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All the wood was wet and we had to make fires since for our first trip we had no stove.
I was good at fire-making with crumpled up newspaper, but for this with no paper and wet wood I was useless. Fortunately Sophia was an expert fire-maker. We had to search out and find dry moss, dry rotted wood, twigs and leaves from underneath fallen logs. The idea was to get a coal going with moss and use the coal by blowing on it to start larger twigs. So I learned how to make a fire, although she did most of it because I was not very good at it. That was when I learned what "Carry coals to Newcastle" meant.
We had no mats and the ground was not comfortable. I was glad I had brought
so many clothes including the knee-length coat, because I wore it all to stay warm through the night, in my good for the tropics sleeping bag. While it would get into the eighties in the day it got really cold at night. One thing we had in camp was a Marmot who knew a good camp-site restaurant when living in one. Chipmunks were plentiful as well.
We got hit with storms regularly everyday, always from the south and usually around mid-day, but sometimes at night. On one of these days maybe Wednesday or Thursday we decided to hike to Big Elk Lake which was out west of us. The trail climbed up to the height of the cliff we were under and then immediately intersected into the Pacific Crest Trail. On this we turned right and headed north-west and proceeded across a narrow stone cliff bridge. The feeling up there was lofty, spiritual, grandiose as there is no other feeling of like, except in some places in the mountains.
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