August 12

Distance: 23.6 miles | Ascent: 3840′ | Descent: 3210′

Mile marker: 788.3

Lunch: J – chicken chili (A-), A – mac n cheese (A)

Dinner: J – Korean beef (A), A – chicken taco (A+)

Up at dawn by the lake. It was a pretty sunrise.

We climbed through a wall of mosquitoes. A hiker on their way down the mountain said this section was the worst they had experienced. It was pretty bad, but the bug spray and head nets made it manageable. Fortunately, the bugs went away once we reached the top and the day heated up.

A huge water cache with 40+ five gallon jugs was put at the forest road pass. We had lunch there and topped off our bottles. This is a relatively dry section with long water carries. It was also over 90° in the sun.

After lunch, we first passed a northbound hiker wearing Jason’s same shirt. The hiker commented that Jason’s looked a lot cleaner. Granted, Jason has only been wearing it for less than a week. Further down the trail, we passed another hiker wearing Alex’s same shirt design. It was exciting to meet our northbound counterparts.

We hit the northbound marker for 3000 km. It’s nice that people make these so we don’t have to spend the time. It’s also a fun surprise milestone to hit since we’re not counting our mileage that precisely as we hike.

The day was hot and we camped at the junction to the lake rather than at the lake. We slack packed to the lake to get water for the evening and the hike out tomorrow. The lake was a bit further off trail than we had thought, so we were happy with our decision not to camp there. The lake also had a ton of little frogs and was a bit buggy.