Day 17

Huge moth we found here at the "campground". Hand for scale.

Well, last night was pretty crazy. None of us slept very well due to the force of the wind. I don't think any of us has ever had a windier night on trail before... It was just insanely windy.

Since we only did a 9 mile day yesterday, we made sure to wake up early and we were ready to hike by 7am.

A blurry bunny in the bushes I found in the morning. Sparrow and I both saw a jackrabbit in the desert yesterday and I have to say they kinda look like little tiny deers when they run away from you since their legs are so long and spindly.

Anyway, we hiked back out to the wash area and found the edge of the storm there, again nipping at our heels as it has been the past few days.

The overcast skies made for some really dramatic photos.

Interesting sand formations down near the creek. 

Mike rock hopping during a creek crossing.

We followed the creek for maybe a few miles before turning and heading up into more mountains. 

Here you can see the sun screened through the dense cloud cover. The mountains here had a thin layer of vegetation over bluish toned sedimentary rock.

A view back down to the wash area.

Reaching the ridge line and getting some sunlight as well. Storm clouds are looming on the ridge behind us.

Some type of blooming vine on the ridge. While visually attractive, the flowers curiously smelled like rotting vegetables as we walked by. What's up with that?

Traversing the ridge.

After our ridge line hike, we descended down to Mission Creek, a little creek we would follow steadily and unrelentingly uphill for the next 16 miles of trail, gaining about 6000' of elevation.

This was a real slog uphill with no real views to speak of. There was greenery and trees lining the creek which was new and interesting for a while, but the climb became very redundant shortly. We followed the little creek endlessly and around every bend we would think we could see the pass, only to find more uphill when we got closer. 

We did see another rattlesnake which was exciting for a minute. 

As the day wore on and we continuously gained elevation, we were getting closer and closer to those looming clouds we'd been seeing for days.

Pretty red flowers.

Really getting up into the clouds.

The further into the clouds we got, the more moisture we started feeling. It started to sprinkle on us and a breeze started to pick up.

Because there was still a little sun behind us and rain in front of us, when we turned around there was a pretty decent rainbow.

I guess this was some sort of consolation, because the next (and last) few miles of the day were very tiring and very cold. We started getting more and more precipitation which turned into sleet and finally hail before we found Sparrow and fellow hiker Juilian nestled with their tents in a calm little crook in the mountain. 

It hailed even heavier as we set up our stuff and we quickly ate before climbing into our bags for what was obviously going to be a very long and cold night.