Day 65: beautiful trail, and my most painful day ever

Friday 6/22/12
Miles 792-810 (18 miles)
Elevation 10,736'

Gosh today was some of the most beautiful hiking ever! It was also my most painful day of hiking ever. Go figure. Lol. In the morning we passed by some really pretty lakes which i took pics of. Actually, there are lots and lots of lakes we pass by. Some are more visually outstanding than others. :) Around noon we came across a cool suspension bridge! I took lots of pics of it. It was neat to come across that. I definitely didn't expect to see something like that in the middle of the trail. Lol. Also, we hit 800 miles!! Yippee!!! :D

After the bridge the trail followed a gushing river. It was so incredibly cool! I took lots of pics of that too. There was also a waterfall which was rad. The crazy thing is, the water level is low this year since there was such little snow. I can only imagine how much more loud and powerful that river gets in a regular snowfall year.

Today we went up and over Pinchot Pass. The 8 miles of uphill getting to the pass was absolute hell for me. My stomach was in so much pain. I have no idea why. I wonder if it's from drinking bad water. My stomach was yucky yesterday too, but not as bad. I don't think it's bad water though, as that is usually followed by diarrhea, which I didn't have. Maybe it was the combination of all the weird food I ate. Who knows. But oh man, that was the most painful 8 miles of the whole trip for me. And it hurt the most when I was going uphill. I pretty much had no use of my abdominals, and every time I had to step up or over something it felt like my insides were ripping apart. Ugh. That sucked so much. :( it wasn't as bad when the trail wasn't so steep. The trail became more gradual of an incline 3 miles from the top, so at least it hurt less then. All I could think about was getting up to the top of Pinchot Pass. When I got to the approach to the pass, I checked my GPS. It said I was 1/2 mile from the top. Yay!! I figured I could crawl up there if I had to. Lol.

The descent down the other side was quite amazing. And my stomach didn't hurt anymore yay!! :) More scenic lakes. I took some pics. We made camp 2 miles down the pass. Originally we wanted to do a 20 mile day but we were both tired. That 8 miles of stomach pain seriously sucked the life out of me. It was so gnarly.

We found an amazing campsite with a super cool view. I took a pic of it. Its the one of the meadow with the trees in the background and the mountain on the left that looks like a pyramid. Oh, if anyone is curious, we don't camp at established campsites. And by established campsite, I mean guarantee flat-ish places to pitch a tent, usually a water source nearby, and sometimes a bearbox. There are some here and there, but we generally try to avoid them, because there are usually other people there, and they tend to have higher bear activity. Plus, i like to camp at 10,700'+ because the mosquitos aren't too bad at that elevation, so you can still camp by water and not get eaten alive. So we just wander around until we find a cool spot to pitch the tent :) the moon was pretty amazing. I took a pic of that too.
Brrr it's cold! Nap time :) goodnight!