Dear Blog, here I am again! The Trinity Alps backpacking trip has passed over 2 months ago. It was the BEST vacation (wow) I've ever been on. Given my memory however, specific details were written down during the trip, good call. In summary, I'm up to doing it again anytime! And hope to go backpacking once a year.
Ok so here were my thoughts about the backpacking trip before we left. 1. It will be beautiful. 2. m has warned me that it may be difficult for me - uh if you say something like that, then I will certainly have to prove you wrong! 3. Could it be boring without technology for 4 days?! 4. And most important of all, how would I feel not being able to wash for 4 days!! Especially my hair, I hoped that I wouldn't gross myself out. I had planned on braiding my hair everyday to seal in the freshness (hopefully) and see how that would go. Fingers crossed. 5. Oh yes, almost forgot a very important thought, BEARS! I really wanted to see a bear. I do have my trusty bear spray if I ever need it. I bought a bear spray and tested it outside our townhouse. I felt the direction of the wind, and sprayed in the same direction otherwise it may end up all over me (I did wear sunglasses to protect myself). I pressed the lever for a millisecond, on response, a huge orange plume appeared about 20 ft away. I shrieked, freaked out at the expanse of it and ran back inside the house. At that exact moment, m who was sitting in the kitchen said 'honey, did you spray it?!' as he stumbled out of the kitchen. The kitchen window was open and the plume had entered the kitchen - oops. It was quite toxic in the kitchen with tearing eyes. So yes, the spray works. Passed by human inspection and approved by guinea pigs.
On the first day, a Thursday, Thursdays are the best because Friday is the day after, and weekends are shortly after! I don't really care for Tuesdays, I think mainly because that day was the weekly deliveries to the city with my dad and I had always dreaded it....Anyways, on the first day, which was a beautiful Thursday we hiked from the Stuart Fork Trail head to Morris Meadows. That was approximately 1500 ft in elevation gain, we did it from 8.30 am to 1.30 pm with 30 min of rest incurred by water filtration. During that time, I had a lot of time to contemplate about life. I was unsure what I wanted to do with my career. I want to achieve great things in life. And there are SO many things that I consider to be great achievements. The possibilities are endless which unfortunately makes focusing on one difficult. Ultimately, my goal is to help people health-wise. Whether it be curing cancer, alleviating pain, reversing diabetics, happy living through healthy living, fitness to improve health....a lot of the common diseases can actually be reversed and cured through dietary changes and through exercise. So I had been pondering about venturing into the field of disease prevention. It's no doubt always better to prevent a disease than to treat it when it becomes too late. It was a confusing time for me. I've since listened to audio books by motivational speakers such as Earl Nightingale and Zig Ziglar. It has helped me to gain some clarity and direction. I just need to take the first step. Everything begins with the first step, or the first goal. My goals currently are to learn about world history (since I didn't learn much history in high school and history is instrumental in shaping the present) and learn about clinical and sports nutrition. I want to write a diet/fitness blog (well, I actually already have a domain hehe), so I will need to gain a much better understanding about these topics. I will take the second step when I'm halfway through accomplishing these goals :). As well, it's inspirational to learn that humans on average are only using 5% of our brains' capacities. Our mental abilities are, for all intent and purposes, ENDLESS. Another great thing that Earl Nightingale said was, luck is when preparedness meets opportunity, and opportunity is always present. Combined, this means that the world is full of opportunities that I can realize with my endless mental capability. Wow, just wow :D. Back on topic, we arrived at the meadows by the Stuart Fork river. The meadow was a calm and immense yellow due to the drought, otherwise it would have been more beautiful. We met an old man camped there, Larry, who was shirtless and had a distinctive body odor. He was very eager to go to Mirror lake which is notoriously hard to find. M had found it last year with some serious rock climbing and scrambling and gave him some tips. Larry's childlike eagerness and impatience to go to Mirror lake was interesting and intriguing for his age. We never saw him again on our out-and-back hike. I wondered if he had passed out due to exhaustion, or perhaps he just went back down to prepare for better supplies till next time.
On the second day, I woke up very energetic and excited to see Emerald lake. We were supposed to hike 3 miles to Emerald Lake (according to m and his book) so I had assumed that it would be an easy day. It turned out not so much. We hiked from 8.10 to 11 am. It was actually 5 miles with about 1200 ft in elevation gain. The terrains around us changed from greeneries including ferns, to bushes then to mostly rocks with few coverings as we went up in altitude. Towards the end, there were steep sections like staircases featuring loose gravel. The view was beautiful. The only thing bugging us were the bugs. They would try to get near the eyes and inside the nose and mouth. Two suicided inside my nostrils. While m ate two out of annoyance. I thought of a Shark Tank idea. What if we can deter the bugs through acoustics, then no need for messy bug sprays/creams (that doesn't really work) or hat nets that are hard to see through or breath in. My protein level dipped as we climbed up. I wanted desperately some turkey sticks, but that was harder to reach at the bottom of the pack than the sugary trail mixes ewww. So yes, I was and still am on my version of a ketonic diet, low carb, very low sugar and high fat diet. Since the beginning of time, I wanted to get rid of fat on my tummy. That is where I accumulate fat. The exact details of my diet and progress are best detailed elsewhere, aka my diet/fitness blog. Briefly, I started the change in diet 3 months ago, my body fat was 21%, and it's now 20% (not sure how accurate my scale is for this). My weight has dropped from 139 lbs to 131lbs. I don't really care about my weight, since I love muscles and they weigh more than fat. I feel less hungry and have more energy at the end of the day as there were no longer sugar crashes. Oh the most important thing, I have less fat on my tummy now and can see (almost see) some abs! Before long we arrived at Emerald lake. The view was amazing. The lake was indeed an emerald color against beautiful mountains scattered with evergreens. On the opposite side, our campsite featured a backdrop of magnificent rugged sawtooth mountains triumphing above green valleys. I felt that I was on top of the world. We had lunch which consisted of tuna, mayonnaise and bacon bits, mmm fat and protein! Then we went exploring by the edge of the lake. M decided to go skinny dipping since we had the lake all to ourselves. I would never have thought this could be possible, but it looked like so much fun that I had to join! The rocks were super slippery and the water was ice-cold, so cold that it took my breath away as I slowly inched in. I tried to swim but it proved too difficult in the cold so I just treaded water to stay afloat, laughed and played. The experience was exhilarating and surprisingly refreshing. We got out and took turns drying ourselves on m's handkerchief sized towel (weight restrictions). We then went to relax on a rocky ledge on our sleeping pads overlooking the lake. As I lay there taking in the gorgeous view, a sudden sense of surreality swept through. I wondered how much would people pay to experience this, yet, it is free to anyone who is willing to travel there. The best things in life do come free. M went for some fly fishing while I continued relaxing. It was sunny and warm. I wrapped a sleeping pad over me to protect myself from the burning sun. Turquoise colored dragonflies were busy mating on the glistening water. A pair of deer gingerly walked to the lake's edge and started feeding. I wondered what they were eating. Weeks later I read about some breed of sheep on an island off of Scotland which exclusively live on algae. Perhaps the deers had acquired a taste for that too. The calmness was interrupted by the excitement of m reeling in a rainbow trout! It was small but apparently that's about the size they grow to due to the long winters and freezing temperatures. As I sat by the lake, I noticed something poking up under a rock in the water. It was a tiny snake! M helped me catch this little garter snake. It was pretty cool to hold him. I soon let him go and mused at why snakes are not scared of humans. M in his infinite pumpkinness, decided to swim the length of the lake and back. I knew this would be quite a feat, I was only able to swim a few meters before being winded. I saw m's shape slowly becoming smaller. The lake appeared deceivingly small and it was taking much longer than expected. For a moment, I couldn't see m anymore and became a bit worried. Then I saw his figure swimming along the shore. And suddenly, a naked white man (I call him Yeti) appeared scurrying on the rocks. It was a funny sight. The shortcut was short-lived as the Yeti jumped into the lake to finish the swim. He was huffing and puffing and finally came out of the river like a fish out of water. We then had dinner (Pad Thai) and I went to try some fly fishing with the help of my pro instructor. This was my second time fly fishing and I was feeling pretty good with my casting. It was harder than it looked though. I got a couple of bites. Each time I see the fly sink, I'd think, omg I have a bite, then pull up - but the millisecond thought of 'omg I have a bite' proved to be long enough for the fish to spit out the fly and get away. Possibly left feeling as disappointed as I was.
Late at night, as we were sleeping in our cocoons, I was awakened by an incoming rainstorm. It was super windy, I thought the wind might carry the tent with it. Dust sifted through. I was very nauseous and wanted to vomit (m wasn't much help), come to think of it, it may have been the time when the egg implanted :(. I felt sorry for myself and drifted back to sleep. In the morning, we woke up to some residue light rain and decided to sleep in. When the rain stopped, I found my shoes and socks all wet! I left them outside the tent beneath a flap but the wind must have carried the rain through. M wisely left his stinky shoes and socks inside the tent....It was not fun putting on soggy socks and shoes. Thankfully, after a few minutes, I totally forgot about it. We had breakfast and left for Sapphire lake at 9.15 am. The first part involved some bushwhacking, m went first and his shoes and pants were soaked to above the knee. I fared much better. I thought that was a little tough but it was just the beginning. The terrain soon turned rocky and we scrambled across it. Before long, big boulders stood before us and the real rock scrambling began. We traversed across the rocks like 3-legged mountain goats. An hour, 1 mile and 400 ft in elevation gain later, we arrived at Sapphire lake. This lake was indeed sapphire colored. What appropriate names! Emerald lake and Sapphire lake. I could only imagine what Mirror lake would be like. M pointed to me where Mirror lake lay. If I thought that the bushwhacking and rock scrambling were difficult coming up to Sapphire lake, they would be much harder going up to Mirror lake. Where there is a challenge there is the rightful feeling of accompaniment and triumph after conquering it. We would go to Mirror lake some day. Soon we headed back down as it had become chilly and we had a full day of hiking ahead. The way down was much easier. I also got delirious. I talked about making kung pao chicken, the real kind! With chopped up chicken pieces from a whole chicken and real spicy too. I could picture what it looked like, smelled like and imagined eating it. An hour later, we arrived back at Emerald lake, had our trusty tuna/mayo/bacon bits lunch while I dried my still damp shoes and socks under the baking sun. The descend down to the meadows began at 1.15 pm. On the way, we saw another garter snake. This time a pretty big one, laying in the middle of the trail refusing to move. I don't know how it managed to survive for so long, it looked like a pretty tasty protein packed meal. We arrived at the meadows at around 3.30 pm and was greeted by a black fuzzy caterpillar covered with orange trimmings running across the path. It was so fast! I think if I had been in its path it would have just kept going, ewww. An hour and a half later we arrived at our final campsite, Alpine camp. It would have been half an hour sooner but m had to stop for a water filtration break. The campground was spacious and beautiful by the river with a fireplace, logs for dining and seating, and plenty of lush tree covering. After seeing that speedy caterpillar however, I suddenly felt itchy all over thinking that a caterpillar had fallen from some leaves onto me. I asked m constantly to check me for creepy crawlies - he didn't object. After dinner, I joined m to go nymphing. M was serious with focus but was contradicted by his cuteness and awesome hair. He soon caught a small brook trout! I was taught how to nymph too but was less successful. I grew tired of it pretty quickly and wanted to go back. I had a feeling that m was more excited teaching me fishing than I was learning it, while I had more fun just relaxing and watching him fish. Finally I was let off the hook.
On the fourth and final day of our backpacking trip, I woke up like the days prior, letting my braid go and brushing my hair before braiding it up again. I'm happy to report that my hair still retained it's freshness after 4 days in the wilderness. Just a touch of oil appeared on the roots on the last day. This means that I could comfortably hike for up to 4 days without washing my hair, phew! We started the hike back to the trailhead at around 8 am and arrived two and a half hours later. We talked about all the food that we would eat when we get back to civilization. And we lived true to our words.
A day after we were back in civilization, I wished I was back in the wilderness. Typically a 4-day weekend seems to go by so quickly. This 4-day trip however, felt like a lifetime in another world. One with fresh air, beautiful scenery, wonder and the incredible and overwhelming feeling of smallness in the boundless mother nature; where doubts and uncertainties are absorbed and replaced with fresh perspectives and clarity. LG, life's good :).
