Day 88

Trail miles: 19.5

Total: 1110.3

It was so hard to wake up this morning. I packed up the last of my Sierra City box for Tammy to send and tossed my old shoes in the garbage. We were at Echo Lake before 8:00am, but we waiting for Big Owl and Donna to drop off Spare Change, Tal, and Sea bear so we could say our goodbyes to Donna and Big Owl. Big Owl hopes join us further up the trail, but she will definitely be back next year if not. The terrain today was no different than normal, but I just felt like a rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean. It doesn’t feel long in the grand scheme of things, but doing this over and over again for almost 3 months now is getting exhausting. And we aren’t even halfway. I hope things change, but for now I’ll have to push through this slump. Maybe I’m getting what is know as the Nor Cal blues. Or is it too early for that? I struggled to make it to the top of Dicks Pass, which wasn’t even that long or hard (get your mind out of the gutter). The view was worth the climb for sure. The snow on the descent was slushy and easy to do without spikes. It didn’t least very long either. Krista and I took would walk around the snow when we could. Did I mention it was storming on and off today? And when I say on and off, it was either hailing and thundering or sunshine and hot. No in between. My umbrella held up nicely while I was hiking, but I was worried I just turned myself into a walking lightning rod. I made it to camp right as it started raining again and I threw everything into my tent. It’s pretty difficult to blow up my sleeping pad when I had a full tent. Tal and Seabear came in late, because they made a wrong turn at a junction. I think they had to hike an extra 2-3 miles. Those junctions can be pretty poorly marked, so I always check Guthook. It stopped raining after a bit and I got my bear hang up. Everyone except Brad is doing the best hang; Brad is keeping his bear canister I think forever.