1644.6 to 1667.9 (23.3 miles)

Our campsite last night did protect us from the wind, but we ended up with condensation. It made sense in retrospect. We were in a low spot below the reservoir and downwind. In the Basin with condensation. We just can’t win.

No clouds today, but still moderate temperatures for August so I can’t complain. The first goal was a piped spring with no name. The trail in the morning had long sections of sand of various depths. The deeper it was, the harder it was to walk. Fortunately, several of these sections had worn hard paths next to them where cows had walked, so we used them. The piped spring was great. It was flowing well with cold clear water. It was a long carry to our campsite near a pond this evening, but with good quality water.

There was more hills in the afternoon , but that at least meant the occasional tree.

For me this day was not very memorable for some reason. Nothing bad, just nothing great. I had to work harder mentally to get in the last miles.

I got to the cow ponds, our desired campsite first. It was not pretty. Though there was lots of water, they were stagnant with no inflow or outflow. And the shores around both were muddy and, well, cow fouled. We had little choice but to get water due to our long carry from the piped springs and it was twelve more miles to our next source. I gathered some water and filtered it. Before filtering it looked like Gatorade. After filtering it still had a yellowish hue to it. Here’s hoping the filter got all the nasty stuff. My filter slowed down noticeably as I filtered. I can’t wait to get to the next source for some clean water.

Also, the ponds were in a valley with few flat spots to camp. We spread out and kicked away dry cow patties at our spots. Not great, but we have what we need. And we had some great motivation to move fast to the next water source in the morning.