Starving Dog

Day 131 - August 14 (Happy Birthday cousin Ruth!)

Mile: 2040.7 to 2062.1 (21.4)

up/down: 1800/3800 feet 

New trip bird: Hooded Merganser 

Hummingbird had a snack attack well after bedtime, devouring half a dozen crackers and part of a jar of peanut butter like a starving dog after a steak. It's a delicate balance each day fueling the machine that gets us down the trail for 20+ miles every day. Be too short on calories and the body will scream for more, even in the middle of the night. We've gone to carrying high density calorie foods that we like, recently whole bags of chips, a package of English muffins, half pound jar of Nutella, and a pound jar of peanut butter. Unlike our backpacking days when we carefully weighed our food and fretted over every ounce, now we weigh our packs down with extra goodness. Still it's not enough as my loss of over 30 pounds so far can attest to (not that those pounds will be missed). We are in Huckleberry country now which is fun when there is time to pick and eat. 

 

Today was another of those connector days, hiking in the woods to go from one nice place to the next. We had a fine view of the north face of Jefferson early and a few brief peek-a-boo looks at the next volcano in the conga line- Mt. Hood. At Jude lake we hit the mother load of ducks with two Hooded Mergansers, a family group of Barrow's Goldeneye, and a Bufflehead. Lunch was spent watching a family of Gray Jays scour the campsite we were in (sorry Ron and Nancy). The trail was relatively easy today and we didn't have any monster water carries. We even have a small cold creek to camp by for the evening. We are set up now for a mid day visit to the historic Timberline Inn on Mt. Hood day after tomorrow. If all goes as planned we're in Cascade Locks on Thursday afternoon.