Today we had a few firsts:

– We hit 500 miles of hiking through California!! We feel accomplished 😊

– I finally saw some large wildlife. A coyote! But only the back of it as it came out of the brush and on the trail in front of me

– Rob completed the first 20+ mile day of either of us. He did a 2.5 mile loop to get water that put him over 

– I saw horses on the trail! Always wanted to, but didn’t realize I would be so startled when I did. All of a sudden 3 came around a bend and I jumped at the sight of them. They are very graceful on trail. 

– We hit a water source that we were counting on and it was DRY! The fact that at nearly 500 miles this was the first time we had a small water crisis in the desert is AMAZING! This is also how Daddie Gizmo added his bonus miles. 

– We had to go 3.5 miles further at the end of the day than we really wanted to. We were both tired with sore feet, but a different water source that we thought we may camp by did not look very clean. We hadn’t felt pressured previously to move forward, but today it made sense so we could have better drinking water from a spring ahead. 

We saw Larry again on the trail today and he made it up to the same campsite as ourselves before dark. We were beat by the end of the day and knew we had just one more day to hike before our planned break. We soaked up the last night of camping on top of a mountain for a while. 

Daddie Gizmo:

After a big hiker breakfast of black coffee, lots of pancakes and a beer at the Andersen’s, we were able to sign the PCT Class of 2017 banner, pose for a pic with everyone that was there that morning and receive our 2017 Class Bandana.

We took our time chatting, hugging with everyone and expressing our great thanks to our Trail Angel hosts for there generosity and hospitality. It is crazy to think that they will have 50+ people a night camping in their back acreage and feeding them every night for almost 2 months during the peak of hiker season. RockDoc and Galpal were going to get some lunch so we decided to tag along. More food that my body desperately needed and inhaled as fast as it could. We suited up for misty rain and began our hiking day at noon.
It was a welcome cool after the last 2 days of desert heat. It cleared about 3 hours later and we were able to reach out camp site mostly dry except for our shoes which will still likely be soaked in the morning. It’s not a good idea to build an open fire in this part of the desert that could have dried things out. 3 pairs of socks and always a clean dry pair in reserve are coming in handy tonight. Today’s elevation was 4000 gained and 2500 lost. These numbers were very difficult for us be beginning but almost routine for us after 5 weeks. Tomorrow should be about the same. One member of our new trail family, Hurricane, switches trails tomorrow and we will miss him being on the PCT. Thanks again for all the comments and positive energy from everyone following our journey.