Rose: chilling at the city park in the cooler shade and rich grass Thorn: the feeling that I’m getting too comfortable in town Bud: the Sierras!

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I’m feeling good about my decision. It’s my hike. I need to enjoy it. If the temperatures were reasonable, I would suffer through the last 1.5–2 weeks, but with triple digits (even for a few days), I’ll come back in the fall.

That and there’s a serious water issue somewhere between Tehachapi and Walker Pass: hikers are coming off sick in droves. At first we thought it was norovirus. Now, it’s more likely that it’s an algae bloom. No amount of filtration or chemical treatment can fix an algae bloom. People who want to hike are often skipping up to Walker Pass. Even that seems too hot for me. I just want out of the desert.

The bubble of people between the heat and water issues is stacking up in Tehachapi. There’s 26 hikers crashing at Hippie Hiker Heaven tonight. Sleeping bags laid anywhere there’s space.

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Today was a day I ran errands. The Post Office where I picked up a smaller torso length of my backpack, Walmart for a few things, laundry, a shower. It’s in the 90s here. Thankfully there’s a beautiful city park half a block away from this dusty yard. It’s beautifully cooler in the grassy shade there.

Shortcut, Bubbles, and I have arranged for a ride to Kennedy Meadows at 9am.

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I saw the old group (without Semi by the looks of it, so Shuffles, Pebbles, and GNOME) did a 34 mile night hike to avoid the heat. Dear lord. No thank you. Well, I guess I would like to know I could do that if I needed to, but I doubt my ability rn.

I hope my ankle’s up for the Sierra. I don’t feel like I have my hiker legs.