I didn’t sleep well last night. It was very cold: I woke up several times and put on one piece of clothing after another. This was a lesson for me. The next night I will go to bed with all my clothes on.
However, in the morning, as the sun began to heat up our tent, I felt much warmer. We calmly and leisurely had breakfast, packed up our tents and belongings, cached some food deep in the snow and moved on.
The weather was wonderful and sunny, but it was difficult to walk: we had to cover about the same distance as yesterday, but this time we also had to gain about a kilometer (3280 feet) of altitude.
Yesterday I attached my sled/pulka directly to the harness, but going up like that was painful for my lower back. It was much more comfortable to walk after connecting the pulka to the backpack.
We were also able to fix the problems with my snowshoes. The only thing that bothered me was the different pace and different needs for breaks among our team members. But since we were all connected by a rope, there wasn’t much you could do about it.
We hiked up all day, skipping lunch. In the evening a strong wind rose and the sun would soon hide behind the mountain range. To take advantage of the last rays of sun and not have to pitch a tent and to cook dinner in the cold and in the dark, we decided to stop at the second camp. The original plan was to go straight to the third camp.
This time I learned my lesson and went to bed in my jacket and down jacket pants. Chris suggested wearing my inner boots in the sleeping bag. It was really warmer, but not comfortable. This time I woke up not because of the cold, but because of pain in the clenched little toe of my right foot. In addition, today I had blisters on both feet. Overall, I slept very poorly that night again.
