4/27

A plethora of color lay before me as I woke up with the sunrise. The sun itself had already breached the far mountaintop but the colors surrounding it were a warm pink faded to blue as you looked higher in the sky. Once again I dawdled a little in the morning but no where near the extent of the day before. I hit the trail and before I knew it the temperature was already miserably high. Heat stuck to me as I sweated profusely. After something like 12 miles I took a rest at a shelter. The heat as it was, I had been unable to travel very far without taking interval water breaks. I waited out the remainder of the beating down sun in the shade of the shelter. I can't wait to start exercising a plan for the summer temperature that I learned from Toast and Big Spoon. Treats and snoozing is I the name of the plan, and it is basically exactly what it sounds like along with an earlier idea I had.. This one just sounds better. 

Treats and Snoozin 

The idea is to merely get up early enough where you are hiking during the cooler temperature points of the day rather than hiking/suffering through extreme heat and building up a layer of sweat and slime that would otherwise take days to accrue. 

In the the middle of the day you ingest your "treats" (lunch and snacks, what have you) then immediately following it is time for a snooze, thus avoiding the high temperatures around the middle of the day. Bonus points for snoozing in shelters or finding air conditioning to lounge in (few and far between). Treats have no specificity.

I left the shelter around 6 with news that a storm would be rolling in. I hoped I would make the next shelter with a little bit of night hiking but around 10 I felt the first rain drop and immediately put up my tent and just called it  a day. 

My first night hiking adventure was not so much fun, but I think I am less bothered by the darkness now. This second attempt was cut short by weather so I will have to make a third attempt when it isn't overcast and about to rain to give a true test on my thoughts about night hiking. 

Tomorrow should be really interesting, there is a section along the trail with wild ponies that I have a been told are quite friendly. I would love nothing more for another day with stellar weather so I may enjoy their company on a hillside. Shoulda brought a bag of apples..