Day 75, 28.10 miles!!

This morning I left just after 6, and I had a beautiful, quiet morning all to myself! I saw one other hiker at around 8am named Painter (he paints). He’s a cool dude from the east coast and I met his other two hiking buddies a couple hours later. There’s King Arthur, (I didn’t ask how he got his name), and Cherry Bomb, (her battery pack exploded in her backpack!)

I’ve been moving fast. Real fast. In the morning hours I’m going about 3mph, now easily hitting the 10 miles by 10am benchmark almost every full hiking day. My new daily goal is to hike 25 miles a day, and to get 15 of those miles by noon. That way I can take a nice break and get my last 10 miles in at a slower pace. Slowly working up to full speed/stamina mode!! 

I started this stretch with probably 15+ pounds of food, and must still have around 10. I could go another 5 days ~130 miles without stopping! Every day as I eat more food my pack gets lighter, and it’s such a great feeling! Also, I’m waiting to find an official scale, but I believe that with the warm weather layers I’ve ditched and by swapping my bag out, my base weight should be at ~10 pounds now! I’m almost ultralight! Maybe the next few stretches I’ll plan out to be shorter and take less food, to fully take advantage of my light pack! 

It’s hard to see but the ground near some creeks are full of these tiny blue butterflies! 

My camera is working like a champ for some reason since I restarted it like 8 times in Sierra City. I don’t want to jinx it but maybe it was an issue with the cold or something?! Anyways, keep your fingers crossed that it keeps working until I can find out what’s the deal with Apple.

I got to take an extended break today since the day was hot. Luckily for me, there’s still lots of big trees around and plenty of shade to be had! I straight up fell asleep in between some large pines right next to a small creek after I hiked 14 miles and then ate too much for lunch. I haven’t had a true kanack attack yet on trail this entire time! Hahaha.

Food coma + complete shade = kanack attack

There really wasn’t much else to see for the rest of the day! Just a bunch of old trees and dirt and bushes and sky. After my 1.5 hr lunch break, I hit it hard again for another 14 miles! There were a couple longer water carries today. It seems like there’s less and less water everyday! (But also less mosquitos :) )

A nice meadow

A snow sensor station

Man guys, this has been my second longest day ever! I just walked more than a marathon today! I’m very very tired. Each morning I feel like I could do this for the remainder of the hike, but each afternoon my body wants to stop and die, haha. Luckily, I don’t have any injuries still! I’m doing yoga and stretches every night and now some light stretching every time I stop and light yoga at lunch. I still don’t have any blisters on my feet except for a tiny incoming one on my heel. My body is feeling great (albeit tired..), but my right shoe on the other hand is having a hard time!

Nothing a little Lueko tape won’t fix! 

So yeah, my camera worked today as in came on and took pictures when I wanted, although those red lines are still here! Well, it’s 8:17pm, I have had a LONG day!! Time to pass out and do it all again tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!!