Backcountry Day 2

Cold night – July, middle of summer: 40 degrees F at night (I bought a hat at the store for $25 dollars that Aleksey keeps making fun of me about – He says it’s too much money – I say it is 40 degrees at night) We woke up around 8, relatively late for the outdoors, made tea and had breakfast. Aleksey’s diet for the trip mainly consisted of exquisite Ramen noodles, a delicasy of sorts, out of a plastic bag, Chef Boy Ardee (HEAVY metal cans), tuna fish, and a lot of Larabar’s. I sacrificed some extra weight and carried a lot of fruits, nuts, larabars and some tuna.
Our second day was a very productive one. We covered 15.3 miles – 12 uphill and 3 downhill. We transitioned to different environments so many times in a day, and had so many unique experiences that it feels like we combined 4 separate days into one – incredible. We walked through forests, marshlands, by snow!!!, on exposed rocks where no trees grew, by rivers, on rocks to cross the rivers, and plenty of lakes. Only two things were constant over all these areas – Aleksey and I were walking and Mosquitoes were feeding on our red blood cells. During one of the river crossings I was stepping carefully on rock after rock until I stepped on one very coarse and grainy rock. As I stepped on this coarse and grainy rock, or should I say foam on top of the water, I dropped knee deep with both legs into the stream. To my pleasant surprise, everything dried in about 40 minutes when we stopped for lunch.
11 miles into the hike we came across one of the most stunningly beautiful lakes I have ever seen. We snapped a few pictures, marveled at its beauty and packed up to go. As we started walking away I looked at the lake and realized that I did not want to leave without jumping into it, regardless of temperature – it was just too incredible. I stripped down (can’t get the clothes wet up there, would be way too cold) and walked out onto a log that was jutting out into the water. I had expected to walk to the end of the log and gracefully dive into this pristine lake. It did not work like this. When I got to the end of the log I realized it was WAY too slippery. My graceful dive into the lake ended up being an awkward sideways flop. AHHHH!! COLD!! COLD COLD COLD COLD COLD!!!
Earlier in the hike I took a break for about 10 minutes. During this time a yellow-bellied marmot lay down on a rock about 20 feet from me and began to stare at me. Every time I looked away he/she would move to a different rock, but would always continue to look at me. I have a feeling the marmot was simultaneously curious of me and scared that I was going to eat it. After several minutes of this staring back and forth the marmot ran away.
While on the subject of animals, the day was full of them. I had two close encounters with partridges (a type of bird the size of a large pigeon). The first time I surprised one and it started running around in circles flapping its wings trying to intimidate me. I was simply interested until it started running at me!! It started to attack me, but before it got too close I screamed at it and waved my arms – it stopped… completely still. We looked at each other holding our breaths for another second, and I left. The second encounter with them nearly made my heart jump into my throat. I was walking without paying attention to where I was going and three of them flew out of a tree simultaneously about 10 feet from me. It doesn’t sound scary but it was!!
Towards the end of the day I was walking about 30 feet ahead of Aleksey looking for a campsite. We were tired and just wanted to make a fire, eat some well deserved food and go to bed. I was startled by the sound of crushing leaves and sticks. About 100 feet from where I was standing I saw the very brown butt of a mid-sized bear running away from me. WOW, a bear… good thing it was running AWAY. That night I found a campsite with bear poop directly in the middle of it (this did not make us feel good), and thanks to Aleksey we moved to a much nicer and, more importantly, safer area to sleep and eat in. Good Night.