June 3, 2021
Miles: 31.1 miles
Steps: 67,125
It was tough getting out of my sleeping bag this morning. Might had been something to do with waking up at 3am the day before.
Finally got out around 6:15am and hiking by 6:50am. Now that I’m done with the desert I don’t have to worry about hiking in the middle of the day because of the heat. I do have afternoon thunderstorms to worry about.
I started the morning with a quick hike up to the peak. I should have camped there as it had much better options but I had no idea of knowing.
Then stayed in the woods for awhile before heading out into a large meadow. I did have to deal with some cows. Most of the morning was out in the open as I hiked up to an alpine lake.
I got there around lunch time and found lots of people fishing, counting about 15 at one time. It had picnic tables so that was nice to actually eat at a table. Plus it had a bathroom and trash cans.
After my long break I had another 3 miles of climbing before a 2,500ft decent to my campsite for the night. Right as I started the decent I started to hear thunder. There had been dark clouds all day but not any rain. Most of the trail was out in the open and every once in awhile I would hike through the forest.
It kind of rained off and on, never really hard. Also the thunder didn’t seem that bad, never saw any lighting.
About a mile from camp the wind started picking up and starting raining. I got to the campsite as fast as I could and was surprised to see 8 other tents set up. I had not seen that many on trail before.
I set my gear under a tree to keep it as dry as possible as I sat my tent up in the rain. I was able to get it up with minimal rain inside. I threw all my stuff in and went down to the river to grab water.
Once back in my tent I changed out of my wet clothes and then ate a king size Milkyway bar for dinner. Then got my sleeping gear all set up. The rain really started to come down once in my tent. I could have used more water but didn’t want to get wet again, I’ll grab more in the morning.