Trent's boy scout troop just returned from their 50 miler, which was going to take six days. Except they surprised everyone and ended up hiking 75 miles in five days! Trent loved it. He didn't get any blisters, and was only sore for about one day. It's great to be 13 years old. He is lucky to have such enthusiastic, avid, outdoorsy scout leaders. They did 18,000 feet of climbing, hiked 2 9,000 ft summits and 7 mountain passes over 5 days. They had 9 boys and 5 leaders. and they took tons of pictures!
commentary by Trenton
DAY 1: super excited! our first goal was to summit Mt. Maud, in the center background. This was the hardest day.
Day 1. time to set up camp. There wasn't any flat ground so we slept on an incline. This was the hardest and most cold night. It was 30 degrees.
After setting up camp, we left our packs, and scrambled up to the top of Mt. Maud to watch the sunset. A scramble is like rock climbing. It was a little difficult to do with a cast.
Day 2: sleeping boys at sunrise...still on the incline. I kept sliding off my ground cloth during the night.
Our goal for day 2 was to summit Seven Finger Jack (pictured below)
Seven Finger Jack is getting closer...
made it to the top!!
This is Tad Englund, the leader in charge. He is really great with the outdoors. He spent months mapping out our route, and then at the last minute, we had to change our route because of forest fires. And we had a burn ban the entire week so no campfires.
day 2 sunset
Day 3: spider meadow
Spider Gap
We saw a few marmots, which is like a beaver
Better Spider Gap
Spider Glacier, it's not really a glacier anymore. It turned into a snow field. We had a snowball fight on the way up.
still day 3...on our way to upper Lyman Lake
Lower Lyman Lake
Each night, we didn't have a campfire, but we played card games with our flashlights.
Day 4: hiking down the mountain to Image Lake
The lake was really cold, but not a glacier lake so it wasn't as cold. Most of us went swimming. We found a newt. It was really pretty to see Glacier Peak reflecting in the background.
Right here we turned left and started a bushwhack, which is creating our own trail. It was interesting not to have a trail already made.
On the way home we stopped at Zeke's drive in. It was really good and we all tried elk burgers. We all ordered a lot because we were really hungry on the hike.
During the week, we had dehydrated food that we added water to, and it was very disgusting. Each boy was responsible for their own breakfasts. I had a protein drink every morning and beef jerky for lunch.
Overall, I felt that this was really fun and tiring and I loved to see all the views at the tops of the mountains, and swimming in Image Lake. I'm very glad I went.
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