SUMMARY:  We slept very well in our cowboy camp last night, but woke up to temperatures below freezing, our shoes frozen solid, and frost all over our sleeping bags.  So we wrapped the frozen shoes in plastic and took them into our sleeping bags till they thawed out enough to put on.  Then it was bushwhacking and river crossings till we found the trail, and for the whole rest of the day it was like God sent one person after another, out in the middle of nowhere, to assure us (well, more accurately, to assure ME–Fixit says he enjoys the challenge of not knowing where we are!!) about which way to go on our alternate route.  Tonight we are camped in a horse camp with a bunch of packers & wranglers.

DETAILS:  Last night it was so warm and clear that we just cowboy camped, and slept very well.  Our new down sleeping bags are great!  And that’s a good thing, because at 5:20 when we tried to get up, we discovered  temperatures below freezing, our shoes frozen solid, all our wet things we’d hung up to dry were frozen stiff, and there was frost all over our sleeping bags. So we wrapped our frozen shoes in plastic and took them into our sleeping bags until they thawed enough to put on.  Then came the fun of putting on frozen pants, cold socks, etc.  It was so cold that we could see our breath.

Then it was bushwhacking and river crossing, trying to find our trail up at the top of the valley. Fixit enjoys this sort of thing, but I don’t, so I was silently praying, “Lord, you are the Good Shepherd–we two sheep need you to show us where to go.”  I could see on the map that when we reached some cliffs, the trail should be right after that, and sure enough, it was–a very nice, well-built, broad trail, obviously well-used.  Whew!

After that, we were able to just follow Becky Campbell’s instructions, and they were perfect.  On the leg between Bear Creek Summit and the turnoff to the Prior Cabin, though, I started getting discouraged because it seemed like it was taking forever, and I was worried that we might have missed the turnoff.  We stopped for lunch, and instead of cooking as we would usually do, I simply put water into a freezedried dinner pouch to rehydrate while we hike this afternoon.  We resumed hiking, but I was more and more worried about whether we were on the right trail, when along came some Forest Service packers (the horses were branded “US”!) and they assured me that we were on the right trail and it was only 3 1/2 miles to the Prior Cabin.

By afternoon snack break, we had reached the Cabin with its trickling spring, and we hung out there for awhile, collecting water, studying maps, and talking to a group of 4 guys who were camped there.  The guys were from Alaska and Colorado, and once a year they get together for a backpack adventure.  They had very good maps, and confirmed everything Becky Campbell had told us, plus they said, “You guys should go for the horse camp by Clear Creek.  There are tents and everything, and nobody is there.”

So we hustled along as fast as we could and reached the horse camp at 6:30, just as a large group of packers arrived!  So much for being able to stay in one of their tents!  But we hung out with them, eating our cold rehydrated dinner while they had BBQ, corn on the cob, etc.  Turned out that they were actually running sort of a “school” for learning how to be a packer/wrangler, and there were a number of guys who were learning how to manage all the details of a string of pack horses.  We mentioned we’d seen a string of Forest Service horses early this afternoon, and the “packer school” guys immediately looked very serious.  They wanted to know exactly when and where we’d seen the “US” horses and which way they were going.  (We found out later that the packer school had probably overstayed its permit and didn’t want to meet any Forest Service folks!)

While the packers went off to do a practice in packing up, we found a spot nearby on nice soft duff and UNpacked our stuff, set up our tent and turned in.  There were still horses snorting, mules braying and dogs barking, but we were so tired that it didn’t matter.  I am very grateful to God for sending people today at just the right time when I needed some assurance that we were on the right trail.  It’s like it was one person after another, out in the middle of nowwhere.  That’s more than coincidence, and I am very grateful.