Day 43- June 1st

This morning we left our little ridge at 6:15am. I had checked the weather last night and it was supposed to be 82 degrees by 9am! Some people said different things about the high today. From what I read it was 93, other people said it was over 100. Either way, today was HOT!!

Soon we hit a really tiny spring called Bear Spring. We both filled a liter of super dirty water, thinking we'd filter it when needed. A few miles later we came across a surprise water cache and cameled up! Hooray water caches!

Less than 10 miles to our next water source. "Perfect!", we thought, "we'll just take two liters. 1 liter per five miles is the rule of thumb. We'll be good."

Well, we WOULD'VE been good, but we stopped from 10:45am-4pm to rest under a nice big shaded area with taller shrubs and small trees all around. The bugs were CRAZY there, they liked the cool just as much as we did. We had to put our headnets on just to keep from losing it! 

Our boo-boo was not calculating the water we'd use while we rested.. When we left at 4pm, I only had half a liter left for the remaining 7.5 miles. :(

Let me tell you, I've never been so thirsty in my life! I'm talking like you can't even swallow your own spit because a.) you have no spit, and b.) your throat closed up from the dryness. We had to severely ration our water, but we made it down to the fire station on the highway.

After gulping down a couple liters each, we hitched over to Casa de Luna. Two very nice people, Dawn and Eric gave us a ride and they took us all the way to the house! 

The moment we arrived we were told to put down our pack and wash our hands. We were just in time for taco salads!! Terri Anderson had it all lined up buffet style and I had two monster plates before I was stuffed.

At Casa de Luna we found Daniel! Beast of Bourbon was there as well as Patrick who we hadn't seen since Warner Springs! He now goes by "HR", and Daniel goes by "Lt. Dan".

We relaxed into the night and walked back into the manzanita forest to find a campsite for the night. There's something like 40 sites back there and it's a total maze at night! 

After 15.95 miles today, we're super tired. The plan is to hang out tomorrow through the heat of the day and then start walking at about 6 or 7pm for some good night hiking. The sun is unbearably hot all week, and there's not much in terms of shade.

-Thanks for reading!