Day 2: the water issue ...

Day 2
5/30/23

I woke up about 5:30 after a fitful night of sleep in my hammock. I’m not used to sleeping in it yet but hopefully that will get better. The sun and birds were already out so I figured I’d better get moving. I made some oatmeal with my cookstove, packed up, and headed out. That all took about an hour which also needs to get better. I’d never make it in the Army.​

The hike today was a lot of beautiful woods through the Gaylord State Forest. Plenty of hills again too, but also plenty of scenery including vast areas of large trillium. I passed through probably a thousand acre section called Blissfest which had all these seventies-themed things going on with cool outbuildings, yurts, stages, sculptures, etc. I later learned it’s a place they hold folk festivals. I might need to return. They also had a couple of water spigots available for hikers.

Water is always an issue. It’s been pretty warm here and I’ve been sweating a lot carrying the pack and walking. I’m constantly thirsty. Sometimes there’s a stream or a lake I can refill my bottles. Sometimes only a swampy spot. I filter everything with a Sawyer mini filter. Its 0.1 micron pores block all the germies (except viruses which should not be a problem). The pores get blocked up with dirt and stuff in the water source so I’m fastidious about backflushing the filter with the 50 cc syringe that comes with it. I also have chlorine tablets I can simply add to a bottle of water that will kill everything in case the filter goes bad. I also have a back up filter.

Sometimes there’s trail magic too. Like where I came upon this stash of gallon water jugs the trail steward had left out. Each section of the trail has a club and people who maintain it.

I ended the day whipped, set up the hammock, had another round of freeze-dried beef stroganoff, and hit the hammock