The next morning we found ourselves soaked. Not by rain but by humidity alone. Everything in my tent had a thin film of moisture over it. Everything, including my socks and underwear, still soaked through with sweat from the day before. This only made it that much more enjoyable to hike 5 miles up “Bluff Mountain” at 7 a.m. The climb was relentlessly steep and the trail seemed to go on forever. It felt like doing the stair stepper in a sauna. At the top of the mountain at “Punch Bowl” overlook, we hit the 800-mile mark. A significant milestone that acted as a bit of a constellation for our efforts. However, it did nothing to quench our thirst. The spring we planned on refilling at had toilet paper thrown about it… Unwilling to drink potentially contaminated water meant that we had to go another 3.5 miles without water. In this type of heat, that can be borderline dangerous. Even still, we had to keep moving. We began our descent down the Baron Mountain and found a bit of trail magic waiting for us at the bottom! Some fruit and a water cache sat right under the trailhead sign. A stroke of luck, proving that “the trail provides”. After another long 8 miles, we made camp along a rolling river. The ground was nice and flat, and the pine trees provided just enough shade to keep the sun at bay. A large campground all to ourselves, who knows maybe we’ll stay up long enough to see the stars.
06/27
