Miles today: 12.1

Trail miles: 615.9

Elevation: 4959

Spinning on the turntable: Lissie: When I’m alone: The piano retrospective

Today was scheduled to be an easy day. Hiking down 12 easy miles to meet up with Noelle. I awoke at 5AM and managed to eat and break camp by 6AM.

Guthook June 19

Within a half mile of leaving camp I came to the first of many water crossings of the morning. Thankfully I managed to navigate through them with dry feet.

Stream crossing

There’s nothing like potential wet feet to keep me awake and alert!

Muddy trail

As I was hiking along I saw this near a creek.

Gold mining anyone

I assume that someone is working gold on their property. Great fun to see!

Trail registry

I really liked this registry. Someone had left a note that said “First one to Canada loses”. Preach it!

Hiker notes

It’s fun to see the notes that are left for hikers! It’s super, super hot and out here so it’s nice to see notes about water caches.

White fragrant flowers

I’m not sure what these bushes are but they smell wonderful!

On a side note, my seasonal allergies have made their annual appearance. I thought I might get to skip them this year. Nope. (Just call me Snot Rocket.)

Purple flowers

Noelle hiked up to meet me and we hiked back to the van together. We saw this little fellow pigging our on the purple flowers. It was so fun to watch!

Squirrel eating the blossoms

It was difficult to remain invisible in the van after we made it back to the van. The hikers in my bubble now recognize Noelle. A hiker appeared that looked and acted quite ill. (Heat stroke in my book.). We ended up driving her into town (30 miles?) to crash at a hotel. Another hiker jumped at the opportunity to go to town (Any town! Anywhere but the trail!) and crawled into the van. I’m glad that we were able to help them, but….it wasn’t really how I wanted to spend my afternoon.

Dry trail

After depositing the hikers in town we hit up a Mexican restaurant. The AC and cold water were wonderful. It was great to be out of the heat.

When we returned to the hiking trailhead we parked about a mile away from it to avoid the hikers. I’m much more annoyed by the hikers than Noelle. We’re (hikers) so needy!

Cows were wandering around the road at sunset. I went to sleep wondering if one of the cows would get hit by a car in the middle of the night.