Early on in the trip I noticed myself becoming frustrated and unreasonably impatient. It has taken two days for me to push down the anxiety created by operating in “go go go’ mode while everything around me is moving slower than I’m accustomed to. I do my best to adjust to the new pace. Still, I wake up early each morning, not wanting to waste daylight.

We have an aggressive plan for the day – a hike of somewhere between 16-20 miles (depending on which map we referenced and who we asked). Camp is at roughly 6000ft and we have been at this altitude for less than 24 hours. We are idiots, at least on paper.

It takes several miles before the hikers begin to thin out. As we push past one of the last large clumps of them, a man from Slovakia strikes up a conversation with us. He is summiting Mount Whitney in two weeks and asks me what he needs. I tell him climbing and cold weather gear but have misunderstood his question. He is asking what paperwork he needs to fill out.

He also asks us why so few Americans visit our national parks. I play into his implied bias and tell him it’s because Americans are fat and lazy. Terry is more gracious and provides the reasoning that most parks are far away from where people live.

We reach a junction we had identified as being our “must reach” goal and consider pushing on to a lake 3 miles further and 3/4 miles higher up the trail. Sore feet win the argument and we make our way back, running across a pair of moose on our way.

Our return destination was a ferry dock that would shave 3 miles off of our trip. We arrive at the dock, excited to be finished with our hike, but soon discover that we have missed the last boat of the day.

I borrow a pair of loaner trekking poles from the boat dock and lead the way back, and by “lead” I mean “callously abandon my companions as I hike/jog the last three miles of the trail”. Because trekking poles are awesome and sometimes leadership means letting your friends fend for themselves against bears and Korean tourists. I think that’s a Edmund Hillary quote.

Terry has requested we end the day at a high elevation for golden hour picture fun time so once we all arrive back at our car we drive up a nearby mountain that looks out over what seems to be unspoiled wilderness. While Terry is taking pictures, Matt and I watch someone in a rented RV repeatedly back into a bathroom building in the summit parking lot.

As the sun sets, we head back to the camp site and discover that the showers closed thirty minutes before our arrival. I try to wash off some of the trail muck and sweat with a damp t-shirt and silently plot the murder of the facilities manager who decided an early switch to winter operating hours was a good idea.