Day 120: Mysteries in the night, down from Flesher Pass

Mileage: 26.5 miles (2269.4-2295.9)

I only slept two hours last night. From one until sunrise at five, I didn't get a wink. It started with the faint plunks of what sounded like rocks being turned over, one-by-one, a little ways off from my tent. I tried to go back to sleep, but the sound kept getting closer and closer. My only thought was Grizzly. They love to dig and the size of the rocks being turned over, seemed that it only could have been a large animal. Once it got closer I started yelling and then banging my poles together.

As I banged and yelled the sound would stop. But then they would resume, just a few minutes later, continuing to get closer and closer. Finally I yelled over to Commando asking if he heard the same thing. He had. Finally, we both got out of the tent to investigate. But we didn't see a thing. With our high-powered headlamps we scoured the area around our tent, but there was nothing in sight. No sounds of scampering away. Not a thing. Something scampered up a tree, but we figured it couldn't have been what was making the sounds, and even that we couldn't make out.

We went back into our tents, almost less settled than before. After fifteen minutes, the sound resumed, even closer this time. I clacked my tent poles and yelled, "Hey! Hey!" but this would only stop the sounds for a few minutes. I'd close my eyes, and the steady clomp and roll of rocks would keep getting closer and closer and closer. 30 ft. 15 ft. 5 ft.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. I'd almost fall asleep and then it'd start again after I'd yelled five minutes earlier. Finally, my tent shook violently and I screamed, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" The shaking stopped and I went out again to investigate. Nothing. The pattern continued until 5am until I finally fell asleep. Owls peeped, coyotes howled, and I slept until 7am.

That morning we went out to look for clues, expecting to find the rocks, some prints, and other evidence of what had disturbed our campsite. But there was nothing. No rocks. No prints. No nothing. It was eerie to say the least. A mystery we pondered all day, never to find an adequate explanation. Perhaps a deer or an elk, but nothing could explain the rolling of the rocks that we never found.

It was a hot day full of climbing up and down on the divide. We went up and then down to Stemple Pass and then followed some very circuitous new trail which sucked. There was very little water until we found a seep and made it work. It was cool and fresh directly from the ground and was wonderful at quenching our thirst. Unfortunately, it was the only water for the next 15 miles and it was a very hot day, close to 90 degrees in the sun.

At Flesher pass I was fried from so many days without a zero and headed down the road to Lincoln so I could get there a day early. Commando pushed on the final fiftteen miles, and would arrive into town the next day. I got a motel, ate salad bar and burrito and then hung out with the other guys in town drinking beer and a bad movie, commiserating over the fires and trail closures ahead. I fell asleep by ten, ready for my full zero the next day.