A Nighttime Visitor and Golden Hills: Concluding Our Overnight Backpacking Trip
I would have enjoyed a warm and restful night of sleep, if it hadn't been for whatever creature attempted to push its way underneath my sleeping pad from the outside of the tent. Not sure if it was a snake, or some sort of burrowing animal, but it was pushing hard. So much so that I could feel it through the air mattress. I pushed down through the air pad and whatever it was retreated. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much after that.
Once others had woken up I asked one of them to help me kick out whatever might be under there, but when we lifted up my tent whatever it was had left long ago.
After a warm filling breakfast (double serving of a backpacking meal), we set out for the final two hours of trail. A common phrase in backpacking is 'be bold, start cold', and I did just that: with only my baselayers on we started hiking.
More rolling hills filled with golden leaves surrounded us as we marched on over slightly hilly terrain with one medium-sized hill on our way that required a mere 300 feet of elevation gain. A short detour to a fire tower/observation platform was a bust: it was locked up tight.
2 miles later and we were done! This was a nice overnight backpacking trial, if you ignore my late night visitor.