The morning of the third day, the weather again cooperated. The fog lifted and skies cleared revealing another glorious day. We left our packs and started our climb up Mount Olympus to the Blue Glacier. Knowing this four-mile hike would ascend 2,000 feet, we still felt confident of our ability to reach the top, until...
Halfway there, we encountered the trail of doom. A narrow, skree covered trail, with a crumbling cliff on one side and a steep plunge on the other. The introduction to this portion of the trail was a steep, slippery, skree descent that ended in a 90-degree turn, giving one the feel that if you lost your footing you would shoot straight out over the edge.
We successfully navigated this section and continued our climb. At the top, we popped over a rise and our senses were blasted by a glorious view of the Blue Glacier stretched out below us. Words and pictures cannot convey the powerful beauty of the towering snowcapped mountains that cradled the rugged glacier. We sat in awe, drinking in the beauty, before starting our descent.
Let's take a moment to talk about knees. Specifically, Elaine's knees and how they don't work right. Oh, they bend (and in the correct direction), but hiking downhill causes what we, in the backpacking world, technically call, pain. Leaving Blue Glacier, we were facing a 4,000-foot descent for the day and we all figuratively bit our fingernails at the thought of Elaine's knees rebelling against such treatment.
Luckily, the physical therapy Elaine had the foresight to take before the trip, plus a healthy dose of Advil, made the descent less painful than her normal trips.
We ate lunch back at our original campsite, before retrieved our packs for our final descent to our evening campsite. Having hiked eight miles already and knowing another six would bring us to our first camp, Robyne still suggested that we travel an additional four miles and camp at mile marker five.
"One," she reasoned, "A different campsite would add variety. Two, even though we would get into camp late tonight, we would have a nice short hike for our last day, and three, there is no elevation change from mile marker nine to five, so the last four miles shouldn't be too taxing."
Elaine and I foolishly nodded in agreement, embracing this plan of attack. Mile marker eleven is when my body decided to question such an agreement. My feet, legs and back filed a complaint with my brain, which feverishly started doing some math.
"Instead of only two miles left, we have six?" my brain asked my mouth, which had betrayed my whole body by agreeing. "Yesterday, we only covered six miles all day. Today, you want to hike twenty?"
At mile marker ten, my whole being was in agreement that stopping at mile marker nine would be ideal, so my brain began concocting a way to convince the others of this wonderful plan. "First," I assured myself, trying to believe I wasn't wimping out, "I could make the four additional miles, I may not enjoy them, but if the others want to continue on, I would definitely survive." Having alleviated my concerns about being selfish, I thought on. "The day is getting late. If we push on, we'd barely have enough time to eat before we'd need to turn in. Also, hiking a flat nine miles out on our last day shouldn't take too long." Happy with my reasoning, I pressed on.
We stopped to rest, as agreed, at mile marker nine. I took a deep breath and plunged in. "How do you two feel?"
"Tired, but good."
Drat. Couldn't they be exhausted, unable to continue? "I was thinking." Two sets of eyes, met mine. "If we camped here tonight, we would be able to have a more leisurely dinner."
"Okay!!" The instant, enthusiastic response knocked me off my seat. Evidentially, we were all thinking the same thing, but none of us wanted to be the one to hold the others back. As we collapsed at camp, our legs sent happy messages to our brains convincing us we had made the right choice.