May 11th
Total mileage: 328
Today’s mileage: 20
Here are the two warm spring pools that we were near. We used the one below the previous night.
Hot day, very low water, bad chafing, ugh :/. Legs are fine though. Poison oak all around too. Tough day. McDonald’s tomorrow at 342. One has never craved McDonald’s until one is on the trail and half a day away.
There was some stupid spray-paint graffiti on the large rock faces along this path, sporting swastikas and phrases like “art is not a crime”. There were also multiple precarious points on the trail, where one bad move and one would likely fall to their death. I later read that someone has died on this stretch.
A couple hiking south stopped us with trail magic of a strawberry or a tangerine. It was a very kind gesture, although one had to control oneself and not shake them down for 4 or 5, hehe.
A water cache in the middle of nowhere. All hikers are grateful for locals who maintain caches like this, although since you don’t know its coming, as a hiker you often are already carrying all the water you require. Sometimes in a situation like this, the garbage can above is as useful as the water.
My chaffing was so severe, I had told Six-2 to carry on, and that I’d catch him in the morning. But I missed the side-trail that branched off to the campground I was going to stay at, and instead pushed on several more miles to the formal campground, finding everyone just as it was getting dark. Met a guy named Armstrong, made chili, and cowboy-camped. There were huge frogs/toads that occasionally moved in the leaves around us.
