I Hate the Cold/Part One

Our first week of real work. A front country site (campground), then on with the packs and off into the Sierras. The weather gods were obviously awaiting our trip with great glee.
Tuesday morning we worked a site that is an off-trail creek. Once we left the trail we had to walk through the forest for 400 meters (all our distances for this scientific work are measured in meters, so I am with the rest of the world on this) before we arrived at Big Creek. When we scouted it the day before I got my first crack at orienteering with a compass and map. I found it disconcerting to walk off a trail and into the forest. I also found it disconcerting to almost impale myself when some dead branches broke on this log I was trying to cross. No impalement, but a CSI-worthy bruise on my thigh (yes, my co-workers, many reference photos have been taken, and many more will be as the colors change). I also ripped the ass of my pants on this stunt, and had to tape it together with duct tape as I had no other pants to wear for the next 4 days. This is a real classy look as my duct tape is bright red. Although, I don't know that a more subtle color would be any classier. The actual survey involved lots and lots of bushwhacking as I followed the creek into wilderness. Not just any bushwhacking, but bushwhacking while trying to avoid poison oak. Reverse course on the way back (after 5 hours of surveying). I managed to top over each of my boots on separate jumps criss-crossing the creek. (Sometimes one of the sides would turn into a sheer rock precipice that I had no ability/interest in climbing, so I had to cross.) This didn't bode well for the hike into the backcountry, which our crew leader Bob said couldn't be 5.6 miles, even though that's what the trail map said.
Well, not only was the majority of it 5.6 miles (and not the 2.5 or so that he had imagined), it was 2300-ft. elevation gain. It was hard to climb that with a 35-lb. pack on my back (I really don't know how much it all weighs - don't want to know). It started to rain, too, as we hiked up the trail to Chilnualna Falls. The weather turned very cold. I had a feeling it was beautiful, but was too cold, tired and crabby to care. Once we got to the new site, we had to scout that (mind you, we had been up since 4.15 a.m., surveyed the creek in the morning - about 3k of hiking - and then had this massive uphill slog). And, it was getting colder by the minute. The fog rolling in did not bode well.

More tomorrow. I have a bottle of wine to drink.