After raining all night, it continued raining into the morning. We made breakfast in the rain and packed up camp, in hopes of moving up to a higher camp later in the day. In a constant downpour we practiced knot tying on a rope suspended between two trees. It was extremely cold and while we learned and practiced Margaret continually made us hot drinks, including a mountaineering favorite: Hot Nuun. Nuun is an electrolyte tablet that can be added to water that tastes like Tang and is

Dave and Everett

ridiculously delicious. I am pretty sure, like other foods and beverages on the mountain, in normal life, it is probably repulsive. We also learned how to set up the ropes for a crevasse rescue system called a “Drop C-Z.” After several instructional hours, and soaking wet, our instructors decided that our cold wetness was probably hampering our ability to retain information. We unpacked camp and tucked into our sleeping bags. I had brought Robinson Crusoe with me to read but after a couple of pages found that my arms were too sore to hold the book up to read. I settled in for on and off sleep with intermittent moments of pure hunger, while Steven read away in his book. I was uncomfortably hungry and found myself nibbling away at parts of my lunches trying to justify making them smaller. In the course of a couple of hours I had cleaned through most of my snacks, some of Stevens, and part of my lunches. It was not a proud time on my part. After awhile we heard Forest and Margaret circling around the tent to inform us we would be hiking to our next camp. Steven of course snitched on me for eating all of my food. Although in retrospect he could have been worried about The Hunger getting the best of me. The hike up to the Hog’s Back camp site was almost entirely on snow. The packs of course were heavy and the weather of course of was rainy. We set up camp on a small area of rocks with careful attention to anchor our tent with heavy rocks. With harnesses back on we again practiced walking as a rope team. We made it back to camp for a late dinner and headed to our bags pretty exhausted.

Still hungry,

Paydays are like GOLD Lib and Hiding his rations Steven