Day 57

Trail miles: 19.7

Total: 755.1

Today I got up and was able to watch a beautiful sunrise over the valley. It’s a good thing the sun rises around 5:30 so I’m still able to leave at 6:00. The morning pace was real today and I kept stopping to eat. I need to make sure the next time I resupply, I am packing denser foods so I am not hungry all the time and I can fit everything into the bear canister. Especially breakfast foods, because I need that to get my day going. I caught everyone at the water source, and since I had enough water to skip the spring, I began up the 8 mile hill with them to the lake. Brad is now my training coach on getting me up hills faster, so for the next four miles, I was doing a 3mph pace. I was dying. After the spring and rest, I tried to keep up again but I only last a mile or so before I took a break. And then I took another break. I was so out of energy and it was because we were waiting to eat lunch at the lake. By the time we got there, I couldn’t do anything but cold soak my beans for lunch. I felt so much better after eating as much as I could. Half of the beans were my own from a cowboy caviar recipe and the other half was from a fellow hiker. I put in on a wrap with lemon pepper chicken and ranch dressing. Not bad. Or maybe I was starving. Everyone jumped in the water, which had pretty much just thawed fully like a couple weeks ago, so it was freezing. The sun kept going behind clouds so I didn’t think I’d warm up enough to have it be worth it. And hearing everyone’s thoughts after I’d say I made the right choice. A lot of people washed clothes too, which didn’t dry because of the lack on sunlight. After filling up with 3 liters, we had 4.5 miles to camp. Not horrible, but the little bit of uphills really slowed me down. Somewhat because it was so sandy it felt like walking up a beach dune. Camp is very nice and spacious! We are all spread out and the trees creat good wind protection. I literally just popped my head of my tent to check for widow makers. We’ve been away from trees for so long. Anyway, no danger. Dinner was meatloaf with fried onion bits! I could eat those by themselves. Early night again so I’m watching Netflix, but I may head to bed real soon, because I am wiped. Oh and we passed the boundary for Sequoia National Park! Our first one on trail.