Miles today: 19.5

Trail miles sum: 1732.1

Trail location: 2413.4

Elevation: 3247

Spinning on the turntable: Sakis Rouvas: Parafora

We started the day with a nice little six mile uphill slog.

We hiked the Kendall cat walk together. VFat had strongly recommended this section so Noelle made the long trek “up”.

It’s nice to pop out of the trees now and then and see the sights.

The sign for horse riders caught my attention. Rough trail ahead!

The Pika’s are everywhere. I’m thinking of them as mice with big ears. They are cute and make a loud squeaking noise.

Noelle headed back towards the van and I continued north.

I came staggering up a hill and literally ran into a group of senior citizen backpackers. Sigh. They looked so fresh.

The loose rock on the trail made for a very long day (and horrible daily miles!). At one point two fighter jets came ripping through the valley. One jet was turned sideways as it banked up to pass through the valley. It began and was over with a few seconds.

I had planned on 25 miles today but the terrain had other ideas. Even the Germans agreed that this portion of the trail sucks!

I threw in the towel around 6:30 and made camp. Around 8PM a helicopter began circling the valley I’m in and spotlighting hikers on the trail. I can only assume that someone had pulled the trigger on their emergency beacon.

The helicopter comes and goes over the next hour. I recognize that I can’t do anything by laying awake and listening to the helicopter so I put in my ear plugs to go to sleep. Hopefully no one is hurt.