Day: 194

Direction: Southbound

Trail location: 1291

Cumulative miles hiked: 2029

Miles hiked today: 4.6

Elevation: 6231

High/low temp/humidity 89/62/25

Spinning on the turntable: Young the Giant: Young the Giant 10th anniversary

Today was not a good hiking day for Noelle. She’s starting out with a sinus infection but still trying to give it her all.

Looking at Guthook indicated a ten mile haul to water, so we loaded up on water and set out. It quickly became apparent that the weight was too much for Noelle at around 32lbs. (14lb base, plus 10lb food, plus about 3.5l of water/7.7lbs)

I really poured over Guthook and found a spring water source, that wasn’t listed as a water source, about 4 miles ahead. I opted to chance it and we dumped Noelles water bladder (2l), plus mine 3.5l) and kept hiking. This gave each of us about 2l in water bottles.

Noelle was still really struggling so I took some of her food and on we went.

But it still wasn’t enough to make a big difference. Heat, uphill and the heavy weight made the climb hard for her.

Our progress was painfully, painfully slow. I had expected the hill climb to take two hours and it took closer to four hours, depleting our water supply.

I chatted with a northbound thruhiker named Stew for about 15 minutes. Friendly fellow. Big boy. I could feel my eyes continue to drift down to his gut. It was large. Most male through hikers slim down considerably…so I was calculating his distance traveled thus far (about 1300 miles) and comparing it against his size…and mentally scratching my head. Something wasn’t matching up. Oh well, not my concern.

We arrived at the fresh water spring and were grateful to find very cold water. I opted to stay out for the afternoon and read a book while Noelle slept. All in all, the freshwater spring and reading a book was very relaxing (for me!)

We camped in a grove of trees about 100 feet from the spring.