, which became a make-shift shelter. It was decided that we should move our tent a bit further away from our new shoreline property, just to be on the safe side. So, we all stumbled around in the dark to unstake our tent and maneuver it to a place that we deemed safer. 

I loved all the people who were on Trek. Seriously, these people are amazing. Even after all of this, I heard very little complaining. I fell back asleep to the sounds of the flood victims all laughing and joking from the trailer.

We woke up early to a gorgeous day and hit the trail.

 I found out later that there were conflicting reports floating around about the trail condition, but all that I heard was that we would encounter some water in our first 1/2 mile, and then we would be okay until the official river crossing, much later. In actuality, the trail-head was underwater. We were in and out of thigh-deep water for our first 3 1/2 miles. Nobody knew when the next flooded part was, so we spent a great deal of time drying our feet and changing in and out of our hiking shoes.

It was a really cool experience. Everyone was so quick to help each other in whichever way they could. It seemed like every time that I started into the water, someone was offering me a hand, or shouting out from ahead to tell me when I was approaching a hole under the murky water. Some of the smaller girls, and those with injuries, were carried across. 

I watched as men waded back and forth, sometimes in water up to their hips, to make sure that every girl made it across safely. These are some incredible people.

Would we laugh when somebody face planted and came up covered in mud? Oh, yeah. But, it would always be as several people were running forward with their hands outstretched to help them back up.

After lunch it was decided that we would take the fork ahead for the 6-mile loop, rather than our original 10-mile. The original purpose of going the whole 10 miles was to experience a river crossing, but, well, we were as water-logged as we cared to get from the unexpectedly flooded trail. I must confess that I was pretty bummed about not doing the entire 10 miles. I knew that I was becoming completely exhausted, but I was enjoying myself immensely. There were so many experiences on that trail that strengthened my faith and brought me closer to all of those around me. 

A little over half-way, I noticed that the most significant thing that was occurring, was something that was not hurting. I had been very nervous about my knees. Even with Aleve and my braces, they were feeling achy the previous day. I can only think that it must be a tender mercy that I did not feel one bit of pain in my knees during the 6-mile trek, up and down some steep hills and rough terrain. Near the end, I managed to trip and fall on my way out of a water-crossing. I went down hard, landing right with my knees on some rocks. This was when the tubing in my braces saved me from anything worse than some slight bruising and a few scrapes.

I am a very blessed girl.

After we made it back to camp I sat down, and never wanted to get back up. At that moment, I thought the patch of shaded grass where I had planted myself with my feet in the sun was the absolute best place in the entire world. Pulling a handcart requires muscles that I just don't use in everyday life. Every move that I made awoke soreness in parts of my body that I'm not certain have ever been sore before. 

So, of course, we did more square dancing. We all stumbled and staggered our way, laughing through the whole thing. Then one of the girls from the ward lead us all in yoga. I didn't get pictures of it, however I know that somebody else did. If I ever get my hands on them I will post them on here. There's just something about watching a bunch of pioneers doing Downward Dog that I find hilarious.

After a powerful fireside devotional, we spent a couple of hours cooking s'mores and talking around the fire.

Didn't turn out how I was imagining.
If you look closely you can see some pioneer silhouettes, though.

At some point I went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up, cleaned up the camp grounds and broke camp. On our way home we stopped at a site called Rock Creek Hollow, where 13 members of a handcart company died in one night and were buried. There was still an impressive amount of snow there.

The panorama feature on my camera decided the scene needed some pink.
Thanks, camera.

 After that, our long journey home was only broken by a stop to split a few big pizzas at Bear Lake.

While I was super excited to take a long, long hot shower and sleep on a bed, I was really sorry to see Trek end. It was an amazing adventure with some of the most magnificently stupendous people I have ever gotten to know in my life. I'd go just about anywhere with this group.