Day 91- the crater sunrise

Since I have been to crater lake before, I had to do something to make it special this time. I decided to night hike out to the rim and watch the sunrise. I awoke at some number that started with a 4 giving me under five hours of sleep. But the sunrise was absolutely worth it! It came up right over the rim on the other side of the lake. I knew I would need some kind of sugar to kickstart my day so I went with nutella on tortillas. This boosted me a few miles through some patchy snow walking but I could already tell I would be dragging all day from lack if sleep. It's hard enough to go to work or even class on very little sleep, but walking for over twelve hours in a day makes it really tough. But I battled. When I sat down for my first break there was a small dust devil that I saw start up and continue for about a minute. It was about the size of a trashcan and not 5 feet from me. I continued on and needed some help from listening to the radio after we left the crater lake rim. This is also when the walking got really monotonous due to all the trees and no good views. The Mosquitos were out in force to make it even more enjoyable. Now I have a system of limiting the bites I end up getting. I am constantly wiping my neck, face, legs, and arms. I had a big day kills wise, raising my mosquito kills per day significantly. A few miles before the highway i saw a trail crew working on the trail and they offered me some water which I should have taken but I thought I had enough. And I would have, had there not been a significant amount of snow. After I crossed highway 138 I saw acorn again who seemed to have skipped up to crater lake. From here it was more snow than not, with most of it in large drifts that were pretty steep and hard to traverse. I actually ended up bending both of my trekking poles on the same steep snow field. I made it through that and to thielson creek where I was so thirsty I drank a whole liter within a minute and got an unpleasant brain-freeze from the snow cold water. From here I put in a few more miles bringing me to about 30 for the day and the ability to stop walking at 7 in order to catch up on some sleep.