We got an early start and we were on the trail by 5:35 am. The bear and her cubs that wandered through the tent site left us (and all the other hikers) alone and the deer herd made enough noise to wake up Win but not me.
She has a new trail name: “six”. Both for now fitting into a size 6 and for getting six free beers given her in her first month on the trail.
We had some surprisingly rough ridge walks, got rained on lightly (1% chance of rain) hiked in a heat advisory and crossed some tiny snow patches.
I’m glad we didn’t push on before. No wonder the other guys got only 16 miles in two weeks.
Got water from a clear, warm pond. Glad we got it before the other hikers jumped in and started bathing and swimming. The later hikers were not happy to see the silt being stirred up by the two girls swimming in the water source.
We stopped at a campsite with water at 1799.7 (measured NOBO). The bugs could be so much worse.
Realized one of the cookies I bought at Tuolumne Meadows was low fat, low salt—330 calories where a normal cookie of that size would be around 580. Lousy flavor too.
My gaiter anchor came loose immediately. However, tucking it in on the heel pull strap works perfectly. I now have gaiters that work.
The new shoes seem to be ok. I don’t want to jinx it but my feet feel good.
We are both so tired. The heat, terrain and more challenging trail than we expected had an impact.
Tomorrow should be a better day.