The Wonderland Journal

Miles hiked: 24.1

Mile marker: 1074.2

“My tent!” Luxy tells me as I huddle on a rock and stuff my face with an ultra-processed bear claw (which are filled with almond paste, if you didn’t know.) “My tent fell on me last night!” she continues. “A big gust of wind came and blew it over!”

Bedrock doesn’t make for the best tent site. 

We’re slow to get going, and it’s all uphill. It’s barely six o’clock when we reach a beautiful view of tall skinny trees backed by distant mountains and an early morning sun. 

As the walk continues, a giant rock fortress borders the sandy trail.

Today is a day of views! It’s only been twenty minutes when the path opens up into a beautiful field with the mountains off to the right. I feel like I should be a puppy frolicking through this path here. Bright pink wildflowers border my walk. A deep blue lake is just behind the trees down the hill. 

We’re all grouped together in the trees when the conversation of ‘Who Smells the Worst’ comes up. 

I’m not sure how this happened, but soon everyone is sniffing one another’s underarms to decipher who is the smelliest. 

Surprisingly, it’s Rafiki. 

If it’s an armpit competition, this may be true. If it’s an overall competition, that can’t be right. 

Luxy and Voyager win first place for being best smelling. 

Our path soon turns back to sandy dirt and we’re walking through jagged gray rocks that resemble something similar to Mordor. The rocks are lumpy, like a gray-skinned cave villain covered in warts. 

The landscape is so vast that all I see around me are mountains with splotchy trees. The trail cuts across the hill across from me. This is a ridgeline walk. 

We have lunch at a river, where we slowly shrink into the sloped, pine needles trees to avoid the sun — it’s strong today. 

I rinse off in the river, which is slightly useless since I’ll only get dirty later. It’s been a dust walk so far. 

Rafiki sneaks his hand ‘inconspicuously’ toward me and steals my Twix candy bar. 

“I know a magic trick,” Rafiki says. Voyager and I look at him as he flicks his arm about a dozen times until the Twix appears out of his sleeve. “Magic!” he says. “Appeared out of no where!”

He then reaches behind my ear and pulls out the Twix bar. “Amazing!” he says. 

Real clever. 

From behind us, Luxy says, “Okay, guys. I’m going to try an Almond Joy.”

Luxy has been rating the candy bars. Kennedy Meadows North didn’t have the most diverse options for resupply, so we all have interesting food in our bear cans. 

Luxy’s is a whole lot of candy bars. 

She takes a bite of the candy bar and chews. 

“Mm,” she says. “I give it a nine or ten. It’s almost as good as a Twix. I like the coconut.”

Wow! A nine or ten? That’s a high rating!

We finish up lunch and keep walking. 

The air fills with the stinky odor of sulfur. It strengthens as we walk, and soon I’m standing over what looks like some kind of water runoff. It smells so bad that Bumper gags. Luxy wrinkles her nose as she approaches. 

This is another log walk. Bumper scoots very slowly across it. I’m impatient as he moves. How long does it take to scoot across a log?

“This is really slippery!” Rafiki says as he steps on the log next. It’s a white and barkless log that is sloped dramatically downward. 

Going up, this wouldn’t be so bad. 

Going down? Good luck, Rafiki. 

He takes a couple steps. He wobbles, then quickly runs down the rest of the way. He walks up the second log and reaches dry ground. 

My turn. 

I step on the log. 

“Should I scoot or walk?” I say as I scoot my foot across the bark to test it. 

It slides like a cool hand across a wall. 

“Scoot!” Rafiki and Bumper say. 

I straddle the log and begin my descent. 

The beginning is scary. I’m squeezing tight with my legs so I don’t roll upside down and fall into the pool-water. The bark is hot, too! It’s burning my legs, but I’m not letting go. 

I put my hands on the log and lift my body, scooting my hips close to my hands. I inch along this way for a few turns until I hit a knot. I pause, think, then place my leg in between the knot and the branch remnant. I lift myself over the knot.  

Whoof. The hard part is behind me!

I’m nearing the end when I stab my trekking poles into the ground. I swing leg over the log, avoiding getting my feet wet, and step up. 

I made it!

Voyager is next, and she takes a few minutes. Towards the end, I grab her pack from her awkwardly. I’m about to hand her back her trekking poles when Rafiki and Luxy step up next to me to offer their hands to get her the rest of the way. 

That was a tough one! 

Luxy found a better way across. 

We continue on. At the next river, we all soak our shirts. Luxy and Rafiki are overheating, so Rafiki takes some big, courageous breaths and drops to all fours in the river. 

“Cold!” he shouts before melting fully under the water. 

He stands up, dripping with water. 

That’s one way to cool down!

It’s another five miles or so to camp. We press on across fields and through slopey terrain. I push hard uphill. Voyager catches up to Rafiki and me. 

We walk through a giant double doorframe of burnt and broken trees. I step through and enter a different room. The trees are white and burnt. A breeze whooshes over us immediately. The color of the room switches from gold to cool blue. 

This is eerie! What just happened?

We wander through the rubbish and dusty path. It’s been so dust today that I could even feel it coated in my mouth at one point. 

Soon we’re at our campsite. The others join us shortly. We wash in the river — since our toes are dark brown from the dust. 

Our long day is over and it’s time for some sleep!