Thorofare Trip Day 1

It was unfortunately a night of little sleep, but I had loaded up Heidi's car the night before and was able to be at her place by 6am. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; at least in pictures.

Very little traffic but lots of animals. Just past Canyon, there was a little black bear digging just off the road. Not even a bear jam yet! Heidi didn't even blink. But when we got to the end of Hayden, we had to pull over. Pelicans, blue herons, and little floating ducks made for a good reason to stop.

We got to Bridge Bay by 7:30 and then hung around. And hung around... Apparently we were supposed to call not only the person who schedules the boats, but the driver as well! It was okay, we amused ourselves.

 And then, we were off! A short hour and 15 minute trip across a fairly smooth lake later we were unloading ourselves at Terrace Point and helping to load up Julianne and Diane who had been kayaking and doing campsite checks.

Yes, I had to try Tree on the boat (see my trip from August 2013)

And talked Heidi into doing it too.

First stream crossing

I love the river!

Lunch at the Cabin Creek Cabin

Pausing for a mid-afternoon break

 We made it to the campsite right around 7ish. 8 miles for the day. My feet were already starting to hurt. But I knocked it out of the park and got the carabiner/rope over the Bear Pole on the 8th or 9th try. Yay me!

 Then we settled in for a 15 minute session of my surprise, Yoga! Started boiling up some water for dinner. Jane had her Jet Boil going. Jeff started his up, but had brought a homemade wind guard. Somehow, it created enough heat that his stove, with the small propane tank attached, caught fire. That got put out, but Heidi kept hearing noise. I wasn't close by and didn't hear anything, but they finally figured out that the little camping tank was leaking! So it got chucked far into the field, well away from us and the fire. Luckily, Heidi had packed in a small Nalgene of Whiskey Manhattans so we could settle down a little.

 And Heidi made the first radio check-in of the trip.

 And she broke out her surprise, S'mores! We had already visited the creek and filtered water, so we were able to sit down and enjoy the graham, marshmallows, and chili (!) chocolate until the sun went down.