Day 94

Bucks lake trailhead to belden - 19 miles

Total - 1288.6 miles

Slept alright next to the highway but you gotta do what you gotta do. 6am we were up and at it climbing the only climb of the day. Graded super wel of course so it felt like I flew up it. It evened out after awhile but went through a scarred burn zone which was a lil depressing. The bright side was fire weed was abundant everywhere I looked which reminded me of dad as he said that’s one of his favorite flowers. I got water pretty early on as we technically dry camped but around 10am I needed a refill. Quickly refilled and realized I had only gone about 11 miles by 10 putting me 7 miles before reaching belden which didn’t sound great as it was beginning to heat up brutally. Finally I made it to the infamous downhill which was about 5,700 feet of decline in about 4-5 miles. Just switch back after switchback. Caleb was ahead of me by a good amount as when I talked to yeti he said he passed him about an hour ago. He was zoomingggggg. This gave me the strength to run down the switchbacks. Every other one I would start jogging slowly increasing my speed, and sweating from every pore in my body extensively. I was soaked and red faced but I could see the river and road down below me slowly coming closer. Everytime I would walk a switchback I couldn’t tell my own speed as when I’m running it felt so much faster than what I was actually going. The walking felt so slow. About 2.5 miles out I decided that I needed to get into the small shitty lil town of belden before 12. I booked it. I reached the bottom with 10 minutes to get to the store. I pulled up red face and sweaty at 11:58 making 19 miles before 12 to Caleb sitting and talking to little peaks and the store not being open. All I wanted was four cold cold drinks to down one after the other but sadly the meth and crack addicts hadn’t opened up. I waited wirh Caleb before just decided to go into the river to swim. I ended up “washing” my pants and shit as the salt had stiffened them up creating the worst possible feeling on the body. It was disgusting but it did wonders to my hobo look. Marc showed up during this time to figure out where we would camp and what we were doing for the night as he and leoni were planning to hang out with us before heading on their roadtrip. We decided to skip the store as two people opened the store we’re doing the fentanyl walk into it which we were not fond of. It was a 100 degrees outside so we decided to grab lunch at the other restaurant down the road which was a huge mistake as the burger was terrible, Arizona iced teas were the smal ones, and there was no AC. So we sat eating pathetic burgers in the heat. Then we headed over to the campsite which we were surprised with Klara!!!! She ended up hitching with Marc and leoni as her foot was hurting really badly. We all hung out at the water waiting for the trooper rocklicker to show up as he hurt himself from the 48 hours of hiking. The girlies caught up and exchanged the minimal gossip we had at the river before heading back to drink some more beers. Marc was being the sweet trailangel he was and kept offering rides to hikers before going to pick up rocklicker at 6:30pm. Rocklicker apparently had a huge knot in the ball of his foot before, as he described it, popped, and became increasingly painful as the hike went on. We ended up having to do a session with the good ole Nancy for Klara and him where they got diagnosed. I ended up talking to my family for a good long while which was definitely needed after so long. Love those guys so so so much. After dinner of cheese, tuna, mustard, mayo, and a tortilla as it was too hot to eat a hot meal, we led rocklicker to soak his feet in the river as 1. They were disgusting (mine were worse) and 2. He needed to ice his injury. It was the funniest thing following them to the water and him limping. Not funny that he’s injured more funny of the situation. Really hope he gets better as I like the dynamic of the newish group so far. Caleb had to carry him on his back for the way back. I did my Irish goodnight and scrolled. I was oversocialized so it was needed but APPARENTLY the group doesn’t like when I do that. I know myself and I know when I’m done and I could announce it or I could just leave. I will always choose to leave. Everyone expects it now so why change. I don’t find it rude but I can understand why people do. Again, I just know myself. Around 10:30pm the camp host decides to show up and ask why we are here. We hadn’t paid but we didn’t know where to pay. Also why the fuck are you coming in at 10:30pm. He said he would be back tomorrow to collect which was also insane because he came at 6:30am. The weirdest times to come collect money and deal with this situation. Overall good day and I feel great despite running down a very steep decline and doing 19 before 12pm.

We also got watermelon while waiting for the store to open which was so so so so so so good omg. I love fruit. I forget how good fruit is because we don’t get a lot out here. It was perfectly ripe as well. I kicked two full circles of it.