First Full Day!

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Today was the first FULL day of hiking.  We all woke up at 8:30 AM after a relatively sleepless night.  We had bagels with peanut butter for breakfast and more fresh fruit.  We wanted to eat the fresh fruit quickly because we realized how heavy they weighed.  We were able to pack up all of our things very quickly and set out at around 10:00 AM.  We were afraid because we didn't hit our first checkpoint at the first day and were already behind schedule.  We really turned up the volume and hiked fast and hard.

truck roof smashed, camper flew off
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The day remained cold because of the strong breeze.  It was still around the 60s and I had all of my clothes on and still cold.  We hit our desired checkpoint and picked up the water, though we didn't need it.  I carried a gallon in my hand and others put it in their packs.  You can imagine how heavy our bags were!  Because of this, we drank water quickly and freely, which was probably a really good thing.  We took a lunch break at the side of the Geology Tour road.  There, we ate tuna and crackers, fresh fruit, trail mix, granola bars, and relaxed.  All of a sudden, we see a red Toyota truck (a lot like Ryan's) come down the dirt road.  It was drifting through a turn.  I wasn't immediately set off because I, too, drifted a little on our way to drop off the water-package.  But this guy was drifting a little too much out of control, he lost control of his truck, hit the side lip, ramped in the air, flipped over, landed on the roof, flipped right-side up, and stopped just 30 feet away from us!  We all bolted for the car to see if the passengers were okay and THANK GOODNESS he was!  The driver was alone and completely unscathed!  He got out of the car, completely smashed (see the pictures), and helped us pick up his scattered belongings from the dirt road.  I was very glad that we didn't have to perform CPR or any first aid at all!  He asked us for a ride out of the park and we had to tell him that we were just backpacking through.  Luckily, the dirt road was well traveled and people came by within the next 15 minutes.  A ranger came and it was all sorted out.

It was a terrible night again....boo.

if he had a passenger, he/she would have been badly hurt
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We continued on our path and traveled through a mountain range to get to Juniper flats.  We REALLY pushed ourselves that day in order to make up for starting behind. We hit Juniper flats and immediately started looking for shelter from the wind.  We found a nice rock that let us set up downwind of it.  We boiled water and had more delicious dehydrated meals.  Sleep was so much nicer because the wind was absolutely dead even without the rock!  But it was still very very cold, probably in the 20s again.  I had a tough time staying asleep and so did Donna.  Next time, we'll both get liners and make sure to get good sleeping bags.  Mine is a coleman rated to 20F but I have a feeling that it's probably only good to high 30s.  I'm really dissatisfied with this coleman bag.  Oh well, it was cheap and I get what I paid for.

scott basking in the sunlight, trying to rest
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It was a terrible night again....boo.