Monday, July 2, 2012

Yesterday we spent the entire day hiking. We all woke up around 5 in the morning to catch our 6 o'clock bus. After our hour and a half bus ride we arrived at the beginning of the hike. There we met our 11 horses that were going to carry our stuff for us on the hike. We then began the 9 hour hike. The start of the hike was downhill and we all didn't think much of it, until we began the uphill part of the hike. We hiked uphill for 3 and a half hours, from 12,000 feet to 15,000 feet; a lot of us dealt with altitude sickness and headaches. When we finally reached the top we were all exhausted, but we still had 4 hours of downhill until we reached the hot springs. We stopped for a long lunch after about 30 minutes of downhill. From there we hiked about 3 and a half more hours. Finally we reached the hot springs right around sunset. We all set up our tents and then showered for the first time in about 4 days and got in the hot springs. We had spaghetti for dinner, although a few people went to sleep before dinner because it was so late and everyone was so tired. Although everyone was so glad we made it to the hot springs in one day instead of two.

-Grace