Testing our limits
Let me preface this by saying why I like to expect the worst. When I expect the worst, things can only go up. When I am not prepared for the worst, it can put a big damper when shit goes down. I thought this trip was easy, anyone can do it, old people can do it, it's 3000 ft downhill... That's not really accurate.Up at 5:30 after a wonderful dry night sleep. Made some coffee, dried what we could, ate our sammies, bundled up and headed out for the days hike. The boys weren't up so we headed out on our own.
No rain, the views of the valley we are about to walk down were spectacular with the sun coming through the clouds. The view behind us was the snowy top mountains hitting the green grass and moss. There were spots of bright green moss where the sulfur springs hit the waters edge. We were in a great mood after last night and ready for the journey, albeit with a little hesitation knowing we hard to cross some rivers.
Just as the guy at the hut said, there was a river crossing as soon as we left the hut. Dammit. I was wishing this wouldn't happen for some reason. It was a smallish river, nothing to be too worried about. It started raining like a warning, Andy went first. It was very cold of course, it's freakin glacier water. Unfortunately there were very sharp rocks in the river bed made of obsidian. He made it across so I took off my shoes and socks and pulled up my pants. The first few steps were cold then quickly turned to unbearable. As I neared the edge, the rocks hitting my feet felt like daggers going into my almost dumb feet. As soon as I got out I put on my socks and shoes and started walking. Our feet quickly warmed which was amazing. So happy!!
Not more than 5 min later we hit our second river. It started raining again. This one was bigger. We felt this was worthy of taking our pants off as we heard it was necessary to do from another traveller. Andy again went first to test the water (no pun intended). I was up for the challenge since my feet quickly warmed after crossing the last one. Same sharp numbing hitting our feet. Jumped out and put our clothes on as fast as possible. Is not easy putting on pants and a garbage bag when you are freezing. Socks and shoes on, we start walking and warm up quickly.
No rain, the sun is out, we hit the third hut Hvanngil but kept on crusing, we had 18.6 miles to walk today by 4 to catch the last bus. We hit the third river crossing on the other side of Hvanngil. I thought there were only two! The problem with this one is that we weren't sure this was the right way and it was much larger than the previous two. We took our time trying to determine if this was the way. The shitty map we had wasn't really helpful. Its started raining again (see a pattern here?). Andy being the hero decided to cross the river and look at the sign that was blown over, hopefully telling us we were on the right path. Andy took off his pants again and crossed the river carefully. As soon as he got out he put on his shoes (still without pants) and ran down the to fallen sign. He determined we were on the right path so it was my turn to cross the river. I opted to not take my pants off is time. This time the river was so wide and moving much faster on the far side, I freaked out. When I got closer to the edge I froze and started to break down, not sure if it was panic from the rushing water or from freezing. Andy jumped in the water to save me, he pulled me across the rest if the way. I'm not sure what would have happened if he didn't do that. This time putting the socks and shoes on my feet didn't help. We walked to warm up, this time it took 10 min to get all feeling back into toes.
The terrain was pretty flat walking through lava fields. The views of the mountains all around us was amazing. I could finally appreciate the hike. This is what it's about. We crossed a bridge over a deep ravine. Oh so they can build bridges if they want!? Apparently only the ones you could die on. As we continued enjoying the hike, I started feeling a sharp pain on the outside of my left foot. Not a good sign. I can take muscle fatigue but sharp pain is a different story. Just make into the next hut (Emstrur) I told myself. We finally made it. Andy got there before I did and the warden said it would take us 7-8 hrs to make it to Porsmork. No fucking way. Either way we needed to move quickly so we changed our socks (what we left of Andy's), ate our sammies and pushed on. It took us 4.5 hrs to get to Emstrur when it says its a usual 6-7 hrs.
I started the next leg of the hike thinking we only had a couple of hours left. I was in excruciating pain and didn't think I could take much more. The warden said the hike was up up up then down down down. Not sure what that meant but it wasn't the flat I was expecting. When I realized this would be up to another 5 hrs I had another breakdown. How the fuck am I going to walk 5 hrs when I can barely walk now!? Andy was on a mission and walked far ahead of me. Fair enough, I didn't have anything good to say anyways.
We hiked up and down, several "rolling" hills. My feet actually liked going up hill because it took the pressure off the sore spot. I cried, I sang cheerful songs to myself, I tried to look at the positive, I enjoyed the scenery, I got pissed off, I cried again. Quite an emotional roller coaster. It's just pain. What's pain anyways? How can it get worse? It got worse. Both my feet started hurting, swollen. I thought I had a rock and it turned out to be a blister under my toe. The blisters on my heals were feeling worse. How the fuck am I going to do this?
Several hours later we were back on flat ground, OK I can do this. Back up hill, maybe I can't. The next couple hours were a blur. When we got closer to the end I asked some hikers how much longer. Two hours they said. F this. We kept going until we hit another river. Another fucking river!! I thought we didn't have to do this anymore? It was extremely wide. Mostly rocks, several rivers. We tried to make it by hopping over rocks but then came one stream where we had to take our shoes off. It started raining again...No pants off this time. We didn't care if we got wet at this point. We crossed at the same time since the water was rushing in the far side. If Andy fell alone, I'm not sure how I could save him. We made it, it was very hard, I started crying again from exhaustion. This HAD to be the last river. Were close. We pressed on. We passed through twisted birch trees and ferns. It was very beautiful, I wish I could had enjoyed it over my misery. Think happy thoughts I told myself.
