Had a rough night last night. Beardoh had several episodes of extreme leg cramping. SweetPea tried to massage the cramps out, but the only thing that seemed to help was walking. It was super painful for Beardoh. SweetPea didn’t sleep much because she was cold. She thought she hadn’t slept at all, but Beardoh said he heard her snoring, so she at least got some sleep.
We got up at 6:20 to a beautiful sunrise and a small bit of snow on the tarp. We were all in good spirits and headed out around 7:15 wearing all of our clothes. It was quite cold and we were mostly going uphill, so it took awhile before our fingers and toes were no longer hurting from the cold. It continued to snow tiny bits throughout the morning…not enough to accumulate on the ground, but just enough to remind us how cold it was.
The trail for most of the day was either flat or downhill. There was more water than we expected and so never had to carry too much.
We kept all of our layers on most of the day. We ate lunch near and old windmill that used to pump water from the creek into a nearby tank. The pump mechanism must be broken because the tank was bone dry.
Finally in the afternoon, it started to get a bit sunny, so we all took off our long john pants. We kept taking on jackets on and off as the sun would go behind clouds.
In the middle of the afternoon, we met a couple, Beast and Julie, who are thru-hiking the AZT. It was nice to see another hiker on the trail, as the only other people we saw were two mountain bikers.
We hiked about another three miles after seeing the other hikers to a saddle with nice campsites. Since we are camping about 2,000 feet lower than last night, we are hoping for a warmer night.
Daily Miles: 19.5
Total Miles: 28.0
Camping Elevation: 6,000
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