Day 7 (8 April) - Mile 59.47 - 68.4

Sunrise Trailhead to Rodriquez Spur Truck Trail, CA

We woke up this morning with the sun hitting our tent. The nights keep getting warmer and warmer so we won't have the cold as an excuse for not getting up in the morning for very much longer. Here is the place we slept last night and a picture of me finishing breakfast (Tim took the picture as you can see by the shadow).

Tim needs to learn how to better compose a picture!

We got on the trail before 9:00am today which must be some kind of record. Here is a picture of the start of today's hike. If you zoom in, you can see a girl on the trail on the far right. I don't remember her name, but she claims that if she completes the thru-hike she would be the first Chinese person to do so.

Beautiful start for the day.

Nice view a little ways down the trail.

There was some bad news on the trail today. You remember that woman standing in her campsite in the boulder field...BTW, her trail name (I will discuss trail names later) is Good Eye. She passed us going south today. Seems she has an open sore on one of her feet that she needs a doctor to look at, so she is off the trail for now. She promises that she will be back. 

Anyway, the hike started out great, and then we started going down and down and down. Now, down may seem good to some, and I would agree if we were riding bicycles, but hiking with a 30 pound bag, down is very jarring on the knees and feet. Here is a picture of the profile of the down followed by a picture:

Down we went (picture take in tent in the dark).

We just dropped down that middle peak for 2 miles. Oy...our aching knees.

Once we got down to the bottom it was HOT!  It is now time to unveil our strangest piece of gear we are carrying...our trekking umbrellas.

Yes, it is weird to carry umbrellas, but everyone is doing it. Photo taken by PITA (another trail name).

The heat all day reminds us that we are hiking in the desert. Even though it is the high desert there are still cactus around. Here are some good pictures of today's desert plants:

Tim...don't fall on the cactus!

Blooming cactus. I zoomed in for this shot. This camera seems to work pretty good.

Another blooming cactus.

We got to our camping site early today which gave us some time to chill in the shade. I pulled out the solar charger to see if I could get my iPhone to 100%.. I was quite happy that it was able to charge from 45% to 100% in under 2 hours.  This is how I continue to write the blog each night.

The Suntastic Solar charger. (I probably should have had the phone next to it so you could see the size.)

Blogging away at the campsite.

Oh...do you notice that "desert tan" I'm sporting in the picture above? Well...that's no tan...that's dirt. And the weirdest part is that I had long pants on all day!  I don't know how this is possible. 

There are at least 6 other hikers camping out at this same location. The biggest reason is that this is the last definite water supply for at least 10 miles.  It is always nice to camp by water to ensure you have enough for cooking dinner and such and then refill before you start out in the morning.  

After we ate dinner, one if I ur neighbors, Papa Bear, stopped by to say hi and brought some cheese and crackers...backpackers are so nice. He made it 350 miles to the Canadian border last year when an early winter storm in Washington stopped his PCT thru-hike attempt. So, he started from the beginning again this year...that's a guy that wants to claim the thru-hiker title.

Papa Bear stopping by the say hello.

Wow...today's blog is going on and on. I guess I will discuss Trail Names tomorrow...and yes, Tim and I have trail names.  Now you have a reason to tune in to the next blog entry to see what our trail names are. 

As usual, I will leave you tonight with a picture of our beautiful campsite.

Another wonderful place to pitch a tent.