Today we woke up at the property in tents apparently we were supposed to get out of the tent at 6:45 but, we didn’t end up stumbling out till 8. Today started very tramaticly because as soon as I opened the door of my tent a little bit, a cricket came in. Zoe was halfway out of the tent and I started screaming “cricket in the tent, cricket in the tent” apparently everyone thought I was saying get back in the tent so they were all just confused. Overall it was hectic and a way to start the day. After that we drove to Dloras where for the first time we went to the three chicks cafe. I thought it was very good. We ate pastry in the car on the way to the trailhead for today. We started driving down a dirt road toward the trailhead and eventually came to a turn off at first I thought it was a trail not a road along with the very clear off highway vecal signs there was also 1.5 miles of blonders, fallen trees, dips, puddles, and even a stream. It took 10 minutes. Everyone else was freaking out that was were going to die or get a flat tire, meanwhile I was learning about the American revolution via the Hamilton playlist I had downloaded the day before we left for the roadtrip. If you want a better take on the actual road I suggest someone else’s post because I wasn’t really paying attention. Once we did make it to the trailhead we leathered up on bug spray and sunscreen. The hike was hard today it started by going Up a thousand feet to a sattle in between two mountains. Once we were almost at the top we passed a big group of hikers and almost everyone of them told us the part we were doing right then was the hardest part. I honestly have no idea what they were talking about because that was easy compared to later. Once we made it to the top there were two options go back to the car or go down the other side of the mountain. We went down the other side. Boy was it steep instead of enjoying the the downhill for the time being I was thinking about going back up. It was very steep and in the back of my mind for sure. Once we made it down it was “mountain flat” aka Illinois steep. After crossing some streams and having some lunch we decided it was time to turn around because of the big storm clouds and thunder. We also know we had to get back above tree level before we could make the final decent to Fred. It was a lot more uphill then I remember and i I was already tired and my stomach was also not feeling the best. When it came time for the big uphill I had a hard time. I couldn’t breathe right because of the thin air and it was 1000 feet up over what felt like less then half a mile. We did make it to the top and once we did there was no time for a break and we booked it down we were above tree level and we slowly being covered by big black clouds. We did survive and the rest of the hike was fairly easy because it was all down. We made it back to Fred and packed up poles, took off boots, and locked our waters I think the fastest we ever had. My dad drove down the road/ trail thing and it started to rain just as we got off the road we went to the hotel took showers and then got dinner from a amazing pizza reastrunt. We also went to moose and Moore for ice cream after which was the perfect way to end the day.
Day 32
