Tiger Mountain Trail=16 miles!

Sorry for the late post! On Sunday, Gavin and I, along with 19 others hiked the Tiger Mountain Trail. It started at Tiger Summit #3 (TM3) along I90 and traversed its way back to highway 18. You have to remember the last time we went up TM3 was when I had my nervous breakdown! This time was so much better! Gavin and I packed all our stuff up the night before, making sure everything that we almost forgot in the past was by the door. When we woke up all we had to do is get dressed and finish putting the final things in our bags. We continued our usually hiking routine of stopping at Starbucks first. No stressing, we made it to the meeting spot early! Everyone met at the highway 18 trailhead then we all piled into half the cars and headed over to TM3 trail head. To the top of TM3 its 3 miles straight up. Our packs for this hike were 30 pounds, the heaviest we've carried them! Going to the summit of TM3 was not too exciting because we had just done it a couple of week before. However this time there was no ice and snow at the top. We didn't spend much time at the summit of TM3 since we still had 13 miles ahead of us. Plus, it was incredibly windy with not much of a view due to the clouds. So we started down the other side. I never noticed the trail last time we were up there, didn't know you could go down that way. The trail heading toward highway 18 was much narrower than the big trail going up TM3; we are in the backcountry now! It was really exciting to be on unmarked territory, it was beautiful back there. It felt like we were miles away from anything!

This week I tried putting Nuun in my Camelpack. I really like my water this way and was trying to keep nice and hydrated since this was a long hike. About 3-4 hours into the hike my bladder was so full that I thought I was going to explode! I kept on going thinking that our lunch break had to be soon, and then I heard the leader say it was one hour till lunch. I turned around and told Gavin, "I don't think I can make it an hour...I don't know if I can make it 15 minutes!" So we asked the caboose leader if we could make a quick stop. Another guy, John, took my pack for me and continued down with the rest of the group. I found this huge old stump and climbed up to it. Once I finished my business I started going back down to the trail, heading a different way than I went up. I was walking around that huge stump and the roots must have been over grown because then next thing I knew my foot was sinking between two roots and I was tumbling face first. I tried to catch myself but the ground broke beneath my hands as well. I did a complete summersault and stopped just in time before I hit a tree. Gavin was laughing his butt off! He said it was like watching a movie in slow motion. At first I thought I hurt my legs but I shook it off and ran down the trail to go get my pack from John. Once I caught up with the group, they had stopped to let us all catch up. Once we were all together again the leader stated that lunch would be in 10 minutes. UGH! I could have waited that long! So we get to lunch and low and behold there is an outhouse! So I had a wilderness bathroom experience for no reason! Oh well….many lessons learned!

So for lunch, everyone was suppose to bring food to share with others, have a huge potluck then hopefully have less weight to carry the rest of the way. The smorgasbord was amazing! There was fruit, cheese and crackers, wine, Starbucks coffee, cookies, casseroles, and the best hot dog I’ve ever eaten! After stuffing our faces and enjoying each other’s company we had to pack up and get going. We still had another 4 hours or so to go. The rest of the hike was pretty soggy. I did fall again…this time just a quick slip down in a really muddy spot. There were others that slipped as well. I was feeling pretty good by the end till 1.9 miles left, where we hit a gravel road the rest of the way down. That is when my feet started feeling the pain of the day. We all made it down safely, threw everyone in the cars drove back over to the other trailhead to get people back to their cars and off to home. When I got home, I went straight to a hot shower then horizontal on the bed till the next morning for work. My feet were throbbing, I was afraid I was going to have to call in sick because I couldn’t walk! :o) But in the morning I felt pretty good, had to hit up the Ibuprofen for the sore knees but overall felt great! It was the longest hike we’d been on in a long, long time with the most weight ever and we conquered it like true hikers!