May 9

Pony lovin'

We all headed out as a group, the 'party floor crew', into the foggy, drizzly, cold, mountain morning.  After about a mile we crosses through a fence stile, and were greeted by dozens of ponies!  There were even some brand new baby ponies that could barely even walk on their own.  Awesome!  We then came to a cool rock outcropping that had awesome views, of nothing but white/grey fog.  Haha.  We went through another grassy open area, and saw dozens more ponies!  Tink was reluctant to pet them, but she was so happy after she tried it.  All of a sudden one of the ponies started making a lot of noises, and ran off.  One of the ponies decided it was a good time to mate.  Right in front of everyone, haha!  It was like being on the set of a Nat Geo documentary or something.  Needless to say, the wild, wild pony, (ahem) episode, provided us with an endless amount of amusement for the rest of the day.  We passed through a tunnel that went through a rock face, called 'fatman squeeze'.  Then through another pasture, not full of ponies, but actually long horned cattle.  Didn't stick around there too long.  We hiked into Wise shelter, where we saw Y's Guy again.  The shelter was at exactly the 500 mile mark!  Another wilderness area, Little Wilson Creek.  Crossed Pine Mountain, at 5000 feet.  Still in a cold, wet, foggy, drizzle.  When the trail wasn't more like a stream, it was nothing but mud.  We pushed on past Old Orchard shelter.  The rain started to let up.  It was getting late in the day and we were coming up on Hurricane Mountain shelter.  Not only was the shelter empty, but it was a really nice one too, constructed in the last few years.  The rain stopped, the sun poked out of the clouds just in time for a beautiful orange sunset.  And as a bonus, I found my 3rd model taped to the wall of this shelter.  Haha.  Kudos to whoever has been providing this 'trail magic'.  Looks like we're getting back into the swing of things, putting up a 15 mile day.

More wild ponies!