Day 6: Limping along

[Emily]:

We awoke that morning and agreed that our legs/feet were in pretty sorry shape. Erin said her feet were burning. Blisters of every shape and depth covered them, and the popped blisters left exposed skin ready to be rubbed by her shoes. But her spirits seemed in good condition!

Erin's legs felt fine but looked bad; the feet looked bad and felt worse.

Though knowing that the current pain was only temporary, my swollen leg did have me questioning if I would be able to continue the long hike. I had felt like I could just go to sleep again and sleep another night. After mulling through the options of staying at the campsite another night in hopes of the leg feeling better or continuing on - I decided that I just needed to get myself out of the wilderness even if I was “bear crawling.”

So we packed up and began our hike. I found that as long as I got through the first terrible 20 steps and remained moving, my leg seemed to be in less pain. So when we would break - for water or food - I would just walk in circles.

Clear Creek.

We walked through serpentine and river crossings, up Clear Creek to its headwaters. I was disappointed we didn’t have the opportunity to explore and swim Wilderness Falls as the Clear Creek drainage was one of the places I had most looked forward to on the hike. But now had a good place to come back to:)

Ain't no party like a Darlingtonia party.

We got to the huge, green bowl of Young's Valley meadow and napped in the shade, then camped next to a tiny creek. We had originally thought we may hike further up to Raspberry Lake - but we’d have to do that on another hike. Making it to Young’s Valley really raised the spirits as we just had one more day left until meeting our friends for a resupply.

Total miles: 7.8