Thursday, May 1, 2008 - Day 8 (~15 miles)

Hilary's ride is supposed to pick her up at Warner Springs (mile ~110) tomorrow at 4pm, but we called and changed it to Barrel Springs (mile ~101) to be safe.

We got started early. We decended into Sissor Crossing and came across the water cach provided by the class of 2003. They even had some chairs. There as a menu for a Mexican resturant in Jullian, but it would take an hour for the food to get there. Plus it was only 9 or so in the morning, so we skipped. But it was so tempting!

We hiked on up up up the next mountain range. It was hot and steep and not the most fun in the world. But, again, the views were so nice. The ridges were narrow and we saw several more snakes. Weber had hiked ahead and we met him at about 6pm. He was waiting at the 3rd gate cache for 2 hours for us and wanted to keep going, but Hilary and I were exhausted. So he left us the tent and stove and decided to go ahead and hike the last 10 miles into Barrel Springs with Yak. They only had about 2 hours of day light left, so they hike with their head lamps. Hilary and I enjoyed the extra room in the tent!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - Day 7 (~14 miels)

We didn't get going until 9am. Because of the bad sleep, and because it was cold, we just didn't want to get out of our sleeping bags. We heard later that there was a lot of fog there in the a.m., so we are glad we delayed our start and skipped it. We hiked to the first water source and relaxed while Weber went the 1/2 mile off course to get and filter the water. Then we continued and met up with Jester and SOL at the 2nd water stop for the day around 4pm. They decided to camp there for the night because of the lack of camping spots off the cliff up ahead, but we decided to trek on. The wind was crazy and cold today! We went on for another 4 or so miles before finding a nice secluded spot off the edge. oh, and I saw a snake kill a lizard today!

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - Day 6 (~14 miles)

We left pretty early. But Weber forgot to tell his dad to include insoles in our next package, so he went back to the Laguna store pay phone and Hilary and I started alone. We found a water source arount lunch and stayed for quite awhile (I bandaged my feet and we made phone calls on Hilary's phone) thinking Weber would catch us, but he never arrived, so we kept going. Weber finally reached us just before finding a picnic area where we all stopped for lunch. A trail angel was there with ice cold beer! Thanks Mike!

After resting for a couple hours, we kept going. The views were beautiful of the Santa Rosa mountain range, but the wind grew so strong it was hard to walk straight. We finally picked a camp site down in a small valley, but the wind was so fierce that it kept all 3 of us up most of the night.  

Monday, April 28, 2008 - Day 5 (~10 miles)

Weber over-did it yesterday and ended up hurting a hamstring. So we only hiked into Mt. Laguna today. I was so excited to have an ice cream sandwich!! We were able to clean up in the restrooms and mail stuff back home. Hilary's pack has been WAY too heavy (let's just say she was carrying a copy of "Wicked" among many other silly, unecessary items) and she sent home about 8 pounds worth of stuff. Her trail name is now Heavy-weight Champion.

We pitched our tent near the trail and relaxed for the rest of the day. Jester and SOL camped near us as well.

It was nice to get into our first trail town. The luxury of cold gatorade was priceless.

Sunday, April 27, 2008 - Day 4 (~13 miles)

We got up at 5:30 for the breakfast send off, but after packing and then chatting, we didn't get going until 8 am. We got 7 gorgeous miles in by 11:30 and then stopped for a long lunch. We let our feet relax and air out. Then Weber hiked ahead for the remainder of the day (his legs are incredibly long!) and Hilary and I hiked on our own. We met up with him at 6:00. We were all pretty exhausted and decided to call it a day. Several other hikers did the same and about 10 of us all camped in the same area.