I woke around 6 in the hotel and kept snoozing my alarm until about 8. It was so nice to sleep in. I showered and packed everything up and went to get coffee and breakfast with Little Bag and Slice. In no time I had a hitch back to the trail. We had a long climb up behind Castle Crags. It was pretty but also very very hot. The forecast said 102° in Dunsmuir.

There was smoke in the distance when I started and it slowly came closer to us. Within an hour we were covered in smoke. It kept getting worse and worse. I was worried. I made it 17.5 and called family because I felt stressed about the smoke. I talked with a group who I had been leapfrogging and they encouraged me to move forward and invited me to hike with them. I’d met them both before, Planner and Thankful. We hiked together and had dinner together and the smoke was getting better. It seemed to sink into the valleys and we were up higher.

In total we did 28 miles today and hiked till almost 11. It was a stressful day but I’m glad we did a big day to attempt to get away from the smoke.