An Interesting New Tentmate

First off, I apologize if I don't have lots of pictures for these entries. My internet connection is not the best, so I will go on a quest to find a better connection so I can upload pictures!

As I woke up to the early morning light of our last few hours in Leavenworth, I heard a squeak from the other side of the tent. I sat up, curious as to what this was. Propped up on my elbows, I see a small brown head stick up from behind my food bag on the other side of my tent! 

I sit up quickly, trying to open the door to get my new chipmunk friend out of my small domicile. As I move towards the door, and him, he moves to where my head was. I try to get out as quick as possible, still in my sleeping bag. I get out of my sleeping bag and start pulling stuff out of my tent. The chipmunk, still in my tent is now hiding behind a fleece up near where my head was. 

I've decided that it's time for him to leave and so I walk behind my tent and start an earthquake. Quick as lightening, the chipmunk flies out of the tent, across the campsite and into the underbrush. 

Since we're packing up to leave today anyway, I just start pulling stuff out of my tent, when I discover how my chipmunk friend got in. He chewed a hole right through the floor of my tent at some point during the night, and he ate all of my special brand of gorp! Probably an entire cup was left and he ate all of it! 

After packing all of my gear, except for my unharmed food bag and stove, and made hard boiled eggs and bacon. It was a terrific breakfast, great food I didn't expect to be eating for several weeks yet! 

After packing up camp, we got in the car and head back to Bellingham, WA where we would swap out the heavy rock gear for ice climbing gear. Afterwards, we drove to Glacier, WA where we signed in at the ranger station, got a weather report as well as a trail report. We drove up the same road to the trailhead for Mount Baker. In the past 2 weeks it had melted quite significantly, and we were able to park within about a half mile of the trailhead! After packing our gear up, we started from the car at 6:20 PM, which seems late, but when you have light until around 10 PM, it isn't a big problem. 

The most tricky part of the entire hike in was a bridge crossing. When we hiked out of Mt. Baker during part 1, there as a large crack in the log bridge. Over the past several weeks, the crack got much larger and the bridge had split!

We crossed using a large log down stream, and moved quickly up to Mirkwood camp. When we arrived at 9 PM, those of us who had been there recently noticed how much it had changed in the last 2 weeks! A lot of snow had melted and many more people had come and gone. After making dinner, I climbed into my tent, the point of entry for my chipmunk friend being sealed with duct tape until I could put some repair tape on it.