Day 9

19 miles

Started off camp this morning around 8. Two Tone and I are the first to leave camp with what we thought was Crossbar right behind us. The morning is slightly chilly with the sun out and perfect weather for hiking. The miles go by quickly.

We originally agreed to do 15 miles to stay at the Carter Gap shelter so is two take a break about 7 miles in and wait for crossbar to show up. Over an hour goes by and no sign of him whatsoever. We figured he must’ve stopped behind us on his own for lunch so we head on.

We get to Beech Gap where their are a few other hikers resting so we decide to relax here and wait for Crossbar again as we haven’t seen him all day and there’s only a few miles left to go for the day. Another hour goes by. No sign of him whatsoever and hikers passing by haven’t seen him either until a southbounder coming the opposite direction says he may have seen him ahead of us but he’s not so certain. We both thought their is no way he’s ahead of us? We’ve waited almost 3 hours total for him throughout the day and there’s been no sign of him.

We take this lead and pack up and head out to try to catch Crossbar if in fact the guy was right and he’s ahead of us. We make it to Carter Gap shelter where we are suppose to camp together for the night. I walk into the shelter and ask if anyone has seen a 6’2 250 lb man with a green floral shirt and black osprey pack. Hard to miss right? Nobody has seen him either. At this point I’m a little worried again. He’s either having the toughest day on trail so far or he got to the shelter, didn’t see us and kept hiking. The next campsites are 3.7 miles ahead and that puts us at almost a 20 mile day which we haven’t done yet.

As a last resort I pull my phone out and pray to God I have service and if the stars align so does he. Well wouldn’t you know, both of those things happened and Crossbar picks up on the first ring sounding extremely chipper. He’s just been walking nonstop since he hasn’t seen us assuming we were ahead. We’ve been waiting around all day assuming he was behind. Lesson learned today. I have to stop babying my little brother and stop worrying. It just makes things worse.

Anyways, we’re camping at Betty Creek tonight in campsites tucked into a forest of manzanita with a stream nearby. Suppose to rain tonight and tomorrow.