Day 35- May 24th

Today sucked. It's hard to stay positive when you wake up in a cold tent and everything's wet. You can't cook warm oatmeal because you have to ration your gas, so you just cram down a frozen protein bar and almost freezing water. 

Then you hike up a huuuuge mountain through a wet fog and mist all morning. Aptly it's named Islip saddle, probably because I slipped my butt all the way up and then back down the thing. 

On top of that this morning I offered to carry Claire's half of the tent, (the poles, stakes, and light system) for reasons I'll soon get to. Stupidly I strapped them on top of my sleeping pad which hangs by my butt. This is a big no-no because anything heavy near the bottom of your pack will drag you down when going uphill. Half way up the hill I was so drained that had to stop and resituate in the cold mist.

I don't know who named this wilderness, but they did an ironically terrible job.

So, Claire's knees have hurt ever since the descent from Mt. Jacinto. The rise and fall of Mt. Baden-Powell yesterday did not help. For a couple days now we've discussed her getting a ride ahead 100 miles or so while I solo and she rests. The thought of hiking alone is pretty terrifying for me, so on top off all theses negative things today, we've been thinking about this. 

Also there hasn't been any reception since Wrightwood. We would've had her rest more then, but her knees didn't really scream in pain until after Baden-Powell. We were going to call a trail angel for a ride ahead, since there are no high traffic roads around here to hitch. Because of no service for the ride, it's looking like she's going to have to walk the whole 50 miles to Acton with bum knees. That's 9,500 ft up and 13,500 down...

Also, because we've been at such high elevations, water has been taking longer to boil and we've been using fuel more rapidly. When we run out of fuel, which will probably be tomorrow, all of our cooking food will be useless. Therefore we have to seriously ration our dry food.

Not much happened in terms of the trail today. It was really crappy and foggy for the most part like I said. Then we had to do a road walk around an Endangered Species Closure. I'd say the only plus side of the day was that we reunited with Josh again and hiked with him for a bit. He lifted our spirits just a tad.

There's a severe poodle bush area for the next 40 miles. The weather is still extremely cold, and I'm extremely bummed. By the time I'm able to post this and you can actually read this we'll probably be in Acton or Agua Dulce, and hopefully things have gotten better. 

Well, I should stop bumming everyone out. We did 12.36 miles total today, which was pretty good considering the alternate route and the freezing foggy weather.

Thanks for reading!