Nonimmigrant: Happy trails to you

Cold...so cold...it was my feet, mainly. I discovered that I could maintain reasonable core body temperature by curling into a foetal position but sort of half lying on my front too (the "froetal" position). That was warmer, until one or other arm went dead, and then I had to lie flat again until my feet began icing up, when I moved back to the opposite froetal arrangement. I even attempted sleeping flat on my back with my legs bent. That's tricky, especially in a mummy-style sleeping bag. The clothes that I'd taken off to get into bed were put back on at various stages of the night.

At 7am, though it was still dark, I decided it was probably time to get up, mostly because I no longer had any feeling below my knees and elbows. I ignored all the warnings on the tent and fired up my stove inside, because being smothered in burning nylon actually sounded quite pleasant at that stage.

Even with a double helping of hot porridge oats inside me, everything seemed to take twice as long and twice the effort of usual (which I mainly put down to not having a cup of tea first thing). I eventually dragged myself from my tent which, along with the car, was covered in ice, and tramped to the toilet block where a warm-ish shower stung like crazy but did get the circulation going.

I wrestled my solid mass of canvas into its bag, scraped the frost from the car windscreen with a credit card (old British trick for you there) and vacated the site, driving a short distance to the trail head. Today I set off in the opposite direction, northward, my destination being one of the backwoods campsites to see what I'd missed out on by staying in the park.

It was even clearer than yesterday, and three times as cold. I was wearing every single item of clothing I'd brought, which did make my pack lighter, and was soon among the trees again with the lake keeping me company to my right.

This walk was tougher than the previous one, with some steep ups and downs. It remained aspen-tastic, but there were fewer birds and beasts around. Perhaps they'd heard about me by today, or maybe they did the sensible thing and migrated en masse for Mexico. I made it to the somewhat basic campsite in good time and wandered back to the car before starting the drive south.

I'd spotted a few nice lookouts on the north shore on my way up, so took a break here and there on the way back. Road tripping is really the only way to see this great nation, and I passed a world famous pie place, a chainsaw sculpture gallery, a mail-order smoked shrimp business (yum!), and a combined car and dog wash (just leave Fido tied to the back bumper). Then it was back through the flat lands to St. Paul, where the nice people at Enterprise Rent-a-Car gave me a ride to the hotel so I didn't have to tramp back through town looking homeless.

Hannah still had one evening of conferencing left so I took myself out to a pub for a beer and a huge dripping burger. It was the least I could reward myself! Walking back to the hotel again was a challenge. No sleep, freezing conditions, and lots of demands on the body seem to take a greater toll now than when I was a cub scout. Do one thing every day that scares you? That revelation certainly counts.