Monday Day 82

June 26, 2018

Mile 1232-1249

Another chill day on the trail. The miles went by quite fast. Although I only did 17ish, the end spot is near the Middle Fork of the Feather River. Pretty cool campsite for once. Since we got here though, plenty of hikers have arrived. I think the bubble has finally started to make its way north.

I woke up around 530 today. I could hear Cowboy making his coffee–says he’s made it every day out here. He was packed up and gone before 6am. I won’t see him again as he’s making 25 miles days. I did catch up to Nathan this morning a little before 8am. He was still packing up. We said our “good mornings” and I asked how he slept. He said he had visitors wake him. Those damn deer!!! I laughed. Finally it wasn’t my night. (I later found out Laura had them at her camp last night too!)

After I passed Nathan, he caught up to me while I chatted with another female thru hiker. She had flipped to Ashland and was wondering about snow conditions. I told her what I knew and Nathan and I hiked the rest of the day together. I did have another cool run-in today. I saw Squish! He flipped up to Ashland as well. What I liked about Squish was that he has been completely taking his time easy on the trail. He’s made every town stop possible, never a care as to how long he’d stay or what happened when he was there. Just super carefree about things. He’s also been lugging around a bigger camera so I told him I’d look him up on Instagram: trailingadventure (s) not sure about the S. He should have some pretty stellar photos.

It was a long descent to the river and it’s going to be a longer climb up and out of here. The heat has been turned on and usually by 1pm it reminds me of days down south in the desert portion. I was able to put my feet in the water and clean off so that felt really nice.

We did see some possible smoke southwest of where we are camped, hard to see around the next hillside. The smoke lingered for quite a bit and I messaged a friend for info. So far no reports from CalFire and as I try to see the skyline through my tent, I just see the haze linger. Hopefully all is well and nothing to be alarmed about…. but these are things to always be mindful of out here. You just never know what may happen.

I will say it’s hot enough out that I don’t have the rainfly on or my quilt even touching me. I sure hope it cools down! Ha. Things are never what you think they’ll be.